Abstract: During World War II, numerous excellent intellectuals fled from Nazi Germany to different countries, due to the Cultural Cleansing Movement launched by Nazi regime, which expelled many scholars out of German universities. Eventually, hundreds of them immigrated to the United States and were accepted by American universities. Benefiting from the superior academic environment of American universities, these refugee scholars adjusted well to American society and then started their fruitful careers in different fields. As a result, the German intellectuals contributed a lot to the prosperity of physics, chemistry, mathematics, economics, sociology, psychology and many other disciplines in American universities and played an important role in the American universities growing up to the world academic center.

Key words: World War II, German refugee intellectual, American university, world academic center