On 22 January 2015, Peter G.J. Pulzer was awarded the Leo Baeck Institute London Medal of Recognition in acknowledgement of his academic lifetime achievement as an internationally renowned political historian. The festive ceremony and reception was hosted by the newly arrived Austrian Ambassador Martin Eichtinger at the Austrian Embassy in London.
Peter G.J. Pulzer, a Jewish Austrian, born in Vienna, was forced to leave Austria in 1939. He is a distinguished professor of political history who lectured at Oxford University and who was Gladstone Professor of Government and Administration, Fellow of All Souls College and Chairman of the LBI London. Professor Pulzer received several awards and decorations by the Republic of Austria, the City of Vienna and the University of Innsbruck, among others, for his publications which are highly recognized worldwide. The main focus of Peter Pulzer’s works lies on anti-Semitism in Europe.
Guest speaker, Dame Stephanie Shirley, came to the United Kingdom as a child refugee in a 1939 “Kindertransport” and succeeded in becoming a pioneer woman entrepreneur in the high-tech sector. Her charitable Shirley Foundation is one of the top 50 grant-giving foundations in the UK.
The laudatio was held by Professor Sander Gilman, Chairman of the Board, Leo Baeck Institute London.
Previous recipients of the medal were Dr Josef Ackermann and Dr Heinz-Horst Deichmann.
Photographs by Sebastian Popov
Main photo: Professor Raphael Gross, Dr Daniel Wildmann, Professor Sander Gilman, Dame Stephanie Shirley, Professor Peter G.J. Pulzer, Mag Kathrin Eichtinger, the Ambassador of Austria to the UK Dr Martin Eichtinger
Medal photo: Dame Stephanie Shirley and Professor Peter G.J. Pulzer