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were present. Among the French were Jules Romains, David Rousset,
Henri Frenay, and Andre Philip; among the Germans, Alfred Weber,
Eugen Kogon, Carlo Schmid; Denis de Rougement and F. Bondy from
Switzerland; Haakon Lie from Norway; Charles Plisnier from Belgium ;
Silone, Lombardi, Spinelli from Italy ; H erbert Read,
A.
J.
Ayer,
J.
Amery, Trevor-Roper from England ; and a sizeable contingent from the
United States including H.
J.
Muller, the geneticist, Arthur Schlesinger,
Jr., Burnham, Farrell, George Schuyler. The outstanding figure at the
Congress was Arthur Koestler, mainly because of the provocative char–
acter of his speeches, partly because of his linguistic abilities, and partly
because he was so cordially detested by some of the English delegates,
one of whom (Trevor-Roper) has since denounced the Congress as a
plot concocted by war-mongering "rootless European ex-Communists"
abetted by their American allies.
Several dramatic incidents highlighted the sessions. Hans Thirring,
the Austrian theoretical physicist now turned psychologist, had been
invited to attend the Congress and had presented a paper which was a
criticism of the foreign policy of the Western powers. Previously he had
courageously criticized the position of the Soviet Union at a Communist
Peace Conference in Vienna. His paper had already been distributed
to the press and delegates. When his turn came to speak, he withdrew
his paper, "The Responsibility of Intellectuals," because two of its as–
sumptions had become untenable as a result of the Korea incident, viz.,
that Soviet political aggression would not develop into military aggres–
sion, and that the United Nations was an effective instrument in pre–
venting military outbreaks.
At the same session Professor Nachtsheim of the Free University
of Berlin gave an account of the fate of science in the Universities of
the East and described the recent evolution of the famous
Deutsche
Academie der Wissenschaft,
originally founded by Leibnitz. On the oc–
casion of Stalin's seventieth birthday, a telegram was sent to him in
the name of the membership of the society which hailed him in the
most fawning and Byzantine way for his scientific achievements. As soon
as Professor Nachtsheim disclosed this fact, Alfred Weber, the famous
H eidelberg sociologist, demanded the floor and announced his imme–
diate resignation from the Academy. Weber in the opening plenary session
had delivered a searching critique of the German failure to develop an in–
digenous liberalism. Before a vast audience that overflowed into the
streets, Weber concluded his eloquent and shrewd appraisal of the Ger–
man past with a
"nostra culpa, nostra maxima culpa."
(I had heard
Weber twenty-two years ago at Heidelberg where every one of his lectures
