Enter your search term...

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.

Photo Credit: E. Zimmermann, Satirical Map of Europe, ca. 1914, Library of Congress.

Team

Projects

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.

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.

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.

Innovation through Tradition? Jewish Educational Media and Cultural Transformation in the Face of Modernity Religion, Knowledge, and Education as Key Elements of Socio-Cultural Transformation

German-Israeli cooperative research project bringing that investigates the transformation of Jewish daily life through the prism of its central spaces of teaching, learning and knowledge.

"Remnants Saved from the Fire": A Transnational History of Jewish Ceremonial Objects after 1945

Anna-Carolin Augustin

In Pursuit of Knowing: Nineteenth-Century Jewish Education and the Transformation of Jewish Knowledge

Kerstin von der Krone

Family and Enterprise in the Age of Industry: The Arnholds, 1808-2000

Simone Lässig

Coping with Disruptive Change: Jews, Middle Class Culture, and Social Transformation in Germany, 1800-1860

Simone Lässig

The Politics of Punishment: Penal Reform in Modern Germany, 1870-1970

Richard F. Wetzell

Racial Science and Nazi Biopolitics

Richard F. Wetzell

Events & Conferences

May 13, 2021

The History of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century as Shown in Six Groups of Graphs, Charts, and Maps

12th Gerald Feldman Memorial Lecture (Virtual) | Speaker: Jonathan Sperber (University of Missouri); moderated by Kenneth Ledford (Case Western Reserve University)

Read on

May 14, 2021

29th Annual Symposium of the Friends of the GHI

Award of the 2020 & 2021 Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize at the GHI | Prize Winners: Emma Thomas (PhD., University of Michigan, 2019) and Richard Calis (PhD., Princeton University, 2020)

Read on

May 15, 2021

Reflecting on German Heritage in the United States in the Twenty-First Century: A Panel Discussion with German Scholars

Panel Discussion (Virtual) | Speakers: Sarah Panter (Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz) and Sebastian Bondzio (GHI Washington/Roy Rosenzweig Center for New Media and History), Moderator: Jana Keck (GHI Washington)

Read on

Jun 15, 2021

26th Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar: German History in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

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

Read on

Sep 23, 2021

Environments of Exile: Refugees, Nature, and Representations

Biennial Conference of the North American Society for Exile Studies at Queen's University, Kingston, ON | Conveners: Swen Steinberg (Queen’s University, Kingston / GHI PRO) and Helga Schreckenberger (University of Vermont, Burlington)

Read on

Sep 30, 2021

12th Medieval History Seminar

Seminar at GHI London | Conveners: Paul Freedman (Yale University), Bernhard Jussen (Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main), Simon MacLean (University of St Andrews), Fiona Griffiths (Stanford University), Len Scales (Durham University), and Dorothea Weltecke (Goethe University Frankfurt) | Organized by the German Historical Institute London in co-operation with the German Historical Institute Washington

Read on

Sep 30, 2021

Sexuality and the Law in German-Speaking Europe

Seminar at Forty-Fifth Annual Conference of the German Studies Association, Indianapolis, Indiana | Conveners: Martin Lücke (Freie Universität Berlin), Veronika Springmann (Freie Universität Berlin), and Richard F. Wetzell (German Historical Institute Washington)

Read on

Oct 12, 2021

Historicizing the Refugee Experience, 17th - 21st Centuries

First Annual International Seminar in Historical Refugee Studies at the KWI in Essen | Organized by The University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE), the German Historical Institute in Washington (GHI) and the National History Center of the American Historical Association (NHC), in cooperation with the Interdisciplinary Center for Integration and Migration Research (InZentIM), the Institute for the Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) and the Käte Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation Research (KHK/GCR21)

Read on

Nov 15, 2021

Contested Meanings of Migration Facilitation: Emigration Agents, Coyotes, Rescuers, and Human Traffickers

Annual Academic and Policy Symposium: Innovation through Migration at GHI PRO | Conveners: Ulf Brunnbauer (Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies & Regensburg University) and Andrea Westermann (GHI PRO)

Read on

Dec 13, 2021

Antisemitism and Sexuality Reconsidered

Conference at the Center for Research on Antisemitism, TU Berlin | Conveners: Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (Center for Research on Antisemitism, TU Berlin), Anna-Carolin Augustin (GHI Washington), Sebastian Bischoff (Paderborn University), Kristoff Kerl (University of Copenhagen), in cooperation with the German Historical Institute, Washington DC (GHI) and the Center for Research on Antisemitism, TU Berlin

Read on

Nov 03, 2022

German Migrants and Migrating Knowledge in Latin American History

Conference at GHI Washington | Conveners: Simone Lässig (GHI Washington), Mario Peters (GHI Washington), H. Glenn Penny (University of Iowa), Stefan Rinke (Freie Universität Berlin)

Read on
all events

Publications

Elisabeth Piller

Selling Weimar: German Public Diplomacy and the United States, 1918–1933

Transatlantische Historische Studien. Band 60. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2021.

Read on

Bulletin 67 (Fall 2020)

Forum: New Research in Transatlantic History

Read on

Sophia Dafinger

Die Lehren des Luftkriegs: Sozialwissenschaftliche Expertise in den USA vom Zweiten Weltkrieg bis Vietnam

Transatlantische Historische Studien. Band 59. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2020.

Read on

Andrea Westermann & Onur Erdur, eds.

Histories of Migrant Knowledge: Transatlantic and Global Perspectives

Bulletin Supplement 15 (2020)

Read on

John P.R. Eicher

Exiled Among Nations: German and Mennonite Mythologies in a Transnational Age

Publications of the German Historical Institute. Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Read on

Paul Lerner & Joes Segal, eds.

Alternative Realities: Utopian Thought in Times of Political Rupture

Bulletin Supplement 14 (2019)

Read on

Bulletin 65 (Fall 2019)

Forum: The Weimar Republic Reconsidered

Read on
all publications

Latest News

Opportunities

Intern at the German Historical Institute

Deadline: June 1, 2021 | The GHI Internship Program gives students of history, political science, public relations, and public administration at…

Read on
Video

Watch recording of our event "Layers of Untold Stories: Sharon Dodua Otoo in Conversation with Translator Jon Cho-Polizzi and Deniz Göktürk"

If you were unable to watch our event "Layers of Untold Stories: Sharon Dodua Otoo in Conversation with Translator Jon Cho-Polizzi and Deniz Göktürk"…

Read on
Video

Watch recording of Monica Black's lecture "A Demon-Haunted Land: Witches, Wonder Doctors, and the Ghosts of the Past in Post-WWII Germany"

If you were unable to watch Monica Black's lecture "A Demon-Haunted Land: Witches, Wonder Doctors, and the Ghosts of the Past in Post-WWII Germany"…

Read on
Video

Watch recording of Paul Betts' lecture "Ruin and Renewal: Civilizing Europe after the Second World War"

If you were unable to watch Paul Betts' lecture "Ruin and Renewal: Civilizing Europe after the Second World War" live, it is now available on our…

Read on
Event Report

Recreating Separate Spheres Across Not-So-Separate Worlds: Gender and Reeducation in Japan, Germany, and the USA after World War II

Conference report by Claudia Roesch (GHI Washington)

Read on