The article is based on an oral history interview with the longtime chairwoman of the “Work Group for Dutch-German Cultural Exchange” (Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Deutsch-Niederländische Kulturarbeit), Marta Baerlecken, née Hechtle (*1906), who accompanied and contributed to the development of Dutch Studies as academic discipline in 20th century Germany nearly from the beginning onwards. The first part of the article focuses on the history of the “German-Dutch (Research-)Institute” at Cologne University, founded in 1931 with financial and moral support from the Dutch Government, with which she was affiliated since 1935. Originally set up as modern bi-national area studies institute, it soon got under pressure from völkisch and national-socialist groups and became entangled into the aggressive German policy towards the West. Her report brings the internal scholarly and political debates and disputes to the fore, as well as the essential questions of resistance, accommodation or collaboration in an academic context in this time. In the second part of the article, the development of Dutch Studies as academic discipline in early Post-War Germany and the Federal Republic is sketched from a personal point of view. This development was characterised by continuity on the institutional and personal levels as well as by heartening examples of a new beginning.