Hanseatic Scholarships awarded by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation FVS

The University of Oxford has considered complaints about the source of funding for the Hanseatic Scholarships, the Alfred Toepfer Foundation, FVS. The scholarships are awarded to graduate students and postdoctoral researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge for study in Germany. The complaints were made by Oxford alumnus Dr Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, who has also published magazine articles on the Foundation.

The University is not the recipient of any funding from the Foundation, as funds are paid directly by the Foundation to successful applicants for the Scholarships. Nonetheless, the University takes the view that it should only promote the Scholarships to prospective candidates if the Foundation is scrupulously open as to the history of Alfred Toepfer’s conduct and the Foundation’s own activities; and if the Foundation repudiates Alfred Toepfer’s associations with the Nazi regime. Accordingly, in light of the complaints made by Dr Pinto-Duschinsky, the University’s Committee to Review Donations has reviewed the University’s association with the Scholarships. During the course of the review, the material from Dr Pinto-Duschinsky was carefully and thoroughly evaluated, and both he and the Foundation were invited to present their views, both in writing and orally. The University’s conclusions are based on the evidence derived during this review process. 

The University has determined that the two requirements of openness and repudiation have been met. The Foundation’s website clearly sets out evidence for Alfred Toepfer’s dealings with the Third Reich, and his employment of convicted war criminals after 1945, and publicly expresses the Foundation’s regret for Alfred Toepfer’s conduct (http://toepfer-fvs.de/geschichte.html?&L=1). The Foundation offers prospective Hanseatic Scholars copies of the report of the independent historical commission on Alfred Toepfer and the Foundation’s role in Nazi Germany, and of the critical biography of Alfred Toepfer by Jan Zimmermann, published in 2008. The Foundation has expressed its continuing commitment to face up to its past. 

In light of the University’s determination, the University has agreed that its promotion of, and advice to candidates about, the Scholarships ought to continue.

Related information about holocaust studies at the University, provided in response to an article by Dr Pinto-Duschinsky in the Jewish Chronicle in June 2010, can be found at http://www.thejc.com/holocaust-denial/41529/dons-deny-denial.