It is a devilish paradox that the intellectuals in the United States of all people go on the run – where the intellectual freedom once waited. German universities observe the removal movement with great interest.
When Marci Shore, Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley leave three prominent humanities scholars to the United States, this is an alarm signal. In political systems, intellectuals are something like the canary in the coal mining, which still dies in front of humans when poisonous guest escaped. Humanities scholars are already the first to assess the extent of increasing repression and are therefore often among the first goals. The 20th century dictatorships all had campaigns to switch off intellectuals, sometimes individually, sometimes one A lot.