Bruno Snell

Bruno Snell's academic and personal convictions made him an advocate of a Europeanism rooted in the early European humanism that he recognized in Greek intellectual history. This is reflected in his academic works, but also in his political reformist activities after 1945, in which he helped to rebuild the University of Hamburg's international connections.

From a historical perspective, national peculiarities appeared to him as different developments of early European basic structures, while nationalisms were highly disastrous follies. For Snell, the unity of the European states was based on Greek culture and the process of cultural and social development that emanated from it. However, it also showed itself to him in the overarching context of the individual sciences.

With the founding of the Europa-Kolleg Hamburg, Snell wanted to create new synergies through political education and the interaction of different academic disciplines in a studium generale, which was aimed at awakening in students the "keen interest in politics" that he considered indispensable for Europe to grow together. However, it also corresponded to his holistic understanding of science and society, which was shaped by Dilthey.

Snell was also aware that the creation of a united Europe would essentially have to be supported by the new elites that grew up in European universities after the war. "Developments in recent years have given rise to problems that have not yet been addressed at universities. One such problem is the form in which the unification of Europe can be achieved. In any case, it is clear that our students must be prepared to work in international organizations and authorities" (1954).

The teaching program of the Europa-Kolleg was aimed at students from all faculties and was intended to impart knowledge of contemporary history, intellectual and cultural history, law and economics. There were also lecture series on general topics, political forums with guests from politics, business and science as well as working groups on specific topics.

Snell's call for a reorientation of student education and the sciences as a whole can be seen here in concrete terms. Positivist specialist thinking, which always prided itself on being apolitical, had served the Hitler state unconditionally and uncritically. It was Snell's bitter experience "that a considerable percentage of German academics had placed themselves at the disposal of the National Socialist regime in 1933. One of the causes lay in the disdainful reserve of the German intelligentsia before political life and in the resulting political half-education or ignorance." (Snell in a speech in Tessaloniki, 1965).

The founding of the Europa-Kolleg Hamburg was intended to close the gap he perceived between the university and socio-political developments, which Snell was convinced had to aim for a historically conscious unification of Europe's political and cultural diversity, for a united Europe. "Much of what is already a European reality today has not yet found its way into people's consciousness and society, and there is a danger that our thinking will lag behind the facts."

In close cooperation with the University of Hamburg and the university's cultural history, law and economics institutions, the Europa-Kolleg Hamburg became an example of the interaction between theory and practice that Snell referred to in his rectorate speech on November 14, 1951. Only an understanding of theory, which in Plato's sense also encompasses "a good part of practice", can and must lead to a grasp of the general, to which the intensive research of the specialist "can and must" penetrate. For Snell, this practical part consists in particular of political practice:

"A lively researcher also needs a keen understanding of politics".

Written by Dr. Gerhard Lohse