Scope and Content Note
The papers of Hans Joachim Morgenthau (1904-1980) span the years 1858-1981, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period 1925-1981. The collection comprises eight series: General Correspondence , Academic File , Subject File , Writings , Lectures , Miscellany , Addition , and Oversize . There is documentation of Morgenthau's student work and legal career before his emigration from Europe in 1937, but the major portion of the collection is devoted to his life and writings as an analyst of international relations from the World War II era until his death in 1980.
The greater part of Morgenthau's academic tenure was spent as a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. The focus throughout the papers is on Morgenthau's development of his particular conception of power relationships, his ties to the scholarly and foreign policy-making community, and his presence as a dissenting voice in the fields of American foreign relations and international politics.
A German Jewish exile from Nazi Germany, Morgenthau published Politics Among Nations in 1948. This survey text and its successor volumes established him as an exponent of a "realpolitik" view of international relations in which national self-interest was contrasted with the ideological and legalistic basis of American diplomacy. In the aftermath of World War II, Morgenthau supported an active American role in establishing the postwar world order, but he became an outspoken opponent of government policy during the Vietnam conflict. In his final years he spoke in favor of détente with the Soviet Union, dealt often with questions involving Israel, the Middle East, and Russian dissidents, and strongly opposed intervention by the United States in the domestic affairs of other nations. He lectured internationally and wrote numerous articles for publications around the world. One of his last projects was an exegesis of the faith and mind of Abraham Lincoln that a protégé, Kenneth Thompson, published posthumously in 1983.
Major contemporary foreign policy and domestic political issues are evident in each series of his papers. The General Correspondence file includes correspondence with Dean Acheson, Hannah Arendt, Raymond Aron, Waldemar Gurian, Robert M. Hutchins, Gustav Ichheiser, Henry M. Jackson, Hans Kelsen, Henry Kissinger, Alfred A. Knopf, Alfred M. Landon, Ernest W. Lefever, Walter Lippmann, Robert J. Myers, Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Nitze, David Riesman, Dean Rusk, and Joseph Sisco. There is also a number of letters to and from book publishers and magazine editors. Among the publications to which Morgenthau contributed were the New York Times, the New Leader, Commentary, the New Republic, and the New York Review of Books. The General Correspondence also includes exchanges Morgenthau had with officials of philanthropic and professional organizations, especially representatives of the Carnegie Endowment, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Other letters relate to advocacy groups including Jewish and Christian congregations, the American Jewish Congress, Americans for Democratic Action, and the Academic Committee on Soviet Jewry, which Morgenthau chaired.
The Academic File documents Morgenthau's teaching responsibilities and includes course materials, transcripts of lectures, student data, faculty memoranda and correspondence, and administrative records grouped according to college or university, with the universities of Chicago, Kansas City, and Harvard and the City College of New York and the New School for Social Research predominating. A subsection of the files for the University of Chicago is composed of records pertaining to the Center for the Study of American Foreign Policy, which Morgenthau founded. Administrative files relating to the center's origin and purpose include research data from its various projects while Morgenthau was active there in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Writings and Lectures series relates to Morgenthau's talks, lectures, books, and articles and includes galley proofs, tear sheets or copies of published texts; correspondence with publishers, collaborating authors, editors, and sponsors; and letters from the reading and listening public. The Lecture series includes correspondence regarding speaking appearances and the texts of many of the addresses. Writings are organized principally according to books and articles. Complementary material is among the general correspondence of the Academic File and other parts of the collection. Because Morgenthau tailored and refined his presentation according to the media or occasion, his lectures and essays were frequently modified and updated.
The Subject File contains biographical information, such as copies of documents Morgenthau obtained after World War II in order to claim reparations from Germany for having been forced to leave the country because of Nazi rule. The series also includes a diary he kept from April to June 1930 and the mail he received as a result of having opposed American policy toward Vietnam during "teach-ins" and other discussions of the American war effort in Southeast Asia under presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Clippings in the Miscellany also reflect the Vietnam War period. Viewed cumulatively, the clippings document Morgenthau's career from his student days in Germany to his death six decades later.
The Addition , which spans the period 1920-1978, contains correspondence, writings, and miscellaneous material largely personal in nature. Correspondence of both Hans Morgenthau and his wife Irma Thormann dated from the 1920s to early 1940s is mostly in German, with a few letters in French and English. Supplementing the correspondence are drafts of articles and books by Morgenthau and material relating to a master's thesis by his wife. Financial material, notes, newspaper clippings, and related matter are also included.