Fritz Stern - Wikipedia Fritz Stern From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Fritz R. Stern Born (1926-02-02)February 2, 1926 Breslau, Silesia, Weimar Republic (now Wrocław, Poland) Died May 18, 2016(2016-05-18) (aged 90) New York, New York, U.S. Nationality American Alma mater Columbia University Scientific career Fields Historiography Institutions Columbia University Influences Lionel Trilling Fritz Richard Stern (February 2, 1926 – May 18, 2016) was a German-born American historian of German history, Jewish history and historiography. He was a University Professor Emeritus and a provost at New York's Columbia University. His work focused on the complex relationships between Germans and Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries and on the rise of National Socialism in Germany during the first half of the 20th century. Contents 1 Biography 2 Scholarship 3 Selected works 3.1 Author 3.2 Co-author 4 Honors 5 References 6 External links Biography[edit] Fritz Richard Stern was born on February 2, 1926, in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), to a locally prominent medical family of Jewish heritage.[1] His father, Rudolf Stern, was a physician, medical researcher and a veteran of the First World War. His mother, de:Käthe Stern, was a noted theorist, practitioner and reformer in the field of education for young children. Through family, friends, and colleagues, they were connected with a number of leading scientific and cultural figures in Europe and later in the U.S. For example, when trying to decide on his career objective while in college, Stern discussed choosing between history and medicine with Albert Einstein.[2] The family had converted from Judaism to Lutheran Protestant Christianity at the end of the 19th century, while sharing the increasingly secular worldview frequently found among Germany's educated classes.[1] Stern was baptized shortly after his birth and named after his godfather, another member of the city's intellectual élite, the Nobel Prize winner Fritz Haber[3] (also a Christian convert from Judaism). The Sterns emigrated to the United States in 1938 to escape the virulently anti-Jewish policies of Adolf Hitler's National Socialist government and the increasing violence against all Germans of Jewish ancestry.[1] The family settled in Jackson Heights, Queens. There, Stern spent the remainder of his childhood, attended public school and quickly learned English while his parents reestablished their respective careers. He then attended Columbia University, where he received his bachelor's, master's and PhD. His professors included Lionel Trilling.[4] From 1953 to 1997, he served as a professor at Columbia, obtaining the eminent Seth Low chair before attaining the rank of University Professor. Stern also briefly served as provost of the university.[1] Beginning in 1954, Stern taught frequently as a guest lecturer at the Free University in West Berlin. In 1990, he helped persuade British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that a reunited Germany, firmly anchored in the West, would pose no threat to Europe. Thereafter, in 1993–94, Stern served as an adviser to the U.S. ambassador to Germany, Richard Holbrooke. In 2010, Stern spoke at the former German military headquarters building, the Bendlerblock, on the 66th anniversary of the attempted assassination of Hitler.[5] Looking back in January 2016, he told an interviewer, "Sometimes I bemoaned the fact that I had to grow up amid the disintegration of a democracy; now, at the end of life, I am having to experience again the struggles of democracy."[6] Fritz Stern died on May 18, 2016, in New York, aged 90.[7] Scholarship[edit] This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Fritz Stern" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) The focus of much of Stern's work an attempt to track the development of the rise of National Socialism in Germany and its characteristics. Stern traced the origins of Nazism back to the 19th-century völkische movement. In Stern's opinion, the virulently anti-Semitic völkische movement was the result of the "politics of cultural despair" experienced by German intellectuals who were unable to come to grips with modernity. However, Stern rejected the Sonderweg interpretation of German history. In his view, the ideas of the völkische movement were merely a "dark undercurrent" in 19th-century German society. In the 1990s, Stern was a leading critic of the controversial American author Daniel Goldhagen, whose book Hitler's Willing Executioners Stern denounced as unscholarly and full of Germanophobia. Another major area of research for Stern was the history of the Jewish community in Germany and how the Jewish culture influenced German culture and vice versa. In Stern's view, this interaction produced what Stern often called the "Jewish-German symbiosis". In Stern's view, the best example of the "Jewish-German symbiosis" was Albert Einstein. Selected works[edit] Author[edit] The Politics Of Cultural Despair: A Study In The Rise Of The Germanic Ideology, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1961, 1963. Adapted from Stern's dissertation; essays on Paul de Lagarde, Julius Langbehn, and Arthur Moeller van den Bruck. The Failure Of Illiberalism: Essays on the Political Culture of Modern Germany, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1972, ISBN 0-04-943019-X. A collection of essays. Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder, and the Building of the German Empire, New York: Knopf, 1977, ISBN 0-394-49545-4. A dual biography of banker Gerson Bleichröder and Otto von Bismarck. Germany 1933: Fifty Years Later, New York: Leo Baeck Institute, 1984. Leo Baeck memorial lecture. Dreams and Delusions: The Drama Of German History, New York: Knopf, 1987, ISBN 0-394-55995-9. A collection of essays. Einstein's German World, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-691-05939-X. (in German) Friedenspreis des deutschen Buchhandels: Ansprachen aus Anlass der Verleihung, Frankfurt am Main: Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels e.V. im Verlag der Buchhändler-Vereinigung GmbH, 1999. Five Germanies I Have Known, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006, ISBN 0-374-15540-2. Autobiography. "Imperial Hubris: A German Tale, War, Wilhelm II, and the consequences of leadership", Lapham's Quarterly, Winter 2008. Co-author[edit] (in German) with Helmut Schmidt, Unser Jahrhundert: Ein Gespräch. C.H. Beck, München, 2010. A conversation between the historian and the politician. with Elizabeth Sifton, No Ordinary Men: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans von Dohnanyi, Resisters against Hitler in Church and State, (New York Review Books Collections: 2013, ISBN 978-1590176818. Editor The Varieties of History: From Voltaire to the Present, New York: Meridian Books, 1956, 1960, 1972, 1973, ISBN 0-394-71962-X. co-edited with Leonard Krieger The Responsibility of Power: Historical Essays In Honor Of Hajo Holborn, London: Macmillan, 1968, 1967. A survey of historiography from the eighteenth century to the twentieth. Honors[edit] 1984: Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize (jointly with Hans Jonas) of the University of Tübingen[8] 1994: Pour le mérite für Wissenschaft und Künste 1999: Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels[9] 2002: Honorary doctor of the University of Wrocław 2004: Leo-Baeck-Medaille, Leo Baeck Institute[10] 2005: The German National Prize[11] 2006: Großes Verdienstkreuz des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland mit Stern und Schulterband[12] 2007: Preis für Verständigung und Toleranz, Jewish Museum Berlin 2008: Internationaler Brückepreis The Fritz Stern Professorship at the University of Wrocław was established in his honor in 2009. The first person appointed to hold that chair was former German President Richard von Weizsäcker.[13] References[edit] ^ a b c d "Fritz Stern, prominent historian and academic, dead at 90". Associated Press. May 18, 2016. Retrieved May 19, 2016. ^ Grimes, William (May 18, 2016). "Fritz Stern, a Leading Historian on Modern Germany, Dies at 90". New York Times. Retrieved May 20, 2016. ^ Hannes Stein (May 18, 2016). "Er war der Schutzengel der freien Welt: Wer wissen will, was westliche Werte sind, muss Fritz Stern lesen. Zeit seines Lebens hat der erzliberale Historiker gegen den Kulturpessimismus angeschrieben. Nun ist er gestorben. Ein Nachruf ... (He was the guardian angel of the free world: Anyone wishing to know western values must read Fritz Stern. During his lifetime the arch-liberal historian wrote against cultural pessimism. Now he is dead. An obituary ... )". Die Welt (online). Retrieved May 28, 2016. ^ Judt, Tony (September 20, 2007). "Anything But Shy". London Review of Books. Retrieved November 8, 2011. ^ Ansprache von Prof. em. Dr. Fritz Stern, New York/USA Archived August 15, 2012, at the Wayback Machine. In: bmi.bund.de. Retrieved 15 August 2012. ^ Schmitt-Tegge, Johannes (January 28, 2016). "Historiker Fritz Stern: "Wir stehen vor einem Zeitalter der Angst" Interview". Greenpeace-Magazin (in German). ^ "Stern, a star German-American historian, is dead". Deutsche Welle. May 18, 2016. Retrieved May 17, 2016. ^ "Bisherige Preisträger". University of Tübingen (in German). Retrieved December 31, 2016. ^ "Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels" (in German). Retrieved May 19, 2016. ^ Johnson, Don Hanlon (2008). The Meaning of Life in the 21st Century: Tensions Among Science, Religion and Experience. Yoko Civilization Research Institute. p. 61. ISBN 9780595451883. Retrieved May 20, 2016. ^ "Deutscher Nationalpreis 2005" (in German). Retrieved May 19, 2016. ^ Bundespräsident Horst Köhler (September 28, 2006). "Laudati" (in German). Archived from the original on October 7, 2007. ^ "Former German President awarded the Fritz Stern Professorship of Wrocław". March 23, 2011. Archived from the original on August 20, 2016. Retrieved May 19, 2016. External links[edit] Wikimedia Commons has media related to Fritz Stern. "A Fundamental History Lesson", In These Times, October 10, 2005, by Fritz Stern Authority control BNE: XX1723929 BNF: cb121440352 (data) CANTIC: a10774063 GND: 119491133 ISNI: 0000 0001 0931 9534 LCCN: n79018405 MBA: 999f7c20-2e76-47da-90b0-fdd52a3ac104 NDL: 00475604 NKC: jn20000810115 NLP: A23210709 NTA: 069660220 PLWABN: 9810650748405606 SELIBR: 300407 SNAC: w65f0txw SUDOC: 029915856 VIAF: 108782564 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n79018405 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fritz_Stern&oldid=996322930" Categories: 1926 births 2016 deaths People from the Province of Lower Silesia American historians American people of German-Jewish descent Jewish American historians Historians of Germany Historians of Nazism Columbia College (New York) alumni Columbia University faculty Grand Crosses with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) Writers from Wrocław Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States People from Jackson Heights, Queens Academics and writers on far-right extremism Hidden categories: Webarchive template wayback links CS1 German-language sources (de) Use mdy dates from May 2016 Articles with hCards Articles needing additional references from May 2016 All articles needing additional references Articles with German-language sources (de) Commons category link from Wikidata Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz identifiers Wikipedia articles with NDL identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLP identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Languages العربية Deutsch Español Français Gaeilge Հայերեն Latina Lëtzebuergesch Norsk bokmål Polski Português Русский Simple English Türkçe 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 25 December 2020, at 22:12 (UTC). 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