Fritz Stern

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Fritz Richard Stern (born February 2, 1926) is a German-American historian of German history, Jewish history, and historiography.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Stern was born in Breslau, Germany (modern Wrocław, Poland) to a Jewish family. In 1938 his family fled Germany and eventually came to the United States. He was educated at Columbia University where he received his bachelors, masters, and PhD. 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. He is recognized in the United States and in Germany as an eminent historian.

[edit] Contributions

The focus of much of his work is attempting to track the development of the rise of National Socialism in Germany and its characteristics. Stern has traced the origins of Nazism back to the 19th century völkische movement. In Stern's opinion, the virulently ant-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 rejects 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 American political scientist Daniel Goldhagen, whose book Hitler's Willing Executioners Stern denounced as unscholarly and full of Germanophobia.

Another major area of research for Stern has been 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 has often called the "Jewish-German symbiosis". In Stern’s view, the best example of the "Jewish-German symbiosis" was Albert Einstein.

[edit] Most notable works

  • The Varieties of History: From Voltaire to the Present (1970) A collection of writings from various people, gathered together and edited by Stern, to give a survey of historiography from the eighteenth century to the twentieth.
  • Gold and Iron, (1977) A book centered around Gerson Bleichröder, the personal banker and friend of the other subject of the book, Otto von Bismarck. Through the two men Stern tracks the development of the uneasy relationship between Jews and Gentiles in late nineteenth century Germany.
  • The Failure of Illiberalism (1973) and Dreams and Delusions (1987) Both books are collections of essays and transcribed speeches concerning nineteenth and twentieth century Germany.

[edit] Complete works

  • (editor) The Varieties Of History, From Voltaire To The Present, New York : Meridian Books, 1956, 1960, 1972, 1973, ISBN 0-394-71962-X.
  • The Politics Of Cultural Despair; A Study In The Rise Of The Germanic Ideology, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1961, 1963.
  • co-edited with Leonard Krieger The Responsibility Of Power : Historical Essays In Honor Of Hajo Holborn, London : Macmillan, 1968, 1967
  • Gold and Iron : Bismarck, Bleichroeder, and the Building of the German Empire, New York : Knopf, 1977 ISBN 0-394-49545-4.
  • Germany 1933 : Fifty Years Later, New York, N.Y. : Leo Baeck Institute, 1983
  • Dreams and Delusions : the Drama Of German History, New York : Knopf, 1987 ISBN 0-394-55995-9.
  • Einstein's German World, Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1999 ISBN 0-691-05939-X.
  • Fritz Stern : 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

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Stern, Fritz Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Historian
DATE OF BIRTH February 2, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland)
DATE OF DEATH living
PLACE OF DEATH
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