The True Story of the Romanian Institute in Berlin

Abstract

The project of the Romanian Institute in Berlin was formulated in Romanian by the Romanist Ernst Gamillscheg, head of the German Institute of Science in Bucharest, upon the request of the then minister of propaganda, Constantin C. Giurescu. Through the replacing of Giurescu by Nichifor Crainic and with the participation of Mihail Manoilescu, the foreign minister, the management of the institute was entrusted to the linguist Sextil Puşcariu. Gamillscheg had a great influence on this institution through the selection and placement of the Romanian lecturers and guest lecturers during the Third Reich, and through the recommendation of suitable collaborators for German publications. After the dismissal of Puşcariu at the beginning of June 1943, the German Institute of Science took over the full function of the Romanian Institute in Berlin. The history of this establishment is a story of power and vanity and the same time the story of a great dream of Puşcariu’s – he had the idea of a Romanian Institute in Berlin as early as 1926 – for which he sacrificed and invested much effort. (The Dictionary of the Romanian Language, the Romanian linguistic atlas, the Museum of the Romanian language founded by him and his office as rector of the university in Klausenburg).