The First Class of Fulbrighters - Fulbright-Kommission

My Recollections
of the First Fulbright Year
by Daniel R. Borg
MOST OF THE FIRST FULBRIGHTERS had vivid
memories of the Second World War, and some had fought
in it. Even though eight years had passed since 1945, we
looked around us with a wary eye, wondering how the usually
kind and considerate German people we met could
possibly have hailed from the barbarous Third Reich.
This perplexing question and others like it, and the
experience of my Fulbright year in West Germany helped
me to decide on the academic career that I subsequently
followed—that of a modern European historian specializing
in German history.
As I recall, the first Fulbrighters crossed the Atlantic
together on an ocean liner and arrived in September in Bad
Honnef. I was not among them. After graduating from
Daniel R. Borg was born in Tracy,
Minnesota, in 1931. He received a B.A.
from Gustavus Adolphus College before
spending his Fulbright year in Tübingen.
Upon returning to the United
States, Borg was drafted into the army,
which sent him to Stuttgart, where he
spent another, quite different, year in
West Germany. After an early discharge,
Borg received a Danforth fellowship,
which enabled him to take a Ph.D.
in history from Yale University in
1963. From 1961 until he retired in
2000 he taught modern European history
at Clark University in Worcester,
MA. Borg and his wife Marjorie have
four children.
Gustavus Adolphus College in May 1953, I led a study
group of Gustavians to Sweden during most of June. The
group then dispersed and fanned out in twos and threes on
a grand summer tour of Western Europe. A classmate and I
bought a used BMW motorcycle in downtown Hamburg
in order to tour Western Europe as far south as Naples. As
we traveled through West Germany, the beauty of the
landscape impressed us, as well as the care that Germans
seemed to lavish on it.
The purchase of a motorcycle was something of a dare.
I had to find someone in West Germany to certify that I
would not sell the motorcycle outside the Bundesrepublik. It
dawned on me that the Fulbright office in Bonn might
provide this certification. And so it did, to my immense
relief. When I arrived, the word spread that a Fulbright
student was in the front office. Staff appeared to welcome
me and shake my hand. I have since wondered if I was the
first Fulbright student they had met—the first student in
the first class. Their attention, though gratifying, embarrassed
me, since I had appeared in the dingy leather jacket
that I wore while motorcycling.
I joined the Fulbright group at its orientation in Bad
Honnef in September. There, we were drilled in conversational
German. But it was hardly a life of hard work in this
pleasant resort village along the Rhine. Most of us had
spent the last years in exhausting study. Now we were liberated
to embark on a grand adventure without the onerous
obligation of paying for it. A festive atmosphere prevailed
as we grew familiar with each other, hiked to scenic places,
toured the river on its ferries, and frequented a variety of
beer and wine establishments. The Fulbright office provided
a varied program of talks and discussions and closely
attended to our needs.
Some Fulbrighters had trouble renting satisfactory
accommodations at their assigned universities. In Tübingen
I had the good fortune of being admitted to the Leibniz
Kolleg as one of a small number of live-in foreign students.
The Kolleg enrolled German graduates from secondary
schools who had not yet settled on a course of study in
the university. At the Kolleg they lived together and
undertook common introductory courses in the various
disciplines. Foreign students living among them had a
ready-made opportunity to improve their German conversational
skills and to meet German students and sometimes
their families, socially and informally. I cherished this
opportunity.