The First Class of Fulbrighters - Fulbright-Kommission
The First Class of Fulbrighters - Fulbright-Kommission
The First Class of Fulbrighters - Fulbright-Kommission
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My Recollections<br />
<strong>of</strong> the <strong>First</strong> <strong>Fulbright</strong> Year<br />
by Daniel R. Borg<br />
MOST OF THE FIRST FULBRIGHTERS had vivid<br />
memories <strong>of</strong> the Second World War, and some had fought<br />
in it. Even though eight years had passed since 1945, we<br />
looked around us with a wary eye, wondering how the usually<br />
kind and considerate German people we met could<br />
possibly have hailed from the barbarous Third Reich.<br />
This perplexing question and others like it, and the<br />
experience <strong>of</strong> my <strong>Fulbright</strong> year in West Germany helped<br />
me to decide on the academic career that I subsequently<br />
followed—that <strong>of</strong> a modern European historian specializing<br />
in German history.<br />
As I recall, the first <strong><strong>Fulbright</strong>ers</strong> crossed the Atlantic<br />
together on an ocean liner and arrived in September in Bad<br />
Honnef. I was not among them. After graduating from<br />
Daniel R. Borg was born in Tracy,<br />
Minnesota, in 1931. He received a B.A.<br />
from Gustavus Adolphus College before<br />
spending his <strong>Fulbright</strong> year in Tübingen.<br />
Upon returning to the United<br />
States, Borg was drafted into the army,<br />
which sent him to Stuttgart, where he<br />
spent another, quite different, year in<br />
West Germany. After an early discharge,<br />
Borg received a Danforth fellowship,<br />
which enabled him to take a Ph.D.<br />
in history from Yale University in<br />
1963. From 1961 until he retired in<br />
2000 he taught modern European history<br />
at Clark University in Worcester,<br />
MA. Borg and his wife Marjorie have<br />
four children.<br />
Gustavus Adolphus College in May 1953, I led a study<br />
group <strong>of</strong> Gustavians to Sweden during most <strong>of</strong> June. <strong>The</strong><br />
group then dispersed and fanned out in twos and threes on<br />
a grand summer tour <strong>of</strong> Western Europe. A classmate and I<br />
bought a used BMW motorcycle in downtown Hamburg<br />
in order to tour Western Europe as far south as Naples. As<br />
we traveled through West Germany, the beauty <strong>of</strong> the<br />
landscape impressed us, as well as the care that Germans<br />
seemed to lavish on it.<br />
<strong>The</strong> purchase <strong>of</strong> a motorcycle was something <strong>of</strong> a dare.<br />
I had to find someone in West Germany to certify that I<br />
would not sell the motorcycle outside the Bundesrepublik. It<br />
dawned on me that the <strong>Fulbright</strong> <strong>of</strong>fice in Bonn might<br />
provide this certification. And so it did, to my immense<br />
relief. When I arrived, the word spread that a <strong>Fulbright</strong><br />
student was in the front <strong>of</strong>fice. Staff appeared to welcome<br />
me and shake my hand. I have since wondered if I was the<br />
first <strong>Fulbright</strong> student they had met—the first student in<br />
the first class. <strong>The</strong>ir attention, though gratifying, embarrassed<br />
me, since I had appeared in the dingy leather jacket<br />
that I wore while motorcycling.<br />
I joined the <strong>Fulbright</strong> group at its orientation in Bad<br />
Honnef in September. <strong>The</strong>re, we were drilled in conversational<br />
German. But it was hardly a life <strong>of</strong> hard work in this<br />
pleasant resort village along the Rhine. Most <strong>of</strong> us had<br />
spent the last years in exhausting study. Now we were liberated<br />
to embark on a grand adventure without the onerous<br />
obligation <strong>of</strong> paying for it. A festive atmosphere prevailed<br />
as we grew familiar with each other, hiked to scenic places,<br />
toured the river on its ferries, and frequented a variety <strong>of</strong><br />
beer and wine establishments. <strong>The</strong> <strong>Fulbright</strong> <strong>of</strong>fice provided<br />
a varied program <strong>of</strong> talks and discussions and closely<br />
attended to our needs.<br />
Some <strong><strong>Fulbright</strong>ers</strong> had trouble renting satisfactory<br />
accommodations at their assigned universities. In Tübingen<br />
I had the good fortune <strong>of</strong> being admitted to the Leibniz<br />
Kolleg as one <strong>of</strong> a small number <strong>of</strong> live-in foreign students.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Kolleg enrolled German graduates from secondary<br />
schools who had not yet settled on a course <strong>of</strong> study in<br />
the university. At the Kolleg they lived together and<br />
undertook common introductory courses in the various<br />
disciplines. Foreign students living among them had a<br />
ready-made opportunity to improve their German conversational<br />
skills and to meet German students and sometimes<br />
their families, socially and informally. I cherished this<br />
opportunity.