Eugenics researcher Harry H. Laughlin often bragged that his Model Eugenic Sterilization laws had been put into action in Germany's Nuremberg Laws. In 1936, Laughlin was invited to an award ceremony at Heidelberg University in Germany. (The ceremony was scheduled on the anniversary of the day Hitler fired all Jews from the Heidelberg faculty two years earlier.) Laughlin was offered an honorary doctorate for his work on the "science of racial cleansing." Laughlin could not afford to attend, and had to pick his doctorate up from the Rockefeller Institute. Afterwards, he proudly shared the award with his co-workers, remarking that he felt that it showed the "common understanding of German and American scientists of the nature of eugenics."