Leaving behind the suffering of the recent war, the "Salzburg Seminar in American Civilization" brings an eminent American faculty together with 112 young European scholars, including veterans of the French resistance, survivors of Nazi concentration camps, but also Germans, Italians and Austrians, for six weeks at Schloss Leopoldskron.
Austrian Harvard student, Clemens Heller is riding the New York subway when he encounters family friend and Max Reinhardt's widow Helene Thimig. When Heller explains his idea to establish a "seminar" to bring together young intellectuals in Europe, Thimig allegedly exclaims "You must use Max's Schloss in Salzburg!"
Clemens Heller recruits Scott Elledge and Richard "Dick" Campbell, Jr. The three Harvard students take on the task of creating "a center in which young Europeans could meet for a month in concrete work under favorable living conditions." It is their conviction that Europe needs to be rebuilt not only physically and economically but also intellectually and spiritually. Between the autumn of 1946 and the spring of 1947 when they arrive in Salzburg for the first session, the Seminar's founders are able to assemble the resources necessary - a faculty, a small library, $20,000 and Schloss Leopoldskron.
To find out more, read our History Vignette.
Leaving behind the suffering of the recent war, the "Salzburg Seminar in American Civilization" brings together 112 young European and American scholars and professionals, including veterans of the French resistance, survivors of Nazi concentration camps, but also Germans, Italians and Austrians, for six weeks at Schloss Leopoldskron. American Anthropologist Magaret Mead is part of the Faculty and says in a report: "The Salzburg Seminar in American Civilization, conducted under the auspices of the Harvard Student Council and the International Student Service, in the Leopoldskron, Salzburg, Austria, during the summer of 1947, presented many unique features in cross-national education, in Euro -American relations, in cross-national communication, and in problems of group living and group organization."
To find out more, read our History Vignette.
American history professor, Dexter Perkins, is elected as the Seminar's first president. Under his guidance, the Seminar became less of an innovative experiment and more of a firmly-established institution for advanced learning and leadership development.
The Salzburg Seminar becomes the pre-eminent center for American Studies in Europe. Its academic program regularly features sessions on American politics, society, economics and culture, attracting the leading American intellectuals of the time. The focus on American Studies is deemed a more neutral topic for the post-war generation of Europeans to discuss.
The Salzburg Seminar in American Studies is incorporated as a nonprofit educational institution, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, on April 20, 1950.
Salzburg Seminar convenes its first session devoted to theater, Modern Theater in America. It includes performances of Goldoni's A Charming Chambermaid, Synge's A Tinker's Wedding and e.e. cummings' HIM. Theater plays a prominent role in the cultural life of the Salzburg Seminar, perhaps partly due to Max Reinhardt, who filled the Venetian Room with paintings from the Italian commedia dell'arte. In the coming decades, a series of sessions focusing on theater follow this one, including session 205 on Contemporary Theater, chaired by theater critic for The New Yorker Brendan Gill, in 1981.
To find out more, read our History Vignette.
Coalesces previous engagement on minority issues that evolves into a sustained exploration of topics related to equity and social justice in decades to come.
The first-ever session on American law, this program develops into what is now known as the Cutler Center for the Rule of Law, and convenes Rule of Law programs in Salzburg and the Salzburg Cutler Fellows Program in Washington, DC. Law sessions through the decades include several US Supreme Court Justices and other eminent jurists on the faculty. By 2010, the Salzburg Cutler Fellows Program assembles graduate students from 14 top US law schools along with leading judges and practitioners for a highly interactive exploration of leading edge issues in international law, covering international human rights and humanitarian law, national security, international courts, rule of law and international finance, monetary and trade law.
To find out more, read our History Vignette.
With guidance from leading authorities, including Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Henry Steele Commager.
40 professors of American studies from Europe and the United States convene at Schloss Leopoldskron for the first “American Studies Conference", which leads to the establishment of the European Association for American Studies (EAAS).
The three-day program seeks to assess the “progress of teaching and the nature of research in American civilization in the various countries of Western Europe.”
As the world continues to recover from the devastating conflict of World War II, the program gives European scholars in American studies the opportunity to gain an overview of the state of scholarship both in the United States and in Europe.
Since 1954, the EAAS has continued to grow from strength to strength. As of January 2010, the number of Americanists represented through EAAS’s national associations reached 4,301. The EAAS has helped connect European Americanists and has “encouraged the study of and research in all areas of America culture and society.” EAAS conferences continue to be held every two years, attracting between 200 and 400 participants. Read more here.
After two years of negotiations and over a decade as tenants, the Seminar buys Schloss Leopoldskron from the city of Salzburg for $92,350 (equivalent to $900,000 in 2022) and commits a further $20,000 for the first round of renovations.
In the heart of Europe, where East meets West, the Seminar played an important role in bridging Cold War divides. Geographic expansion beyond Europe and thematic expansion beyond American Studies gave the Seminar an even greater purpose.
As the Seminar starts to expand its reach, Fellows from the United States begin to attend sessions, along with increasing numbers of Fellows and faculty from around the world.
The retired naval officer, Arthur S. Adams is elected president. One of his greatest achievements for the organization is securing a $250,000 grant from the Ford Foundation, to be paid in full and expended over five years. He is also the reason for the increase in French Fellows, and securing a $100,000 grant from the Kellogg Foundation to primarily cover staff additions in an effort to recruit Fellows from socialist countries of Eastern Europe.
20th Century Fox offers $10,000 for the use of Schloss Leopoldskron in filming the Sound of Music. Fearing disruption of its programs and its tax-exempt status, the Seminar declines. Bertelsmann Publishers, the then owner of the adjacent Meierhof, accepts the offer to use their grounds. The studio installs replicas of Schloss Leopoldskron's seahorses on the Meierhof lakeside.
Lawyer and former chairman of the US National Labor Rights Board, Paul M. Herzog is elected the first full-time president and adopts a "common problems" approach to programs, moving the Seminar away from its "American studies" origins.
Herzog commissions a committee “to survey the program of the Seminar, consider its proper development over the next ten years or more, and make recommendations to the officer and the Board regarding future objectives, programs, methods, facilities, financing and related matters.”
The Seminar's new mission is: "To promote understanding among nations, by arranging for participation of present and future leaders in international education programs. Dealing with American and with other relevant experience, which may help solve the emerging problems of modern society."
Two years of diplomacy finally leads to the first Fellows from Eastern Europe since 1949 being able to come back to the Schloss, as four Czechs attend the session The American Economy and International Economic Affairs.
To find out more, read our History Vignette.
Increasing population, increasing urbanization, increasing mobility, improving living standards and their effects on the world's cities are the main topics of discussion. Testimony to the interest this session generated is the creation of an alumni group, the Salzburg Congress on Urban Planning and Development (SCUPAD), with a secretariat in Vienna.
The session makes history in a number of ways. It is the first experiment with a three-week program. It has the highest proportion of Eastern Europeans - more than one-fourth - yet to attend Salzburg, and the topic itself is ahead of its time, with talks of the relation of science to technology, moving on to the exploration of the government's role in stimulating large-scale scientific programs.
While technology has since evolved, these topics are still relevant today.
The first session on management launches the Salzburg Seminar into a new field. The program is designed to give Fellows a substantial understanding of factors and forces that make the American economy dynamic and why some enterprises are more dynamic than others. 42 Fellows attended the session, coming from 17 European countries. The biggest delegations are from Germany, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Five Fellows come from Czechoslovakia, two from Yugoslavia and one from Bulgaria. The session has brought out the desire from Fellows from Eastern and Western Europe to exchange views and experiences and develop close personal relationships.
Just as after World War II when Fellows from former enemy and allied countries came together in the peaceful atmosphere of the Schloss, now men and women from the Middle East have found in the Schloss a setting conductive to mutual understanding, through discussing together the humanities, law, contemporary history and various issues of common concern.
As the region grows in influence and power, the Seminar looks to involve Fellows from emerging economies, creating a new multi-year series of programs on "Communication, Development and Social Change".
Through their efforts for global expansion, Salzburg Global Seminar welcomes its first Fellows from Oman (1975), Saudi Arabia (1976), Iran and Jordan (1978).
Social change and social justice become cross-cutting themes of the 1970s for the Seminar, along with environmentalism, which emerged, as well as sessions like "Control of Environmental Pollution" (1974) or "Energy, population and Affluence: Future of Earth's Resources" (1975). In modern days, these themes have become crucial issues of our society.
Lawyer, politician and academic, Thomas H. Eliot is elected president and continues Herzog's less American and more global approach.
At the end of his tenure, he and his wife Lois undertake a history project, writing a detailed account of the organization's founding.
On April 1, the Seminar buys the neighboring Meierhof, made possible thanks to contributions from alumni and the Kresge Foundation. Rentals from three continuing tenants are now sufficient to defray operating costs. A part of the upstairs floor is prepared to house 14 Fellows.
This is the session that Stephen Salyer attends, later becoming the first Salzburg Global Seminar president to have been a Fellow.
Former US Ambassador, John "Jack" W. Tuthill is elected the fourth president and begins extensive outreach to the Middle East, specifically Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Israel and Egypt. Fellows from this region numbered over 300 by the end of his tenure.
Salzburg Global Seminar receives a grant by American NGO the Pew Trusts to finance the publication of the proceedings of the Session.
Under the editorial direction of Herbert P. Gleason, this publication continues Salzburg Global's work in the field of health care.
Reflecting the shift away from "American Studies" to broader issues, the organization officially changes its name to just the Salzburg Seminar.
The Seminar's efforts of global reach continue as Salzburg Seminar staff hold personal interviews in major cities of Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and, for the first time, North Africa. This selection and recruiting process is an essential element in the Seminar's ability to attract Fellows of "promise and prominence" from around the world. The Seminar welcomes its first North African Fellows in 1981.
In 1984, the Seminar continues its recruitment in the Middle East, for the session The Commonality of Cultural Traditions: Christianity, Islam and Judaism, that has the goal of explaining the common roots of the three traditions and provide a forum for better communication and understanding. This marks the first program attended by Fellows from Palestine, alongside Israelis.
At the same time that the Seminar seeks eastward for Fellows, the programs begin focusing more on international relations, especially in regard to European integration, as well as seminars on negotiations.
Former United Nations Undersecretary General and head of the United Nations Development Program, F. Bradford "Brad" Morse is elected president, and sets his sights on expanding the Seminar's outreach to Asia. A large grant from the Nippon Foundation helps bring Fellows from the Far East.
One of the largest and most diverse groups of Fellows to attend a program to date, with Fellows from around the world and from varied professional fields such as medicine, the military, the church, diplomacy, political science, law, policymaking, education and journalism. There is also representation from the gay community.
After an introduction on the clinical and epidemiological dimensions of the illness, the session focuses on developing practical approaches to the social, economic, educational and ethical issues. The session is noted as the first international gathering of its kind in the field of AIDS research.
To find out more, read our History Vignette.
The Meierhof has been upgraded with 52 new rooms with bath, most of them suitable for single or double occupancy, all of them being four-star hotel quality. Its total cost is in the range of $3,000,000. With these new facilities, the Salzburg Seminar can utilize more efficiently Schloss Leopoldskron for sessions.
The Seminar tries to answer major questions of the time. Has the Cold War ended? Did the West win? What are the international implications of the changes in the USSR? With Mikhail Gorbachev’s election, Fellows and faculty alike try to anticipate what his reforms might mean for the world.
As the Seminar enters its post-Cold War period, it tailors its programs to meet the needs of emerging democracies and doubles the number of Central and Eastern European Fellows accepted on scholarship.
Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of Communism in Eastern Europe, Fellows from across the region join programs, especially those focused on reforming their countries' economies, education systems, and civil society.
The Seminar welcomes its first Fellows from Lithuania and Russia in 1991, from Albania, Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine in 1992, from Armenia, Belarus, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan in 1993, and from Kazakhstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in 1994.
Playing an important post-Cold War role, Salzburg Seminar and the Charter 77 Foundation host a "special session" at the request of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, to support the work of the new government in drafting a constitution. The conference convenes at the Schloss, then moves on to Prague.
Former president of Middlebury College, Olin C. Robinson is elected president and introduces a strong programmatic emphasis on European integration, higher education and non-governmental-organizations.
Consistent with Salzburg Global's commitment to becoming a more global institution, a group of officers and Directors hold special seminars in Japan and the Republic of Korea, seeking to ensure an increased participation from Asia in terms of programs, faculty and Fellows. By 1999, the initiative brings more than 350 Asian Fellows to Salzburg.
To find out more, read our History Vignette.
In a nod to its American Studies roots, the Seminar launches a new American Studies Center, in collaboration with the United States Information Agency.
Through the Center, the Seminar engages universities and research institutes in Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union, many of which were struggling to re-build and redefine themselves post-Cold War. The Center's 30 programs over eight years focus on American history, literature, art and politics as well as changes in media and technology.
Fellows from emerging Asian economies and post-USSR countries share their knowledge and explore how different models of policy reform in the Americas, in Europe, and in Asia are responding to the increasing globalization of economic forces.
For one week, over 50 experts from 18 countries worldwide, including South Africa’s Minister of Education, convene to examine the recently issued National Commission on Higher Education report.
It turns out to be an invaluable step in shaping the higher education reform in post-apartheid South Africa.
Co-chaired by legal experts Lloyd Cutler and Roger Errera, the session brings together justices from the high courts of Germany, France and India, along with the US former Undersecretary for Human Rights, and Chief Prosecutor of the International War Crimes Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Lasting a week, the session explores and evaluates the legal instruments and institutions that have been developed to ensure that governments around the world protect and respect the fundamental rights of their citizens. The 51 Fellows from 33 countries are proof of the rich geographical diversity that has become the hallmark of the Salzburg Seminar. After the session, a Fellow from the United States said: "We now have in place a legitimate framework for global communication, heightened respect for the dignity and worth of all human beings, and the hope that mankind can live in lasting peace. (...) Participating in this Salzburg Seminar has equipped me to become an informed and willing participant in the task of making human rights and their protection a reality for people everywhere."
Starting with the Universities Project and continuing with the Visiting Advisors project, the Seminar helps support academic independence and administrative reform in ex-Soviet countries. In the six years of the Project, more than 800 individuals and 50 countries have taken part. The Universities Project can point to many initiatives that have come out of it, such as the introduction of new courses to universities' curricula on issues like higher education management, international cooperation in higher education, use of technology, etc. Many of the participating universities have also established new administrative structures to implement concepts learned through the Project.
This special session, Models for Peace in the Contemporary World, has the purpose to identify key factors that play a role in determining the success or failure of peace and reconciliation processes, and to discuss their relevance for various conflict regions of the world. 40 Fellows from 21 countries participate in the symposium, including six Fellows from Northern Ireland. One of those Fellows has this to say about the symposium: "Many aspects of the past four days have been an inspiration to me. To listen to so many able and passionate people discuss diverse areas of conflict resolution has given me ideas to take with me and hopefully which can be applied to the emerging situation in Northern Ireland." The format of this special session is unique since it is not intended as "peace talks" or as conflict resolution workshops, but as discreet conversations that provide an open forum for individuals involved in crisis regions around the world to share practical experience and advice.
To find out more, read our History Vignette.
After 9/11, it became the Salzburg Seminar's mission to not retreat in fear but instead open up further, showing the importance of international cooperation. It took on several projects to enhance its position as a global policy center and leadership network that enables creative people from across cultures, sectors and ideologies to have their voices heard when fashioning global solutions. Representing this era, is the new name, Salzburg Global Seminar.
Respecting its new mission, Salzburg Global starts new multi-year series and expands its reach globally, especially through the Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change, attracting Fellows from around the world, including Africa and Latin America, regions that were until then less explored by the organization.
This next phase in the Meierhof renovations not only secures the building structurally, but also provides multi-purpose meeting rooms, a library, a state-of-the-art computer center, and additional instruction, office, and residential space. With the work completed, the Seminar has invested more than $7,500,00 in the modernization of its historic facilities.
Building on the decade-long work of the American Studies Center, SSASA is founded to keep the Fellows connected. It hosts an annual program each year under the leadership of long-serving staff member Marty Gecek, who first joined the organization in 1968.
A forerunner to the current Global Citizenship Alliance, it focuses on promoting next-generation leaders with global perspectives by connecting nearly 3000 higher education administrators, professors, and students from 80 colleges and universities and directly shapes new curricula in several US universities.
Building on decades of work with negotiation and reconciliation processes, the Seminar establishes the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation that seeks to address divisive historical legacies.
Former head of Public Radio International and the first Salzburg Fellow to lead the organization, Stephen L. Salyer is elected the eighth president, stressing a problem-solving and social innovation orientation.
After adopting a new Strategic Plan - including revamped mission, outcome-oriented focus and operating structure - the Board approves a new name: Salzburg Global Seminar
On the 60th anniversary of the first program, a new multi-year initiative is launched bringing together media students, academics and practitioners from countries around the world. The Media Academy now counts over 1000 student in its alumni across six continents.
In the midst of the avian flu pandemic, public health officials, clinicians and veterinarians gather to address the growing convergence and interdependence of humans animals and the environment and the increasing risk of pandemic disease outbreaks. The session includes more than 50 Fellows from over 15 countries, in the hopes of developing a "one health" approach. More than ever today, this topic is of extreme relevance as we are still in the midst of a global pandemic.
To find out more, read our History Vignette.
Salzburg Global Seminar and the Salzburg Festival establish a formal partnership program called Dichter zu Gast, recasting an important historical relationship. From 1918 to 1938, Schloss Leopoldskron was owned by Max Reinhardt, the co-founder of the Salzburg Festival and former Director of the Deutsches Theatre (German Theatre, Berlin).
It was inside Schloss Leopoldskron that the idea for the Salzburg Festival was born.
The first Writers in Residence, in August 2007, are American writers and Pulitzer Prize winners Jeffrey Eugenides, author of Middlesex, and Richard Ford, author of The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and Lay of the Land.
Lloyd N. Cutler Center for the Rule of Law is established to honor the Seminar's longtime chairman and to provide an ongoing platform for lectures and programs on law and justice.
As Salzburg Global Seminar seeks to adapt to a rapidly changing world with technology advancing faster than ever, programs are revised to select topics where Fellows can facilitate the development of innovative solutions and create real change. Through this revision, only topics where Salzburg Global can make a multi-year commitment are selected, to achieve measurable results and impact.
As part of an agreement between the Republic of Austria and the United States government to provide a series of annual program on Holocaust Education, Salzburg Global Seminar, in cooperation with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum convene this conference. International experts from a wide range of backgrounds not only examine key links between Holocaust education and genocide prevention, but also identify further areas for development, including the need for closer cooperation between individuals and organizations working in the field of Holocaust and genocide studies, and those working in the areas of human rights and genocide prevention. The history of Schloss Leopoldskron and Salzburg Global Seminar makes them a relevant place and institution for the exploration of these themes. The legacy of Max Reinhardt, former owner of the Schloss, and Clemens Heller, founder of the Seminar, both Austrian Jewish and driven into exile by the Nazi takeover in 1938, has guided Salzburg Global's programs since its beginning, inspiring our mission to bring together emerging leaders from different geographical, ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds so they can learn to understand each other and work together for a better world.
Salzburg Global Seminar launches a multi-year series of seminars to crystallize new approaches to global health and health care in the face of emerging challenges affecting us now and set to continue on through the coming generation. Salzburg Global has long been a leading forum for the exchange of ideas on issues in health and health care affecting countries throughout the world. At these meetings, agendas have been re-set affecting policy and practice in crucial areas, such as patient safety and the engagement of patients in medical decision making.
A global network of imaginative and disruptive changemakers using the arts for human, societal, and planetary wellbeing. The Forum connects individuals and communities in more than 20 hubs around the world through online and in-person meetings, inter-hub exchanges, and cross-border projects. Click here to find out more.
In celebration of 25 years of partnership, making it the longest continuous partnership of its kind for the organization, Salzburg Global Seminar and The Nippon Foundation convene in Kyoto the first full-fledged Salzburg Seminar to be held in Asia. Over the years, the scholarship program has allowed nearly 1000 leaders to participate in Salzburg Global programs on topics ranging from healthcare to environmental sustainability, from access to education to public diplomacy and the arts, from economic development to freedom of expression.
First session on LGBT human rights lays the groundwork for the Salzburg Global LGBT Forum that seeks to advance LGBT human rights discussions globally. Click here to find out more.
The Meierhof undergoes another significant renovation, including guest rooms, cafe and reception, culminating in the opening of Hotel Schloss Leopoldskron - a boutique hotel of 55 bedrooms and 12 Schloss suites.
More than 80 years after Max Reinhardt’s own opening night of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream was called off due to heavy rain, the Schloss Park is again home to theater with a summer-long staging of Lovers and Fools, scenes from Shakespearean plays, performed by actors from the Salzburger Landestheater (Salzburg State Theater). A sell-out success, unhindered by the changeable Salzburg weather, the production has returned to the Schloss each summer since.
A multi-million euro collaboration is launched between Salzburg Global Seminar and the Health Foundation, Careum Stiftung and the Robert Bosch Stiftung to advance leadership in the health care sector in the UK, Switzerland and Germany.
Unknowingly on the cusp of a new global pandemic, a pioneering group of Salzburg Global Fellows, funded by US-based non-profit Ending Pandemics, aims to improve global preparedness for future epidemic outbreaks. Building on earlier work in 2007 to develop the “One Health” approach and in 2018 to develop timeliness metrics for the public health sector, the program see Fellows design a new system to assess how quickly countries can find outbreaks and stop them before they become deadly global pandemics. The subsequent "Outbreak Milestones" enable tracking of disease surveillance and response across human and animal outbreaks.
To find out more, read our History Vignette.
The start of a new decade marks a shift in both the world and Salzburg Global's programs as everyone moves online to adapt to a global pandemic and address how the world can "build back better."
The 2020s have brought in scholarships, allowing a new generation of young leaders to attend Salzburg Global programs.
Salzburg Global Seminar not only survives the pandemic but actually expands its programs by, like the rest of world, going online. One of the first programs to emerge is Education Disrupted, Education Reimagined, in partnership with the World Innovation Summit for Education, to figure out how schools can best respond to the rapid switch to remote learning. That program has since brought together almost 4000 teachers, school leaders and policymakers. Also early in the pandemic, healthcare practitioners and administrators in the UK, Germany and Switzerland launch an online conversations series to share their frontline experiences across Sciana, our Health Leaders Network. In an average year, Salzburg Global welcomes 1000 Fellows through the gates of Schloss Leopoldskron. 2020 brings five times that amount through 80 online programs.
As the longest-serving President & CEO of Salzburg Global Seminar, Stephen L. Salyer steps down after 17 years
After Russia invades its peaceful neighbor, Ukraine, Salzburg Global Seminar offers Fellows fleeing the war a safe place to stay by opening the doors to Schloss Leopoldskron, returning the Schloss to an earlier purpose of housing displaced people, just as it did in the 1940s.
July 15, 2022 marks the official date of the 75th anniversary of the organization.
Veteran diplomat and former Austrian Ambassador to the United States, he is the first non-American to serve in this capacity, succeeding Stephen Salyer.
