Undeclared Wars with Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left, 1967-1989

Author Jeffrey Herf draws upon his recently published work Undeclared Wars with Israel:  East Germany and the West German Far Left, 1967-1989. The book examines the spectrum of antagonism to Israel coming from the East German and West German organizations of the far left during these years – including hostile propaganda, political warfare at the United Nations in New York, military training, cooperation of secret services, and delivery of weapons to Arab states and Palestinian organizations then engaged in wars and terrorist campaigns against Israel. The book and lecture offer considerable details based on work in the archives of the former East German regime, those of the West German government, West German leftist organizations, Jewish organizations in West Germany, the U.S. State Department and the United Nations.

Jeffrey Herf is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of History at the University of Maryland in College Park. He received his BA from the University of Wisconsin in 1969 and PhD from Brandeis University in 1981. He taught at Harvard, and at Ohio University in Athens before coming to Maryland in 2000. His publications include Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Harvard U. Press, 1997); The Jewish Enemy:  Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust (Harvard U. Press, 2006); and Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World (Yale University Press, 2009). His book Undeclared Wars with Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left, 1967-1989 was published in April 2016.  

The Washington History Seminar is co-chaired by Eric Arnesen (George Washington University) and Christian Ostermann (Woodrow Wilson Center) and is sponsored jointly by the National History Center of the American Historical Association and the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. It meets weekly during the academic year. The seminar thanks the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and the George Washington University History Department for their support.