Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History Munich – Berlin (IfZ), Foreign Office Branch

Location:
Institut für Zeitgeschichte – Edition
der Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik
der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
c/o Auswärtiges Amt, Ref. 117-IfZ
11013 Berlin
Germany

Contact:
Simone Paulmichl
Tel. +49 (0)89 12688 150
paulmichl[at]ifz-muenchen.de

www.ifz-muenchen.de

Description: 

The Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History Munich – Berlin (IfZ) is one of the largest non-university historical research institutes in Germany. Its range of work encompasses German and European history in the twentieth century to the present day in its global context. Main research foci are dictatorships in the twentieth century, the history of democracy, and transformations in contemporary history since the 1970s. At its three branches – in Munich, at the Berlin branch and in the IfZ department of the German Foreign Office – the Institute intensively addresses the history and impact of the Cold War.

Cold War Interests: 

In the IfZ branch at the Federal Foreign Office, a group of editors has been working since 1990 on the publication of the Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Documents on the Foreign Policy of the Federal Republic of Germany), in the framework of which central documents for research on international relations during the conflict between East and West are presented directly after the expiration of their respective 30-year term of protection. Furthermore, the edition "Die Einheit. Das Auswärtige Amt, das DDR-Außenministerium und der Zwei-plus-Vier-Prozess" (Unification: The Federal Foreign Office, the GDR Foreign Ministry and the Two-plus-Four Process) constitutes another foundational work on the end of the Cold War. At the same time, the same historians are working on analytical case studies. They have produced works – partially in the framework of the interdepartmental research cluster 'Transformations in Recent History' – on NATO's Double-Track Decision and on the role of the Federal Republic of Germany in the CSCE process. Works on Bonn's policies towards Turkey and Libya shed light on the Federal Republic's foreign policy on the periphery of Europe at the time of the Cold War.