The Institute's Spring 2000 program presented a wide range of activities that brought scholars and honored guests from Europe and North America to Washington. The highlights included:
Freya von Moltke's recollections of the resistance to the Nazi regime - as embodied in her husband Helmuth James Graf von Moltke and the Kreisauer Circle - formed the centerpiece of a workshop on "Witnessing the Third Reich." "We are not victims," von Moltke said at the event, "we were working for a better Germany."
Jane Kramer of The New Yorker, the keynote speaker of a conference on Berlin and Washington, offered her observations on and critical insights into the political, architectural, and social history of these two capital cities.
The new Friends Lecture was delivered by Hans Mommsen. Titled "The Dissolution of the Third Reich," Mommsen presented a careful analysis of the last years of World War II. He argued that the end of the war witnessed the growing ideological and social mobilization of Germany through the Nazi Party, which resulted in the war's prolongation. Doris L. Bergen provided a commentary. The full texts of Mommsen's and Bergen's presentations are featured in this issue of the Bulletin.
We are pleased to note that the conversation with von Moltke, Kramer's keynote speech, and Mommsen's lecture each attracted an unprecedented audience of over 150 people.
This issue also features Jay Winter's talk on "The Generation of Memory: Reflections on the 'Memory Boom' in Contemporary Historical Studies" - the final lecture of the Spring Lecture Series - and Peter Drewek's workshop presentation on the "Limits of Educational Internationalism: Foreign Students at German Universities between 1890 and 1930." Roger Chickering commented on the latter.
"GHI Research" showcases our visiting scholars. Supported by such sponsoring organizations as the German-American Academic Council (GAAC) and the German Research Foundation (DFG), they play an increasingly important role in the intellectual life of the GHI. All three scholars are engaged in comparative research: Waltraud Schelkle, an economics professor at the Free University of Berlin, and Christine von Oertzen, a historian from the Technical University of Berlin, are collaborating with American partners funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Schelkle is studying the European Union's evolution into a social federation that safeguards welfare traditions of the member states yet meets the common challenges of market integration; von Oertzen is researching the exodus of German-speaking women scientists and the refugee aid program of the American Association of University Women during World War II. Johannes Dillinger is comparing grassroots democracy in Germany and America in the early modern period.
In addition, the Institute is expanding its programs and awards for younger German and American scholars. The first two Fritz Stern Dissertation Prizes will be awarded at the annual Friends' symposium in November, when the prizewinners introduce their work. Funding for the awards has been made possible through a generous grant from the German Marshall Fund of the United States as well as through individual donations.
Next spring the GHI will organize the first Young Scholars Forum, to be held at the Institute. The forum will assemble American doctoral candidates and recent Ph.D.s working in the fields of German, German-American, or comparative history.
These new programs complement existing ones, such as the dissertation and habilitation grants, the collaborative postdoc program, the Summer Seminar in Paleography and Archival Studies, and the Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar in German History, all of which strengthen our effort to support the next generation of scholars.
Finally, the Institute is proud to announce that it has recently expanded its cooperation with the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS). As of August, most of the AICGS library, nearly 6,000 volumes in total, is now housed at the GHI Library, where it will remain a separate collection. We are very grateful to Jackson Janes, AICGS executive director, for the enrichment of the GHI Library, especially in the areas of postwar German and European history. The AICGS Collection promises to be of great value to our regular readers, to visiting researchers, and to the scholars and students working at the AICGS.
Christof Mauch