Fresh doubts have been cast over Alfred Toepfer, the controversial German multi-millionaire whose foundation provides prizes for Oxford students.

An investigation carried out by Dr. Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, Britain’s leading expert on the funding of political parties and elections, has exposed evidence that Toepfer supported the Third Reich.

According to the investigation, Toepfer took known Nazi war criminals into his employment, and assisted a high-ranking SS officer to flee justice.

Toepfer set up the prestigious Shakespeare Prize in 1937, which has been awarded to numerous high profile British personalities, including Tom Stoppard, Simon Rattle and, more recently, Richard Dawkins. The Prize was discontinued in 2006.

The Alfred Toepfer foundation also works in cooperation with Oxford University on the Hanseatic Scholarship programme, an annual prize worth €15,000 for graduates or final-year undergraduates of Oxford or Cambridge. The prize was originally set up through a collaboration between German officials, and senior figures at the Taylorian institute, in an effort to promote Anglo-German relations.

The impact that these findings will have on Oxford University’s link to the Alfred Toepfer Foundation is as yet unclear.

A statement from the University says that Pinto-Duschinsky’s material “will be reviewed by a special sub-committee of Oxford University’s Committee to Review Donations comprising representatives from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The sub-committee will also consider the response of the Toepfer Foundation to these representations.”

The sub-committee will meet on June 14 with Pinto-Duschinsky and with the chief executive of the Alfred Toepfer foundation.

In 1993, 1996 and 1999, protests led to the abandonment of annual prizes awarded by the Universities of Vienna and Strasbourg.

No such decision was made at Oxford. The competition for the Hanseatic Prize was held last term, despite the ongoing review of Oxford’s position.

Among the findings published in the April issue of Standpoint magazine, Dr. Pinto-Duschinsky reveals that Toepfer was closely associated with numerous convicted Nazis, notably SS Brigadier Edmund Veesenmeyer, the German diplomat in Budapest during the Holocaust overseeing the deportation of Jews to Auschwitz.

Toepfer employed Barbara Hacke, the personal secretary to Veesenmayer from 1940-1945, as his own secretary, and Veesenmayer too was employed by Toepfer after his release from Landesberg castle, where he had been imprisoned for war crimes.

Pinto-Duschinsky’s investigations also describe the case of Hartmann Lauterbacher, a former SS Major-General and former head of the Hitler Youth. Lauterbacher was in hiding having escaped from Italian custody. A request was made that Toepfer contact an associate in Buenos Aires asking him to help Lauterbacher set up a new life in Argentina. A copy of Toepfer’s letter of recommendation, dated 2 October 1950, survives in the Alfred Toepfer Foundation.

The Foundation accepts the truth of all of these findings. Ansgar Wimmer, its CEO, told Cherwell, “for more than ten years this foundation has been actively trying to promote transparency and to face its past in a responsible manner. No one at our foundation today trivialises any aspect of Alfred Toepfer’s biography.”

In a letter to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Newspaper, Dr. Pinto-Duschinsky calls for the foundation to recognize the “unvarnished truth” about their founder. Arguing that “truth and apology are among the essentials of reconciliation”.

An apology on the part of the Foundation and Toepfer’s family has been refused, since, says Wimmer, “no public apology can undo Alfred Toepfer’s individual responsibility or lessen his moral guilt. I find the concept of ‘apologizing’ for someone else’s guilt erroneous and not helpful […] it is likely to present a quick and hollow escape from a far more profound responsibility to learn the lessons from the past for the future.”

In a letter to Pinto-Duschinsky published on its website, the foundation states that “as far as we know today, he did not participate directly or indirectly in the Holocaust, nor did he deny its existence.”

Toepfer was never a member of the Nazi Party, and reportedly did not profit from wartime activities, which included the supplying of slaked lime to cover bodies in the Lodz ghetto in occupied Poland.

Writing in the Standpoint, Pinto-Duschinsky warned of the danger of “greywashing” the Holocaust. He argued that “as long as the past is explained away, the moral basis for a new Europe cannot yet exist and British universities should not accept money tainted by denial”.

Some, however, question the significance of the findings. Tom Kuhn, a fellow of St. Hugh’s and member of the Selection committee for the Hanseatic Scholarships, says that “the long and the short is that there is nothing new in the Standpoint article. Most of what has been published before has been the product of research funded by the Foundation itself. In my view the Foundation has, in recent years, been exemplary in confronting the history of its founder and putting the facts in the public domain[…] I don’t think an apology is either here or there.” Most of the details on Toepfer in Pinto-Duschinsky’s article had already been published in 2000 in a biography of Toepfer.

“A boycott, of work aimed at international exchange and mutual understanding, does not seem a sensible way forward” said Kuhn.

When questioned about this, Pinto-Duschinsky replied that “to say that an apology for Toepfer’s odious acts is ‘neither here nor there’ is morally flippant. It is incorrect that there is nothing new in my publication. It reveals vital findings. And the case against the University’s involvement with the Toepfer foundation has nothing to do with an academic boycott.”

Many former students of Oxford are now having to come to terms with the fact that the source of funds from which they benefited are “severely tainted” by the history of their founding donor.

Daniel Johnson, Editor of Standpoint and former recipient of the Hanseatic Scholarship, said “Those who administered [Toepfer’s] legacy have a duty to offer an apology to all those who were misled” adding that “Oxford…can continue to endorse the Hanseatic Scholarships only if their problematic provenance is fully and openly acknowledged”.Toepfer died in 1993, aged 99.

Ever had homosexual fantasies? How far have you gone with a member of the same sex? Is heterosexuality really the “norm”? The truth “comes out” in an anonymous survey on sexual orientation, even if you won’t.

Over 1 in 5 men at Oxford have had gay sex, according to a Cherwell survey of the sexual orientation of over 400 students.

57.2% of the respondents said that they had had homosexual fantasies. 54.2% of men also said that they had had fantasied about gay sex, with a slightly higher proportion of women claiming to have had such fantasies.
One in ten students said they were fully homosexual and only 35.7% of students claimed to be completely heterosexual.

Even though there was no significant difference between males and females said they had had homosexual fantasies, men appeared to be less likely than women to conclude they were bisexual when asked to describe their sexual orientation on a scale of 1 to 7 (1 = homosexual and 7 = heterosexual).

A greater proportion of men placed themselves at either extreme of sexual orientation. Significantly more men than women (14.8 % as opposed to 3.0%) said they considered themselves at all homosexual.

Again, men proved to be more extreme when it came to experimenting with the same sex. While slightly more women said they had kissed other women, twice as many men (31.2%) said they had performed or received oral sex with another man than women said they had had with other women.
Similarly, only 15.2% of women said they had had sex with a member of the same sex, compared with the 22.8% of men.
65.1% of women said they had watched heterosexual porn. 49.5% of men had watched gay porn, followed closely by the 40.4% of women who ticked the box for watching lesbian porn.

Homosexual tendencies are common in Oxford. Yet students still seem to feel unable to “come out” – only 50.0% of homosexual and bisexual individuals said they had come out to both family members and friends. 13.1% of these students said they hadn’t told anyone.

Hardly anyone who came out claimed they had faced any hostility from their friends, but quite a number revealed that their parents had not taken the news well. One student said that that his parents had initially told him that they “wouldn’t have been more upset if I had been diagnosed with a terminal illness”.

Many admitted that they wouldn’t come out because they feared their family’s reaction. One female student wrote, “My family are orthodox Roman Catholics, they therefore see homosexuality as unquestionably wrong”.
The figures from the survey point to the fact that the majority of people are to some extent attracted to both sexes – 62% of female respondents and 46.9% of male. Bisexual individuals often said they wouldn’t come out, not from a fear of hostility, but rather because they felt that bisexuality was not understood or taken seriously.

One male student said that when he told his parents he was bisexual they “denied bisexuality existed and said I was just ‘confused’ and ‘wrong'”. A couple of students said that they didn’t see the point of coming out as they were “happy with living a heterosexual life”.

28.6% of those who identified themselves homosexuals said that they realised they were homosexual before the age of ten.

Environmental factors such as single-sex schooling seemed to have no significant effect on sexual orientation.
Strangely, 34.5% of those who believe that homosexuality is unnatural admitted to having homosexual fantasies, and a further 43.1% said they were not completely heterosexual.

One female student, who admitted to having homosexual fantasies while also believing such tendencies were unnatural, confessed, “I hate myself, but it’s how I am. Very confusing”.

Of those who ‘strongly believe homosexuality is unnatural’ 39.1% use derogatory names for homosexuals “all the time”.

Another quirk of the survey has shown that a greater proportion of homosexuals admit to using derogatory terms for homosexuals or bisexuals than everyone else. “Faggot” was considered to be the most offensive word. The word “gay” as synonymous for “rubbish” was disliked nearly just as much as “fudge packer” or “dyke”.

One student writes, “Using ‘gay’ as a synonym for ‘lame’ really bothers me, as it shows how engrained homophobic mindsets can be, even if the person is generally tolerant and accepting.”

On the other hand, the vast majority of Oxford students claimed that they wouldn’t be bothered if a member of their family was homosexual or bisexual, or if a homosexual couple kissed in front of a child under the age of eight.

93.6% of students believed you should be taught about homosexuality in schools, with over half advocating that you should learn about it during Infant school or Junior school. 67.0% believed that a homosexual couple should be able to adopt as easily as a heterosexual one.