Advancing Research

German Historical Institute Washington

The GHI promotes research in three core fields: German history, American & transatlantic history, and global history.

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


New Publication

Fall 2024 Bulletin (74) issue published and available for download

The latest issue of the Bulletin is now available online for download as well as in print.

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Fellowship

Gerda Henkel Fellowship in Digital History

Deadline: February 28, 2025 | With the generous support of the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the German Historical Institute Washington (GHI) and the Roy…

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Podcast

Viola Rautenberg interviewed on Episode 21: Alltagsgeschichten der Jüdischer Migration of "Wissen Entgrenzen"

Research Fellow Viola Rautenberg joins Ruth Leiserowitz of DHI Warsaw on the latest episode of the podcast "Wissen Entgrenzen" to discuss facets of…

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Call for Papers

30th Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar: German History in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Deadline: January 15, 2025 | Seminar at GHI Washington | June 3-6, 2025

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Call for Papers

Sixteenth Workshop on Early Modern German History

Deadline: March 1, 2025 | Workshop at the GHI London, June 6, 2025

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Events & Conferences

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

Feb 05, 2025

Stranded Between Borders - The Limitations of Categorizing People in Transit

Online Panel Discussion | Speakers: Tobias Brinkmann (Penn State University) and Carly Goodman (Rutgers University)

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Feb 13, 2025

Refugees in Global Transit: Encounters, Knowledge, and Coping Strategies in a Disrupted World, 1930s–50s

Conference in Mumbai, India | Organized by Simone Lässig (German Historical Institute Washington), Sebastian Schwecke (Max Weber Forum for South Asian Studies, Delhi), and Swen Steinberg (Queen's University, Kingston). in collaboration with Christoph K. Neumann (OI Istanbul), Maria Framke (Erfurt University), and Jens Hanssen (OI Beirut).

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Feb 27, 2025

Of Fossil Fuels and Families: How the Oil Industry Shaped Ideas of Race and Poverty in Caribbean Europe

Lecture at GHI Washington | Speaker: Chelsea Schields (UC Irvine)

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Mar 07, 2025

Seventh West Coast Germanists' Workshop: Migration, Mobility, and Exchange

Workshop at University of Nevada, Reno | Conveners: Viola Alianov-Rautenberg (GHI Washington | Pacific Office, Berkeley) and James McSpadden (University of Nevada, Reno)

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Mar 19, 2025

Real-Time History: Engaging with Living Archives and Temporal Multiplicities

Seventh Conference on Digital Humanities and Digital History at the German Historical Institute Washington (GHI) | Conveners: German Historical Institute Washington in collaboration with the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH), the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM), Chair for Digital History at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, NFDI4Memory, and Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe

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Mar 27, 2025

Nonprofit Neighborhoods: How the U.S. Privatized the Fight against Urban Inequality

Lecture at GHI Washington | Speaker: Claire Dunning (University of Maryland, College Park)

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May 01, 2025

Credit's Histories: Debt, Loans, and Welfare in the Twentieth-Century United States

Lecture at GHI Washington | Felix Krämer (Universität Erfurt)

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May 18, 2025

The Place of the Holocaust in German-Jewish History and Memory

Eighth Junior Scholars Conference in Jewish History in Berlin | Organized by Anna-Carolin Augustin (German Historical Institute Washington), Mark Roseman (Indiana University Bloomington), and Miriam Rürup (Moses Mendelssohn Centre for European-Jewish Studies, Potsdam), and the Wissenschaftliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft des Leo Baeck Instituts with additional support from the Indiana University Europe Gateway in Berlin

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Jun 03, 2025

30th Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar: German History in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

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

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Jun 06, 2025

Sixteenth Workshop on Early Modern German History

Workshop at the GHI London | Conveners: Bridget Heal (University of St. Andrews), David Lederer (NUI Maynooth), Alison Rowlands (University of Essex) and Mirjam Haehnle (GHI London)

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Jun 12, 2025

From the Margins: Poverty in Divided and United Germany

Lecture at GHI Washington | Speaker: Christoph Lorke (LWL-Institut für westfälische Regionalgeschichte)

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Jun 25, 2025

Germans in the Asia-Pacific Region: (Post) Colonial Entanglements, Conflicts and Perceptions in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Conference in Flinders University (city campus), Adelaide, South Australia | Conveners: Matthew Fitzpatrick (Flinders University), Simone Lässig (GHI Washington), Isabel Richter (GHI Washington Pacific Office at UC Berkeley)

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Jul 07, 2025

Historicizing the Refugee Experience, 17th–21st Centuries

Fifth Annual International Seminar in Historical Refugee Studies in Berkeley, CA | Organized by University of Tübingen (UT), the German Historical Institute in Washington (GHI) and the American Historical Association (AHA)

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Sep 10, 2025

Universities and the Public Good: Research, Education, and Democracy since 1945

Workshop and Young Scholars Forum at Herrenhausen Palace, Hanover, Germany | Conveners: Charles Dorn (Bowdoin College, Maine), Axel Jansen (German Historical Institute Washington), Charlotte Lerg (Amerika-Institut, LMU München), Till van Rahden (Centre canadien d’études allemandes et européennes, Université de Montréal), and Richard F. Wetzell (German Historical Institute Washington)

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Sep 29, 2025

Food, Migration, and Belonging in 20th Century European History

Conference at German Historical Institute | Pacific Office at UC Berkeley | Conveners: Maren Möhring (University of Leipzig), Isabel Richter (GHI Washington Pacific Office at UC Berkeley)

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Oct 09, 2025

The Campus and Beyond: Higher Education and Social Inequalities in Europe and North America, 1850s-2000s

International Conference at the German Historical Institute Washington | Conveners: Raphael Rössel (GHI Washington), Elizabeth Tandy Shermer (Loyola University Chicago), and Stefanie Coché (Gießen University)

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Research Fields


German/European & Jewish History

German/European & Jewish History

Modern German history and the history of German-speaking Jewry have been core research fields at the GHI since the institute’s founding in 1987. German migrations to North America, relations between Germany and the United States, and the flight of German Jews from Nazi Germany have been major research topics since the GHI’s early years. More recently, the GHI has given increased attention to the transnational and global dimensions of German, Central European, and Jewish history.

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History of the Americas & Transatlantic History

History of the Americas & Transatlantic History

From an initial focus on North American history and the history of the transatlantic relations, the GHI has broadened the scope of its core research agenda to encompass the Americas as a whole. Its long engagement with the histories of the United States, Canada, and North American-European ties is the point of departure for its new initiatives in the history of the Americas. GHI-supported projects are exploring the myriad entanglements linking the societies of North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean to each other and societies across the globe. The interconnections of the Atlantic and Pacific worlds are focal point of the research program of the GHI’s Pacific Regional Office in Berkeley.

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Global & Transregional History

Global & Transregional History

The GHI’s engagement with global and transregional history is an outgrowth of its work in transatlantic history and its longstanding interest in comparative history, especially historical comparisons of the U.S. and Germany. Global and transregional history at the GHI are defined less by subject matter than by analytical perspective. GHI-supported research explores processes that transcend individual polities and entangle disparate states, regions, and continents. The GHI is particularly interested in historical comparison as a tool to illuminate trends and developments at the transregional and global levels.

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History of Knowledge

History of Knowledge

The history of knowledge analyzes the production and circulation of knowledge, taking into consideration a broad spectrum of actors, practices, and social contexts. It seeks to understand the creation of knowledge orders and systems along with the power relationships upon which they rest. The development of the field has taken different paths in Europe and North America. Consequently, a central objective of the GHI’s program in the history of knowledge is to spur transatlantic exchange on research methodologies. The history of knowledge also serves as vehicle for collaboration across the GHI’s core research fields and other subfields of history. Notably, the GHI’s Pacific Regional Office in Berkeley “Migrant Knowledge” initiative is supporting research at the intersection of migration history and the history of knowledge.

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History of Mobilities & Migration

History of Mobilities & Migration

The GHI’s longstanding engagement with the migration of German-speakers to North America from the seventeenth century to the present is the foundation for the wider reaching program in migration history it launched in 2015. Current GHI-supported projects look beyond the flows of European migrants across the Atlantic and analyze migrant groups and receiving societies around the world. The research at the institute also places a focus on spatial mobility and its social impacts and asymmetries by bringing together projects on migration with colleagues working on different mobile groups, objects, information, or ideas. Particular attention is given to forced migration and comparative research on the social and cultural integration of migrants. The roles of migrants as producers and transmitters of distinctive bodies of knowledge is the focus of the “Migrant Knowledge” initiative at the GHI’s Pacific Regional Office. The collaborative project "German Heritage in Letters" draws on the tools of digital history to explore the ways German emigrants and their family and friends at home created transnational spaces of communication and knowledge circulation.

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Digital History

Digital History

The GHI’s digital history program operates at the crossroads of multiple disciplines and professions. One overarching goal is to forge links between seemingly disparate communities and pursuits: digital historians and “book” historians; projects informed by public history concerns versus those motivated by research objectives; and research and academic teaching. In addition to its own digital history projects – German History in Documents and Images, German History Intersections, and German Heritage in Letters – the GHI collaborates with partner institutions across Europe and North America in exchange and networking initiatives to support the development of digital tools and methodologies for historical research.

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Collaborative Projects

German History in Documents and Images (GHDI)

GHDI is a comprehensive collection of primary source materials documenting Germany's political, social, and cultural history from 1500 to the present.

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German History Intersections

The German History Intersections project is a transatlantic initiative that will begin by examining three broad themes – German identity; migration; and knowledge and education – over as many as five centuries.

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German Heritage in Letters

German Heritage in Letters is a project to create a digital collection of German-language correspondence currently held in private hands, by archives, by special collection libraries, museums, and other institutions.

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Migrant Connections

Migrant Connections is a digital research infrastructure for historical research on German migration to the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries.

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In Global Transit

In Global Transit builds from the endeavors of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution to explore the spatial and temporal dimensions of global transit. Currently it consists of two separate pillars: a conference series and resulting research network and individual projects from GHI research staff.

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Interaction and Knowledge in the Pacific Region: Entanglements and Disentanglements

The project analyzes the Pacific as a space of knowledge transfer and interaction, which shape state and non-state actors through contacts, reciprocal influences and conflicts.

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Latest Publications


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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Bulletin 73 (Spring 2024)

Forum: Antisemitism and Sexualities

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Maximilian Klose

Why They Gave: CARE and American Aid for Germany after 1945

Transatlantische Historische Studien. Band 63. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2024.

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Latest Blogposts


Jan 03, 2025

Erika Rosado Valencia

Importing “Civilization”: Ecuadorian Elites’ National Representation Strategies and Immigration Promotion at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition

Discusses the way Ecuadorian elites presented themselves at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition to the world, focusing on strategies to attract European and American migrants and minimize the percep…

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Dec 16, 2024

Kim Carlotta von Schönfeld

Third Cultures—The (Cursed) Gold of Migrants?

Describes the subgroup of migrants called “third culture kids,” the adjustments they go through, and some knowledge-based implications. The post Third Cultures—The (Cursed) Gold of Migrants? fir…

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Dec 16, 2024

Alice Weinreb

Anorexia Nervosa: Hilde Bruch and the Construction of Eating Disorders

Explores the construction of the psychiatric category of eating disorders in the 1970s through an analysis of the archive of psychiatrist Hilde Bruch.…

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Nov 20, 2024

Laura-Elena Keck

Stowaway Mosquitoes and Twentieth-century Quarantine Knowledge 

Argues that following the traces of mosquitoes can provide valuable insights into the history of quarantine in the twentieth century, the relationship between medical knowledge and public health, and …

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Nov 12, 2024

katharina hering

Call for Contributions: Lehrbuch Historische Propädeutik im Digitalen Zeitalter

Abgabetermin für die Einreichung der Beitragsvorschläge: 15. Januar 2025Abgabetermin für die Beiträge: 30. September 2025 Beschreibung des Publikationsprojektes: Im Rahmen des NFDI-Konsortiums 4Me…

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Nov 08, 2024

Ecem Nazlı Üçok

Navigating the Personal in Migration Research

Reflects on the author's own experience as a researcher and theories such as “situated knowledge,” and “relational accountability,” emotional labor feminist standpoint theory to elucidate how …

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Nov 01, 2024

hansgeorgripken

Hätte ich das mal eher gewusst … mit Hans-Georg Ripken

Kannst Du kurz Dein Projekt vorstellen und sagen, was speziell der digitale Anteil daran war? Nach dem Mauerfall, der deutschen Wiedervereinigung und dem Ende des Kalten Krieges, verkündet mit der Ch…

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Oct 28, 2024

Editors

Knowledge Notes

Occasional notes on calls, events, publications, and more that caught our attention. …

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Oct 26, 2024

Maret Nieländer

The Great Outdoors Web, Seen in Braunschweig, Part Two

More href markers from Braunschweig, shared by Maret Nieländer, continuing our series on the Great Outdoors Web…All photographs by Maret Nieländer.   Photo credit: Maret Nieländer…

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Oct 12, 2024

Maret Nieländer

The Great Outdoors Web, Seen in Braunschweig, Part One

True, the digital space is vast and diverse, populated with code and tags, including href tags, which inspired the name of our blog. But there is also the great analog space, populated with its own co…

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Oct 07, 2024

Viola Alianov-Rautenberg, Swen Steinberg

A Journey Worth Knowing About? Interview with Swen Steinberg about the Past Five Years of the Blog Migrant Knowledge

Interview with Swen Steinberg outlining key achievements of the blog and network Migrant Knowledge since its inception in 2019. The post A Journey Worth Knowing About? Interview with Swen Steinberg ab…

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Sep 27, 2024

Felix Krämer

Living on Credit: Student Debt in the U.S. History of Knowledge

Presents insights on student debt from the author’s book, Leben auf Kredit, which examines various forms of precarious debt in the US from the end of slavery to the present.…

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