Bernd Schaefer
Professional affiliation
Wilson Center Projects
"Communist East Asia and the Challenge to the 'Superpowers'"
Full Biography
Bernd Schaefer is a Senior Scholar with the Woodrow Wilson International Center’s Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) and a Professorial Lecturer at George Washington University, both in Washington D.C. He was a Visiting Professor with Tongji University and East China Normal University in Shanghai, Pannasastra University in Phnom Penh, and the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul; also a Fellow at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, the National University of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, the German Historical Institute in Washington D.C. and the Technical University of Dresden. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Halle in Germany and a MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School. His recent publications include 1965 - Indonesia and the World (Gramedia, Jakarta 2013), Coming to Terms: Dealing with the Communist Past in East Germany (Stiftung Aufarbeitung, Berlin 2011), The East German State and the Catholic Church, 1945-1989 (Berghahn Books, New York 2010) and Ostpolitik, 1969-1974: Global and European Responses (Cambridge University Press, New York 2009; ed. with Carole Fink).
B.A. and M.A., University of Tübingen; MPA, Harvard University; Ph.D., Martin Luther University, Halle
Major Publications
- 1965 - Indonesia and the World, edited with Baskara Wardaya (Jakarta: Gramedia, 2013)
- Ostpolitik, 1969–1974: European and Global Responses, edited with Carole Fink (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009)
- The East German State and the Catholic Church, 1945-1989 (New York: Berghahn, 2011)
- “Overconfidence Shattered: North Korean Unification Policy, 1971-1975, (NKIDP Working Paper #2, 2011)
- Historical Justice in International Perspective: How Societies are Trying to Right the Wrongs of the Past, edited with Manfred Berg (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009)
- North Korean ‘Adventurism' and China's Long Shadow, 1966-1972 (CWIHP Working Paper # 44, 2004);
- American Détente and German Ostpolitik, 1969-1972 (Washington, DC: German Historical Institute, 2004)
- Stasi Files and GDR Espionage against the West, (Oslo Institute for Defence Studies, 2002)
- Staat und katholische Kirche in der GDR, 1945-1989 (Boehlau: Weimar, 2nd ed. 1999)
Previous Terms
June 1, 2007 - September 30, 2011: "Tigers in the Valley: East Asia and the Superpowers, 1968-1976" Former Senior Scholar, June 2012- Sept 2013: "Communist East Asia and the Challenge to the 'Superpowers'"