Nazi Purge Sent Big Brains to U.S., Drove Science: Lewis Lapham

Adolf Hitler came to power in January, 1933, and by spring, he had enacted a law called “The Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” to purge Jews from university jobs. By the end of October, Albert Einstein arrived in the United States, a refugee from Nazi Germany.

Up to that time, many bright scientists had headed to universities in Berlin or Goettingen to study cutting-edge developments in physics and other disciplines. Hitler had been warned about the coming brain drain, but he hated pure science almost as passionately as he hated the Jews.