3 - 19 July 1997
Frankfurt, Limburg (see the beautiful farm photo), Köln, Münster, Lübeck, Berlin, Prague, Eisenach, and München

                                 
The Wittenberg Door                     Farm where we stayed                         Köln across the Rhine

Course Description
This course explored the history of the sixteenth-century German Reformation by visiting a number of significant historical sites in Germany and the Czech Republic.  Topics included the Evangelical (Lutheran) Reformation; urban, radical, and Catholic reformations; the German Peasants’ War of 1525; Reformation women; forerunners of the Reformation, such as Jan Hus and Meister Eckhart; and more.  Several German scholars participated in leading parts of the course.

Seven students took this course.  They were brave souls to take the very first study abroad course I offered.  We rented two cars and drove and drove.  Road conditions in the former East Germany were not so good, and I decided not to do so much driving with future study abroad classes.  This group visited four concentration camps--Bergen-Belsen, Theresianstadt, Buchenwald, and Dachau.  As we stood on the hill where Buchenwald is situated and looked down on the city of Weimar, there was a sense of having the very best and the very worst of German history in one perspective.

The timing of the trip almost coincided with the 20th anniversary of my first trip to Germany in 1977, when I stayed for an entire year.  I worked on a farm for six months and in a retirement home and conference center for six months.  Visits to friends from that year enabled the students to meet ordinary people and experience some of daily life as well as see major historical and tourist sites.