Fritz Stern
| Fritz R. Stern | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
February 2, 1926 Breslau, Silesia, Weimar Republic |
| Died | May 18, 2016 (aged 90) New York, New York, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Historiography |
| Institutions | Columbia University |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
| Influences | Lionel Trilling |
Fritz Richard Stern (February 2, 1926 – May 18, 2016) was a German-born American historian of German history, Jewish history and historiography. He was a University Professor Emeritus and a provost at New York's Columbia University. His work focused on the complex relationships between Germans and Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries and on the rise of National Socialism in Germany during the first half of the 20th century.
Fritz Richard Stern was born on February 2, 1926, in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), to a locally prominent medical family of Jewish heritage. His father, Rudolf Stern, was a physician, medical researcher and a veteran of the First World War. His mother, Käthe Brieger Stern, was a noted theorist, practitioner and reformer in the field of education for young children. Through family, friends, and colleagues, they were connected with a number of leading scientific and cultural figures in Europe and later in the U.S. For example, when trying to decide on his career objective while in college, Stern discussed choosing between history and medicine with Albert Einstein.
The family had converted from Judaism to Lutheran Protestant Christianity at the end of the 19th century, while sharing the increasingly secular worldview frequently found among Germany's educated classes. Stern was baptized shortly after his birth and named after his godfather, another member of the city's intellectual élite, the Nobel Prize winner Fritz Haber (also a Christian convert from Judaism). The Sterns emigrated to the United States in 1938 to escape the virulently anti-Jewish policies of Adolf Hitler's National Socialist government and the increasing violence against all Germans of Jewish ancestry.
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