The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs, and Germany

Martin Klimke is a research fellow at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA) at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. His 2005 dissertation The "Other" Alliance: Global Protest and Student Unrest in West Germany and the U.S., 1962-1972, was awarded the prestigious Ruprecht-Karls Prize for best doctoral thesis at Heidelberg University in 2006, and will be published by Princeton University Press in 2008. Klimke has been working extensively in the area of transnational history and social movements and has published numerous articles on processes of cultural transfer and global protest networks. He is the co-editor of the publication series Protest, Culture and Society (Berghahn Books, New York/Oxford) and, among others, 1968 in Europe: A History of Protest and Activism, 1956-77 (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming April 2008).

Since 2006 he has been the director and coordinator of the international Marie-Curie project European Protest Movements Since 1945 which is supported by the European Commission. Klimke has already published essays on Black Power in Germany in the 1960/70s and is currently a Visiting Fellow for North American History at the German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C., where he is working on his second book entitled The African-American Civil Rights Struggle and Germany after 1945.

Associated Scholars and Collaborating Institutions

• Dieter Brünn, Director of Archive of Soldiers’ Rights, e.V. Berlin, Germany

• James Danky, Project Director African American Journals and Newspapers, University of Wisconsin, Madison

• Michael Geib, Director of Ramstein Air Base Documentary & Exhibition Center

• Leroy Hopkins, German Studies, Millersville State University

• Sophie Lorenz, History Department, University of Heidelberg

• Mia Mask, Department of Film, Vassar College

• Anke Ortlepp, German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C.

• Judith Weisenfeld, Department of Religion, Princeton University

Publications:

Maria Höhn:

- "The Black Panther Solidarity Committees and the Voice of the Lumpen," in: German Studies Review, XXXI, 1, February 2008, 133-154.

-"'We will Never Go Back to the Old Way Again': Germany in the African American Debate on Civil Rights," Central European History, vol. 41, no. 4 (December 2008).

-"'When Negro-Soldiers Bring Home White Brides': Deutsche und amerikanische Debatten über die 'Mischehe' (1945-1967)" in: Werner Kremp und Martina Tumalis, eds., Amerikaner in Rheinland-Pfalz. Alltagskulturelle Begegnungen (Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2008), 147-164.

-"Ein Atemzug der Freiheit": Afro-amerikanische GIs, deutsche Frauen, und die Grenzen der Demokratie (1945-1968)," in Arnd Bauerkämpfer, et al., eds., Demokratiewunder. Transatlantische Mittler und die kulturelle Öffnung Westdeutschlands, 1945-1970 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005), 104-128.

Martin Klimke:

-"The African American Civil Rights Struggle and Germany, 1945-1989 ," in: Bulletin of the German Historical Institute (Washington, D.C., Fall 2008).

-“Black Panther, die RAF und die Rolle der Black Panther-Solidaritätskomitees ,” in: Wolfgang Kraushaar, ed., Die RAF und der linke Terrorismus (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2006), 562-582.