Fritz R. Stern | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1926-02-02)February 2, 1926 |
| Died | May 18, 2016(2016-05-18) (aged 90) New York, New York, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Historiography |
| Institutions | Columbia University |
Fritz Richard Stern (February 2, 1926 – May 18, 2016) was a German-born Americanhistorian ofGerman history,Jewish history andhistoriography. He was a University Professor and a provost at New York'sColumbia University. His work focused on the complex relationships betweenGermans andJews in the 19th and 20th centuries and on the rise ofNational Socialism in Germany during the first half of the 20th century.[1]
Stern was born on February 2, 1926, inBreslau,Germany (now Wrocław,Poland), to a locally-prominent medical family ofJewish heritage.[2] His father, Rudolf Stern, was a physician, medical researcher and a veteran of theFirst World War. 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 several 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 withAlbert Einstein.[3]
The family had converted fromJudaism toLutheranism in the late 19th century and shared the increasingly-secular world view that was frequently found among Germany's educated classes.[2] Stern was baptized shortly after his birth and named after his godfather, another member of Breslau's intellectual élite, theNobel Prize winnerFritz Haber[4] (also a Christian convert from Judaism). The Stern family's plight suffered in under the Nazi regime, similar to that of other Germans branded Jewish by the Nazis. His memoirs describe his experience (although not Jewish) facing an anti-Semitic Nazi teacher, who infamously presented a math problem: "If three Jews robbed a bank, and each got a part of the loot proportionate to their ages … how much would each get?"[5] The Sterns emigrated to the United States in 1938 to escape the virulent anti-Jewish policies ofAdolf Hitler'sNational Socialist government and the increasing violence against allGermans of Jewish ancestry.[2]
The family settled inJackson Heights, Queens, where Stern spent the remainder of his childhood. He attended public school and quickly learned English while his parents re-established their respective careers.[6] He then attendedColumbia University, where he received his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees. His professors includedLionel Trilling.[7]
From 1953 to 1997, he served as a professor at Columbia, obtaining the eminentSeth Low chair before attaining the rank of University Professor. Stern also briefly served asprovost of the university.[2]
Beginning in 1954, Stern taught frequently as a guest lecturer at theFree University in West Berlin.
In 1990, he helped persuade British Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher 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. In 2010, Stern spoke at the former German military headquarters building, theBendlerblock, on the 66th anniversary of anassassination attempt on Hitler.[8]
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."[9]
Stern died on May 18, 2016, in New York, at 90.[10]
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The focus of much of Stern's work an attempt to track the development of the rise ofNational Socialism inGermany and its characteristics. Stern traced the origins ofNazism back to the 19th-centuryvölkische movement. Stern considered that the virulent anti-Semiticvölkische 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 theSonderweg interpretation of German history and considered the ideas of thevölkische 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 authorDaniel Goldhagen, whose bookHitler's Willing Executioners was denounced by Stern as unscholarly and full ofGermanophobia.
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" wasAlbert Einstein.
The Fritz Stern Professorship at theUniversity of Wrocław was established in his honor in 2009. The first person appointed to hold that chair was former German PresidentRichard von Weizsäcker.[18]
