Here is an overview of our Einstein Research Projects.
Arts and Humanities
A team led by Stefan Rinke, a Latin American historian at the Freie Universität, and Stefanie Schüler-Springorum from the Centre for Research on Antisemitism at the Technische Universität will research “Personal testimonies of Jews returning to Berlin from Latin America (1945/49-1970)” as part of an Einstein Research Project. Between 1933 and the end of World War II, Latin America was a key destination for all those fleeing the National Socialist regime. Following Allied victory in 1945, however, it also became a hiding place for many who had committed crimes during Nazi rule. German Jews remigrating from Latin America to the German Federal Republic between 1945 and the start of the 1970s often hoped that they would be able to retrieve their stolen property thanks to the passing of the German Restitution Laws. Papers documenting these attempts can be found in the basements of some of Berlin’s official buildings in records compiled by the State of Berlin’s restitution authorities. These files contain statements made by victims explaining the circumstances they faced under National Socialism in Germany and in Latin America. This project will use these documents and resources from German and Latin American archives to examine the lives of Jews living in exile in Latin America. Researchers will focus on family situations and networks, knowledge acquisition, continuing antisemitism, and the challenges posed by remigration and the quest for restitution in post-war Berlin. In addition to the institutions named above, the team will be aided in their research and analysis by the Selma Stern Center for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg, the University of Potsdam, and the Ibero-American Institute. The Jewish Museum Berlin, the Exilmuseum, and the Documentation Centre for Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation will also be involved in the project.
Funding period: 01/2023 - 01/2026
Contact:
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Stefan Rinke
ZI Lateinamerika-Institut
Freie Universität Berlin
Rüdesheimer Str. 54-56
14197 Berlin
Tel.: +49 30 838 55588
Applicant: Freie Universität Berlin
Cooperation partner: Center for Research on Antisemitism at Technische Universität Berlin; Selma Stern Zentrum für Jüdische Studien Berlin-Brandenburg; University of Potsdam; Ibero-American Institute
Social and behavioural sciences
With the project "Open-source modeling of the future role of renewable hydrogen in Germany and Europe", a team from the Department of Economic and Infrastructure Policy at Technische Universität Berlin, together with the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), is researching what role renewable hydrogen will play in the energy transition in Germany and how it can contribute to achieving the goal of climate neutrality. Economist Christian von Hirschhausen from the Technical University is leading the project; in addition, infrastructure researcher Konstantin Löffler (also from the Technical University) and Franziska Holz and Wolf-Peter Schill from DIW's Energy-Transport-Environment department are involved as principal investigators. The group will use digital, open-source-based computational models to address questions such as how much hydrogen needs to be produced to achieve decarbonization at the national as well as the European level, and how a switch to renewable hydrogen would affect electricity storage. In addition, the team is addressing the problem of how to negotiate the needs of a flexible energy sector on the one hand and the demand for energy efficiency on the other. Efforts are also being made to strengthen international research collaborations, including with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim and the American University in Washington, D.C.
Funding period: 09/2021 - 08/24
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Christian von Hirschhausen
Technische Universität Berlin
Department of Wirtschafts- und Infrastrukturpolitik (WIP)
Strasse des 17. Juni 135
10623 Berlin
Email: cvh@wip.tu-berlin.de
Phone: +49 (030) 314 25048
Fax: +49 (030) 314 26934
Applicant: Technische Universität Berlin
Cooperation partner: Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung
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