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West Germany and Israel: Foreign Relations, Domestic Politics, and the Cold War, 1965-1974

Bringing new evidence and analysis to the changes in a fraught historical relationship, Carole Fink will discuss how West Germany and Israel moved in almost opposite directions after 1965: The FRG, the world’s third largest export economy, launched a series of independent diplomatic initiatives in Europe and the Middle East, while Israel, after its 1967 military victory, became increasingly isolated and dependent upon the United States. Yet the two countries remained closely connected by shared security concerns, personal bonds, and the recurrent evocations of the German-Jewish past.

Date & Time

Monday
Sep. 23, 2019
4:00pm – 5:30pm ET

Location

6th Floor, Woodrow Wilson Center
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Overview

Bringing new evidence and analysis to the changes in a fraught historical relationship, Carole Fink will discuss how West Germany and Israel moved in almost opposite directions after 1965: The FRG, the world’s third largest export economy, launched a series of independent diplomatic initiatives in Europe and the Middle East, while Israel, after its 1967 military victory, became increasingly isolated and dependent upon the United States. Yet the two countries remained closely connected by shared security concerns, personal bonds, and the recurrent evocations of the German-Jewish past.

Carole Fink is Humanities Distinguished Professor of History Emerita at The Ohio State University is the author and editor of fifteen books, most recently West Germany and Israel: Foreign Relations, Domestic Politics, and the Cold War, 1965-1974, the second edition of Cold War: An International History, and Writing 20th Century International History: Explorations and Examples.  Two of her other books – The Genoa Conference of 1922 and Defending the Rights of Others: The Great Powers, the Jews, and International Minority Protection, 1878-1938 - were awarded the George Louis Beer Prize of the American Historical Association, and her biography of the French historian and resistance hero Marc Bloch has been translated into six languages. Since retiring from Ohio State, Fink has been a guest professor in China, Israel, Germany, and Australia, and she is currently at work on a new book on West Germany and the Soviet Jewish refugees during the last two decades of the Cold War.

The Washington History Seminar is co-chaired by Eric Arnesen (George Washington University) and Christian Ostermann (Woodrow Wilson Center) and is sponsored jointly by the National History Center of the American Historical Association and the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. It meets weekly during the academic year. The seminar thanks the Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest and the George Washington University History Department for their support.


Hosted By

History and Public Policy Program

The History and Public Policy Program makes public the primary source record of 20th and 21st century international history from repositories around the world, facilitates scholarship based on those records, and uses these materials to provide context for classroom, public, and policy debates on global affairs.  Read more

Cold War International History Project

The Cold War International History Project supports the full and prompt release of historical materials by governments on all sides of the Cold War. Through an award winning Digital Archive, the Project allows scholars, journalists, students, and the interested public to reassess the Cold War and its many contemporary legacies. It is part of the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program.  Read more

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