Phone: (205) 848-3512
Fax: (205) 848-7323
Contact: Ms. Jerry G. Burgess, Director/Curator
Business Hours: 8:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m., Mon.-Fri.;
closed government holidays
Holdings:
The Women's Army Corps Museum, which is co-located with the Women's Army Corps Foundation, has a collection of about 250 oral history interviews on videotape. Some of these tapes are commercial, and some are group interviews.
The museum has both a finding aid and a master index to the collection. In addition, a more thorough indexing system is being prepared.
A few of the interviews are indexed with Germany as a subject entry. Topics include war crimes and military service in Germany. The museum also has about thirty-five interviews dealing with women's military service during World War II and immediately after.
Phone: (415) 723-3563
Fax: (415) 725-3445
E-Mail Address: danielson@hoover.stanford.edu
Contact: Elena S. Danielson, Associate Archivist
Business Hours: 8:15 a.m.-4:45 p.m., Mon.-Fri.
Holdings:
The Archives and Library of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University serve to "document the political, social, and economic changes that have shaped our world in the twentieth century." Major focus areas of the institution's collections include the development of democratic institutions, international affairs, peace negotiations and movements, political ideologies (including Nazism and fascism), political upheaval, changes in the status of women, state-sponsored propaganda, underground resistance movements, military history, and wartime dislocation and relief.
The archives holds over forty million documents in four thousand archival and special collections. Descriptions of the collections can be found in the card catalogue, in the Guide to the Hoover Institution Archives by Charles G. Palm and Dale Reed (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1980), and on RLIN. Detailed finding aids are also available for use or purchase.
Of special interest is the A. James McAdams GDR Oral History Project. This archive, begun in 1990 and opened to researchers in 1994, is a collection of over eighty oral histories of leading politicians and policy makers from the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). The principal investigator for the project was A. James McAdams of the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
The purpose of the GDR project was to preserve some of the driving motivations of the individuals who once dominated the GDR's political culture. The project selected interviewees in four categories: well-known representatives of the Socialist Unity Party, members of the party and state apparatus, policy-making intellectuals, and former dissidents who became politicians.
All interviewers used a core set of questions to allow analysis and comparison among the various interviewees. The interview topics included family history and social class, the path taken to political engagement, views on the German national question, perceptions of the outside world, and personal experience with policy making in the GDR.
The Hoover Institution has begun a similar oral history project with members of the former Soviet political elite.
The Hoover Institution has prepared both a nine-page narrative description of the GDR Oral History Project and a preliminary listing of the interviews that had been conducted by October 1995. The list includes the names of the interviewee and interviewer, the date of the interview, the number of cassette tapes used, the language used during the interview (most are in English), and copyright notices. There are plans to transcribe all interviews.
Researchers should contact the Hoover Institution staff for the current status of the collection. Staff are willing to assist researchers in person or by phone or mail. In addition, the archives maintains a list of research assistants who can be hired to undertake research projects for those unable to visit the archives.
University of California - Berkeley
Regional Oral History Office
Bancroft Library, Room 486
Berkeley, CA 94720
Phone: (510) 642-7395
Fax: (510) 642-7589
E-Mail Address: sriess@library.berkeley.edu
Contact: Suzanne Riess, Senior Editor
Business Hours: 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Mon.-Fri.
Holdings:
The Regional Oral History Office at the University of California at Berkeley has a large and growing collection of oral history interviews. The collection is organized into various series, and, while none is exclusively devoted to Germany or German-related topics, relevant individual interviews do exist.
The Regional Oral History Office has published a detailed catalogue, indexed by name and subject, which lists many of its interviews. The office also issues "press releases" on other completed interviews. Entries in the catalogue contain the name of the narrator, dates of birth and death, and a one-paragraph abstract of the interview's subject matter. The entries also provide the title of the interview, its date and length, and the names of the interviewer and author of the introduction, if applicable. If appendices were added to the transcript, these are noted as well.
Catalogue entry number 89 is the 316-page interview with attorney Herman Phleger from 1977, Sixty Years in Law, Public Service and International Affairs. The abstract reveals that Phleger was, among other things, associate director of the Legal Division, U.S. Military Government, Germany. This interview is listed under the heading "Business and Labor."
A 252-page interview with James Boyd is part of the Western Mining in the Twentieth-Century Oral History Series. Boyd served as a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers colonel and deputy to General Lucius D. Clay. The press release mentions that the interview includes reminiscences of Boyd's personal experiences with Generals Clay, Eisenhower, and Patton.
Transcripts at the Regional Oral History Office include indexes and tables of contents, which will help in locating relevant topics. Also, at least some of the interview transcripts are available for purchase. Researchers are encouraged to consult with the staff at the Regional Oral History Office or consult the library's web pages.
University of California - Santa Barbara
Department of Special Collections
Donald C. Davidson Library
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Phone: (805) 893-8215
Fax: (805) 893-4676
E-Mail Address: drussell@library.ucsb.edu
Contact: David E. Russell, Director,
UCSB Oral History Program
Business Hours: 9:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m., Mon.-Thurs.
Holdings:
The Donald C. Davidson Library at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the repository of the George J. Wittenstein Collection. Born in Germany, Wittenstein emigrated to California after World War II and became a pioneer in the field of heart surgery.
Among the photographs, diaries, papers, poetry, correspondence, and documents in the collection is an extensive oral history interview with Wittenstein conducted by David E. Russell. The interview, comprised of ninety-six hours of tape, has been transcribed and is available in the library.
The university has also published a two-volume edited version of the interview: George J. Wittenstein, M.D.-A Life, George J. Wittenstein with David E. Russell (Santa Barbara: UCSB Library Oral History Program, 1995). This manuscript is also open to the public at the library.
According to a review provided by the university, the first volume, Zivilcourage, is "a first-hand account of the economic, political, and social forces that shaped German youth in the years leading up to the war." Wittenstein relates his early childhood, schooling, military tours of duty in Russia and Italy during World War II, membership in the White Rose and interrogation by the Gestapo, lecture tour of English universities, and decision to move to the United States.
The second volume, Medical Career, deals with Wittenstein's life in America, including Harvard Medical School and his pioneering career at UCLA and Olive View Medical Center. His contributions to the world, along with those of German artists, writers, and scientists who came to the United States, "helped transform American attitudes toward Germany" and "stand as an important reminder for Americans that there were German citizens who opposed Hitler and died in the pursuit of liberty."
Phone: (860) 486-4578
Fax: (860) 486-4582
E-Mail Address: stave@uconnvm.uconn.edu
Contact: Bruce M. Stave, Director
Business Hours: 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m.,
Mon.; 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m., Tues-Fri.
Holdings:
The Center for Oral History at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center of the University of Connecticut is creating the oral history collection, "Witnesses to Nuremberg: An Oral History of the War Crime Trials." As of December 1, 1996, the center had interviewed almost thirty people. Interviews were in various stages of transcription and completion.
In October 1995, the Center for Oral History published a "Preliminary Catalogue of Interviews," compiled by Leslie Frank, for the Nuremberg project. The catalogue provides a brief description of the project and its purposes, as well as information on seventeen interviews. Each entry includes the narrator's name, birth date and place, occupation, and role in the trials, as well as the number of tapes and pages of each interview and the name of the interviewer. In addition, each entry is supplemented with a short synopsis of the interview using some of the narrator's own words. Since the catalogue was printed, an additional ten interviews have been conducted.
The individuals interviewed for the project were present at the Nuremberg trials as attorneys, interrogators, interpreters, guards, journalists, or in other roles. The interviews, however, are not limited to the trials themselves. On the contrary, the project is attempting to "reconstruct the atmosphere, setting, and community of Nuremberg during the period 1945-1949." Therefore, interviewees are relating their life stories and touching on related topics such as the liberated concentration camps, living conditions during the trials, relations between Western and Soviet participants, and reactions of Americans to the trial and its participants as they returned home.
As interview processing is completed, both transcripts and tapes are available for researchers to use. Contact the Center for Oral History for information on the number and status of interviews and the availability of a revised catalogue. Or consult the center's web pages.
Yale University
Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
Sterling Memorial Library, Room 331C
120 High Street
P.O. Box 208240
New Haven, CT 06520-8240
Phone: (203) 432-1879
E-Mail Address: cburns@minerva.cis.yale.edu
Contact: L. Christopher Burns, Manager
Business Hours: 8:30 a.m.-4:45 p.m., Mon.-Fri.
Holdings:
The Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University holds over thirty-six hundred videotaped oral history interviews with Holocaust survivors and witnesses. The project, started in 1979, is continuing.
The Guide to Yale University Library Holocaust Video Testimonies, 2d ed. (New York: Garland Publishing, 1994) lists summaries of 567 of these interviews, including lengths, locations, and names of interviewers. The guide also includes an index, organized by geographic and subject headings, historic names, and last names of interviewees.
Videotapes average two hours in length. Some interviews have been compiled into about nineteen edited programs, which are available for loan to schools and community groups.
The testimonies are being catalogued, summarized, and cross-referenced with the aid of RLIN. Interviews are indexed by subject and geographic location, and time-coded abstracts are available for all cataloged videotapes.
The archive is open to all qualified scholars. Visitors must complete a registration form describing their research and obtain a pass from the Sterling Memorial Library Privileges Office. The library requires authorization to publish or quote excerpts from the videotaped testimonies.
Phone: (302) 831-2229
Fax: (302) 831-1046
E-Mail Address: lrjm@udel.edu
Contact: Rebecca Johnson Melvin, Associate Librarian, Special Collections
Business Hours: 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Mon.-Fri.;
9:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m., Tues.
Holdings:
The Special Collections department at the University of Delaware Library holds two oral history collections of interest to scholars of German-related topics.
The Delaware Oral Histories Collection includes interviews conducted in the early 1970s with residents of Wilmington, Delaware. Thirteen of the interviews are with German immigrants. All but one have been transcribed, and limited photocopying is permitted.
The Holocaust Testimonies Project of the Halina Wind Preston Holocaust Education Committee of the Jewish Federation of Delaware has twenty-four oral history interviews recorded on videotape; the collection is occasionally supplemented. Two tapes are presently restricted pending release by the interviewee. A finding aid is available. None of these tapes has been transcribed, but summaries of the interview content accompany most of the tapes.
Equipment for using sound and video recordings is available in the university's media department. The donor agreement for the Holocaust Testimonies Project stipulates that videotapes must be viewed in the University of Delaware Library.
The library also has papers of George S. Messersmith, U.S. Consul General in Berlin (1930-1934) and Minister to Austria (1934-1937).
Phone: (202) 687-7631
Fax: (202) 687-7501
E-Mail Address: reynoldj@gunet.georgetown.edu
Contact: Jon K. Reynolds, Archivist
Business Hours: 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Mon.-Fri.
Holdings:
The Special Collections Division of Lauinger Library at Georgetown University holds a substantial number of oral history interviews within several collections.
Of primary interest is the Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST). The collection is a compilation of oral histories conducted by the association, as well as the Foreign Service Family Project, the Women Ambassadors Project, the USIA Alumni Association Project, the Senior Officers Project, the Labor Attachés Project, and others.
The collection includes over 750 career interviews with retired American diplomatic officials, many of whom served in Germany. The interviews cover diplomatic events from the 1920s to the present that occurred in Washington and over two hundred foreign posts. German-related topics include Radio in the American Sector (RIAS), Amerika Häuser, Kreis Resident Offices, embassies, and consulates. The collection continues to expand.
Most interviews have been transcribed and are available for use by researchers, although some have restrictions. Interviews contain tables of contents as well. Most tapes are also available for auditing. In addition, about 550 of the interviews are stored electronically and are accessible in the library. The database is searchable by keyword (e.g., Germany), and interviews can be read or printed.
The ADST has compiled a series of readers (including one for Germany) that are collections of interview excerpts dealing with a particular geographic area. The "Germany Reader," already quite large, is supplemented as the association processes more interviews. In addition to the readers and the electronic search capability, the library has a printed guide to its special collections.
In addition to the collection mentioned above, the Foreign Service Spouses oral history project is held by the library and will be processed as time permits. These interviews provided source material for a book by Jewell Fenzi and Carl L. Nelson, Married to the Foreign Service: An Oral History of the American Diplomatic Spouse (New York: Twayne, 1994).
The library and the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training are planning to issue approximately 760 interviews on CD-ROM. The projected publication date is June 1997. Contact the Special Collections Division at Lauinger Library or ADST for information.
Library of Congress
Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division
Washington, DC 20540-4690
Phone: (202) 707-7833
Fax: (202) 707-8464
Contact: Edwin M. Matthias, Reference Librarian
Business Hours: 8:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Mon.-Fri.
Holdings:
While the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division of the Library of Congress does not hold any discrete oral history collections on Germany or German-American relations, its other collections may include relevant interviews.
Holdings of possible interest include news and public information shows that feature interviews with the ambassador to West Germany and General Lucius D. Clay during the Berlin airlift. The division also has a series of postwar United Nations interviews with German war criminals. Films and videos include a nearly complete series of "Deutschlandspiegel" as well as newsreels and other interview shows.
Because the division does not have a general index to its collections, contact with the staff is encouraged to locate material. Equipment for listening to or viewing the division's holdings is available for researcher use. Researchers intending to use the materials must be working on a specific project leading to a work available to the public.
Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of American History
12th Street and Constitution Avenue, C340
Washington, DC 20560
Phone: (202) 357-3270
Fax: (202) 786-2453
E-Mail Address: minnick@nmah.si.edu
Contact: Mimi Minnick, Archivist
Business Hours: 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Mon.-Fri.,
except 12:00-5:00 p.m., Wed.
Holdings:
The Center for Advertising History at the National Museum of American History has an extensive collection on the history of Philip Morris and Marlboro cigarettes. The Marlboro Oral History and Documentation Project includes sixty oral history interviews and related materials that document Marlboro cigarette advertising, primarily from 1954 to 1986.
The finding aid for the collection lists interviews with four West German executives of Philip Morris GmbH, all conducted in Munich in October 1986. Two are listed as having a running time of thirty minutes each, one of ninety minutes, and the fourth of 150 minutes.
The collection consists of taped interviews and interviewee files, which include an abstract of each interview, supporting information, and a time track that corresponds to the taped interview. The abstracts include an index to proper names and to a limited number of subjects discussed in the interview. A master index compiles all the indexes from the abstracts.
There are no restrictions on the interviews, and the museum provides equipment for researchers to listen to the tapes. Other series in the collection contain related material, such as audio-visual materials and company publications.
U.S. Army Center of Military History
Historical Resources Branch
1099 14th Street, NW
Franklin Court Building
Washington, DC 20005-3402
Phone: (202) 761-5416
Fax: (202) 761-5386
Contact: Robert Wright, Historical Resources Branch
Business Hours: 7:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Mon.-Fri.
Holdings:
The Historical Resources Branch at the U.S. Army Center of Military History holds copies of oral history interviews located at the U.S. Army Military History Institute along with supporting materials.
In addition, the branch also holds "Annual Historical Reports" of various U.S. Army commands, which may include interviews, and a complete set of biographical information on army general officers since 1940. A computerized listing of holdings is available.
Non-U.S. citizens must coordinate their visit with the Center of Military History and receive prior approval.
U.S. Army Center of Military History
Oral History Program
1099 14th Street, NW
Franklin Court Building
Washington, DC 20005-3402
Phone: (202) 761-5428
Fax: (202) 761-5386
Contact: Richard Hunt
Business Hours: 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m., Mon.-Fri.
Holdings:
The Oral History Program at the U.S. Army Center of Military History conducts an ongoing series of end-of-tour interviews with U.S. Army staff, including interviewees who served in Germany. The office also holds copies of interviews conducted for some of the army's major commands.
Finding aids are available for some segments of the large collection of oral history interviews. Most transcripts may be photocopied for a fee; payment is by check only.
Non-U.S. citizens must coordinate their visit with the Center of Military History and receive prior approval.
U.S. Department of Defense
On-Site Inspection Agency
201 W. Service Road, P.O. Box 17498
Dulles International Airport
Washington, DC 20041-0498
Phone: (703) 810-4433
Fax: (703) 810-4389
Contact: Joseph P. Harahan, Senior Historian
Business Hours: By appointment
Holdings:
The On-Site Inspection Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense is conducting oral history interviews on the planning, preparation, and implementation of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty of 1990.
The treaty mandated major reductions in five categories of conventional military armaments; the immediate, comprehensive exchange of force data; scheduled reductions; and hundreds of on-site inspections to monitor compliance with the treaty. New verification agencies were established throughout Europe to verify the treaty data.
Five interviews with German officers have been completed, with plans to conduct more. Interviewees from 1994 include Brigadegeneral Dr. Heinz Loquai, Col. Jörn Steinberg, Oberstleutnant Roland Keitel, and Oberstleutnant Bernd Mecke.
In addition, the collection is expanding to cover the post-reduction phases of the CFE Treaty and other arms control agreements, such as the Dayton Accords on Bosnia-Herzegovina.
For more information, see Joseph P. Harahan and John C. Kuhn, On-Site Inspections Under the CFE Treaty (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1996).
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
Washington, DC 20024-2150
Phone: (202) 479-9711
Fax: (202) 479-9726
E-Mail Address: troxlau@ushmm.org
Contact: Travis A. Roxlau, Archivist
Business Hours: 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Mon.-Fri.;
Sat. and Sun. by appointment
Holdings:
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has a vast collection of oral history interviews. As of December 1, 1996, the museum's archive held 4,500 interviews. Interviewees include Holocaust survivors (Jews, Polish Catholics, "gypsies," political prisoners, homosexuals, and Jehovah's Witnesses), as well as camp liberators and rescuers, witnesses, bystanders, resistance fighters, perpetrators, and prosecutors.
Most interviews are in English, but the archive also holds more than 120 interviews conducted in Hebrew with Jewish survivors who emigrated to Israel.
Approximately four hundred of the interviews were produced by the museum. The remainder of the holdings were acquired through exchanges and agreements with various Holocaust centers and individual donors. In addition, the oral history collection is expanding rapidly through collections agreements with institutions in the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, South America, and Australia.
Interviews are available as transcripts, audio- and/or videotapes, and in electronic form. The museum has a name-only list of the interviewees and plans to create a more comprehensive index. Some interviews include an index or table of contents.
The Holocaust Memorial Museum also maintains an extensive and informative home page on the World Wide Web. In addition to providing general information on the museum and its programs, the home page provides useful information about the Oral History Department and Archive. A search for the keywords "oral history" in the museum's "Archives Holding Catalog" and "Library Holdings" provides a substantial list of the museum's oral history holdings. Most of the entries in this list refer to individual interviews, with the interviewee's name, date of the interview, interview format (audio, video, and/or transcript), and record group number. Each entry is also linked to a more substantive record that provides full bibliographic information, including a brief abstract of the interview's contents.
U.S. Information Agency
Historical Collection
301 4th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20024
Phone: (202) 205-5487
Contact: Martin Manning, Archivist
Holdings:
The USIA Alumni Association Oral History Project includes over 120 interviews with former USIA officers. In this guide, see the entry for Georgetown University (pp. 32-33), which is the repository for the USIAAA collection.
Washington D.C. Historical Society
Library
1307 New Hampshire Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20009
Phone: (202) 785-2068
Contact: Gail Redmann, Librarian
Business Hours: Contact the Washington D.C. Historical Society
Holdings:
The Library of the Washington D.C. Historical Society is the repository for the oral history collection of the German Heritage Society of Greater Washington, D.C.
The collection contains about twenty-five interviews with local residents of German ancestry. Many of the interviews were conducted for a book on the Washington Sängerbund. Other interviews are with German émigrés to the Washington area and deal with their lives in Germany and in the United States. Other topics include the Old Heurich brewery, the German Marshall Fund (commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Marshall Plan), and the tricentennial year (1983) of German-American relations.
The interviews were conducted between 1975 and 1988 and have not been transcribed, although thorough abstracts of the interviews are available.
Phone: (404) 331-3942
Fax: (404) 730-2215
E-Mail Address: library@carter.nara.gov
Contact: Robert Bohanan, Supervisory Archivist
Business Hours: 9:00 a.m.-4:45 p.m., Mon.-Fri.
Holdings:
The Jimmy Carter Library has a substantial number of oral history interviews among its holdings. Given the prominence of Germany in U.S. foreign policy during the Carter administration, it is highly likely that the library's oral history holdings contain a considerable amount of relevant material.
The oral history collections are neither indexed nor catalogued, but a list of interviewee names and their relationship to President Carter is included in the 1995 edition of the library's overall catalogue, Historical Materials in the Jimmy Carter Library. A researcher looking for specific information may recognize names of interviewees related to topics of interest and thus select potentially useful interviews.
The library's Exit Interview Project was conducted between 1978 and 1981 by the National Archives' Office of Presidential Libraries. The project includes about 160 interviews with departing White House staff members. The majority of these interviews are open to use by researchers, some on tape and some as transcripts. Prominent interviewees include Zbigniew Brzezinski (national security adviser), Lloyd Cutler (counsel to the president), Jim Fallows (chief speechwriter), and Jody Powell (press secretary).
Twenty-six oral history interviews with individuals who worked together in the Carter administration make up the White Burkett Miller Center Jimmy Carter Project. All but one of these transcripts are available to researchers. Interviews range in length from 36 to 165 pages. Separate interviews with Cutler and Powell are also part of this collection, as are a group interview with Brzezinski, Madeleine Albright, and others, and a seventy-six-page interview with Jimmy Carter.
In addition to the above collection, the library holds two more interviews with Jimmy Carter and one with Rosalynn Carter. Interviews that are discovered or donated to the library in the future will be added to the library's holdings as they are opened for research.
Researchers should contact the library in advance to discuss arrangements for use of the collections. Some oral history tapes and transcripts are available on two-week loan by mail, and research assistance from staff on specific questions or on holdings can often be provided by telephone or by mail.
U.S. Army Signal Center
Fort Gordon Archives
Command Historian Office
Fort Gordon, GA 30905-5000
Phone: (706) 791-5212
Fax: (706) 791-5777
E-Mail Address: dunnmw@emh1.gordon.army.mil
Contact: Mark W. Dunn, Historian/Archivist
Business Hours: 8:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m., Mon.-Fri.
Holdings:
The U.S. Army Signal Center and Fort Gordon Archives holds about one hundred interviews with former and current Signal Corps officers, many of whom served in Germany. The interviews are organized into collections by subject matter.
Accession #88-20 contains fourteen transcribed interviews with both military and civilian members of the U.S. Army. Several of the interviewees discuss their experiences in World War II.
The Desert Shield/Desert Storm Collection contains twenty interviews with key personnel involved with the Signal Corps operations during that conflict.
Accession #403-92 contains an interview with Father Robert Kohlhaas, a former German prisoner of war who was held at Fort Gordon during World War II. This tape is not transcribed. This accession also contains the tape and transcript of an interview with Joseph A. Buck, Sr., who supervised about 150 German POWs who worked during the war near Augusta, Georgia.
Accession #404-92 contains about twenty-two taped interviews with former members of the U.S. Army. In addition, the Ready Reference Section of the Command Historian Office holds about forty-two interviews (usually exit interviews) with civilian and military Signal Corps members.