Ernst Jäckh
Ernst Jäckh | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | August 17, 1959 New York City, United States | (aged 84)
Nationality | German, British, USA |
Other names | Ernest Jackh, Ernest Jaeckh, Ernst Jäckh |
Education | Ph.D. Philology, 1902 |
Occupation(s) | Journalist, Orientalist, Political Scientist |
Employer(s) | Neckar-Zeitung (Heilbronn), Deutscher Werkbund, Nachrichtenstelle für den Orient, Deutsche Hochschule für Politik, New Commonwealth Institute, Columbia University |
Ernst Jäckh (February 22, 1875 – August 17, 1959) was a German journalist, diplomat, author, and academic who later lived in Great Britain and the United States. He is most known for having advocated for first Germany, and then the United States, having better relations with Turkey. He was the founder and leader of the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik in Berlin from 1920 to 1933.
Early life and education
Jäckh was born in Urach, Germany.[1][2]
His secondary education was at the
Career in Germany
A journalist during his early years, Jäckh worked as an editor for the paper Neckar-Zeitung in Heilbronn.[5][6]
Under the overall guidance of pastor and politician Friedrich Naumann, Jäckh was a key organizer of the liberal movement in Germany during the early years of the twentieth century.[5]
Starting in 1908, Jäckh promoted the German-Turkish Alliance and he founded the
Ernst Jäckh played an active role in German diplomatic efforts during the
Jäckh suffered a personal loss when his only son, 18-year-old Hans, was killed in action in September 1918, on the Chemin des Dames,[10][11] during the Second Battle of the Marne. The death, coupled with the demise of the German Empire, changed his thinking about the nature of international relations.[10]
In 1920, the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik was founded by Jäckh, who served as its president and initial director.[12][13] During the 1920s, it was considered Berlin's best school for the study of political behavior.[14] The Hochschule benefited from Jäckh's abilities to fit in with both liberal and conservative factions and act as a consensus builder.[6] He gave lecture tours in America, made contacts there, and secured funding for the Hochschule's library and publications from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Rockefeller Foundation.[15] As the decade went on, Jäckh promoted the idea of a "New Germany", one that was democratic and internationalist in perspective.[16]
Jäckh, like other German academics, witnessed first-hand the demise of the
Career in Britain
At this point in 1933, Jäckh left Germany for refuge in Britain, but he still traveled to Germany on a steady basis and maintained contact with the government and went to Nazi-related events.[20]
He became international director of the newly founded New Commonwealth Society,[1] which had been created in 1932 by David Davies, 1st Baron Davies and which advocated the creation of an international tribunal and an international police force.[20] Jäckh worked with the German branch of the society, which at first had close ties to the Nazi Party; but subsequently, the Nazis grew suspcious of both the branch and of Jäckh, reporting that Jäckh was a "highly murky personality" and that he was "married to a Jew" and thus could not be relied upon to represent German interests in international settings.[21]
Jäckh was said to have become a British citizen and to have represented the
Career in the United States
In 1940, he migrated further to the United States where he became Professor of Public Law and Government at Columbia University, focusing on the politics of the regions of Germany, the Balkans, and the Middle East.[1] He published the book The Rising Crescent: Turkey Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow in 1944;[22] his aim was to explain modern Turkey to American readers and to foster improvement in Turkey–United States relations.[7] The New York Times Book Review made reference to "Dr. Jackh's distinguished reputation as an interpreter of Turkey's policies" and found "his frank special pleading for Turkey disarming and persuasive."[22]
He served on the Columbia faculty until 1946.
Jäckh published his memoirs, entitled Der goldene Pflug: Lebensernte eines Weltbürgers, in 1954.[2] He died in New York City on August 17, 1959, at the age of 84.[24]
Legacy
As an academic, Jäckh has not been highly regarded in terms of scholarship or original thought.[25] Author Sevil Özçalık states that "Jäckh's reputation was largely self-created throughout his career, which also favorably shaped other people's perception of him."[8]
This reputation was maintained to the end of his life, with obituaries of him hailing his claimed opposition to the Nazi regime.[24][3] But the progressive, democratic reputation that the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik had enjoyed for decades became diminished as a result of scholarly research performed in the latter part of the twentieth century, which showed that the Hochschule's relationship with the Nazi Party was not the one of pure opposition that had been portrayed.[26] With these findings, Jäckh's reputation in connection to his role there suffered substantially as well.[26]
Published works
Jäckh wrote some twenty-one books, including some under the name Ernest Jackh.[3] His books include:
- Albanian War
- Der Austeigende Halbmonde
- Background of the Middle East
- Deutschland im Orient
- The War for Man's Soul (1943)
- The Rising Crescent (Farrar & Rinehart, 1944)
References
- ^ Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Retrieved December 8, 2015.
- ^ a b Özçalık, Promoting an Alliance, Furthering Nationalism, p. 40.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Ernest Jackh, 84, Educator, Is Dead". The New York Times. 18 August 1959. p. 29.
- ^ a b "Biographical / Historical". Ernst Jäckh papers. Yale University Library. Retrieved March 17, 2021.
- ^ a b Weber, "Ernst Jäckh and the National Internationalism of Interwar Germany", pp. 406–407.
- ^ a b c Korenblat, "A School for the Republic?", pp. 398–399.
- ^ a b c d Özçalık, Promoting an Alliance, Furthering Nationalism, p. 204.
- ^ a b Özçalık, Promoting an Alliance, Furthering Nationalism, p. 41.
- ^ Anderson, "Who Still Talked about the Extermination of the Armenians?", pp. 203–204.
- ^ a b Özçalık, Promoting an Alliance, Furthering Nationalism, p. 201.
- ^ The New Germany: Three Lectures by Ernst Jäckh. London: Oxford University Press. 1927. p. 5.
- ^ Korenblat, "A School for the Republic?", p. 394.
- ^ Weber, "Ernst Jäckh and the National Internationalism of Interwar Germany", pp. 410–411.
- ^ Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon, p. 19.
- ^ Eisfeld, "Émigré Scholars and the Genesis of International Relations", p. 113.
- ^ Weber, "Ernst Jäckh and the National Internationalism of Interwar Germany", pp. 412ff.
- ^ a b Eisfeld, "Émigré Scholars and the Genesis of International Relations", p. 114.
- ^ Korenblat, "A School for the Republic?", p. 413.
- ^ a b c Weber, "Ernst Jäckh and the National Internationalism of Interwar Germany", pp. 416–417.
- ^ a b Weber, "Ernst Jäckh and the National Internationalism of Interwar Germany", p. 418.
- ^ Weber, "Ernst Jäckh and the National Internationalism of Interwar Germany", pp. 419–420.
- ^ a b c Dexter, Byron (July 30, 1944). "Turkey Moves Forward to Join the European Family of Nations". The New York Times Book Review. pp. 3, 16.
- ^ a b Parke, Richard H. (March 25, 1950). "Columbia Studies Institute of Peace". The New York Times. p. 1.
- ^ a b c d "Ernest Jackh". New York Daily News. August 18, 1959. p. 32 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Weber, "Ernst Jäckh and the National Internationalism of Interwar Germany", pp. 421–422, 423.
- ^ a b Korenblat, "A School for the Republic?", pp. 397, 409–411.
Sources
- ISBN 978-0-19-979276-4.
- Eisfeld, Rainer (2014). "From the Berlin Political Studies Institute to Columbia and Yale: Ernest Jaeckh and Arnold Wolfers". In Rösch, Felix (ed.). Émigré Scholars and the Genesis of International Relations: A European Discipline in America?. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 113–131.
- Kaplan, Fred (1983). The Wizards of Armageddon. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
- Korenblat, Steven D. (September 2006). "A School for the Republic? Cosmopolitans and Their Enemies at the Deutsche Hochschule Für Politik, 1920–1933". Central European History. 39 (3): 394–430. S2CID 144221659.
- Özçalık, Sevil (2018). Promoting an Alliance, Furthering Nationalism: Ernst Jäckh and Ahmed Emin in the Time of the First World War. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag.
- Weber, Peter (2019). "Ernst Jäckh and the National Internationalism of Interwar Germany". Central European History. 52 (3): 402–423. S2CID 204373771.