Resumen de Wissenschaft als säkularer Kreuzzug: Thomas V. Smith und die Deutschen Kriegsgefangenen in den USA (1944-1946)
Gregory Paul Wegner, Karl-Heinz Füssl
One of the earliest American reeducation programs designed for the transformation of political attitudes and the inculcation of American democratic ideals among Germans came into being shortly before the end of the Second World War. Initiated by the Special Projects Division of the War Department in 1944, this top secret experiment in reeducation brought together a group of university professors, including philosopher Thomas Vernon Smith from the University of Chicago, at selected prisoner-of-war camps in Rhode Island and Virginia. Consistent with his faculty colleagues. Smith drew heavily from the liberal arts tradition and classical humanism to teach his German charges about the plausibility of the �democratic way of life. � The relatively brief initial foray by Smith into the reeducation of Germans under captivity revealed American aspirations and democratic ideals for the new German citizen of the post war era, elements of which subsequently reappeared in the activities of American Military Government on German soil. Not the least significant in this endeavor was the formation of a German citizenry supportive of American interests, a foundational goal of the Special Projects combining reform idealism with �Realpolitik�.
