Peter Schäfer (historian)

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Peter Schäfer (born March 4, 1931 in Berlin ; † February 29, 2016 in Jena ) was a German historian with a research focus on North American history. As one of the few historians in the GDR , he kept his professorship even after the fall of the Wall and the peaceful revolution in the GDR .

Live and act

Shepherd's mother had as a Jew , the era of National Socialism survived only by her marriage to a non-Jew. Schäfer himself was expelled from school in 1944. After completing his Abitur at the Georg Herwegh School in Berlin-Hermsdorf in 1949 , he decided to study history at the Humboldt University in Berlin because he was deterred by the return of numerous former National Socialist teachers to his school in the GDR "Better, more future-oriented German state" saw. He became a member of the FDJ in October 1949 and, after his marriage in 1952, moved his residence from the west to the east of Berlin . In 1954 he joined the SED .

From 1953 to 1959 Schäfer worked as a research assistant and then as a senior research assistant in the Modern Age department at the Institute for History at Humboldt University. He received his doctorate in December 1960 under Gerhard Schilfert and Elisabeth Giersiepen on Relations between Germany and the United States from 1933 to 1939, with a special focus on trade relations and the boycott movement in the United States .

In December 1963, Schäfer moved to the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena , where he held a lectureship in general history of modern times and modern times. In December 1979 he received his PhD B with a thesis on class foundations, function and results of Woodrow Wilson's reform policy . Since he was not allowed to travel abroad, Schäfer found it difficult, with his focus on North American history, to obtain sources on contemporary US history. He therefore based his research on the holdings of American journals from the interwar period in the Jena University Library. It was not until 1989 that he received an extraordinary professorship for modern history in Jena. After he had held a substitute professorship for Anglo-American history at the University of Cologne in 1992, he was given a full professorship for new history with a focus on the history of North America at the FSU Jena in 1993. In 1996, Schäfer was visiting professor at the Georg-August University in Göttingen . In the same year he was retired.

Fonts

A list of publications appeared in: Jörg Nagler : National and international perspectives of American history. Festschrift for Peter Schäfer on his 70th birthday (= Jena Contributions to History. Vol. 5). Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2002, ISBN 3-631-38010-0 , pp. 253-260.

  • Relations between Germany and the United States from 1933 to 1939: With special reference to trade relations and the boycott movement in the United States . Dissertation at Humboldt University Berlin, December 7, 1960, DNB 480922772 .
  • with Rüdiger Horn: History of the USA. 1914-1945. Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-326-00054-5 .
  • The presidents of the USA in the 20th century. Biographies, dates, documents. Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-326-00326-9 .
  • Between war and peace. Studies on the foreign policy of the USA in the 20th century (= scientific contributions from the Friedrich Schiller University Jena ). Publishing department of the Friedrich Schiller University, Jena 1990, OCLC 750933485 .
  • Everyday life in the United States. From colonial times to the present. Styria, Graz 1998, ISBN 3-222-12565-1 .
  • "Write that down, Mr. Schäfer!" Memories of a historian from his universities in Berlin and Jena. Thuss and van Riesen, Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-940431-00-4 .

literature

  • Werner Greiling : friend of the students and "old school" university historians. Peter Schäfer (1931–2016) in memory. In: Journal of the Association for Thuringian History 70 (2016), pp. 213–217.
  • Lothar Mertens : Lexicon of the GDR historians. Biographies and bibliographies on the historians from the German Democratic Republic. Saur, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-598-11673-X , p. 524.
  • Jörg Nagler: National and International Perspectives on American History. Festschrift for Peter Schäfer on his 70th birthday (= Jena Contributions to History. Vol. 5). Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2002, ISBN 3-631-38010-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Schäfer: My Berlin apprenticeship as a historian at the Humboldt University between 1953 and 1963. In: Helmut Wagner (Ed.): Europe and Germany - Germany and Europe. Liber amicorum for Heiner Timmermann on his 65th birthday (= documents and writings of the European Academy Otzenhausen , volume 139). Lit, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-8583-6 , pp. 273–290, here p. 275 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
personal data
SURNAME Shepherd, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH March 4, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH February 29, 2016
Place of death Jena