12 January 2022 press release

On 14 January 2022, Prof. Guy Stern will be celebrating his 100th birthday. The German Exile Archive 1933-1945 at the German National Library has been associated with Guy Stern for decades. The Exile Archive and the PEN Centre for German-Speaking Writers Abroad will be holding a virtual birthday celebration on 18 January 2022 at 19:30, which Prof. Guy Stern will also attend. This celebration will include the presentation of an extensive commemorative publication released to mark his 100th birthday.

“As the only survivor, my self-imposed task has always been to live a life that means something“, Guy Stern said in an interview 2018.

Guy Stern can look back over a truly momentous one hundred years. He was born Günther Stern on 14 January 1922 in Hildesheim. In 1937, he was able to emigrate to the USA with the help of his uncle. After his arrival in the USA, he attended school, volunteered for military service, and in 1944 landed in Normandy with the famous “Ritchie Boys”. Not until he returned to Hildesheim as a soldier in the U.S. Army did he discover that his entire family had been murdered by the Nazis. Guy Stern subsequently returned to the USA, where he studied German Studies, became a Professor in the subject and made groundbreaking contributions to exile research. He still works at Wayne State University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan.

The German Exile Archive 1933–1945 has been in contact with Guy Stern for decades and has welcomed him to Frankfurt am Main on several occasions. His most recent visit took place in 2018, when he gave the laudation for Herta Müller, winner of the OVID Prize awarded by the PEN Centre of German-Speaking Writers Abroad. Guy Stern was himself awarded the OVID Prize at the German National Library in 2017. He was the first person ever to receive this honour.

The German Exile Archive 1933–1945 has two special testimonies to Guy Stern’s life on display in its permanent exhibition “Exile. Experience and Testimony”. Stern trained as a soldier at Camp Ritchie in Maryland, USA. The soldiers there became known as the “Ritchie Boys”. They were trained to interrogate German defectors and prisoners of war. Decorated with Soviet medals, Guy Stern sometimes played the role of a Russian interrogator to frighten the person being questioned. In the exhibition, we show his headgear (“side cap”) and the badge of a Red Army sniper, which served him as a disguise.

Guy Stern’s 100th birthday
Online event with book presentation
18 January 2022, 19:30 – 20:30
Please register under www.dnb.de/veranstaltungvirtuell

The event is being organised:

• Rolf Altmann, Präsident Eintracht Hildesheim von 1861 e. V.
• Dr Sylvia Asmus, Head of the German Exile Archive 1933-1945 at the German National Library
• Prof. Helga Druxes, secretary of the PEN Centre of German-Speaking Writers Abroad
• Dr Marlen Eckl, co-editor of the commemorative publication marking Guy Stern’s 100th birthday
• Prof. Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer, co-editor of the book “Autobiographische Zeugnisse der Verfolgung – Hommage für Guy Stern” [Autobiographical Testimonies to Persecution – A Tribute to Guy Stern
• Susanna Piontek, writer and journalist, wife of Guy Stern
• Herbert Quelle, former German Consul General in Chicago
• Dr Thomas Schnabel, former director of the House of History Baden-Württemberg

His birthday will be marked by the release of two new publications, both of which will be presented during the event: Susanne Piontek will read passages from Guy Stern’s autobiography, while Marlen Eckl will present the commemorative publication.

Susanne Piontek’s German translation of Guy Stern’s autobiography “Invisible Ink. A Memoir”, published by Aufbau-Verlag under the title “Wir sind nur noch wenige – Erinnerungen eines hundertjährigen Ritchie-Boys”.

Frederick Lubich / Marlen Eckl (Hg.): Von der Exilerfahrung zur Exilforschung – Zum Jahrhundertleben eines transatlantischen Brückenbauers. Commemorative publication in honour of Guy Stern, published by Verlag Königshausen & Neumann

Background

The German National Library’s German Exile Archive 1933–1945 is a platform for discussing the subjects of exile and emigration during the Nazi era. The archive collects testimonies of this exile: publications, institutional and personal legacies – from all walks of life and regardless of the prominence of the individual concerned. The goal is to capture the phenomenon of exile in all its variety and to facilitate access to our holdings.

The establishment of the Exile Archive during the early post-war period was initiated by a number of émigrés and other persons who saw it as an instrument of political enlightenment. This is another reason why the Exile Archive attaches particular importance to cultural education: the many aspects of exile between 1933 and 1945 are conveyed in exhibitions and a wide variety of events and publications, thus making a significant contribution to the cultivation of a vibrant culture of remembrance.

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