Shuster, George Nauman b.August 27, 1894; Lancaster,Wisconsin d. January 25, 1977; South Bend, Indiana
Writer, educator, Catholic apologist, government official, college president, and prominent interpreter of German culture and public affairs. He was the child of Anton and Elizabeth Nauman Schuster.
(George later changed the spelling of his family name.) Three of his grandparents and one great-grandparent had immigrated from Germany, German was spoken at home until George and his sisters began school, and George was comfortable speaking German all his life. He was raised in a devout Catholic household, attended his parish grade school, and then St. Lawrence College, near Fond du Lac, for high school. In 1912 he entered the University of Notre Dame.In 1917 he enlisted in World War I, witnessed several months of fighting in France, and remained at the University of Poitiers after the war to earn a Certificat in French literature. He returned to Notre Dame in 1919, taught British and American literature for five years, chaired the Department of English for a time, and published The Catholic Spirit in Modern English Literature in 1922. Two years later he married a former student from nearby Saint Mary’s College, Doris Parks Cunningham, with whom he would have one son, Robert.
The Shusters moved to New York in 1924, where George began doctoral studies in English literature at Columbia University and also began teaching at St. Joseph’s College for Women in Brooklyn. In early December he published a poem in The Commonweal, a Catholic weekly founded a month before, and he remained associated with the journal for the next twelve years, eight as managing editor.
Shuster made three extensive trips to Europe in the 1930s, and three major works resulted. Published in 1932, The Germans: An Inquiry and an Estimate was primarily a study of Germany’s history and cultural contributions over the centuries; Strong Man Rules, published in 1934, investigated the rise of Adolf Hitler and National Socialism in Germany; and Like a Mighty Army: Hitler versus Established Religion (1935) examined Hitler’s opposition to Judaism, Protestantism, and Catholicism, and decried the effect this conflict would have on religious Europe.
In researching these works, Shuster became well acquainted with Heinrich Bruning, Germany’s chancellor in 1930—1932, and he helped Bruning escape to the United States in 1935.In the fall of 1939, Shuster was named academic dean and acting president of New York’s Hunter College, then the world’s largest college for women, and the following year, after receiving his PhD from Columbia University, was named president, a position he held for the next twenty years. He revised the college curriculum to emphasize the liberal arts, oversaw the inauguration of the college’s concert series and opera workshop, began programs in both nursing and social work, and upgraded the academic standards of almost every department. In 1942 he purchased President Franklin Roosevelt’s former home on 65th Street for student use and Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish religious services and meetings. Under his presidency the college became coeducational, enrollment increased from 10,000 to 15,000, and the budget nearly doubled to $4.6 million annually.
Throughout these years, Shuster was called upon for service outside the college also. During World War II he was a member of New York’s Enemy Alien Board II and the General Advisory Committee of the State Department’s Division of Cultural Relations. He was chairman of a War Department committee sent to Europe in 1945 to interview military and civilian leaders of Nazi Germany, and he served on the University of Chicago’s Committee on Freedom of the Press that same year. In 1947 he chaired the National Committee on Segregation in the Nation’s Capital. Under High Commissioner John McCloy he was named land commissioner of Bavaria in 1950 and 1951, presiding over the continuing denazification program and preparing for home rule at the close of the American occupation. Returning from Bavaria, he served as either chairman or president of the American Council on Germany from 1952 to 1970. For twelve years between 1946 and 1963 he was a member of the U.
S. National Commission for UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) and from 1958 to 1963 was a member of UNESCO’s executive board.Shuster’s work received national and international recognition. In addition to numerous honorary degrees, he was awarded the Great Gold Medal of the Republic of Austria in 1955, the Great Cross of the Federal Republic of Germany that same year, the Austro-Hungarian Mariazell Medal in 1957, the Insignis Medal from Fordham University in 1959, and Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal in 1960.
Having resigned from Hunter College, he returned to Notre Dame in 1961 as assistant to the president, Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC, and director of the newly established Center for the Study of Man in Contemporary Society. Under Shuster’s leadership, the center secured funding for in-depth research into Catholic elementary and secondary education, assisted in establishing a Latin American studies program, and sponsored studies on juvenile delinquency, artificial intelligence, and world population.
Thomas E. Blantz
See also Bruning, Heinrich; Denazification References and Further Reading Blantz, Thomas. E. “George N. Shuster and American Catholic Intellectual Life.” In Studies in Catholic History. Eds. Nelson H. Minnich, Robert B. Eno, and Robert F. Trisco. Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1985, pp. 345-365.
------. George N. Shuster: On the Side of Truth. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1993.
Lannie, Vincent P. “George N. Shuster: A Reflective Evaluation.” In Leaders in American Education. Ed. Robert J. Havighurst. Chicago: National Society for the Study of Education, 1971, pp. 306-320.
Shuster, George N. The Ground I Walked On. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1969.