VARIETIES OF GERMANY. Other Perspectives

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On Friday, 26 September 2025, the Deutsches Historisches Museum will host the 7th international symposium in its Historical Judgement series, held in the Pei Building. Titled "VARIETIES OF GERMANY: Other Perspectives", this year’s gathering will explore what is revealed when we look at German history “from the outside”. Gaining new perspectives is especially important in these turbulent times, when key elements of German and European politics must be fundamentally reevaluated.

This year's symposium looks beyond the traditional narratives of national historiography to offer new frames of reference. Renowned panellists – Volha Bartash, René Bloch, Philippe Depreux, Young-sun Hong, George N. Njung, Agnieszka Pufelska, Robyn D. Radway, Baijayanti Roy and Liliane Weissberg – bring fresh perspectives from countries including Belarus, France, India, Cameroon, Poland, and the United States. Redirecting attention to unexplored issues and expanding conventional notions of what is relevant, they reveal a different German history, a history viewed from the outside – from antiquity to the end of the Cold War. The event concludes with a discussion by Raphael Gross and Neil MacGregor on German history viewed through an international lens, moderated by Ulrike Kretzschmar.

Friday, 26 September 2025, 9 AM to 6:15 PM

VARIETIES OF GERMANY
Other Perspectives
7th International Symposium in the Historical Judgement series

Location: Deutsches Historisches Museum, Pei Building
Conference languages: German and English, simultaneous interpretation provided
Attendance: free of charge

Register by 12 September 2025 at: https://www.dhm.de/en/historicaljudgement/registration/

The symposium will be recorded and made available on the DHM’s YouTube channel.

Program

9:00 Registration

9:30 Welcome

Raphael Gross, Stiftung Deutsches Historisches Foundation

9:45 Panel I

Germani:
On the Use and Misuse of Ethnography
René Bloch, University of Bern

“The King of France Is Emperor in His Own Realm”:
A Dispute over Prestige in Medieval Europe?
Philippe Depreux, University of Hamburg

Becoming German in 16th-Century Ottoman Constantinople
Robyn D. Radway, Central European University

Chair: Len Scales, Durham University

11:15 Coffee break

11:45 Panel II

Unwelcome Immigrants:
German Settlers in Colonial Pennsylvania
Liliane Weissberg, University of Pennsylvania

Forced out of Prussia:
The Expulsion of Poles in 1885 and Its Relevance Today
Agnieszka Pufelska, Northeast Institute at the University of Hamburg

Colonial War Unchecked:
Flight and Expulsion in Cameroon, 1914–16
George N. Njung, Baylor University

Chair: Julia Franke, Deutsches Historisches Museum Foundation

1:15 Lunch break

2:45 Panel III

The Indian Legion of the Wehrmacht:
Between Political Calculation and Nazi Propaganda
Baijayanti Roy, Goethe University Frankfurt/Main

Yaffa, Galina, and Hanna:
Child Survivors of the Nazi Genocide in the Belarusian-Lithuanian Border Region
Volha Bartash, University of Münster & Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS Regensburg)

Forgotten Guest Workers:
South Korean Nurses in West Germany
Young-sun Hong, Stony Brook University

Chair: Matthias Struch, Deutsches Historisches Museum Foundation

4:15 Coffee break

4:45 Commentary and discussion

Neil MacGregor and Raphael Gross

Chair: Ulrike Kretzschmar, Deutsches Historisches Museum Foundation

The conference will be marking the release of the seventh edition of the DHM’s magazine Historische Urteilskraft, titled “Other Perspectives. German History from an International Perspective”.

For interview and filming requests, please contact the press office directly at: presse@dhm.de or 030/20 304 410