Goodbye to Director Feldman (cont.)

.... IES has had a relatively short but distinguished history, during which Prof. Feldman has played a formative role. Set up by Law Professor Dick Buxbaum, the Center for German and European Studies was founded in 1990 through a generous multi-year grant from the German Government. One of only three US universities to be so honored (Berkeley’s sister sites were Georgetown and Harvard), the government of Germany wanted German Studies to have a distinct presence system-wide at the University of California. CGES later merged with the Title VI-funded Center for West European Studies to form IES.

The early days were a fledgling endeavor with plywood desks and a full-time staff of two. Still German Chancellor Helmut Kohl came to Berkeley in 1990 in part to give his official blessing to the Center; it grew quickly under the stewardship of Buxbaum and Feldman into a preeminent incubator of scholarship and interdisciplinary scholarly dialogue on Germany and Western Europe.

Prof. Feldman’s research interests and energy were a natural match for CGES when he took over from Prof. Buxbaum in 1994. For instance during the 90s, large German corporations began to hire prominent American historians to write corporate histories in an effort to create objective accounts of their past. Gerry was asked to research and write a history of Allianz Insurance Company, for which he spent a year’s sabbatical in Germany doing research for a work entitled Allianz and the German Insurance Business, 1933-1945.

A talented and prolific scholar, Professor Feldman grew up in the Bronx and did his undergraduate work at Columbia where he was a scholarly standout. After completing his PhD at Harvard, he began teaching at Cal at the unusually young age of 26. Prof. Feldman’s academic interests are German economic and business history, as well as broader German social and Imperial history of the early to mid-20 th Century.

Each book he has written has been based on entirely new research, whether his “definitive” biography of Hugo Stinnes, “The unofficial German Kaiser” – Hugo Stinnes: Biographie eines Industriellen 1870-1924 – or his prize-winning work on the German inflation, The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914-1924. In addition, he has authored (or contributed to) several volumes such as Networks Of Nazi Persecution: Bureaucracy, Business, and the Organization of the Holocaust (with Wolfgang Seibel), German Imperialism, 1914-18, and The Deutsche Bank, 1870-1995 (Lothar Gall, Gerald D. Feldman, et al.). His archival research has taken him often to Germany and Russia, where he is not an unfamiliar face on television roundtables discussing history and politics. The recipient of many prestigious prizes and fellowship, such as a National Foundation for the Humanities Fellowship and the Grosse Verdienstkreuz des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany), Prof. Feldman’s work has garnered praise both in Europe and the US.

Beverly Crawford, IES Assistant Director and herself a specialist in German politics, has characterized the uniqueness of his contribution as follows: “Gerald D. Feldman’s work is known for its engaging writing style that sustains the liveliness, wit, and sense of irony that is his essence, while telling complex, multilayered stories based on impeccable and meticulous investigation of primary sources. His work always addresses the penetrating question of the breakdown of moral standards and explores the causes of disintegration in moral and rational political, social, and economic order. He is a political historian in the broadest sense.”

Under Director Feldman, IES’ record has been one of innovative initiatives. Prof. Feldman crafted and implemented exciting public programs, research, study groups, and other fresh formats for inquiry which have unlocked conversations across disciplines in European Studies throughout the state. IES has crossed regional divisions among Organized Research Units in IAS (International and Area Studies) and has taken the lead in pulling together the strengths of these separate Units to tackle critical intellectual issues which do not neatly fit into one particular region or research Center. In the Spring of 2000 in a review of ORUs at IAS, for instance, IES was ranked in the first of four tiers, for, among other positive attributes, “its dynamism and the innovative nature of its programs.”

IES fortuitously came into its own just as major political changes – the fall of the Berlin wall, glasnost, the rapid growth of the European Union – cried out for creative responses and scholarly analysis, from the training of former Eastern Bloc scholars and public servants in market-capitalism to symposia on the evolving power balance between the US and “Old” Europe. Prof. Feldman helped empower the Center with the creative daring to tackle these challenges. Moreover, his graciousness, collegiality, abundant sense-of-humor, and love of excellence have infused IES, making it a fruitful and welcoming place to work and pursue advanced research.

On a personal note, Prof. Feldman is an opera aficionado, his favorite being Wagner’s Das Rheingold of the Ring trilogy, and Monteverdi’s Coronation of Poppea. For someone who has no problem writing books over 1000 pages long, the predilection for Wagner might not be too mysterious.

Another favorite is Montiverdi’s lesser known work, The Coronation of Poppea , written in 1642, was the first opera to be based on historical figures. Roman emperor Nero wants to discard Octavia his wife to marry his manipulative mistress, Poppea. Set amid the machinations and intrigue at the highest levels of a doomed government, it has overtones with mid-20th Century Germany and poetically resonates with Prof. Feldman’s own research interests.

At IES’ surprise going-away party for Director Feldman in May, this love of Opera became a perfect foil for jokes through the unannounced presence of a loud, Brooklyn-born Brunhilda – one more Ethel Merman than Frederica von Stade. (See the pictures here.) IES looks forward to its as-yet-unannounced new Director even while it says a fond farewell to Gerald D. Feldman, soon to be Professor Emeritus.

— Eric Kotila