The Institute for European History in Mainz is a non-profit-making institution for the promotion of scholarship. Its task is academic research into European history and it owes its foundation in 1950 to the international discussions among historians after the Second World War in which, above all, German and French participants advocated enduring European co-operation. Their objective was to help overcome prejudices through a deeper knowledge of the peculiarities, points in common and interrelations in denominational and national developments and to contribute towards a better understanding among European peoples. The statutes define the mains tasks of the Institute for European History as being: “Research on Europe’s religious and intellectual traditions, their transformations and crises, especially on the church schisms, their effects and the possibility of overcoming them, with a look at European identity”, as well as “Europe-related basic research which is suitable to accompany and support Europe’s process of growing together, and the analysis of the European countries’ and peoples’ individual historical ways”.