Fritz Stern facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Fritz R. Stern
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| Born | February 2, 1926 |
| Died | May 18, 2016 (aged 90) New York, New York, U.S.
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| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Historiography |
| Institutions | Columbia University |
| Influences | Lionel Trilling |
Fritz Richard Stern (born February 2, 1926 – died May 18, 2016) was an American historian. He was born in Germany. He studied the history of Germany and Jewish history. He also looked at how history is written, which is called historiography.
Fritz Stern was a professor and a leader at Columbia University in New York. His work often explored the connections between Germans and Jewish people. He also studied how Nazism grew in Germany in the early 1900s.
Contents
Fritz Stern's Life Story
Fritz Stern was born on February 2, 1926. His hometown was Breslau, which was in Germany at the time. Today, this city is in Poland. His family was well-known in the area. They had a Jewish background.
His father, Rudolf Stern, was a doctor and a researcher. He had fought in World War I. His mother, Käthe Stern, was famous for her ideas about teaching young children. Their family knew many important scientists and cultural figures. For example, Fritz Stern even talked with Albert Einstein about his career choices.
Fritz's family had changed their religion from Judaism to Lutheranism in the late 1800s. They were part of a group of educated Germans who were becoming less religious. Fritz was baptized soon after he was born. He was named after his godfather, Fritz Haber, who won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Haber had also converted from Judaism.
In 1938, the Stern family moved to the United States. They left Germany to escape the harsh anti-Jewish rules of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party. The Nazis were becoming very violent towards people of Jewish background.
The family settled in Jackson Heights, Queens, in New York. Fritz grew up there. He went to public school and quickly learned English. His parents also started their careers again. Later, he went to Columbia University. He earned all his degrees there.
From 1953 to 1997, Fritz Stern was a professor at Columbia University. He became a very important professor there. He also briefly served as a provost, which is a senior leader, at the university.
Starting in 1954, Stern often taught as a guest at the Free University of Berlin in West Berlin.
In 1990, he helped convince British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that a united Germany would be safe for Europe. He explained that Germany would stay connected to Western countries. From 1993 to 1994, Stern advised the US ambassador to Germany, Richard Holbrooke. In 2010, Stern spoke at a special event. It was the 66th anniversary of an attempt to assassinate Hitler.
In January 2016, he looked back on his life. He said that he grew up during a time when democracy was falling apart. He felt sad that he was seeing similar struggles for democracy at the end of his life.
Fritz Stern passed away on May 18, 2016, in New York. He was 90 years old.
What Fritz Stern Studied
Much of Fritz Stern's work focused on understanding how Nazism grew in Germany. He looked at its features and origins. Stern believed that Nazism's roots went back to the 1800s. He studied a movement called the völkische movement. This group had strong anti-Jewish ideas.
Stern thought this movement came from German thinkers who felt lost in the modern world. He called this feeling the "politics of cultural despair." However, Stern did not believe that Germany was always destined for Nazism. He saw the völkische ideas as a "dark undercurrent" in 19th-century German society.
In the 1990s, Stern was a strong critic of American author Daniel Goldhagen. Goldhagen wrote a book called Hitler's Willing Executioners. Stern said the book was not scholarly. He also felt it showed strong anti-German feelings.
Another main area of Stern's research was the history of Jewish people in Germany. He studied how Jewish culture influenced German culture and how German culture influenced Jewish culture. Stern called this interaction the "Jewish-German symbiosis." He believed Albert Einstein was a great example of this connection.
Books and Writings
Books by Fritz Stern
- The Politics Of Cultural Despair: A Study In The Rise Of The Germanic Ideology, 1961. This book came from his earlier research. It includes 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, 1972, ISBN: 0-04-943019-X. This is a collection of his essays.
- Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder, and the Building of the German Empire, 1977, ISBN: 0-394-49545-4. This book tells the story of banker Gerson Bleichröder and Otto von Bismarck.
- Germany 1933: Fifty Years Later, 1984. This was a special lecture.
- Dreams and Delusions: The Drama Of German History, 1987, ISBN: 0-394-55995-9. Another collection of essays.
- Einstein's German World, 1999, ISBN: 0-691-05939-X.
- Friedenspreis des deutschen Buchhandels: Ansprachen aus Anlass der Verleihung, 1999.
- Five Germanies I Have Known, 2006, ISBN: 0-374-15540-2. This is his autobiography, telling his life story.
- "Imperial Hubris: A German Tale, War, Wilhelm II, and the consequences of leadership", Lapham's Quarterly, Winter 2008.
Books Co-authored by Fritz Stern
- with Helmut Schmidt, Unser Jahrhundert: Ein Gespräch, 2010. This book is a conversation between Stern and a former German chancellor.
- with Elizabeth Sifton, No Ordinary Men: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans von Dohnanyi, Resisters against Hitler in Church and State, 2013, ISBN: 978-1-59017-681-8.
- Editor
- The Varieties of History: From Voltaire to the Present, 1956.
- co-edited with Leonard Krieger, The Responsibility of Power: Historical Essays In Honor of Hajo Holborn, 1968. This book looks at how history has been written from the 1700s to the 1900s.
Awards and Honors
Fritz Stern received many awards for his work:
- 1969: Became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
- 1984: Received the Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize (with Hans Jonas).
- 1988: Became a member of the American Philosophical Society.
- 1994: Received the Pour le mérite für Wissenschaft und Künste, a high honor for science and arts.
- 1999: Received the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels (Peace Prize of the German Book Trade).
- 1999: Received the Humboldt Prize.
- 2002: Received an honorary doctorate from the University of Wrocław.
- 2004: Received the Leo Baeck Medal.
- 2005: Received The German National Prize.
- 2006: Received the Großes Verdienstkreuz des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland mit Stern und Schulterband, a high German award.
- 2007: Received the Preis für Verständigung und Toleranz (Prize for Understanding and Tolerance) from the Jewish Museum Berlin.
- 2007: Received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Historical Association.
- 2007: Received the Jacques Barzun Prize for Cultural History.
- 2008: Received the Internationaler Brückepreis.
- 2009: Received the Marion Dönhoff Prize.
- 2013: Received the Volkmar and Margret Sander Prize.
In 2009, the Fritz Stern Professorship was created in his honor at the University of Wrocław. The first person to hold this special teaching position was former German President Richard von Weizsäcker.
See also
In Spanish: Fritz Stern para niños
