In silent mourning, we bid farewell to Prof. Dr. Bernhard Dahm, the founder of the Chair of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Passau, who passed away at the age of 91. With respect and gratitude, we remember his tireless dedication to the study of Southeast Asia and the sharing of his knowledge about this region.
His academic career took Prof. Dahm to renowned universities such as Göttingen, Kiel, Leiden and Yale University. In 1984, he was appointed to the University of Passau to establish the first chair of Southeast Asian Studies in the Federal Republic of Germany. Until his retirement in 1997 and beyond, he contributed significantly to the establishment of Southeast Asian Studies as an independent discipline in Germany.
Professor Dahm's personal research interests were related to Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, but also to overall Southeast Asian topics. An important focus of his research and teaching was the legacy of pre-colonial cultural traditions in Southeast Asian countries in the post-colonial period. Prof. Dahm became best known for his biography of the first Indonesian President Sukarno (1966) and for his work on José Rizal, the national hero of the Philippines (1989), for which he was awarded the German-Philippine Cultural Prize in 2010.