Founded in 1917 during the First World War, the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa) is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2017. The last king of Württemberg, Wilhelm II, then patron of the ifa’s predecessor institution, the German Foreign Institute (DAI), called it “a work of peace in the midst of war”. But under what conditions was the DAI launched? To what extent was its founding, at a time when the entry of the United States into the war on the side of the Entente was looming, actuated by cultural-political, economic and geopolitical motives? What role did the DAI play after 1933, when, together with other cultural-political institutions, it was “brought into line” with and ideologically influenced by National Socialism? And under what conditions was the organization re-founded in 1949 in the Federal Republic of Germany as the “Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations”?

The anniversary publication Histories, Relations, Perspectives – 100 Years of the ifa affords insights into the history of the organization and explains what it stands for today: peaceful exchange and cultural encounter. The book brings together articles by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Winfried Kretschmann and Fritz Kuhn, and reminiscences of ifa contributors such as Barbara Klemm and Jörg Armbruster.