Dr. Robert G. Waite
Freie Universität Berlin
International Summer and Winter University
(FUBiS)
Robert G. Waite is a research historian at the German Resistance Memorial Center in Berlin and recently completed a two-volume history of Berlin’s infamous Plötzensee Prison. He has taught modern European, Russian, and German history at the University of Maryland (European Division), Idaho State University, Boise State University, and the Free University of Berlin. Until 2008 he was senior historian at the Office of Special Investigations, US Department of Justice (Washington, DC), where he investigated alleged Nazi offenders. Dr. Waite’s research interests are the history of law enforcement and crime, the relationship and interactions between the public and the state in Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, and the American West. Publications include, among others, articles on several prisons, serious teenage crime in Nazi Germany; teenage sexuality in Nazi Germany; abortion as a law enforcement issue in Nazi Germany; the American reaction to the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941; and JFK’s June 26, 1963 visit to Berlin as viewed from Communist East Germany. Currently he is writing a book on an American sailor arrested and then incarcerated by the Nazis for smuggling protest literature into Germany.
Current FUBiS courses:
- Seduction and Terror: Hitler's Germany (FUBiS Term I 2024)
- Seduction and Terror: Hitler's Germany (FUBiS Term II 2024)
- 2010 to the present
Research Historian, Forschungsstelle Widerstandgeschichte Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand - 1988 - 2008
Senior Historian, Office of Special Investigations U.S. Department of Justice (Washington DC) - 1986 - 1987
Coordinator of Research and Internships, Boise State University School of Social Sciences and Public Affairs and adjunct instructor, Department of History, Boise State University - 1985
Visiting Instructor, Idaho State University - 1981 - 1985
Historic Preservation and Museum Consultant, Sun Valley, Idaho; adjunct instructor, Department of History, Idaho State University - 1980 - 1981
Acting Director, Institute of the American West, Sun Valley, Idaho - 1979 - 1981
Architectural History Consultant, Idaho State Historical Society - 1978 - 1980
Visiting Instructor, Department of History, Idaho State University - 1976 - 1977
Instructor, University of Maryland, European Division - 1980
Ph.D., State University of New York at Binghamton - 1974 - 1976
University of Munich and Institute of Contemporary History - 1971 - 1974
State University of New York at Binghamton - 1973
MA, State University of New York at Binghamton - 1972
BA, State University College at Oneonta - 1969 - 1971
University of Würzburg - 1966 - 1969
State University College at Oneonta (New York)
- 2011 - 2012
Freie Universität Berlin (FU-BEST program) - 1989 - 2009
Guest lecturer, featured speaker at various colleges and organizations - 1986 - 1987
Boise State University - 1979 - 1985
Idaho State University - 1976 - 1977
University of Maryland, European Division
Books:
Rote Plötze’: die Geschichte des Berlins Plötzensee Strafgefängnis (under contract, German Resistance Memorial Center)
Articles:
- 'Hitlerism Invades America': Supporters of Hitler in New York City and the Nazi Threat in America, 1930-1934," New York State History Review 10(2016), 51-99.
- ‘Raise My Voice Against Intolerance.’ The Anti-Nazi Rally in Madison Square Garden, March 27, 1933, and the American Public’s Outrage over the Nazi Persecution of Jews (under review).
- ‘Serious Juvenile Crime in Nazi Germany,’ in Richard Wetzell, editor, Crime and Criminal Justice in Modern Germany (New York: Berghahn Books, 2013), pp. 247-269.
- ‘Das Beste, was passieren konnte:’ Amerikanische Reaktionen auf den deutschen Angriff auf die Sowjetunion,” in Vor 70 Jahren: Der Űberfall Hitlerdeutschlands auf die Sowjetunion (Berlin: Berliner Freunde der Völker Russlands e.V. und Berliner Gesellschaft für Faschismus- und Weltkriegsforschung e.V., 2011), pp. 93-116.
- ‘Ish bin ein Baerleener’. JFK’s June 26, 1963 Visit to Berlin: The Views from East Germany,” Journal of Contemporary History 45 (2010), pp. 844-865.
- ‘JFK, Berlin and the Berlin Crises,’ in John Delaney Williams, et al., John F. Kennedy: History, Memory, Legacy (Grand Forks, North Dakota: University of North Dakota, 2009), pp. 116-134.
- ‘Mauthausen Main Camp,’ pp. 900-903; ‘Dippoldsau,’ p. 911; ‘Ebensee,’ pp. 911-913; ‘Grossramen,’ pp. 915-917; ‘Gusen,’ pp. 919-921; and ‘Weyr,’ p. 954; in Geoffrey P. Magargee, editor, Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933-1945, Volume I, Part B (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2009).
- “Die amerikanischen Medien, die Kriegsverbrecherprozess in Deutschland und die öffentliche Wahrnehmung des Holocaust in den USA 1943-1955,” in Jürgene Mätthaus and Klaus Michel Maulmann, editors, Deutsche, Juden, Völkermord. Holocaust als Geschichte und Gegenwart (Wiesbaden: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2006), pp. 223-240.
- “Eine Sonderstellung unter den Straftaten: die Verfolgung der Abtreibung im Dritten Reich”, in Alfred Gottwaldt, et al., editors, NS-Gewaltherrschaft. Beiträge zur historischen Forschung und juristischen Aufarbeitung (Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 2005), pp. 104-117.