Academic Asylum Seekers in the Communist Czechoslovakia
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2011 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Scholars in exile and dictatorship of the 20th century |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | Proceedings, Scholars in Exile 2011 |
| Field | History |
| Keywords | political asylum; American (US.) scientists in Czechoslovakia; George Wheeler; Morton Nadler |
| Description | Communist Czechoslovakia offered political asylum to over 15,000 people, mainly from Greece, Italy, and Spain, but also to a few Americans, Frenchmen, Iranians, and the like. Some of these refugees were prominent leftist scientists with an outstanding political career and background. One such person was George Wheeler, one of the creators of Roosevelt's New Deal policy and a close colleague of General Lucius D. Clay in post-war Germany, where he participated in the process of de-nazification and economic reconstruction. His career in the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences followed the typical course of a Western Marxist and a social sciences scholar. Wheeler succumbed to the Communist ideology, made an excellent academic career (his books were translated to several East European languages), and after 1968 returned to the USA where he pursued his academic career. Czechoslovakia also provided a temporary home to the electrical engineer Morton Nadler, who sensed that his career in the US would be difficult because of his political opinion. The choice of Prague was motivated by the reputation of the Czechoslovak industry, like in the case of Joel Barr and Alfred Sarant. The article is a result of the study of archival and primary sources (memoires). |