When One Jewish Medievalist Called Another a Nazi

In 1992, the scholar Norman Cantor published a volume of biographical sketches of 20th-century historians of the Middle Ages. In it, he referred to Ernst Kantorowicz, a German Jew who spent the later part of his career at Berkeley and Princeton universities, as having had “impeccable Nazi credentials.” As evidence, he cited Kantorowicz’s magisterial biography of Frederick II, the 13th-century holy Roman emperor and king of Sicily; the book first appeared in 1927 when Kantorowicz still lived in Germany. Cantor’s accusation—made especially provocative by the fact that Kantorowicz’s mother died in a concentration camp and that he risked his career to condemn Nazism—naturally precipitated many angry protests. Michael Lipkin examines the evidence: