Western Institute

The Western Institute was founded in 1944 and became the flagship of the Polish Research of the West.Gregor Thum, Die fremde Stadt. Breslau nach 1945, 2006, pp.276, {{ISBN|3-570-55017-6}}, {{ISBN|978-3-570-55017-5}}

The mission of the Institute is to conduct research projects within fields of political science, sociology, history, economics and law-especially focusing on Polish-German issues as well as European politics. It has been founded by a group of Poznań University professor in 1944, and incorporated with Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1992[http://www.iz.poznan.pl/index.php?p=historia&lang=pl Historia Instytutu Zachodniego]

Professor Władysław Bartoszewski, Polish survivor of Auschwitz, and renowned figure of Polish-Jewish and Polish-German reconciliation praised the work of the institute:

• I often used the archives of the Western Institute, when writing my works on the Nazi terror. They reliably researched Nazi atrocities. The series "Documenta Occupationis"-a collection of original documents concerning German policy in occupied Poland is a canon position. Many American, Israeli and German scholars use them to this day without reservations. They are part of scholarly literature and this is the greatest contribution of the Institute during its early years of existenceDla swoich pobudką, dla wrogów przestrogą - portret Zygmunta Wojciechowskiego, Magdalena Grochowska, Gazeta Wyborcza, 2005

The work of the Institute carried out while Poland was a communist country has been criticised by American historian Richard Blanke as having anti-German biasRichard Blanke, The American Historical Review, Vol. 97, No. 2. Apr., 1992, pp. 580-582. Review of: Włodzimierz Jastrzębski,Der Bromberger Blutsonntag: Legende und Wirklichkeit. and Andrzej Brożek, Niemcy zagraniczni w polityce kolonizacji pruskich prowincji wschodnich (1886-1918)

Other criticism of work from this period have included allegations of propaganda and dullness while admitting that the Institute produced "some good works on political sciences and legal systems"{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LZ1tHzmKUZUC&q=%22western+institute%22+poznan&pg=PA45|title=Europe, Nationalism, Communism |first1= José M.|last1=Faraldo|publisher=Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften|year=2008|isbn=978-3-631-56762-3|page=46}}

German historian Gregor Thum has written that the premise of the research concept of the Western Institute in the first decades was the idea of an eternal German-Polish antagonism and thus the Institute's research, like its German counterpart, the Ostforschung, was based on explicit political objectives, active support of the territorial claims of the state and the distribution of research results by popular science.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D3IDT1RmI38C&q=%22West+Institute%22|title= Uprooted: How Breslau became Wroclaw during the century of expulsions|first1= Gregor|last1=Thum|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2011|isbn=978-0-691-14024-7|pages=195, 196}}

After the fall of communism, the Institute has been one of the leading institutions in joint Polish-German scholarship and cooperation.{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}}

• 1945-1955 - prof. Zygmunt Wojciechowski
• 1956-1958 - prof. Kazimierz Piwarski
• 1959-1961 - prof. Gerard Labuda
• 1961-1964 - prof. Michał Sczaniecki
• 1964-1965 - prof. Zdzisław Kaczmarczyk
• 1966-1973 - prof. Władysław Markiewicz
• 1974-1978 - prof. Lech Trzeciakowski
• 1978-1990 - prof. Antoni Czubiński
• 1990-2004 - prof. Anna Wolff-Powęska
• since 2004 - prof. Andrzej Sakson

• The Western Review (Przegląd Zachodni){{cite web | url=http://www.iz.poznan.pl/publikacje/przeglad-zachodni/wydania | title=Wydania | publisher=Instytut Zachodni | access-date=March 3, 2018}}
• Polish Western Affairs
• La Pologne et les Affaires Occidentales

• Government Delegate's Office at Home

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• http://www.iz.poznan.pl/ Instytut Zachodni official site (in English and Polish)

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Category:Organisations based in Poznań

Category:Scientific societies based in Poland