It is appropriate, on the occasion of our tenth anniversary, to review as well as document the Institute's activities and achievements. We have prepared this report for the interested public, our many friends and supporters within and beyond the academic world, and those scholars on both sides of the Atlantic with whom we have worked. What follows is a general introduction to the mission of the GHI, highlights of the central themes that have shaped its intellectual work, and an overview of its most important programs.
The GHI is part of a tradition of German research institutions abroad. These include the German Archaeological Institute, founded in 1829, with branches in Athens, Rome, and other cities; the Institute for Art History in Florence (1897); the Bibleotheca Hertziana in Rome (1913); the Oriental Institute in Beirut (1961); the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo (1988); and, most significant, the German Historical Institutes in Rome (1888), Paris (1958), London (1976), and Warsaw (1992).
Several motives led to the founding of the GHI in Washington, D.C.: the positive influence of the historical institutes in Europe on the international scholarly community; the internationalization of the historical discipline in Germany; the increased importance of the historical discipline in the United States since World War II; and the special role of the city of Washington itself, a city that, with the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and other libraries, repositories, think tanks, and universities, is a magnet for scholars. In addition, the founding and continued support of the GHI expresses the conviction of every German administration since 1949 that academic and cultural cooperation between the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America is very much in the German national interest.
The Institute receives its funding from the German government- ultimately from the German taxpayer - but is wholly independent in its scholarly activities. It reports to and is guided by a German-American academic advisory council and a German board of trustees. In 1993 the German Ministry of Research and Technology created the Foundation for German Historical Institutes Abroad, which united the institutes in London, Warsaw, and Washington under a single legal and administrative oversight umbrella.
The primary mission of the GHI is to support advanced research in the historical sciences. According to its statutes, the members of the Institute conduct their own research as well as facilitate the cooperation between historians living and working in Germany and the United States. Our goal is to contribute to a better mutual understanding between the two countries. During the past decade the Institute has focused its energies on three central areas:
The Institute's work in these areas has taken many forms: support for the research projects (dissertations, Habilitationen) of the fellows, who are in residence for a period of three to five years; promotion of other collaborative research projects; publication of academic books and scholarly articles; sponsorship of events, such as conferences, workshops, and lecture series; and endowment of a variety of short-term fellowships.
From the beginning the GHI was charged with the task of engaging as many different types of historians as possible while concentrating its limited resources on selected areas of research. The challenge has always been to devise an agenda that would support historical research on different periods and using diverse methodologies and yet would avoid spreading our resources too thinly. We believe the GHI has successfully steered a pragmatic course between the goals of plurality and the judicious allocation of its finite resources.
The aim of plurality is of special concern to the GHI. The United States is a country of continental proportions: The geographical area covered is more extensive than that covered by all the other German Historical Institutes combined. More historians work and teach in the United States than in any other country, and they conduct research on all historical eras, on every imaginable topic, and on every region of the world. With the exception of the Federal Republic, more historians in the United States work on German history than elsewhere. More-over, the many areas of research pursued in this country are accompanied by lively and at times passionate debates over theory and methodology.
In its first ten years the activities of the GHI have been numerous and diverse. Throughout this decade the Institute's directors and research fellows have concentrated their scholarly efforts on a handful of major historical problems, including transatlantic emigration, the rise and fall of National Socialism, twentieth-century European and American political history, the history of the postwar Germanies, and the history of the Cold War. The following sections highlight some of the themes and programs that have been central to the Institute's work. Particular emphasis is placed on conferences that the GHI either has sponsored or in which it has participated.
One of the most important activities of the GHI is the planning, organization, and support of international conferences. Between 1987 and 1997, over forty conferences were held under its auspices. A significant proportion of the financial resources of the GHI and the work of its research fellows has been devoted to these events - and their published proceedings. Conferences typically are coordinated and convened by the fellows in cooperation with scholars from other institutions. They have been held at the Institute, at American or German universities, and at other locations. The GHI covers most of the costs of these conferences and workshops, but other institutions often contribute financial and administrative support.
The GHI has sponsored conferences on numerous subjects, many of which cross disciplinary and methodological boundaries. Although this makes it difficult to categorize every conference, there are four main areas into which they may be ordered: German emigration to the United States, including transatlantic intellectual relations; the history of the concept and reality of "total war"; international relations and the Cold War; and diverse issues in areas such as medieval history, political and social history, historiography, and social theory.
The special role of the GHI as a mediator between German and American historians has resulted in a vigorous comparative element in its conferences. We believe that comparison is without doubt the lifeblood of historical writing. The majority of conferences have shared comparative and interdisciplinary aims, focusing primarily on Germany and the United States but occasionally extending to other European countries as well. Two areas of research, German emigration to America and post-World War II international relations, have occupied central positions in this research program. Under the leadership of the Institute's successful founding director, Hartmut Lehmann, issues of emigration, immigration, and flight from political repression took center stage. Under my own directorship, the focus has shifted toward the history of the Cold War and international relations since 1945. Overall, however, the work of the GHI has been characterized by a remarkably broad range of topics, reflecting the vitality of historical work being done on both sides of the Atlantic and the varied interests of the scholars working at or in conjunction with the Institute. In charting a course between concentrating on a few select topics and cooperating with historians working on different time periods and using a variety of methods, the GHI can look back on a decade of significant accomplishment and intellectual growth.
German Emigration to the United States
German emigration to the United States has been the single most important feature of German-American relations since the late seventeenth century. It therefore was natural that the history of this emigration/immigration became a central focus of GHI research activities and conferences. By the nineteenth century Germans formed one of the largest immigrant groups in the United States, settling all over the country, engaging in a wide variety of occupations, becoming politically active, and creating a vibrant German-American community. More than any other ethnic group, however, Germans were profoundly affected by the consequences of international developments. In particular, World War I marked a sharp rupture in the lives of German-Americans, a setback from which the immigrant community never fully recovered. National Socialism, World War II, and the Holocaust further complicated the lives of German-Americans and also brought a fresh wave of immigrants and refugees, many of them of German-Jewish descent.
The field of immigrant and ethnic history has evolved into one of the most dynamic areas of American scholarly inquiry. Original notions of downtrodden immigrants fleeing poverty and political repression in Europe, gladly casting away their native cultures and habits and assimilating into the American mainstream, have given way to a much more complex and nuanced rendering of the immigrant experience. Scholars now emphasize the heterogeneous backgrounds of immigrants, particularly from such countries as Germany and Italy. Indeed, European societies were hardly homogeneous or static. Trans-atlantic migration was only one element of a European and indeed global process of people on the move. Over the last three decades studies on immigrants in America have continually challenged traditional assumptions about the "melting pot." Instead of unilinear and one-dimensional processes of assimilation, historians have probed the various links, mechanisms, and sites that governed the interaction between immigrants and American society. Notions of uprootedness have been replaced by models of cultural transfer.
The various GHI conferences on emigration have investigated the German experience from a variety of perspectives. Titles of conferences on this subject include: "Emigration and Settlement Patterns of German Communities in North America" (1989); "Continental European Migration and Transcontinental Migration to North America" (1991); "Peopling the New World: The Transfer of Ideas, Customs, and Social Institutions from Central Europe to the Middle Colonies in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries" (1992); and "New Approaches to Migration Research: German-Americans in Comparative Perspective" (1997). Cooperation between American and German scholars has been especially fruitful in the field of ethnic history. In general, the history of emigration/immigration has been more fully covered for the nineteenth century than for the twentieth, leaving room for further investigation.
It was fitting for an institution founded to foster cooperation between historians in Germany and the United States to hold its first conference, in 1988, on the topic of German refugee historians. Convened at Washington, D.C., by Hartmut Lehmann and James J. Sheehan, "German-Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States, 1933-1970" (published in 1991 as An Interrupted Past: German-Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States After 1933) traced their experiences. Coming to America during the Great Depression, when academic positions were scarce, and facing discrimination, particularly in the case of Jewish scholars, the immigrants were forced to adapt to a new language and a new culture. Methods of historical inquiry and modes of argument were not as easily transferable as laboratory practices and scientific procedures. Accordingly, the American careers of these scholars turned out quite different. Some drifted out of the profession altogether, and others ended up at lesser-known colleges; others became professors at leading academic institutions, where they exerted considerable influence on the ways in which German history was perceived and taught in the United States. After the war they played an important role in reconnecting historians in Germany to the larger academic world. A published catalog of German-speaking refugee historians in the United States after 1933, titled A Past Renewed (1993) and edited by Catherine Epstein, complemented this inaugural conference. The catalog contains detailed biographical information on eighty-eight historians who fled to America, including their educational backgrounds, their employment histories, and bibliographies of their scholarly publications.
Examination of the German historical profession's fate at midcentury was continued by a conference convened by Hartmut Lehmann and James Van Horn Melton and held at Atlanta, Georgia, in 1990. Titled "Paths of Continuity: Central European Historiography from the 1930s Through the 1950s" (published in 1994 as Paths of Continuity: Central European Historiography from the 1930s Through the 1950s), it examined ten prominent German and Austrian historians whose lives and works spanned this period. Among the individuals represented are Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, Friedrich Meineke, and Gerhard Ritter. These men heavily influenced their profession during the 1950s and beyond, writing many important studies and training numerous graduate students. As citizens and scholars they embodied nearly the entire range of personal and professional responses of German historians in the Third Reich: from the joyous adoption of Nazi categories, such as race and space, to the passing along of national-folkish modes of thought, to partial conformity and resigned silence. The Nazi era, however, did not preclude methodological innovation. Developed by a group of younger historians, the concept of Volksgeschichte (folk history) shared characteristics with the French Annales school in its interest in demography, kinship patterns, popular culture, and rural history. Despite their background in Third Reich folk history, they were instrumental in fostering the development of social history in Germany in the 1960s.
The emigration of intellectuals from Germany and Austria to the United States after the rise of the Nazis is the best-known case of forced migration of intellectuals and scholars in this century. The process commenced in 1933, when persons of Jewish descent or those who supported left-leaning political parties were summarily dismissed from the German civil service, including the universities. Most scholars agree that about 2,000 scientists and scholars were forced to leave Germany and Austria as a direct result of Nazi policies. This "brain drain" was unprecedented in magnitude and is believed by many to have provided a significant boost to academic and scientific life in America.
Among the most illustrious of the German-Jewish emigrants to the United States during the Third Reich was a group of political scientists and philosophers whose work has had a lasting effect on intellectual life in both countries. The most important include Hannah Arendt, Herbert Marcuse, Hans Morgenthau, and Leo Strauss. In 1991 Peter Graf Kielmansegg and Horst Mewes convened "The Influence of German Emigrants on American Political Thought After World War II: Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss" (published in 1997 as Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss: German Emigrés and American Political Thought After World War II) in Boulder, Colorado. This conference took a closer look at the educational and academic experiences of Arendt and Strauss in Germany and their subsequent accomplishments in the United States.
Whereas many of the GHI's conferences on German emigration have centered on better-known emigrants from Germany, the vast majority of refugees from Central Europe during this period, whether Jewish or Gentile, was composed of ordinary families and individuals. As immigrants to the United States, the refugees often encountered a much less cordial welcome than academics who could draw on existing transatlantic connections. The GHI sponsored a conference that employed concepts of gender history and methods of oral history to investigate the particular challenges facing women emigrants/ immigrants. "Women in the Emigration After 1933," convened by Sibylle Quack, Renate Bridenthal, and Marion Kaplan in 1991 at Washington, D.C. (published in 1995 as Between Sorrow and Strength: Women Refugees of the Nazi Period), examined the experiences of these women. The participants not only investigated women refugees in the United States but also compared the experiences of women in such diverse places as Brazil, China, England, France, and Palestine. These individual histories are an important reminder that the flight from Nazi persecution was global. Due to differences in age, occupation, political opinion, religious background, and the timing of their exodus from Germany, these women's experiences varied greatly. The eyewitness reports permitted a personalized glimpse into the diversity and uniqueness of such experiences.
Integral to the movement of people across the Atlantic are the flow of ideas and mutual cultural influences. The very presence of large numbers of German immigrants in America spread German culture. In addition, a number of Americans traveled to Germany, particularly in the nineteenth century, and returned home impressed by German culture, education, and science. The important role of German universities as models in the founding of American research universities after 1870 has received well-deserved attention. Organized by Charlotte L. Brancaforte, Jürgen Heideking, Jurgen Herbst, and Rudolf Vierhaus, the conference "German Influences on Education in the United States to 1917" (published in 1995 as German Influences on Education in the United States to 1917) was convened at Madison, Wisconsin, in 1990. Participants analyzed the mutual images of the educational systems in both countries, the varieties of teaching styles and pedagogical methods, the presence and model character of German schools in America, and the German influence on American higher education. This conference underscored the complexities of inter-cultural exchange and transatlantic intellectual relations. Mutual exchanges, adaptations, and adoptions mark the terrain of these relations with respect to pedagogy. German ideas and institutions certainly helped shape American education and sometimes even acted as important catalysts for change. But the ideas and the behavior of German immigrants in America also were altered by their experiences in their newly adopted country, resulting in important modifications in the educational institutions they created there. A process of fusion set in that blended the cultural heritage of the immigrants with American standards and modes of instruction.
Total War
Unprecedented in their destructiveness and number of casualties, the two world wars of the twentieth century have often been labeled "total wars," in contrast to the so-called limited wars of earlier epochs. The concept of total war has been as popular as it has been elusive. Historians have never been able to arrive at a universally accepted definition. Comparisons with other wars, such as the U.S. Civil War or the Napoleonic Wars, which witnessed the first modern armies based on universal conscription, demonstrated that the conflicts of the twentieth century did not entirely transform the shape of warfare. To systematically investigate the origins and developments of modern warfare the GHI in 1992 began a series of conferences dedicated to the history of total war from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of World War II. Conceived as a series of five conferences, accompanied by five published collections of essays, this project compares the changes in warfare over time, especially with regard to Germany and the United States.
The first conference, "On the Road to Total War: The American Civil War and the German Wars of Unification, 1861-1871" (published in 1997 as On the Road to Total War: The American Civil War and the German Wars of Unification, 1861-1871), was organized in 1992 by Stig Förster and Jörg Nagler, and took place in Washington, D.C. Conferees compared the experiences of the U.S. Civil War and the German Wars of Unification, and investigated the complex historical antecedents of total war. If one were to define total war as the total mobilization of national resources by a highly organized and centralized state authority for a military conflict with practically unlimited goals, then it is possible to see some elements of total war in the armed conflicts that took place between 1861 and 1871. Changes in weaponry (rifled guns, Gatling machine guns, armored gunboats, and breech-loaders), tactics (trench warfare and the use of railroads), the reorganization of national economies for the war effort under the direction of central governments, the growing importance of propaganda, and universal conscription mark these wars as distinctly modern. Warfare had become industrialized, and the ability of national economies to supply materials to the armies was becoming as important as the outcomes of strategic planning and individual battles.
The other two conferences held thus far were "Anticipating Total War? The United States and Germany, 1871-1914," organized by Manfred F. Boemeke, Roger Chickering, and Stig Förster and convened at Augsburg in 1994, and "How Total Was the Great War? Germany, France, Great Britain, and the United States, 1914-1918," organized by Roger Chickering and Stig Förster and convened at Münchenwiler, Switzerland, in 1996. Planning for the next conference, which will take place in 1999, is already underway. This conference will focus on the interwar period (1918-1939). The series will conclude with a major conference on World War II. The goal of these meetings is not a traditional analysis of military history; rather, the conferences (and their subsequent publications) combine a variety of methodological approaches and perspectives to probe the societal consequences of modern warfare. Although no final consensus on a definition of total war is likely, the series promises new insights into the history of modern societies at war.
Twentieth-Century International Relations and the History of the Cold War
Germany's role in world politics has been a central problem of twentieth-century international relations. Before 1945 the existence of a unified German nation-state - and its policies - was often at odds with a permanent and peaceful European order. During the era of the Cold War the price of a temporary solution to the "German Question" was the division of that country. In 1990 Germany unified peacefully and with the consent of its allies and neighbors. However, fears of a potential German hegemony remain deeply rooted in the collective memory of many Europeans. "National Interest and European Order: Germany's Role in Europe Since the Interwar Period" (published in 1997 as Deutschland und Europa: Nationale Interessen und internationale Ordnung im 20. Jahrhundert), a conference convened at Mannheim in 1995 by Detlef Junker, Gottfried Niedhart, and Michael W. Richter, posed the question "How much and what kind of Germany is good for Europe?" The participants compared the constellations of the interwar period with the era of détente and Ostpolitik during the late 1960s and the first half of the 1970s, as well as with the post-Cold War epoch. What failed after World War I succeeded during the 1970s and can even offer cautionary optimism for the future: The peaceful and voluntary integration of Germany into a (western) European order has been accepted by the vast majority of Germans and by virtually all members of its political elite.
A number of the Institute's conferences have addressed the history of international politics and the major peace conferences of the twentieth century. In 1997 Peter Krüger and Paul W. Schroeder organized a symposium on the subject "The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848: Episode or Model?" which took place at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Based on Schroeder's groundbreaking work on international relations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the participants explored the question of whether a basic and permanent change in European politics, from a competitive system to a concert of powers, took place and whether Schroeder's thesis contributes to an understanding of international affairs in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The efforts of diplomats and statesmen to restore peace after 1918 were the focus of a conference convened at Berkeley, California, in 1994, "Germany and Versailles Seventy-Five Years After" (published in 1998 as The Treaty of Versailles: A Reassessment After 75 Years). Organized by Manfred F. Boemeke, Gerald D. Feldman, and Elisabeth Glaser(-Schmidt), this symposium arrived at a new synthesis of peace-conference scholarship that illuminated the diverging peace aims within the American and Allied camps as well as Germany's role in the immediate post-World War I period. The participants also underscored the degree to which the negotiators themselves considered the Versailles Treaty a work in progress by situating the peace settlement in the larger context of postwar conditions in Europe. Drawing on decades of scholarship and newly available sources, the majority of the presenters tried to revise the negative assessment that the treaty has received and interpret it as the best compromise contemporaries could have reached under the circumstances. Convened at Washington, D.C., in 1989 by Carole Fink, Axel Frohn, and Jürgen Heideking, "Genoa/Rapallo and the Reconstruction of Europe" (published in 1991 as Genoa, Rapallo, and European Reconstruction in 1922) re-examined the main political and economic issues posed by the Genoa conference of 1922. Genoa was one of the largest summit meetings of the twentieth century and became one of the most notable failures in the history of international relations. The conference yielded a unique international perspective on the major economic, ideological, personal, and political rivalries in the world order after 1918. It also presents new findings on the Rapallo Treaty between Germany and Russia, the strategies of the Little Entente and the small neutral powers, as well the policy of the United States toward European debt.
In the 1990s Europeans and Americans have become increasingly aware of the impact of transnational developments. Accordingly, scholars have devoted greater attention to the study of the forces of globalization. Although the nation-state remains the principal actor in world politics, many areas, such as business and the economy, communication and the media, transportation and natural resources, and health care and the environment are beyond the control of individual countries. These developments have revived interest in transnational phenomena in earlier epochs. In 1996 Martin H. Geyer and Johannes Paulmann convened a conference in London on "The Mechanics of Internationalization: Culture, Society, and Politics from the 1840s to World War I." Conferees explored the seemingly contradictory developments of a surging nationalism in an age of increasing global cooperation. In 1996 Carole Fink, Philipp Gassert, and Detlef Junker convened an international conference, "1968: The World Transformed" (published in 1998 as 1968: The World Transformed), to investigate a global perspective on the tumultuous events of the most crucial year of the Cold War. By explaining 1968 as a transnational phenomenon the participants discussed why the crises of that year erupted almost simultaneously throughout the world, not only in Western countries but also in the socialist nations of Eastern Europe and in many third-world societies. Furthermore, the conference represented an effort to integrate international relations, the role of the media, the networks of communication among activists, and the shared opposition to the domestic and international status quo.
Naturally, the history of German-American relations has been of particular interest to the members of the GHI. Several conferences have been devoted to the mutual relationship between the two countries. A conference convened at Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1993 and organized by David E. Barclay and Elisabeth Glaser(-Schmidt), "Mutual Images and Multiple Implications: American Views of Germany and German Views of America from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Centuries" (published in 1997 as Transatlantic Images and Perceptions: Germany and America Since 1776) provided insights into the question of how the willingness to adopt foreign models has been shaped by the ways in which the two countries have perceived each other. The problematic relationship between self-perception and images of the other, the interplay between popular and elite (mis)perceptions, and the dynamic interaction between stereotypical images and changing historical circumstances required participants to engage in a subtle and methodologically demanding analysis.
Most GHI conferences on international phenomena have tried to combine the study of the cultural, diplomatic, economic, military, and social aspects of international relations. The German-American relationship since World War II highlights the multidimensional character of twentieth-century international relations. After the defeat of National Socialism, German-American relations intensified to an unprecedented degree. First as an enemy, then as an occupying power, later as an ally, and finally as the great facilitator of Germany's reunification, the United States has profoundly influenced the postwar history of Central and Western Europe. The division of Germany into two antagonistic states, the confrontation between East and West during the Cold War, and the integration of Germany into NATO all unfolded within the context of gradually warming relations between the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany.
The fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II has received much attention from scholars and the general public. Convened at Berlin in 1995 by Josef Kreiner and Gerhard Krebs, "1945 in Europe and Asia: Reconsidering the End of World War II and the Change of the World Order" (published in 1997 as 1945 in Europe and Asia), was sponsored by the German Institute of Japanese Studies in Tokyo and several German Historical Institutes. This conference undertook the task of examining the early postwar period in a global comparative perspective. At "The Spirit of Heidelberg and the Future of Germany," a conference organized at Heidelberg in 1993 (published in 1996 as Heidelberg 1945) by Jürgen C. Heß, Detlef Junker, Hartmut Lehmann, Volker Sellin, and Eike Wolgast, the participants studied the challenges facing American military government by concentrating on a single community. Local traditions, the bare necessities of life, the different agendas of occupiers and occupied, their mutual suspicion, and their frequently positive interactions gave shape to the outcome of occupation policies within the context of the unfolding Cold War.
The impact of the growing antagonism between the United States and the Soviet Union is one of the leitmotifs of "American Policy Toward Germany, 1949-1955" (published in 1993 as American Policy and the Reconstruction of West Germany, 1945-1955), covened at Marburg in 1989 by Jeffry M. Diefendorf and Hermann-Josef Rupieper. The participants examined a wide range of issues concerning U.S. policy toward Germany after 1945, including constitutional problems; political and economic democratization; higher education; urban reconstruction; questions of industry, demilitarization, and re-armament; treatment of war criminals; problems of German and European security; and the integration of the Federal Republic into the Western alliance. Drawing on hitherto untapped source materials, the presenters explored the continuities between the occupation period and semi-sovereign West Germany after the foundation of the Federal Republic in 1949. The Basic Law of the Federal Republic is a case in point. It has been shaped by the close cooperation between a new group of West German political leaders and the American military government. Despite initial resistance, the success of West Germany's constitution is testimony to the Westernization of the Federal Republic. At "A Framework for Democracy: Forty Years of Experience with the Grundgesetz of the Federal Republic of Germany," organized by Thomas Childers and Peter Krüger and held at Philadelphia in 1989 (published in 1995 as Occasional Paper no. 13, titled Cornerstone of Democracy: The West German Grundgesetz, 1949-1989), the origins, meaning, and impact of the Basic Law were analyzed.
Diverse Topics in German and American History
In addition to the conferences already listed, the GHI also has organized nearly a score of conferences related to other important aspects of the past. Sometimes linked to the specific research interests of historians working at the GHI and sometimes the result of proposals made by scholars outside the Institute, these conferences have investigated problems in medieval history, the history of the Reformation, social history, the history of political movements, political and constitutional history, and issues of historiography and social theory.
The demise of medieval Germany as a subject of American historical studies, as described by Patrick J. Geary in his 1995 Annual Lecture, led to the GHI's resolve to intensify the cooperation between American and German medievalists. Accordingly, several conferences have dealt with the history of the Middle Ages. The first such meeting, held at UCLA in 1991, "In and Out of the Ghetto: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany" (published in 1995 as In and Out of the Ghetto: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany), convened by John Brewer, R. Pochia Hsia, and Hartmut Lehmann, examined the role of economics, language, politics, religion, and social organization in the relationships between Jews and Gentiles before 1800. Another conference, organized by John Van Engen, Johannes Fried, and Robert Benson and held at the University of Notre Dame in 1993, focused on "German Medieval History in Comparative Perspective." Topics included medieval historiography in the twentieth century, problems of empire and kingdom, social relations, and culture, intellect, and religion in the Germanies. Two additional conferences furthered this ongoing effort: "Imagination, Ritual, Memory, Historiography: Conceptions of the Past in the Middle Ages," organized by Gerd Althoff, Johannes Fried, and Patrick J. Geary and convened at Heidelberg in 1996, and "Universities in Medieval Societies," organized by William J. Courtenay and Jürgen Miethke and convened at Washington, D.C., in 1997.
A focus on Reformation history was pursued in "The Reformation in Germany and Europe: Interpretations and Issues," a conference that reflected one of the major interests of the founding director, Hartmut Lehmann, who organized this event in 1990 in Washington, D.C., in cooperation with Scott Hendrix and Heinz Schilling. The results of this conference were published as a special issue of the journal Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte (1993).
Social history has been the methodological focus of several GHI conferences. In 1992 Norbert Finzsch and Robert Jütte organized "The Prerogative of Confinement: Social, Cultural, Political, and Administrative Aspects of the History of Hospitals and Carceral and Penal Institutions in Western Europe and North America, 1500-1900" (published in 1996 as Institutions of Confinement: Hospitals, Asylums, and Prisons in Western Europe and North America, 1500-1950), which took place in Washington, D.C. This conference assessed the impact of theoretical assumptions put forth by Foucault and Elias on the study of crime, deviance, hospitals, and poor relief. The next year Manfred Berg, Michael H. Kater, and Hartmut Lehmann convened "Medicine in Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century Germany: Ethics, Politics, and Law" (published in 1997 as Medicine and Modernity: Public Health and Medical Care in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Germany) at Washington, D.C. The central theme was the professionalization of modern medicine and the medicalization of German society from the early nineteenth century to the Nazi era and beyond.
In 1994 Robert Jütte and Guenter B. Risse organized "Culture, Knowledge, and Healing: Historical Perspectives of Homeopathic Medicine in Europe and North America" (published in 1998 as Culture, Knowledge, and Healing: Historical Perspectives on Homeopathic Medicine in Europe and North America), which took place in San Francisco, and Ira Berlin, Spencer R. Crew, James O. Horton, Hartmut Keil, and Elizabeth A. White organized "Race and Ethnicity: Relations Between African Americans and Ethnic Groups in American Society" at Washington, D.C. Convened by Matthias Judt, Charles McGovern, and Susan Strasser at Washington, D.C., in 1995, "The Development of Twentieth-Century Consumer Society" (published in 1998 as Getting and Spending: European and American Consumer Societies in the Twentieth Century) included such themes as consumption and democracy, the development of a global economy, the role of the state, the centrality of consumption to Cold War politics, the language of consumption, and the environmental consequences of the twentieth-century consumer society.
The history of political movements was analyzed in other GHI conferences, including "Chosen People: Themes in Western Nationalist Movements, 1880-1920" (published in 1994 as Many Are Chosen: Divine Election and Western Nationalism), organized in 1991 by William R. Hutchinson and Hartmut Lehmann and held at Washington, D.C. Convened at Washington, D.C., in 1994 by Norbert Finzsch and Dietmar Schirmer, "Xenophobia, Racism, Nativism, and National Identity in Germany and the United States: A Comparative Perspective on the Conditions of Intolerance" (published in 1998 as Identity and Intolerance: Nationalism, Racism, and Xenophobia in Germany and the United States) compared how German and American societies have historically confronted and currently confront matters of national, racial, and ethnic inclusion and exclusion. Organized by Peter Becker, Jürgen Heideking, James A. Henretta, and John Kaminski and convened at Madison, Wisconsin, in 1996, "Republicanism and Liberalism in America and the German States, 1750-1850," looked into the applicability of the concept of republicanism to the American and German contexts and how we could arrive at a clearer understanding of the meaning of liberalism in both political traditions.
Several GHI conferences have dealt with political history as well, for example, "Elections, Mass Politics, and Social Change in Germany, 1890-1933: New Perspectives" (published in 1992 as Elections, Mass Politics, and Social Change in Modern Germany: New Perspectives), organized by Larry E. Jones and James Retallack and convened at Toronto in 1990. Here, the participants abandoned the narrow conception of the history of elections in favor of a broader inquiry into the roots of German political loyalties and their relationship to the historic cleavages of class, gender, generation, language, locality, and religion.
Issues of historiography and social theory were discussed at a handful of GHI conferences (and workshops). Organized by Hartmut Lehmann and Guenther Roth and convened at Washington, D.C., in 1990, "Max Weber's 'The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism' Reconsidered" (published in 1993 as Weber's Protestant Ethic: Origins, Evidence, Contexts) illuminated theological, philosophical, political, and biographical aspects of Weber's thought that previously have been little understood and possibly unknown. It also summarized present knowledge of the elusive historical evidence and methodological complexities involved in assessing the viability of such a comprehensive theory. Finally, "Remapping the German Past: Grand Narrative, Causality, and Postmodernism," organized by Eckhardt Fuchs and Detlef Junker and convened at Washington, D.C., in 1997, examined traditional and postmodern approaches in the current historiography of the Kaiserreich, the Weimar Republic, and the Federal Republic.
In addition to the many papers that were presented at GHI workshops and conferences in Washington, D.C., in its first ten years the Institute has offered approximately 150 public lectures. The speakers have come from over 100 different universities or academic institutions, and their topics have ranged from "Ritual Gesture in Early Modern Bureaucratic Prose" to "The Future of American History," from "Religious and Ethnic Minorities in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century German Society" to "Sex Reform and Social Medicine," and from "What Can Chancellor Kohl Learn from Bismarck?" to the "Legacy of German Colonialism in Namibia"-the latter being presented by a speaker from Amnesty International.
The different lectures are organized into three main categories: the Annual Lecture series, the Alois Mertes Memorial Lecture series, and the spring and fall lecture series. The Annual Lecture series was initiated in 1987, and two historians, Bernard Bailyn of Harvard University and Heinrich August Winkler of the University of Freiburg, presented programmatic lectures in fields that were to become central to the future work of the GHI: the Germans' role in the peopling of America and the causes and historical consequences of the Nazi era. Since then the Institute has invited lecturers primarily from Germany and the United States who have covered a wide range of topics and time periods (e.g., "The German Middle Ages in America" and "Constitutional Democracy in Central Europe Today").
Nineteen ninety-one saw the establishment of a second yearly lecture series, the Alois Mertes Memorial Lecture, supported by a generous grant from the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft. This series commemorates the life and work of German diplomat, politician, and statesman Alois Mertes (1921-85). From the 1960s to the 1980s Mertes was one of the most influential foreign-policy experts in the ranks of the CDU. He combined an interest in foreign policy and security issues with firm ethical convictions. The purpose of this series is to reward younger scholars working in one of the areas to which Alois Mertes devoted his life in public service.
Each spring and fall the GHI organizes a series of lectures held at the Institute. These lectures, six in each series, offer a rich variety of themes. They engender lively discussions between speakers and audience. The structures of both series are either open or thematic. Recent thematic series include "Two Different Paths to Modernity: Comparative Aspects of German and American History, 1865-1914," "The German Welfare State in International Perspective," and "Military and Militarism in German Society."
The support of graduate students and younger scholars has always been one of the GHI's most important endeavors. Over the years the Institute, often in cooperation with other academic institutions and foundations, has introduced a variety of programs designed to accomplish this mission. As a result, more than two hundred students have benefited from GHI programs. There are six programs currently underway:
Volkswagen Foundation Postdoctoral Fellows Program
From 1991 through 1997 the GHI was able to offer eighteen postdoctoral fellowships in German postwar history. The program was funded by a grant from the Volkswagen Foundation in conjunction with the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in Washington, D.C. Fellowships were awarded to promising young scholars in history and political science for research in German history and German-American relations after World War II. The funding grant for the program expired in 1997. However, it will be renewed in 1998 as a four-year joint venture of the GHI, the German-American Academic Council (GAAC), and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The work of the scholars selected for the program must center on German and American history since 1945, with special emphasis on globalization. Half of the scholars will come from Germany, the other half from the United States.
Dissertation Scholarships
Each year the GHI awards between ten and fifteen dissertation scholarships to German and American graduate students. One hundred and ten doctoral students have received grants during the Institute's first ten years. The scholarships, the funding for which lasts from two to six months, are designed to enable these students to conduct research at American archives. Individual dissertation topics vary widely, as shown by the list of recipients and research projects found on Page 125 of this report, but all deal with aspects of German history, German-American relations, or American history. Given the specific nature of German-American relations and the particular historical resources available in the Washington metropolitan area, a significant proportion of the projects have examined international relations in the period after World War II. The doctoral students present their research projects to the Institute's research fellows when they complete their research.
Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar
Since 1995 the GHI, in cooperation with the Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University, has organized an annual seminar for German and American graduate students. The seminar's funding is provided by the GAAC in Bonn, the GHI, Georgetown University, and the Conference Group for Central European History. Students' costs for attending the seminar are covered by these organizations. The projects represented at each seminar share a common time period, such as the nineteenth century or the post-World War II era.
The goals of the seminar extend beyond the support of promising students. It is designed to foster the transatlantic exchange of ideas, research modes, conceptual questions, and styles of argument at an early stage in the careers of academic historians. By establishing contacts and providing a forum for a sustained dialogue, the seminar aims to create a community of scholars who continue to cooperate.
The German-American Research Networking Program (GARN)
This program, also funded by the GAAC, is aimed at former participants of the Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar and is intended to deepen and strengthen the contacts established there. All costs to the participants are covered by the GAAC's funding. The work of this program has resulted in presentations given at the annual meetings of the American Historical Association and the German Studies Association.
Summer Program
From 1990 through 1995 the GHI organized a series of summer programs for American and German graduate students. Funding for the Summer Program was provided by a grant from the Volkswagen Foundation, and most costs to the participants are covered by it. Its purpose was twofold: First, to introduce graduate students to German handwriting styles of the early modern period through the late nineteenth century, and second, to expose them to different types of German archives and their practices. The program also exposed students to current trends in German history and encouraged the exchange of ideas between American and German scholars. The various tours took graduate students to the major research centers in Germany and Austria. The program will be renewed in 1999 in cooperation with the German Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The GHI has disseminated its work through a variety of publications: an English-language book series, titled "Publications of the German Historical Institute" (published in cooperation with Cambridge University Press); a German-language book series, titled "Transatlantische Historische Studien" (published in cooperation with Franz Steiner Verlag); a series of in-house reference guides; the Occasional Papers series; and the semiannual Bulletin of the German Historical Institute. Through these publications the GHI addresses different audiences and acts as an important mediator between the historical professions in Germany and America.
The GHI also has taken up the task of documenting German-American relations between 1945 and 1990 in a two-volume, bilingual publication. Begun in 1995 and directed by Detlef Junker, the project is titled "The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1945-1990" and is funded by a grant from the Federal Ministry of Economics. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War provided the occasion to undertake a scholarly assessment of German-American relations during an exceptional period in their mutual relationship. The topic is being analyzed along five dimensions: politics, security, economics, culture, and society. One hundred fifty scholars from Europe and North America have contributed to this synthesis, which is complemented by other GHI activities. The completed book project will present the most complete overview that has appeared to date of a unique chapter in international relations.
In addition to the research projects listed in this report, the GHI also provides an increasing number of services. Its library, which currently boasts holdings of over 22,000 volumes and over 200 periodicals, is visited by a growing number of readers and is faced with an increasing number of requests for information. These requests range from problems concerning archival research to evaluations of the projects of other institutions and scholars, to people asking for help in locating their German ancestors. The Institute's role as a clearinghouse for historical information consumes a significant proportion of the efforts of the librarians, research fellows, and administration.
Most recently, the Institute's commitment to transatlantic scholarly cooperation has been strengthened by the creation of the German-American Center for Visiting Scholars, located on the fourth floor of the GHI's building in Washington. Co-founded by the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, the German-American Academic Council Foundation, and the GHI, the Center provides scholars working in the humanities and social sciences with office space and technical support. Each year a selection committee composed of members of these organizations invites ten to fifteen visiting scholars to conduct research at the Center. Preparations for the Center were completed in 1997, and the Center was dedicated in February 1998.
The GHI has benefited greatly from the help and cooperation of many institutions. The German Federal Ministry of Education, Science, Research, and Technology (formerly the Federal Ministry of Research and Technology) has provided funding for the operation of the Institute. In particular, the Institute would like to thank Ministerialdirektor a.D. Dr. Josef Rembser, Ministerialdirigent a.D. Volker Knoerich, Ministerialrat Dr. Bernhard Döll, Regierungsdirektor Dr. Manfred Pusch, Oberamtsrat Karl-Friedrich Wiesmath, and Frau Oberamtsrätin Martina Hermanns who have continually and knowledgeably supported its work. Special thanks are owed to Ministerialdirektor Michael Mertes in the Office of the Chancellor, as well as to the Coordinator for German-American Social, Cultural, and Information-Exchange Policy at the German Foreign Office, Prof. Werner Weidenfeld. Other organizations also have generously supported the GHI. These include the German Federal Ministry of Economics, the German-American Academic Council Foundation, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), the Stifterverband für die deutsche Wissenschaft, the Volkswagen Foundation, the Robert Bosch Foundation, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the Goethe House in New York, the Goethe Institut in Washington, D.C., the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. The exchange of information and ideas with the German Embassy in Washington, D.C., also has been very fruitful.
In addition, the Institute would like to express its gratitude for the support and encouragement of the Friends of the German Historical Institute, a group founded in 1991. The Friends has played an important role in the development and expansion of the GHI, especially in promoting contacts between the GHI and American historians of Germany. However, it does not represent individual historians but rather four organizations that are key to the Institute's continued success: the American Historical Association, the Conference Group for Central European History, the German Studies Association, and the Society for German-American Studies.
The GHI also would like to express its gratitude to the American institutions with which it has cooperated over the past decade. These include the National Archives, the European Division of the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Smithsonian Institution, the German Marshall Fund, the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, Georgetown University's Center for German and European Studies, and the many universities and other academic institutions that have helped to plan and organize our international conferences.
Last but not least, the Institute is indebted to the members of the board of trustees and the academic advisory council, who have played a vital role in the structural and personnel decisions that have shaped the GHI. Thanks to the aforementioned organizations, the GHI has been able to achieve its ambitious goals. We are confident that the Institute will continue its successful transatlantic work and live up to its mission for the next ten years - and beyond.
Detlef Junker Director
November 1998, Washington, D.C.