Conference Group for Central European History
Newsletter
Fall 2002

 Dear Colleagues,

I look forward to seeing you at the Conference Group's  business meeting and Bierabend, Saturday, January 4, 2003.  Both events will take place at the American Historical Association convention in Chicago (Thursday, January 2 to Sunday, January 5, 2003).  The business meeting will convene at 5:00 p.m. in the Hilton Hotel, Private Dining Room 3, also on Saturday, January 4.  Business to be conducted includes the election of new officers (current officers and nominees are listed below), the announcement of the winner of the biennial book prize, and the future editorship of Central European History.  The Bierabend will begin at 6:00 p.m. in the adjacent Private Dining Room 2.   I am pleased to announce that the Conference Group is the co-sponsor of fourteen sessions on Central Europe at this year's AHA meeting. You will find links to these sessions below. 

Kees Gispen

Contents
2003 AHA meeting
    Joint sessions of the CGCEH and the AHA
    Conference Group for Central European History
    Current Officers
    Archives Committee: update on former Stasi records
    Nominations Committee
    Editorship of Central European History
    Disposition of back issues of Central European History
Announcements
        Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize winners

Please click here to see the details of all joint sessions of the CGCEH and the AHA. 

Friday, January 3, 9:30-11:30 a.m.
AHA Session 8.  The German Diaspora in East Central Europe: Assimilation, Dissimilation, and Expulsion
Palmer House, Private Dining Room 18

Friday, January 3, 9:30-11:30 a.m.
AHA Session 16.  Twentieth-Century Sex and the State: Austro-Germanic Bodies, Sex, and the Nation
Hilton, Boulevard Room C

The full 2003 AHA program can be found on line, at the following address: http://www.theaha.org/annual/2003/index.htm

Current Officers (January 2001-January 2002)
President: David Crew, University of Texas at Austin
Vice-President: David Blackbourn, Harvard University
Vice-President Elect:  Jonathan Sperber, University of Missouri, Columbia
Immediate Past President: Konrad Jarausch: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and University of Potsdam 
At-Large Member (exp. January 2003): Doris Bergen, University of Notre Dame
At-Large Member (exp. January 2004): Peter Black, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
At-large Member (exp. January 2005): Dagmar Herzog, Michigan State University
Editor of Central European History, Kenneth Barkin, University of California, Riverside
Executive Secretary and Treasurer, Kees Gispen, University of Mississippi

Archives Committee
David Barclay (Kalamazoo College), Chair (contact David at: barclay@kzoo.edu)
John Connelly, University of California at Berkeley
Carole Fink, Ohio State University
Geoffrey Giles, University of Florida (ex officio)
Alan Steinweis, University of Nebraska at Lincoln 
Gerhard Weinberg, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

David Barclay files this update on access to the former Stasi records:

The continuing controversy about access to Stasi records overshadowed other archive-related issues in 2002.  In March, the Bundesverwaltungsgericht confirmed a lower-court decision forbidding publication of Stasi materials concerning ex-Chancellor Helmut Kohl.  According to the court, Stasi documents concerning persons of contemporary historical significance (Personen der Zeitgeschichte) could only be published with the permission of such persons.  Marianne Birthler, director of the “Birthler-Behörde,” was one of many who regretted the consequences of this decision for scholarly research on both post-1949 German states. (For details, see the Süddeutsche Zeitung of 9-10 March 2002.)   In an effort to modify or reverse the effects of this decision, the governing coalition was joined by the FDP in supporting a Novelle to modify the older legislation on access to Stasi records. The “5. Änderungsgesetz zum Stasiunterlagengesetz” passed the Bundestag and Bundesrat in July and went into effect in September; the CDU/CSU voted against the measure in the Bundestag, while the PDS abstained.  Of particular importance is the Novellierung of Paragraphs 32 and 32a, which deal with access to materials concerning persons of contemporary historical significance.  The new Gesetzesnovelle makes it possible for scholars and journalists to continue to work in relevant Stasi records, although future legal challenges are certainly possible.  For details of the new legislation and for a chronology of the entire dispute, see the excellent Web site of the Birthler-Behörde at www.bstu.de

Nominations Committee 
The Conference Group’s nominating committee is made up of the executive committee.  The committee earlier this year nominated Roger Chickering, Georgetown University, for the position of Vice-President Elect and Kevin Repp, Yale University, for a three-year term on the executive committee.  These nominations will be voted on at the January business meeting in Boston. 

The Executive Committee is soliciting recommendations for a CGCEH member to fill a slot on the board of Friends of the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC.  Preferably, the nominee will reside in the Washington, DC area, to facilitate attendance of board meetings.  This issue will be discussed and voted on at the January business meeting.

Editorship of Central European History
The editor of Central European History, Ken Barkin, will complete his term of office in the spring of 2004.  The future of the editorship will be one of the items on the agenda of the business meeting. 

Disposition of back issues of Central European History
The executive secretary in the spring of 2002 received the remaining stock of back issues of CEH (vols. 1-23) from Emory University.  After availability of the back issues was publicized in the spring 2002 CGCEH Newsletter and on H-German, 37 complete sets of back issues were prepared and donated free of charge to the following institutions (recipients paid shipping and handling charges): Anderson University; Australian Catholic University, Everton Park, Australia; Bradley University; Brill Academic Publishers, Boston office (2 sets); Cardiff University, UK; Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Mexico City; Clark University; Dickinson State University; Durham University, UK; East West University; Erskine College; European University, St. Petersburg, Russia; Gonzaga University; Hebrew Union College; Indiana University at Indianapolis; International University Bremen, Germany; Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland; Keene State University; Kennesaw State University; Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, Canada; Mount Allison University, Sackville, Canada; National University of Iceland, Reykjavik; Oglethorpe University; Seoul National University, Republic of Korea; Southwestern College; Texas A&M University; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2 sets); University of Lodz, Poland; University of Mississippi (2 sets); University of Southern Denmark, Odense; Utica College; Valparaiso University; Center for European Studies, Vanderbilt University; Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung, Potsdam, Germany.  All back issues have now been distributed.  

Announcements

Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize Winners

The Friends of the German Historical Institute are pleased to announce the winners of this year's Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize: 

Julia Roos, Carnegie Mellon University, "Weimar's Crisis Through the Lens of Gender: The Case of Prostitution"

and

Rebecca Wittman, University of Toronto, "Holocaust on Trial? The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial in Historical Perspective"

The editor of this Newsletter may be reached at the following address:
Department of History
University of Mississippi
University, MS 38677
662-915-7148
662-915-7033 fax
hsgispen@olemiss.edu

This page was last edited on 12/06/2002