10/22/96

ATHENS, Ohio -- London's Institute of Contemporary History and Wiener Library have awarded Ohio University Associate Professor of History Jeffrey Herf the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History for his forthcoming book Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanies.

Herf came to Ohio University this fall. He has previously served as a visiting professor or lecturer at Mount Holyoke College, Emory University, Brandeis University, Naval War College, College of Holy Cross and Harvard University. He was a Fulbright Visiting Professor at the University of Freiburg, Germany, and has worked at Harvard's Center for European Studies, the German Historical Institute in Washington, and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.

"Divided Memory is about East and West Germany attitudes towards the Holocaust -- what they said and did, and did not say and did not do about the Holocaust and other crimes of the Nazi era," Herf said. "It examines these issues from the 1930s anti-Nazi opposition through the postwar period up to 1990. While there is a great deal of commentary on facing the Nazi past, Divided Memory is one of the first comparative historical studies of how the two German governments faced their common past.

"I was fortunate to be working on these issues at the same time the archives of the former Communist government, including those of the Central Committee and the state security services, the Stasi, became available," Herf said. " For me, one pleasant and unexpected result of the opening of the archives of the East German dictatorship was the emergence of a set of important questions about memory, justice and democracy in West Germany as well."

Herf, 49, a native of Milwaukee, Wis., completed a B.A. in history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an M.A. in history at the State University of New York at Buffalo and a Ph.D. in sociology at Brandeis University.

"The manuscript is attracting major attention and praise," said Chester Pach, director of Ohio University's Contemporary History Institute. "Once it's published, we expect it to be one of the best examples of the new kind of international history that is possible because of the opening of archives in former Soviet Bloc countries."

Herf will share the $5,000 prize with Professor Marion Kaplan, professor of history at the City University of New York and author of Jewish Lives in Nazi Germany: Women, Families and Daily Struggles.