Hellmut Wilhelm

German Sinology Today

In contrast to the general tendency of resurgence of academic life in Germany, which has been reported from all the former academic centers and even from an additional one at Mainz, the pace of the recovery of German Sinology has been rather slow. Some of the main former seats of Far Eastern studies still remain unoccupied. The reason for this special development is, in the first place, lack of personnel. Of the old generation Alfred Forke, who held the chair of Sinology at Hamburg University for many years, and Erich Hauer2 died during the war. Otto Franke, the Nestor of German Sinology, died practically from hunger and exhaustion soon after the war. Several of the most promising German Sinologues have left Germany during the past fifteen years, mostly for political reasons. G. Haloun, Walter Simon, and Bruno Schindler are working in England; Balazs resumed his Sinological studies in France; Karl A. Wittfogel heads the Chinese History Project sponsored by the University of Washington at Columbia University; Ferdinand Lessing has been for more than ten years at the University of California, Berkeley, and Wolfram Eberhard, who taught at Ankara, Turkey, is now a member of the faculty at Berkeley too. Franz Michael joined the Far Eastern Institute at the University of Washington years ago, as recently did Erwin Reifler.