Center for German and European Studies

November 5, 2025

CGES Hybrid Event

In 1939, the ocean liner MS St. Louis undertook a dramatic voyage with over nine hundred Jewish refugees that caught the world's attention and has been remembered in numerous printed texts, films, and artifacts. On Shoreless Sea is the first work to comprehensively analyze the journey's unfolding, its historical context, and its key representations in various media. Author Roy Grundmann illuminates the voyage's historical significance and demonstrates its relevance to our present, in which prosperous nations once again stem mass migration.

November 10, 2025

CGEs Hybrid Event

Determined to help heal her mother’s pain, Karen set out to piece together a war-torn history. From the glittering days of pre-war Poland to the little-known Radom Prison, where a Jewish woman negotiates with an SS officer to save her sister’s child, to the author’s upbringing in a Christian home, Irena’s Gift is about the secrets we keep to protect ourselves and those we love. It is also a story of resilience and bravery, revealing how love and hope, too, can not only prevail through the worst imaginable circumstances, but resonate through time.

November 12, 2025

CGES In-Person Event

November 17, 2025

CGES Online Event

In this webinar you will learn about civil initiatives in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Frankfurt. The municipality of Bad Nauheim chose Doughnut Economics as their DNA for transformation into a sustainable and healthy city. Among other consultancies the Next Economy Lab develops concepts for towns and cities, businesses and unions embracing the Doughnut principles.  Dr. Nicole Hartmann presents the Donut framework, how it encourages and empowers communities of practice in Germany and invites to turn destructive narratives and actions into stories of hope, courage and building a livable future.

November 24, 2025

CGES In-Person Event

Join CGES for this symposium on Thomas Mann! The following talks will be held:

• Three Key Readings - with Meike Werner
• "The Magic Mountain - an Anthropocene Novel." with Elisabeth Strowick
• “Climbing The Magic Mountain.” with Veronika Fuechtner

December 1, 2025

CGES Hybrid Event

Today, when democracy is again endangered in much of the world, Mann’s antifascist radio addresses have acquired new urgency. A new volume by Jeffrey High and Elaine Chen presents English translations of all of Mann’s 58 radio addresses for the first time, with a foreword by Mann’s grandson Frido Mann, an introduction by leading Mann scholar Hans Rudolf Vaget, careful annotations, and a selection of photographs.

October 30, 2025

CGES Hybrid Event

October 29, 2025

CGES Online Event

Extremism is on the rise in Europe, North America, and around the world. What lessons does history provide on how to protect - or lose - our democracy? This series features some of the authors of the newly published ‘Wenn das Gestern anklopft: Weimar und die Wiederkehr der Geschichte’ (Herder, 2025) to explore the drivers of democratic breakdown as well as the success factors of democratic resilience, then and now. The first in this series of events addresses the question as to whether the ‘Never again!’ credo of the last 80 years - first expressed by Buchenwald survivors the day after their liberation and repeated by political leaders and in civil society ever since - lies in tatters.

October 28, 2025

CGES Hybrid Event

October 21, 2025

CGES Online Event

This talk will show how Thomas Mann's landmark German modernist novel "Der Zauberberg" ("The Magic Mountain", 1924) has developed something of a cult following among non-academic readers around the world over the course of the past century. Moving from interwar Germany and Soviet Russia to present-day Hollywood and Japan, it will analyse how and why various readers - from tuberculosis sufferers to prisoners of war and beyond - made Mann's book their own.

October 9, 2025

CGES Hybrid Event

As two of the world’s leading democracies and economic powers, Germany and the United States have long been pillars of stability and cooperation in global affairs. Yet shifting geopolitical dynamics, evolving security challenges, and domestic political changes on both sides of the Atlantic are testing this partnership. Attendees joined CGES for an engaging talk with Vladimir Balzer as he explored how these forces reshaped German-American relations and what they mean for the future of transatlantic cooperation.

October 6, 2025

CGES Online Event

September 19, 2025

CGES Online Event

CGES hosted Doris Metz, the filmmaker behind "Petra Kelly-Act Now" for a post-screening discussion.

September 16, 2025

CGES In-Person Event

Petra Kelly, co-founder of the German Green Party, was a pioneering advocate for peace, environmental protection, and human rights. Inspired by the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King’s concept of civil disobedience, she championed radical social change and solidarity worldwide. Her issues are today more topical than ever before.

September 10, 2025

CGES Online Event

Previous research has repeatedly shown that various populist far-right parties (PFRPs) engage in some form of resistance to climate action. To better understand their approach to climate related issues, this presentation examines how established PFRPs in Germany (AfD), Spain (Vox), and Austria (FPÖ) frame and interpret climate change in their political communication. Although PFRPs have achieved notable electoral success across Europe, mainstream parties continue to play a dominant role in shaping public discourse. Ultimately, the findings reveal that climate obstructionism is neither uniform nor confined to the political fringes, but a complex and transnational phenomenon rooted in a wider right-wing alliance.

September 9, 2025

CGES Online Event