Scholarships for Austrian and German high school students to the US in 1950's*

Hello Ms. Dooley,

Thank you for submitting your question to History Hub.

We examined Record Group 59, General Records of the Department of State. Specifically we looked at the Central Decimal Files for records created between 1950 and 1963 and the Subject-Numeric Files from 1963 to 1973.

The finding aids are not detailed enough to single out, for example, records concerning German and Austrian high school students. There are some records concerning education and cultural exchanges focusing on youth in both Germanies and Austria. They are however fairly abundant and vary by subject.

A quick survey of the records showed Department of State airgrams, reports, and general correspondence from Americans and foreigners. They cover topics such as youth political and non political organizations, humanitarian issues with foreign youth, exchange programs, and referrals to the Institute for International Education or the American Field Service. The State Department appears to have been very concerned about the mobilization of communist youth since much of the monitoring materials concern politics.

These records are at the National Archives at College Park (Archives 2). For information on how to access these records, contact the Archives II reference branch at archives2reference@nara.gov.

If you are unable to come to the National Archives, you may wish to hire a researcher to do research for you. Here is a listing: https://www.archives.gov/research/hire-help/topics.html?topic=diplomatic-records

The history departments at some of the local universities may be able to help you. Several possibilities are history departments at Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057; George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052; George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030; and the University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20740.

We hope you find what you’re looking for!