Outside the doors of Goetheschule Wetzlar, a high school about an hour north of Frankfurt, Germany, a large gathering of students, teachers, and staff convened on Feb. 29 to unveil a plaque honoring the lives and legacies of Dr. Christian Mackauer and his wife, Clara.
The plaque is a poignant tribute to Mackauer, who was a teacher of Latin, history, and ancient Greek in Wetzlar from 1934 to 1937 before his tenure was cut short by the specter of Nazi persecution.
Christian Mackauer
(Courtesy of the University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center)
Though Clara Mackauer identified as non-denominational, her parents were Jewish, resulting in Mackauer’s forced retirement from the Goetheschule in 1937.
The grim realities of Hitler’s Germany forced the couple to flee the country altogether for America in 1940, leaving behind their lives and careers in search of safety and refuge. In 1943, they found a new home at the University of Chicago.
In Hyde Park, Mackauer was welcomed as an émigré scholar hired to teach social science theory. He would soon leave an indelible mark on the institution. Awarded tenure in 1948, he was a central actor in the creation of the History of Western Civilization course sequence in the College.
A faculty chair position was later endowed in Mackauer’s name by Glenn Swogger Jr., AB’57.
"Christian Mackauer had a high estimation of the value and impact of European intellectual traditions to enrich American cultural life," said John Boyer, the Martin A. Ryerson professor of History and longtime dean of the College. "But he also believed that American university students had to comprehend the complexity and even arbitrariness of such received ideas in order to understand their own possible roles in modern society."
Boyer continued to say that Mackauer's hiring symbolized more than just an academic appointment; it reaffirmed the university's commitment to internationalism and intellectual freedom.
For Mackauer, who passed away in 1970, education was not merely about the transmission of knowledge but a means of empowering individuals to challenge tyranny and oppression. He championed the freedom of the individual mind, insisting that true intellectual freedom could only be achieved through active engagement with intellectual pursuits.
Mackauer’s plaque came to be thanks in large part to Ernst Richter, chairman of Wetzlar Erinnert (W.E.), which translates from German to “Wetzlar Remembers.” W.E. is a local organization that was founded in 2013 after a rash of neo-Nazi incidents in the town, with the aim of using education to prevent the past from repeating itself.
“It is important to understand what happened,” Richter said at the ceremony on Feb. 29. “The deeds [of the Nazi regime] may have begun somewhere else, but actions followed here [in Wetzlar] … We want to make it clear that we have a responsibility today, and that is ‘Never again!’”
The plaque is now part of a collection of similar memorial dedications in the area on a “Path of Remembrance,” which offers students and passersby in Wetzlar alike a chance to read about the real human impacts of Nazi persecution that took place there.
“The main reasons for this event and the erection of the memorial plaque are to bring things to light, to make them visible and thus to call them into lasting memory,” Annette Kerkemeyer, principal of the Goetheschule, said at the dedication. “[Mackauer’s] story is now visible and present for all to see. This makes it clear that knowledge about our history is necessary in order to be able to make good decisions for our present and future.”
