The University of Oldenburg mourns the loss of Prof. Dr Dr h. c. mult. Fritz Stern, German-American historian and honorary doctor of the School IV - School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Stern died in New York on 18 May at the age of 90.
"In Fritz Stern, we have lost one of the most important historians, writers and critical thinkers of our time, whose outstanding academic achievements are known far beyond the boundaries of his discipline," explained Dean Prof Dr Andrea Strübind.
The School had awarded Stern an honorary doctorate in October 2013. Stern's honour is in the intellectual tradition associated with the university's namesake, Carl von Ossietzky, explained Strübind.
Stern, born in Breslau in 1926, emigrated with his family to the United States in 1938, where he studied history at Columbia University in New York. He followed in the tradition of German-Jewish scholars who pursued an academic career in the USA after the National Socialists seized power in 1933. Stern gained international renown as a liberal historian who researched German's difficult path to modernity since the Bismarck era and subjected the national-conservative resentment against the Weimar Republic and the German-Jewish symbiosis to in-depth criticism.
In 1999, he received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for his services to German-Jewish reconciliation. In 2004, he was honoured with the Leo Baeck Medal. The historian has taught at Columbia University in New York since 1946, where he was also a professor emeritus.
