Title: Oral History Interview with George L. Mosse
Inclusive Dates: 1975 March 26

Creator:

• Mosse, George L. (George Lachmann), 1918-

Call Number: Tape 558A

Quantity: 1 tape recording (60 min.)

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

Abstract:

Tape-recorded interview conducted for the Wisconsin Jewish Archives with University of Wisconsin professor George L. Mosse concerning his youth and family in Germany, their 1933 escape to Paris, schooling in England and the United States, World War II, teaching in Iowa and Wisconsin, being denounced to HUAC, and his growing involvement in Jewish studies and activities; recorded by State Historical Society of Wisconsin staff member Peter Gordy.

Note:

Forms part of the Wisconsin Jewish Archives.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-tape00558a

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George Lachmann Mosse was born on September 20, 1918, in Berlin, Germany, the son of Hans Lachmann-Mosse and Felicia Mosse, whose family business, Rudolf Mosse Verlag, was one of the major publishing and advertising enterprises in Europe. Professor Mosse was educated first in German private schools, then, following the expropriation of his parents' property and the family's escape from Germany, in English boarding schools and at Cambridge University. Professor Mosse arrived in the United States in 1939 and attended Haverford College, where he received his B.A. in 1941. After receiving a Ph.D. in History from Harvard University in 1946, he embarked upon a career in university teaching and scholarship. Dr. Mosse taught at the University of Michigan and the State University of Iowa and joined the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1955, where at this writing he is John Bascom Professor of History. Dr. Mosse has authored and edited a large number of scholarly works, both in the area of the history of the Reformation and in the area of mass politics and national socialism. Some of his notable works are The Struggle for Sovereignty in England (1950), The Reformation (1953), The Holy Pretence (1957), The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich, presently considered the definitive work on the topic (1964), Nazi Culture (1966), and Germans and Jews (1970). Dr. Mosse is co-editor of the Journal of Contemporary History, a member of the American Society for Church History, and the past president of the American Society for Reformation Research. He also is Professor of History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Interview

I [interviewer Peter Gordy] arranged the interview on my own initiative, as I have been pursuing graduate study under the supervision of Dr. Mosse. I selected Professor Mosse for the interview because he represented one of the families which epitomized the social and cultural role of the wealthy and assimilated segment of German Jewry on the eve of the Nazi seizure of power in 1933. I also chose Dr. Mosse as an interviewee because of his training as a historian and his considerable verbal talents; these factors, I believed, would give the interview some perspective and would make it more pleasant to listen to.

The interview took place March 26, 1975, in a private reception room on the third floor of the State Historical Society Headquarters Building in Madison. The interview had been preceded by a fairly brief unrecorded conversation. Dr. Mosse is a busy man, and I was fortunate to obtain any time at all for an interview, so that the time space available for the interview was limited; Dr. Mosse was due to fly to a speaking engagement soon after our recording session. There were no other participants or observers during the session.

Dr. Mosse talked about his education, his family's business and cultural activities in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany, the period of exile in France and England after the expropriation of the Mosse Verlag by the Nazis, student life at Cambridge, life in the United States during and after World War II, his academic career, and Monism.

How to Use This Finding Aid

The tapes for this interview have two tracks: a voice track containing the discussion, and a time track containing time announcements at intervals of approximately five seconds. The contents list below indicates in order of discussion the topics covered on each tape, and indicates the time-marking at which point the beginning of the particular discussion appears.

Thus, the researcher may listen to the distinct topics without listening to all of the material on the tape. For instance, the user who wishes to listen to the topic, “Bootham School in England, circa 1935”, should locate the place on the second track of tape one, side one, where the voice announces the 18:00 time marking (the voice says at this point, “eighteen minutes”), and at this point switch to the first track to hear the discussion. The discussion of “Bootham School in England” continues until approximately 23:10, at which point discussion of the next topic listed in the abstract (“Awareness of the Fate of Jews in Nazi Germany While in England”) begins.

Notice that in most cases sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic. For example, the indented section under “Bootham School in England” gives further details of what appears on the tape between 18:00 and 23:10.

The abstract is designed to provide only a brief outline of the content of the tape and cannot serve as a substitute for listening to it. However, the abstract will easily help the researcher locate distinct topics and discussions among the many minutes of commentary.

Supporting Documents

There are no supporting documents at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. The researcher is referred, however, to the Mosse Family Collection of documents (in German) at the Leo Baeck Institute, 129 East 73rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10021, for materials documenting the history of the Mosse family, 1827-1970, and of the firm of Rudolph Mosse. The historical works of George L. Mosse may be found at the University of Wisconsin Memorial Library in Madison.

Processing Information

Finding aid prepared by Peter E. Gordy and Dale E. Treleven, November 24, 1976.

Tape/Side   1/1 Time   0:20	Biographical Information Scope and Content Note: Birthplace, date, occupations of upper middle class parents, newspaper ownership.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   1:15	Family Background Scope and Content Note: Family origin in Germany circa 1300, relationships between father's and mother's families, Lachmann family and the Franco-Prussian War, ancestors'-occupations, rise of the House of Mosse, Mosses and the Polish Revolt, origins of the Rudolf Mosse Verlag, Mosses and the Second Reich.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   3:35	Jews and High Social Status in the Second German Reich Scope and Content Note: Degree of assimilation in various family members, social acceptance in upper-class German society.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   4:05	Childhood Place of Residence and Schools, Scope and Content Note: Salemschule, anti-semitism in and out of school, Jewish identity at school.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   5:15	Jewish Observance in the Mosse Home Scope and Content Note: Discussion of general lack of observance in the home, father's Reform Jewish activities, including interfaith service performed by Berlin Philharmonic, involvement with “German National Jews,” militant anti-Zionism.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   8:15	Relationship to Parents' Values and Business Scope and Content Note: Short discussion of German values, a tour of Mossehaus, parents' expectations of GLM, father's relative non-involvement with the business, father's cultural connections in the musical and architectural worlds, the Mosse children and music, GLM and the cello.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   12:20	Siblings and Sibling Relationships Scope and Content Note: Names, locations, and occupations of siblings. GLM's father and the Great War.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   13:30	Jews and the Mosse Family Social Circle,
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   14:05	Memories of the Nazi Seizure of Power, Scope and Content Note: Description of immediate flight, Goering's offer of Aryanization to the family, swastikas in villages surrounding Salemschule on the Lake of Constance, escape during the final minutes of free emigration, insulation from approaching terror.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   16:35	Escape to Paris, Scope and Content Note: Paris, “the city of my dreams,” family business interests in Paris and Zurich, boarding school stint near Zurich. Bootham School in England and parents' divorce in France.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   18:00	Bootham School in England, Scope and Content Note: Description of the Quaker boarding school in Yorkshire, mastery of English language, relationships with Englishmen at school, relationships with German Jewish refugees, French Jews, nasty remarks about Frenchmen, kind remarks about Englishmen and English Jews, life as an emigre in England, liberal dropping of names.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   23:10	Awareness of the Fate of Jews in Nazi Germany While in England, Scope and Content Note: Description of the general state of ignorance regarding the status of Jews in Nazi Germany, anti-fascist activities, solidarity (or lack of same) with European Jewry, consciousness of the Spanish Civil War.
Tape/Side   1/1 Time   24:20	Student Life and Political Activity at Cambridge, Scope and Content Note: Pacifism and the Spanish Civil War, debate at the Cambridge Union in 1938, Chamberlain and Churchill, the “Peace Pledge,” the “voice of British youth” for the Spanish loyalists, the overshadowing of the Jewish problem by anti-fascism.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   0:20	More on Mosse's Days at Cambridge, Scope and Content Note: Information on the Socialist Club at Cambridge, interruption of courses at Cambridge due to outbreak of World War II, visit to sister in Schenectady, N.Y. at war's outbreak.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   1:25	First Days in the United States, Scope and Content Note: America during the dog days, arrival on the Statendam, ease of immigration for the rich, circumstances of admission to Haverford College through the offices of the Philadelphia Quakers, “A Bootham Boy in distress.”
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   3:50	Ties with Germany and Family Ties Scope and Content Note: Relatives in Argentina, immigration of parents in 1944.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   4:50	Studies at Haverford College, Interest in History, Scope and Content Note: Contact with leading scholars as an English major, lack of modern historical scholarship at American undergraduate institutions in the 1940's.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   5:40	Historical Study, Wasps, and Jews in the Scope and Content Note: Jews and the ethnic numerus clausus, the advantages of an illustrious German family at Harvard Graduate School, experiences with Princeton and Columbia.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   6:40	Contacts with Other German Jewish Refugees during World War II Scope and Content Note: Limitation of contacts, contacts through U.S. Army.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   6:55	Army Special Unit, Scope and Content Note: Teaching of historical courses for the occupation of France and Czechoslovakia, the Draft and U.S. citizenship, problems arising from Prussian state passport in the U.S. Army, rank attained.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   9:10	Contacts with Family Members Outside of the U.S.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   9:50	Knowledge about the Holocaust during the War Scope and Content Note: Discussion of holocaust rumors, Zionism vs. Support of Britain debate during the war among university people, reading Mein Kampf, and the holocaust.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   11:10	Return to Harvard Graduate School, Scope and Content Note: Dates of Harvard residency, major, prelims, job application.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   12:10	First Teaching Jobs and “Cowboy Adventure” in Iowa, Scope and Content Note: Impressions on arrival in Iowa City, the disappearing job, firing and re-hiring at the University of Iowa, one-year job at the University of Michigan.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   14:05	Attitude toward Involvement in Jewish Affairs in the Immediate Postwar Years Scope and Content Note: First trip to Israel in 1951 (from research at Vatican Museum), lack of interest in modern Jewish studies at Univ. of Iowa, GLM's lack of deep involvement with Jewish affairs at Iowa, Zionism.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   15:45	Teaching Routine at University Of Iowa, Scope and Content Note: Large lectures, early modern historical studies, speaking experiences throughout Iowa, radio interview program in Des Moines, McCarthyism and university professors, denunciation of GLM to HUAC by another professor.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   19:00	Involvement in the Henry Wallace Campaign, Scope and Content Note: “Cowboy” Bill Taylor and Iowa, sentiments favorable toward amicable settlement of Berlin dispute, etc., crises in 1948.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   20:05	Becoming a Cold Warrior, Scope and Content Note: Slansky anti-semitic trials in Eastern Europe.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   20:25	Arrival at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Scope and Content Note: Reasons for leaving Iowa job, praise for Univ, of Iowa, attractions of the Wisconsin History Department, courses taught.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   22:10	Interest in Jewish History and Jewish Studies in the and Scope and Content Note: Drifting into Jewish involvement, Rabbi Ticktin and Hillel at U.W., involvement with Hillel through friendship with Rabbi Ticktin, identification with Jewish community, Rabbi Swarsensky.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   24:10	Origins of Interest in Intellectual Roots of National Socialism Scope and Content Note: Asserts that he only gained interest in this when he taught new courses at U.W. Graduate student influence.
Tape/Side   1/2 Time   25:40	End of Interview