The Amerika-Institut was founded in November 1954.^[1] It continued the tradition of the Berlin Amerika-Institut, which was founded in 1910 and had already dealt with North America from various specialist perspectives before the Second World War. Under the National Socialists, however, the institute degenerated into a pure propaganda institution. Until 1962, the new Amerika-Institut was subordinate to the English Department, as was usual in most German universities, and therefore mainly dealt with American literature.

In 1963, political scientist Ernst Fraenkel transformed the institute into an interfaculty institute in order to enable a broad academic specialization on the USA. The institute was named after John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, who was assassinated in the founding year of the institute. The extremely successful Institute for East European Studies at the Free University was also regarded as an institutional model.

Based on Fraenkel's concept of integrative political science, the institute was to approach the political system of the USA from different disciplinary perspectives. According to this concept, the political system of a country can only be understood by including culture, society and the economy. Initially, the Institute had the departments of American Literature, American Politics, American Civilization (Culture), American History, Geography of North America and American Economics.Sociology and Linguistics were added later.

In order to do justice to its interdisciplinary claim, the institute soon moved to its current building in Lansstraße in Berlin Dahlem, where a school had previously been located.The short distances between the departments were intended to stimulate exchange between the chairs. Fraenkel set up the directorate in an adjacent building. In 1967, the institute was inaugurated with a ceremony attended by the then Mayor of Berlin, Heinrich Albertz, as well as numerous American dignitaries who had made outstanding contributions to the reconstruction of West Berlin as a science location. At the time of the ceremony, almost all of the Institute's chairs were occupied: Charles Nichols took over literary studies, Ernst Fraenkel politics, Ursula Brumm culture, Gerald Stourzh history and Karl Lenz geography. In his opening speech, Ernst Fraenkel referred to the following goals of the Institute:

1. to be a center of American studies, suitable for making available to scholars not only from Berlin and the Federal Republic of Germany, but from all European countries, the sources, materials and scientific literature necessary for useful scientific work on the various aspects of the overall phenomenon "USA", as well as to serve as a place for their cooperation;
2. to develop a relatively small number of specialists in the Americas who strive to gain a historically in-depth insight into the intellectual, geographical, cultural, social, and political-economic structure of the United States through the integration of specialized studies in several disciplines of American studies;

    

3. to provide a broad group of minor students with the knowledge of American literature, history, social and cultural studies that will enable them to overcome the many preconceptions that make understanding the United States so excessively difficult and to acquire knowledge that is essential to a better understanding of the United States and the issues that affect it than has been the case in the past.^[2]

As the teaching of English in the Federal Republic of Germany at this time was almost exclusively focused on Great Britain, the third goal was primarily dedicated to student teachers. With the founding of the institute shortly after the Berlin Wall was built, the young Federal Republic wanted above all to do justice to the important status of the occupying power. The Ford Foundation supported this project with one million dollars, which enabled the establishment of an American library in West Berlin.

Due to its proximity to U.S. institutions, the institute was soon targeted by the Stasi. As part of the student movement of 1968, which was particularly strongly represented at Freie Universität and showed solidarity with the anti-Vietnam protests in the USA, demonstrations were also repeatedly held at the institute. After the new Berlin Higher Education Act of 1969 gave students and employees the same number of votes on the Institute Council as professors, the mood became increasingly polarized. In 1974, an FU publication was titled: "John F. Kennedy Institute - Auxiliary School of Marxism?".

In response, the Free University extended the chairs at the institute by 5 positions, thus once again creating a majority for the professors. In the years that followed, the institute slowly worked its way towards normal operations. In 1989, a master's degree program was introduced and in 1991 the graduate school "The USA and the Problem of Democracy" was established with funding from the DFG.

With numerous funding programs from the Fulbright Commission, the Canadian Embassy and the Terra Foundation for American Art, among others, the Institute also endeavoured to be a hub for North American researchers from all over Europe (including Eastern Europe) as well as American academics. With the Ernst Fraenkel Lectures, the Institute regularly hosted prominent lectures on relevant North American topics that were open to the public.

In 2005 and 2006, the John F. Kennedy Institute converted its degree programs to Bachelor's and Master's degrees in accordance with the Bologna Reform. The following year, it won one of the coveted places in the German government's Excellence Initiative with its interdisciplinary graduate school project, which was in line with the Institute's basic principles. The Graduate School of North American Studies opened in 2007 and initially enabled 10 doctoral students per year from various disciplines to complete a dissertation with a North American focus and receive support from North American guest researchers. Since 2019, the overarching research topic has been "Transformations of 'Democracy' in North America".

Today, the JFKI combines the fields of North American culture, literature, history, politics, economics and sociology in six departments. The respective professors remain financially and organizationally anchored in their respective departments. However, the status as a central institute is intended to strengthen interdisciplinary exchange and facilitate joint research projects.

Students on the Bachelor's and Master's degree courses, which are now taught entirely in English, choose subject specializations during the course of their studies. Modules such as the institute's traditional lecture series, which is organized each semester by two professors from different disciplines, aim to hone interdisciplinary skills.

Graduates of the JFKI work as journalists, publicists and writers; they curate exhibitions in museums and promote scientific and political exchange with North America in foundations; they take up positions in public relations or in the management of transatlantic companies.^[4]

The Institute's academic library contains over 750,000 media units. It is the largest collection in the field of North American studies in Europe in terms of subject range and size. The library therefore also has a supra-regional service function in the interlibrary loan system of specialist libraries. The collection focuses on the departments of the institute and covers the USA, Canada and the English-speaking Caribbean. Since 1975, the library has been responsible for the collection focus on North American newspapers in the special collection plan of the German Research Foundation. Since 2011, this focus has been transformed into the special collection area 7.261 - North American Newspapers in the system of the distributed national research library. Holdings of the Philological Library of the Freie Universität Berlin complement the range. Due to their importance, around 30 American scholars from abroad visit the JFKI library for research purposes each year. The Institute supports this with a scholarship program.

The Graduate School of North American Studies at the JFKI was awarded with funding during the German excellence initiative for its Ph.D. program themed "The Challenges of Freedom". It was one of only two graduate schools in the humanities among 18 graduate schools in total which received this honor in October 2007.^[5] The Graduate School of North American Studies was established with the aim of examining the challenges of the ideal of freedom in contemporary North America.^[6] The first director was Ulla Haselstein. In 2012, funding was extended for a further five years as part of the Excellence Initiative.

• John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies
• Graduate School of North American Studies
• JFKI Library
• Aspen Institute
• Ford Foundation
• Terra Foundation for American Art
• Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
• Freie Universität Berlin