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Advancing Research

German Historical Institute Washington

The GHI promotes research in four core fields: German, European & Jewish History; the History of the Americas & Transatlantic History; Migration & Mobility; Empires & their Legacies.

Supporting Scholars

German Historical Institute Washington

The GHI works to enable scholars to conduct research and share their findings with their colleagues.

Building Networks

German Historical Institute Washington

The GHI’s programs rest on the assumption that communication is as important as research in advancing historical understanding.

The German Historical Institute Washington (GHI) is a center for advanced historical research. Working with junior and senior scholars around the world, the GHI facilitates dialogue and collaboration across national and disciplinary boundaries.

Latest News

Call for Papers

Environments and Societies at the Crossroads: Socio-Environmental Justice in Europe and the Americas in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Deadline: January 16, 2026 | Workshop at UC Berkeley | November 16-17, 2026

 

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West Coast Germanists' Workshop

German History at the Crossroads? New Narratives, Perspectives and Approaches

Deadline: November 30, 2025 (deadline extended) | Eighth West Coast Germanists’ Workshop at University of Colorado Boulder | March 6 – 7, 2026

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Prize

Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize

Deadline: March 1, 2026 | The Friends of the German Historical Institute are now accepting nominations for the annual Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize.…

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Fellowship

Visiting Fellowships at the GHI

Deadline: January 12, 2026 | The GHI is now accepting applications for its 2026-2027 visiting fellow program for European and North American scholars…

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Events & Conferences

The GHI organizes international scholarly conferences, public programs and lectures on a wide variety of historical topics.

Nov 17, 2025

Washington-Area German History Seminar

Seminar at GHI Washington | Speaker: Raphael Roessel's (German Historical Institute)

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Nov 20, 2025

Research Seminar

Amy Kerner (GHI Pacific Office Berkeley)

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Nov 20, 2025

The German Audience for the U.S. Declaration of Independence

Online Lecture on Zoom | Speaker: Emily Sneff

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Dec 03, 2025

Research Seminar

Angus Burgin (Johns Hopkins University)

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Mar 06, 2026

Eighth West Coast Germanists’ Workshop: German History at the Crossroads? New Narratives, Perspectives and Approaches

Workshop at University of Colorado Boulder | Conveners: David Ciarlo (University of Colorado Boulder), Thomas Pegelow Kaplan (University of Colorado Boulder), Isabel Richter (GHI Washington | Pacific Office, Berkeley) Raphael Rössel (GHI Washington)

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Mar 18, 2026

Listening to the Past: Digital Approaches to the History of Sound and Language

Workshop at the German Historical Institute Washington | Conveners: Hans C. Boas (University of Texas, Austin) and Atiba Pertilla (GHI Washington)

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Apr 23, 2026

Rebuild or Retreat? Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Climate Migration and Mobility in the Global North

Conference at GHI Washington | Conveners: Jana Dunz-Keck (GHI Washington) and Sarah Beringer (GHI Washington), Simon Richter (University of Pennsylvania), Andreas Hübner (Kiel University), Max Gruenig (POCACITO Network and Georgetown University, BMW Center for German and European Studies), and Brendan O’Donnell (POCACITO Network and Heinrich Böll Foundation)

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May 28, 2026

Imperial Legacies? (Dis)continuities and Comparisons between Colonialism and Nazi Rule

International Conference at the German Historical Institute Washington | Conveners: Ulrike von Hirschhausen (GHI Washington) and Robert Gerwarth (University College Dublin)

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Jun 16, 2026

31st Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar: German History from the 18th Century to the Present

Seminar at UC Berkeley | Conveners: Anna von der Goltz (Georgetown University) and Richard Wetzell (GHI Washington)

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Sep 17, 2026

The Moralization of Science

Conference at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna (Austria) | Conveners: Daniel Brewing, Moritz Fischer, Elke Seefried (RWTH Aachen), Alexander Bogner (Austrian Academy of Sciences), Axel Jansen (GHI Washington)

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Nov 16, 2026

Environments and Societies at the Crossroads: Socio-Environmental Justice in Europe and the Americas in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Workshop at UC Berkeley | Convener: Simone M. Müller (University of Augsburg), Isabel Richter (German Historical Institute Washington, Pacific Office)

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Latest Publications

Bulletin 75 (Spring 2025)

Forum: Concrete Dreams: The Built Environment and Human Behavior in Europe’s Twentieth Century

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Christina Brauner, Renate Dürr, Philip Hahn, Anne Sophie Overkamp, Simon Siemianowski, eds.

Encountering the Global in Early Modern Germany: Microhistories of Mobility, Materiality, and Belonging

Studies in German History. Vol. 30. New York: Berghahn Books, 2025.

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Bulletin 74 (Fall 2024)

Forum: European and Global Perspectives on Social Democracy and State Violence

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Michelle Lynn Kahn

Foreign in Two Homelands: Racism, Return Migration, and Turkish-German History

Publications of the German Historical Institute. Cambridge University Press, 2024.

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Latest Blogposts

Nov 02, 2025

Lauren Rever

Hätte ich das mal eher gewusst …with Lauren Rever

Can you describe your project in three sentences and explain the digital component of your work? Each year, hundreds of thousands of American school children visit Washington, DC on overnight trips as…

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Oct 02, 2025

spiotrowski

Hätte ich das mal eher gewusst …mit Swantje Piotrowski

Kannst Du in drei Sätzen Dein Projekt vorstellen und sagen, was speziell der digitale Anteil daran war? Im Auftrag Herzogs Friedrich III. von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf reiste im November 1633 eine 3…

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Sep 15, 2025

kweickjoch

Hätte ich das mal eher gewusst …mit Katharina Weick-Joch

Kannst Du in drei Sätzen Dein Projekt vorstellen und sagen, was speziell der digitale Anteil daran war? Die Geschichte Gießens – eine bunte Universitätsstadt mitten in Hessen – wollten wir in u…

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Sep 12, 2025

Anna Derksen

Inside “Vipeholmsanstalten”: Podcasting about Institutionalization and Memory in Sweden’s Welfare State

Analyzes the effects of podcasting both on the (his)storytelling and in redressing old abuses, here specifically about Vipeholmsanstalten, a Swedish institution that housed and treated people with int…

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Nov 06, 2025

katharina hering

The Citizen Archive Platform: Interview with Wolfram Dornik

Interview with the head of the Graz City Archives, Dr. Wolfram Dornik, about the Citizen Archive Platform (https://citizenarchive.eu/en/), a collaborative personal digital archiving platform spearhead…

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Aug 28, 2025

Philipp Strobl, Nikolaus Hagen

Displaced Knowledge: Migration, Memory, and Transformation: An Interview by Nikolaus Hagen with Philipp Strobl about His New Book

Philipp Strobl discusses his new book on displaced knowledge of Austrian refugees in Australia. The post Displaced Knowledge: Migration, Memory, and Transformation: An Interview by Nikolaus Hagen with…

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Aug 18, 2025

Caroline Mezger

Rumors of the Holocaust: Expressing an Unspeakable Knowledge

A contribution exploring the role of rumor in the development and articulation of knowledge on the Holocaust as it was unfolding. …

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Jul 17, 2025

Swen Steinberg

Shoes and Guns from Batawa: Refugees from Czechoslovakia, Knowledge Transfers, and Canadian Immigration from the late 1930s to the 1940s

Using the example of a group of refugees from Czechoslovakia in Canada during World War II, the author analyzes knowledge transfers through migration and their limitations in changing political and ec…

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Jun 20, 2025

Amelie Harbisch

Refugees’ Counter-Knowledge: Resisting Stereotypes, Becoming Political

Based on fieldwork for her recent book, Harbisch highlights refugees' strategies for changing the way receiving societies view them by asserting their own perspectives. The post Refugees’ Counter-Kn…

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Jun 16, 2025

Editors

Knowledge Notes

Occasional notes on calls, events, publications, and more that caught our attention. Please email us your own items. Job Opening Lund University: Associate Senior Lecturer in Global History of Know…

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Apr 14, 2025

Kaia Santisteban

Anthropological Reflection on the Memories and Mobility of the Mapuche-Tehuelche People in the Andes Mountains

From an anthropological perspective, Santisteban analyzes the collective memories about the displacements of the Mapuche-Tehuelche people (Patagonia) in the territory before and during the imposition …

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Apr 10, 2025

Barnabas Balint

Knowledge and Organization of Guard Dogs in the Nazi Concentration Camps: The Hundestaffeln

In March 1943, six Russian prisoners of war escaped from a factory in Neustadt where they had been forced to work. To recapture them, the German authorities dispatched SS-Untersturmführer Koermann …

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