A thinker and practitioner of Realpolitik, Henry Kissinger played a major role in American foreign policy during the 1960s and 1970s. From 1968 to 1975 he was National Security Advisor, and was US Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977, serving under both President Richard Nixon and President Henry Ford. Henry Kissinger was, among many other things, the architect behind the normalization of relations between the US and China, and of the policy of détente with the Soviet Union. In 1973 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the part he played in ending the Vietnam War.
Kissinger escaped from Nazi Germany in 1938, obtained American citizenship in 1943 and then served in the military in Europe, including Germany, during the Second World War. He was dedicated to keeping the Federal Republic of Germany firmly within the family of Western countries, and supported German reunification.
Professor Ulrich Schlie, current holder of the Henry Kissinger Professorship at the University of Bonn, wrote in an obituary: “The death of Henry Kissinger is a great loss for the whole world, but especially for us Germans. Henry Kissinger’s personal history made him a bridge-builder between Europe and America. Time and again, he promoted understanding for Germany and the European perspective. With the credibility of his biography and his voice, he made a significant contribution to restoring confidence in Germany after the political and moral catastrophe of the ‘Third Reich’ and to giving the free part of Germany a test of strength after 1945.”
The Henry Kissinger Endowed Professorship was created at the University of Bonn in 2014 on the occasion of Kissinger’s 90th birthday, funded by the German federal government in honor of his contributions as a strategic thinker in international relations. The professorship consequently is dedicated to security and defense policy concerns in Germany and Europe and the strengthening of transatlantic ties. Permanently endowed in 2019, the professorship is part of the University’s interdisciplinary Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies (CASSIS), devoted to strategic foreign policy, European affairs and security research.
The aforementioned obituary for Henry Kissinger has been posted on the CASSIS website.
Media contact:
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schlie
Tel.: 0228/73-7639
Email: ulrich.schlie@uni-bonn.de