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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

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

Apr 16, 2021

The Language of Dreams: Yoko Tawada in conversation with Elisabeth Krimmer and Jonas Teupert

Panel Discussion (Virtual) | Featured Speaker: Yoko Tawada; Discussants: Elisabeth Krimmer (University of California, Davis) and Jonas Teupert (University of California, Berkeley)

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Apr 22, 2021

Migration and Racism in the United States and Germany in the Twentieth Century

Virtual Workshop | Conveners: Maria Alexopoulou (Technische Universität Berlin), Elisabeth Engel (GHI Washington)

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May 05, 2021

Third Annual West Coast Germanists' Workshop: Facts, Fakes, and Representations

Panel 4: State Making and Public Perception | 11am – 12:30pm PT | Virtual Workshop | Conveners: Sheer Ganor (Pacific Regional Office of the German Historical Institute Washington), Isabel Richter (UC Berkeley)

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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 Lecture (Virtual) | 12:30pm ET | Speaker: Jonathan Sperber (University of Missouri); moderated by Kenneth Ledford (Case Western Reserve University)

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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) | 2pm - 4pm ET | Speakers: Sarah Panther (Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz) and Sebastian Bondzio (GHI Washington/Roy Rosenzweig Center for New Media and History), Moderator: Jana Keck (GHI Washington)

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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)

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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)

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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

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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

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Publications

Elisabeth Piller

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

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

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Bulletin 67 (Fall 2020)

Forum: New Research in Transatlantic History

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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.

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Andrea Westermann & Onur Erdur, eds.

Histories of Migrant Knowledge: Transatlantic and Global Perspectives

Bulletin Supplement 15 (2020)

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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.

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Paul Lerner & Joes Segal, eds.

Alternative Realities: Utopian Thought in Times of Political Rupture

Bulletin Supplement 14 (2019)

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Bulletin 65 (Fall 2019)

Forum: The Weimar Republic Reconsidered

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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…

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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"…

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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"…

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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…

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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)

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