Jim Luce’s connection to Germany runs deep and personal, shaped by family history and transformative experience. His father helped liberate Dachau concentration camp under General Patton, leaving an indelible mark on the family’s understanding of both the horrors of the Nazi regime and the resilience of the human spirit. A generation later, Jim spent his final high school year studying at Max-Planck Gymnasium in Bielefeld, West Germany, an immersive experience that sparked his lifelong commitment to global citizenship and led him to minor in German in college. The essays collected here span this complex relationship—from the personal challenges and growth of his AFS exchange year to Germany’s ongoing reckoning with its darkest chapters, from medieval villages frozen in time to contemporary political transformations reshaping the nation. Through Luce’s perspective, Germany emerges as a country of profound contradictions: a land of innovation and culture that must continuously confront the weight of history, a nation forever changed by its past yet determinedly building its future.
- AFS Gap Year in Germany Helped Author Develop Sense of Globalism
- Celebrating Germany: A Nation of Innovation and Cultural Excellence (July 11, 2018)
- Disastrous High School Exchange Taught Me Resilience in Germany (May 18, 2025)
- Eastern Germany Faces Housing Crunch Amid Political Upheaval (June 24, 2025)
- Germany: A Rich Tapestry of Culture, History, and Personal Growth (July 10, 2018)
- Germany’s Fortified Rothenburg ob der Tauber Village (June 26, 2012) [draft]
- Historical Baggage: Berlin Opens Decaying Goebbels Villa to Tourists (Oct. 27, 2025)
- Soviet Atrocities in Guben, Germany: Forgotten Victims of 1945 (June 25, 2025)
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© 2024 The Stewardship Report on Connecting Goodness – Towards Global Citizenship is published by The James Jay Dudley Luce Foundation Supporting & Educating Young Global Leaders is affiliated with Orphans International Worldwide, Raising Global Citizens. If supporting youth is important to you, subscribe to J. Luce Foundation updates here.
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