Introduction

Forced resignation

Ernst Perels' letter of resignation, 21.11.1938

The „Reichsbürgergesetz“ (Reich citizenship law), one of the Nuremberg Laws passed on 16 September 1935, decreed that all Jewish civil servants were to retire from office by December 31 of that year. This led to the forced retirement of many university professors. Although, according to NS racist ideology, Ernst Perels fell under the category of a „person of mixed blood, grade 1“ and was thus (not yet) directly affected by this ruling, he submitted a request to the university within a month of the enactment of the law to the effect that he be released into emeritus status. Writing to his former director at the MGH, Paul Kehr, Perels confirmed that he had applied to the ministry to be dismissed from his official duties as a professor under the condition that he be listed as on leave for the coming winter semester. He expressed his doubts, however, about whether he would have any say in the choice of his successor or substitute (MGH-Archiv 338/29). He had been moved to this „voluntary“ step by the advice of friends, possibly with the hope of receiving a higher pension than if forced into retirement.

Ernst Perels had enjoyed being a professor. As his son Otto records: „he liked academic teaching and had advanced pupils. His students never caused him difficulties and his classes were never disrupted, as were those of other colleagues“ (Perels, 1991, S. 15). Following his request, the university of Berlin released Prof. Dr Ernst Perels from his obligations on January 1 1936. Henceforth, he confined himself to his editorial work for the „Reichsinstitut für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde“, as the MGH had been renamed. Three years later, however, he was also forced to officially end this activity.

Edmund Ernst Stengel, who had been Perels’ colleague for 34 years at the MGH, was appointed as the new president of the „Reichsinstitut“ in October 1937. Stengel, aged 59, implemented the Nuremberg Laws in full without regard for collegiality. In a letter to a fellow historian and member of the Nazi SA, Walter Holtzmann, he underlined that, in case that rumours to the contrary should be circulating, he, Stengel, had made sure that no more work contracts with Jews existed. „The relicts of the past that I found as I entered office have been completely removed.“ (MGH-Archiv B 567, Blatt 291r)

Correspondingly, Stengel forced Ernst Perels, to tender his written resignation, although he was in the middle of a major project editing the letters of Archbishop Hincmar of Reims This was a hard blow for Perels, now aged 56, since his work for the Monumenta had made it possible for him to continue scholarly activity as a historian and remain in contact with his colleagues after leaving the university, providing him with a lifeline at a time when the NS regime had successively deprived him of his identity as a German, a Christian and a historian.

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