He Fled Nazi Germany and Shaped the Course of Art History

When Kurt Weitzmann arrived in Princeton in 1935, the German art historian took meals at the Graduate College, where he was flummoxed by having to wear academic gowns for the first time in his career. “Sitting at the long tables, the American students, curious to learn about Nazi Germany, beleaguered me with questions,” Weitzmann recalled in his posthumously published 1994 memoir, Sailing with Byzantium. Though he was not Jewish, his mentor was, and in solidarity he had refused to join the Nazi Party, then a requirement to teach at German universities, leading to his flight from his homeland.

A longtime professor in art and archaeology and fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Weitzmann remained in Princeton for the rest of his life and ended up shaping the field of art history in America, training many of the discipline’s most important figures.

Born in 1904 in a village near Kassel, a city in central Germany, Weitzmann became interested in antiquities at a young age after visiting a local museum, and studied art history against his parents’ wishes. He pursued his Ph.D. in Berlin under the tutelage of venerated scholar Adolph Goldschmidt, whose role in German academia was increasingly complicated by his Jewish heritage. Weitzmann’s association with Goldschmidt also put him under intense scrutiny. Surprisingly, it was his research that got him — and his wife Josepha Fiedler, another mentee of Goldschmidt — out of Germany.

In 1932, Yale archaeologists uncovered the synagogue of Dura-Europos in Syria. Built in the third century, it was one of the oldest synagogues ever discovered and featured striking frescos of Old Testament scenes. Weitzmann theorized that the Octateuch manuscripts, an early iteration of the Christian Old Testament held in the Vatican’s collections, might be related to the imagery depicted in the synagogue. The only problem? After Weitzmann wrote to the Vatican requesting to view these manuscripts, it turned out that Princeton professor Charles Rufus Morey had already requested photographs for a similar project.

As it happened, Morey was happy to let Weitzmann work on the manuscripts, on the condition that Weitzmann came to Princeton in an official capacity. In 1935, Weitzmann joined the Institute for Advanced Study as a fellow, and his wife followed him to Princeton three years later.

Weitzmann’s biggest contribution to Princeton was inspiring a generation of students. After Morey’s 1945 retirement, Weitzmann was hired to run the elite manuscript seminar in the Department of Art and Archaeology, where he taught a number of leading medieval art historians, including future directors of museums in Palo Alto, Cleveland, and Baltimore.

Perhaps his impact was due to his hands-on approach. When Weitzmann taught his precepts, he typically brought an object from the Princeton University Art Museum to pass around and allow students to examine up close. “I remember once I had a little Romanesque ivory Madonna,” Weitzmann said in a 1984 interview with the Rutgers Art Review, adding that the student “who looked at the piece with the greatest interest was Tom Hoving.” In 1967, Thomas Hoving ’53 *60 became the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, having been the driving force for the museum’s 1968 acquisition of the ancient Egyptian Temple of Dendur. According to the Rutgers Art Review interview, once Weitzmann retired in 1972, Hoving decided to “make use of the retired professor,” and together they collaborated on a 1977 Met exhibition tracing the history of late Roman art.

In January 1993, Princeton informed Weitzmann he would receive an honorary doctorate at Commencement. “All spring he looked forward to this public recognition by the institution to which he had devoted his life,” wrote Weitzmann’s former student, Herbert Kessler *65. But Weitzmann fell ill, and the honor could not wait for the graduation ceremony. Just before Weitzmann’s death, President Harold Shapiro *64 conferred the degree at the scholar’s bedside, in the company of his wife and former students.