work from the Societas Verbi Divini in Posieux-Froideville, having already established a relationship of trust with the society's large Vienna Mission in the course of his travels and studies during happier times. The principal product of his studies during this period was a much expanded version of his 1932 essay "Anfangen der Weltgeschichte" which would be published posthumously as "Die Anfänge der Weltgeschichte. Ein Forschungsbericht und Leitfaden" in 1953. Meanwhile, on 17 November 1945 the University of Bonn was permitted to re-open, and "that part of the teaching body remaining intact" were invited to present themselves to a commission of enquiry established by the university senate in order that any necessary "cleansing" ("denazification") requirements might be determined. Kern was self-evidently still "intact" and he expressed the hope that he might be permitted to return on a special train being organised by "the Quakers", and so resume his teaching duties for the Summer 1946 term. However, he had been personally isolated from colleagues (and from virtually everyone else) during the war years, and his flight to Switzerland had opened him up to suspicion and bureaucratic hurdles. As it became clear that the university was in no hurry to welcome him, and his health continued to deteriorate, he instead applied for early retirement. During 1945/46 he had undergone three surgical interventions in connection with a long-standing kidney disease. 1947 was a year of medical urgency thanks to an inflamed appendix which was deemed inoperable on account of the weakened condition of his heart. The alternative treatment, involving a savagely light diet, kept him alive for three more years, but his deteriorating health was nevertheless by this stage a continuing concern. Fritz Kern's retirement took effect at the end of term in July 1946, while he himself was still in Switzerland. Due to lengthy denazification procedures on which the British military authorities insisted, the retirement process took a further nine months, and so formally took effect only on 1 April 1947, by means of a letter dated 17 April 1947 and supplied by the appropriate ministry department. Kern now hoped and believed that his return to Germany could no longer be deferred. Meanwhile, after a long period of "preparation", in the first part of 1948 he signed a contract with Francke Verlag, a publishing house in Bern, for a ten volume "Historia Mundi" ("History of the World"). Ideas for the project had evidently