MY RESEARCH ...

... covers German history during the 19th and 20th century. I specialise in the history of the two German dictatorships. Due to my experience of the German Democratic Republic – with an atmosphere characterised by anxiety, forbiddances, rumours, mindfulness and reading between the lines – I'm particularly interested in taboo subjects. Often I carry out pioneering research. I deal with suicide, informal housing (Schwarzwohnen), life in prison and betrayal. I examine political violence, repression, resistance, opposition and individual agency in borderline situations. Instead of a simplifying contrasting juxtaposition of rulers and subjects, I’m interested in grey areas, negotiations, interactions and hybrid forms. In 2006 I did my PhD on suicide in the GDR. In 2019 I received my 'Privatdozent' title with a study on betrayal within the communist resistance movement in the Third Reich. Currently I'm working on a DFG-funded follow-up study comparing the dealing with Gestapo collaborators in Austria and both German states after the war.