In memoriam Konrad Jarausch 1941-2026

The German Historical Institute mourns the death of Konrad Jarausch, who as co-founder and longtime president of the Friends of the German Historical Institute provided the Institute with advice, guidance, and support over many years. In addition, he was closely involved with the GHI’s German History in Documents and Images project, serving, with Helga Welsh, as editor of both the first and second editions of the project’s “Two Germanies, 1961-1989” and “A New Germany, 1990-2023” volumes. As recently as May 2024 Jarausch delivered the Friends of the GHI’s Gerald D. Feldman Memorial lecture, reflecting on “The Challenge of German Histories: An American Retrospective” (published in the Fall 2025 issue of the Bulletin of the GHI). German-born, Jarausch received his PhD at the University of Wisconsin in 1969 and began his teaching career at the University of Missouri at Columbia. From 1983, he held an endowed chair as Lurcy Professor of European Civilization at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, while also serving as Director at the Zentrum für Zeithistorische Studien in Potsdam from 1998-2006. A prolific scholar, Jarausch was author and/or editor of more than thirty books on a wide variety of subjects ranging from students in Imperial Germany to the history of the professions to the history of East Germany and German reunification. A dedicated teacher, he shaped the profession as the supervisor of many doctoral dissertations. The German Historical Institute joins the academic community in mourning his loss and gratefully remembering his many contributions to the field of German history.