After 1945, the words “anti-fascist education” appeared much less frequently in the western zones of occupied Germany than in the Soviet zone, but the concerns expressed by the phrase were shared by all occupying powers: How could education help prevent a resurgence of Nazism? For the American and British occupation authorities, and to a lesser extent, the French, the answer was to “reeducate” for democracy. The leaders of German universities in the western zones answered this question differently. Drawing on the traditional German “idea of the university,” German professors stressed the inculcation of morality through Bildung or character formation. In practical terms, this meant very little change in curriculum, course content, or educational structure: Only a rededication to university traditions supposedly uncompromised and unaffected by Nazism could lead German higher education, and by extension Germany, away from fascism.