The Pädagogisches Institute Darmstadt suffered extensive damage during Allied bombing in World War II, and the school moved to an abandoned castle in the Darmstadt suburb of Jugenheim. With an enrollment of 400 students and very few books and little equipment, the college faced disaster.
In 1948, J. Martin Klotsche, president of Milwaukee State Teachers College (MSTC), was touring the German province of Hesse with Ken Bateman, an MSTC alumnus who was serving with the U.S. Military Government in Hesse. They visited the struggling institution at Jugenheim, and Bateman suggested that MSTC might lend assistance. The German school was "adopted" by the students and faculty of MSTC at a fall convocation meeting in 1948, after Klotsche suggested that U.S. colleges should help educational institutions throughout the world. The college formed a committee which was responsible for mail, food packages, clothing, and supplies that were sent by students and faculty to their counterparts at Jugenheim. The Jugenheim Committee joined the Overseas Scholarship Committee to form the International Student Service Committee in the spring of 1949.
