U.S.-German Institute Caps First Decade By Mike Field At a dinner on Nov. 17 at the tony Metropolitan Club in New York, leading figures from the German and American business, financial and political communities will gather to honor Karl Otto P"hl, former president of the Deutsche Bundesbank. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan will present the award. The event will be the capstone to the Hopkins American Institute for Contemporary German Studies' 10th anniversary celebration. Already, though, Jackson Janes, AICGS executive director, and Lily Gardner Feldman, its research director, are making plans for the institute's next 10 years. The AICGS is quickly becoming recognized by German and American scholars and public officials as Washington's premiere institute devoted exclusively to studying the social, economic, political and cultural development of Europe's most powerful nation. "The maturation of an institute like AICGS is an evolutionary process," said Dr. Gardner Feldman, who joined the institute full time in 1991. "The first stage, when the institute was founded, was mostly devoted to public affairs consisting of small seminars and major public events." It has come a long way since then. One unique aspect of AICGS was that it was founded with the express intent of creating an independent center of research, analysis, discussion and study of both Germanies-- east and west--that then existed. From the end of World War II through to the 1980s almost all Western study and discussion of Germany focused on West Germany--the Federal Republic of Germany. East Germany--the German Democratic Republic--was often ignored and largely unknown. AICGS set out to correct that deficiency. When Dr. Janes arrived to take the position of associate director of AICGS on Jan. 1, 1989, the decision to include the study of the GDR within the institute's purview was about to bear impressive fruit. "The Berlin Wall came down on Nov. 9, 1989," Dr. Janes said. "Suddenly there was tremendous interest in Germany and, in particular, the former German Democratic Republic." Because the institute had fostered study of the GDR, it had some important contacts with formerly East German academicians and social scientists. "The second stage of development of the institute occurred when we began offering fellowship programs that enabled scholars to come to Washington and work with us," Dr. Janes said. "This part of our program complements the public affairs work we were already engaged in." As the only American institute working on both West and East Germany, the AICGS was positioned not only to make valuable contributions to the discussions surrounding how reunification should be conducted and understood, but also to be one of the first centers to bring East German scholars and scientists to the United States to study. Since 1990 the institute, with the support of the Ford Foundation and the Stifterverband fr die Deutsche Wissenschaft, has offered semester-long fellowships to young East German social scientists wishing to become familiar with American scholarly work in their field and to work, under the mentorship of a senior American scholar, on a research project at an American university. To date, 21 young scholars have participated in the program, many of whom have returned to Germany and successfully obtained faculty and research positions in higher education. Originally conceived as a private American initiative, the institute relies heavily on foundations and individual contributors for support. In 1984 its initial budget was provided through the university, in part due to the close association of then-president Steven Muller, himself German-born. Dr. Muller agreed to join the institute's board of directors as vice-chairman, a position he held until becoming co-chairman earlier this year. Gerald Livingston, who was the institute's first director until January 1994, now heads the AICGS development effort. In the meantime, the institute's annual operating budget has reached approximately $750,000 in 1994, not including $300,000 to $700,000 needed for research, seminars, workshops, conferences and fellowships. With the public affairs and fellowship programs in place and a firm financial base established, the institute begins its second decade by moving into the third phase of its development. "As we look to the future we foresee a serious effort to define the institute's research agenda," Dr. Gardner Feldman said. In 1993 the AICGS formed an academic council of outstanding American scholars of Germany to assist in defining the center's research agenda. It further decided to group all future activities within the three broad areas of politics and foreign policy, economic studies and the humanities. Top priority has been assigned to producing research of the highest quality and relevance and making research findings available through timely and effective dissemination. "In so many ways, Germany's involvement in world affairs is so important," Dr. Janes said. "Germany is the locomotive that drives Europe and its influence spreads out in all directions, particularly to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. When our institute looks at Germany we are really looking at Germany in concentric circles, at how it relates first of all to Europe and then the rest of the world. "In general I would say Germany's interests are the same as ours," he said. "But each country works in different contexts, and now that the military threat is gone the United States and Germany are going to have to forge a new relationship, a new set of bargains. This institute can play an important role in those discussions."