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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

Isabel Richter

Deputy Director

Isabel Richter

Deputy Director
Pacific Office of the German Historical Institute Washington
Institute of European Studies | University of California, Berkeley | 249 Philosophy Hall | Berkeley, CA 94720-2316
Phone +1.202.552.8936

richter@ghi-dc.orgRead on

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.

Migrant Melodies: Jewish Refugee Songs as a Transnational Archive of Emotions

Viola Alianov-Rautenberg

"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

West German Youth and Countercultures in the Global 1960s

Isabel Richter

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 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 08, 2025

The Hour of the Archivists: Creating Southwest Germany’s Memory Culture, c. 1960

16th Gerald D. Feldman Memorial Lecture at the German Historical Institute Washington | Speaker: Helmut Walser Smith (Vanderbilt University)

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May 09, 2025

33rd Annual Symposium of the Friends of the GHI

Award of the 2025 Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize at the GHI | Prize Winner: Matthew Todd Hershey

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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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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 25, 2025

Beyond Refuge: Legacies of Forced Migration and Transit in Post-1945 History

Roundtable at the 49th annual conference of the German Studies Association, Arlington, VA | Conveners: Swen Steinberg (Queen's University) and Rebekka Grossmann (Leiden University)

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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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all events

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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Jan C. Jansen & Kirsten McKenzie, eds.

Mobility and Coercion in an Age of Wars and Revolutions

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

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Michael Weaver

Political Friendship: Liberal Notables, Networks, and the Pursuit of the German Nation State, 1848-1866

Studies in German History. Vol. 29. New York: Berghahn Books, 2024.

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Bulletin 72 (Fall 2023)

Forum: The German Treatment of Soviet Prisoners of War During The Second World War

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Adam Bisno

Big Business and the Crisis of German Democracy: Liberalism and the Grand Hotels of Berlin, 1875–1933

Publications of the German Historical Institute. Cambridge University Press, 2023.

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all publications

Latest News

Fellowship

GHI Fellowships at the Horner Library

Deadline: May 12, 2025 (deadline extended) | Together with the German Society of Pennsylvania, the GHI sponsors two to four fellowships of up to four…

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Podcast

New podcast miniseries "The Ends of War" launched by Max Weber Stiftung

The new miniseries features GHI researchers Anna Carolin Augustin and Simone Lässig along with other MWS researchers to discuss the aftermath(s) of…

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Alumni

Interview with Doctoral Visiting Fellow Jonathan Schlunck

We recently caught up with Jonathan Schlunck, one of our Visiting Fellows, who will be leaving us at the end of April. We sat down with him to discuss…

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GHI in the Media

Guardian editorial "The Guardian view on Germany’s new coalition: unleashing the radical centre" features a source from GHDI

A new editorial in The Guardian highlights a primary source on the Grand Coalition of 1966 from our German History in Documents and Images project.

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Alumni

Interview with Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow Sarah Frenking

We recently caught up with Sarah Frenking, one of our Visiting Fellows, who will be leaving us at the end of April. We sat down with her to discuss…

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