Fritz Richard Stern (February 2, 1926 – May 18, 2016) was a German-born American
historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...
of
German history
The Germani tribes i.e. Germanic tribes are now considered to be related to the Jastorf culture before expanding and interacting with the other peoples.
The concept of a region for Germanic tribes is traced to time of Julius Caesar, a Roman gen ...
,
Jewish history
Jewish history is the history of the Jews, and their nation, religion, and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions, and cultures. Although Judaism as a religion first appears in Greek records during the Hellenisti ...
and
historiography
Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...
. He was a University Professor and a provost at New York's
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
. His work focused on the complex relationships between
Germans
, native_name_lang = de
, region1 =
, pop1 = 72,650,269
, region2 =
, pop2 = 534,000
, region3 =
, pop3 = 157,000
3,322,405
, region4 =
, pop4 = ...
and
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
s in the 19th and 20th centuries and on the rise of
National Socialism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...
in Germany during the first half of the 20th century.
Biography
Stern was born on February 2, 1926, in
Breslau,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
(now Wrocław,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
), to a locally-prominent medical family of
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
heritage.
His father, Rudolf Stern, was a physician, medical researcher and a veteran of the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. His mother,
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 United States For example, when trying to decide on his career objective while in college, Stern discussed choosing between history and medicine with
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
.
The family had converted from
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
to
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...
in the late 19th century and shared the increasingly-secular world view that was frequently found among Germany's educated classes.
[ Stern was baptized shortly after his birth and named after his godfather, another member of Breslau's intellectual élite, the Nobel Prize winner ]Fritz Haber
Fritz Haber (; 9 December 186829 January 1934) was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber–Bosch process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydroge ...
(also a Christian convert from Judaism). The Sterns emigrated to the United States in 1938 to escape the virulent anti-Jewish policies of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
's National Socialist
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
government and the increasing violence against all Germans of Jewish ancestry
The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...
.[
The family settled in Jackson Heights, Queens, where Stern spent the remainder of his childhood, attended public school and quickly learned English while his parents re-established their respective careers. He then attended ]Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, where he received his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees. His professors included Lionel Trilling.
From 1953 to 1997, he served as a professor at Columbia, obtaining the eminent Seth Low
Seth Low (January 18, 1850 – September 17, 1916) was an American educator and political figure who served as the mayor of Brooklyn from 1881 to 1885, the president of Columbia University from 1890 to 1901, a diplomatic representative of t ...
chair before attaining the rank of University Professor. Stern also briefly served as provost of the university.[
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
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...
that a reunited Germany firmly anchored in the West would pose no threat to the rest of Europe. In 1993 to 1994, Stern served as an adviser to the US ambassador to Germany, Richard Holbrooke
Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke (April 24, 1941 – December 13, 2010) was an American diplomat and author. He was the only person to have held the position of Assistant Secretary of State for two different regions of the world (Asia from 1977 ...
. In 2010, Stern spoke at the former German military headquarters building, the Bendlerblock
The Bendlerblock is a building complex in the Tiergarten district of Berlin, Germany, located on Stauffenbergstraße (formerly named ''Bendlerstraße''). Erected in 1914 as headquarters of several Imperial German Navy (''Kaiserliche Marine'') ...
, on the 66th anniversary of an assassination attempt on Hitler.
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."
Stern died on May 18, 2016 in New York, at 90.
Scholarship
The focus of much of Stern's work an attempt to track the development of the rise of National Socialism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...
in Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
and its characteristics. Stern traced the origins of Nazism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
back to the 19th-century ''völkische'' movement. Stern considered that the virulent anti-Semitic ''völkische'' movement to have been 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
(, "special path") refers to the theory in German historiography that considers the German-speaking lands or the country of Germany itself to have followed a course from aristocracy to democracy unlike any other in Europe.
The modern school of ...
'' interpretation of German history and considered the ideas of the ''völkische'' movement to have been merely a "dark undercurrent" in 19th-century German society.
In the 1990s, Stern was a leading critic of the controversial American author Daniel Goldhagen
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (born June 30, 1959) is an American author, and former associate professor of government and social studies at Harvard University. Goldhagen reached international attention and broad criticism as the author of two controver ...
, whose book ''Hitler's Willing Executioners
''Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust'' is a 1996 book by American writer Daniel Goldhagen, in which he argues that the vast majority of ordinary Germans were "willing executioners" in the Holocaust because of a uniq ...
'' was denounced by Stern 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, the 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
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
.
Selected works
Author
*''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
Paul Anton de Lagarde (2 November 1827 – 22 December 1891) was a German biblical scholar and orientalist, sometimes regarded as one of the greatest orientalists of the 19th century. Lagarde's strong support of anti-Semitism, vocal opposition ...
, Julius Langbehn
Julius Langbehn (26 March 1851 – 30 April 1907) was a German national Romantic art historian and philosopher. He was born in Hadersleben, Schleswig (now Haderslev in Denmark), and died in Rosenheim.
Biography
Langbehn was born in Hadersleb ...
, and Arthur Moeller van den Bruck
Arthur Wilhelm Ernst Victor Moeller van den Bruck (23 April 1876 – 30 May 1925) was a German cultural historian, philosopher and writer best known for his controversial 1923 book '' Das Dritte Reich'' ("The Third Reich"), which promoted Germ ...
.
*''The Failure Of Illiberalism: Essays on the Political Culture of Modern Germany'', London, George Allen & Unwin, 1972, . A collection of essays.
*''Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder, and the Building of the German Empire'', New York: Knopf, 1977, . A dual biography of banker Gerson Bleichröder Gerson may refer to:
Given name:
*Gerson von Bleichröder (1822–1893), Jewish German banker
* Gérson Caçapa (born 1967), Brazilian former footballer
*Gerson Goldhaber (1924–2010), German-born American particle physicist and astrophysicist
* G ...
and Otto von Bismarck
Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (, ; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), born Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, was a conservative German statesman and diplomat. From his origins in the upper class of J ...
.
*''Germany 1933: Fifty Years Later'', New York: Leo Baeck Institute, 1984. Leo Baeck
Leo Baeck (23 May 1873 – 2 November 1956) was a 20th-century German rabbi, scholar, and theologian. He served as leader of Reform Judaism in his native country and internationally, and later represented all German Jews during the Nazi er ...
memorial lecture.
*''Dreams and Delusions: The Drama Of German History'', New York: Knopf, 1987, . A collection of essays.
*''Einstein's German World'', Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999, .
* ''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, . Autobiography.
"Imperial Hubris: A German Tale, War, Wilhelm II, and the consequences of leadership"
''Lapham's Quarterly
''Lapham's Quarterly'' is a literary magazine established in 2007 by former '' Harper's Magazine'' editor Lewis H. Lapham. Each issue examines a theme using primary source material from history. The inaugural issue "States of War" contained doze ...
'', Winter 2008.
Co-author
* with Helmut Schmidt
Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt (; 23 December 1918 – 10 November 2015) was a German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who served as the chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982.
Before becoming Cha ...
, ''Unser Jahrhundert: Ein Gespräch''. C.H. Beck, München, 2010. A conversation between the historian and the former German chancellor
*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, .
;Editor
*''The Varieties of History: From Voltaire to the Present'', New York: Meridian Books, 1956, 1960, 1972, 1973, .
*co-edited with Leonard Krieger, ''The Responsibility of Power: Historical Essays In Honor of Hajo Holborn
Hajo Holborn (18 May 1902, Berlin – 20 June 1969, Bonn) was a German-American historian and specialist in modern German history.
Early life
Hajo Holborn was born the son of Ludwig Holborn, the German physicist and "Direktor der Physikalisch ...
'', London: Macmillan, 1968, 1967. A survey of historiography from the eighteenth century to the twentieth.
Honors
* 1969: Elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
* 1984: Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize (jointly with Hans Jonas) of the University of Tübingen
The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (german: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen; la, Universitas Eberhardina Carolina), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Wü ...
* 1988: Elected member of the American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
* 1994: Pour le mérite für Wissenschaft und Künste
* 1999: Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels
is an international peace prize awarded annually by the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (English: ''German Publishers and Booksellers Association''), which runs the Frankfurt Book Fair. The award ceremony is held in the Paulskirche i ...
*1999: Humboldt Prize
The Humboldt Prize, the Humboldt-Forschungspreis in German, also known as the Humboldt Research Award, is an award given by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany to internationally renowned scientists and scholars who work outside of G ...
, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (german: Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung) is a foundation established by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and funded by the Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry of Education and Rese ...
* 2002: Honorary doctor of the University of Wrocław
, ''Schlesische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Breslau'' (before 1945)
, free_label = Specialty programs
, free =
, colors = Blue
, website uni.wroc.pl
The University of Wrocław ( pl, Uniwersytet Wrocławski, U ...
* 2004: Leo Baeck Medal
The Leo Baeck Medal has been awarded since 1978 by the Leo Baeck Institute of New York City, an international research institute devoted to the study of the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry. It is the highest recognition the Institute b ...
, Leo Baeck Institute
The Leo Baeck Institute, established in 1955, is an international research institute with centres in New York City, London, and Jerusalem that are devoted to the study of the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry. Baeck was its first intern ...
* 2005: The German National Prize
* 2006: Großes Verdienstkreuz des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland mit Stern und Schulterband
* 2007: Preis für Verständigung und Toleranz, Jewish Museum Berlin
The Jewish Museum Berlin (''Jüdisches Museum Berlin'') was opened in 2001 and is the largest Jewish museum in Europe. On of floor space, the museum presents the history of Jews in Germany from the Middle Ages to the present day, with new focuses ...
*2007: Livetime Achievement Award, American Historical Association
The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...
*2007: Jacques Barzun
Jacques Martin Barzun (; November 30, 1907 – October 25, 2012) was a French-American historian known for his studies of the history of ideas and cultural history. He wrote about a wide range of subjects, including baseball, mystery novels, and ...
Prize for Cultural History, American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
* 2008: Internationaler Brückepreis
*2009: Marion Dönhoff
Marion Hedda Ilse Gräfin von Dönhoff (2 December 1909 – 11 March 2002) was a German journalist and publisher who participated in the resistance against Nazism, along with Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, Peter Yorck von Wartenburg, and Claus S ...
Prize
*2013: Volkmar and Margret Sander Prize
The Fritz Stern Professorship at the University of Wrocław
, ''Schlesische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Breslau'' (before 1945)
, free_label = Specialty programs
, free =
, colors = Blue
, website uni.wroc.pl
The University of Wrocław ( pl, Uniwersytet Wrocławski, U ...
was established in his honor in 2009. The first person appointed to hold that chair was former German President Richard von Weizsäcker.
Further reading
* Volker Berghahn
Volker Rolf Berghahn (born 15 February 1938) is a historian of German and modern European history at Columbia University. His research interests have included the fin de siècle period in Europe, the origins of World War I, and German-American rel ...
, "Fritz Stern (1926‒2016)", in ''Central European History'' 49 (2016), pp. 308‒321.
* Andreas Daum
Andreas W. Daum is a German-American historian who specializes in modern German and transatlantic history, as well as the history of knowledge and global exploration.
Daum received his Ph.D. summa cum laude in 1995 from the Ludwig Maximilian Univ ...
, "Refugees from Nazi Germany as Historians: Origins and Migrations, Interests and Identities", in ''The Second Generation: Émigrés from Nazi Germany as Historians. With a Biobibliographic Guide'', ed. Andreas Daum, Hartmut Lehmann
Hartmut Lehmann (born April 29, 1936) is a German historian of modern history who specializes in religious and social history. He is known for his research on Pietism, secularization, religion and nationalism, transatlantic studies and Martin Lut ...
, and James J. Sheehan
James J. Sheehan (born 1937) is an American historian of modern Germany and the former president of the American Historical Association (2005).
Biography
Born in San Francisco in 1937, Sheehan earned a B.A. from Stanford University in 1958 and ...
, New York: Berghahn Books, 1‒52.
References
External links
"A Fundamental History Lesson"
, ''In These Times'', October 10, 2005, by Fritz Stern
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stern, Fritz
1926 births
2016 deaths
People from the Province of Lower Silesia
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
Historians from New York (state)
Members of the American Philosophical Society