Frank Biess

biess image

Frank Biess - Ph.D.

Department of History
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0104
Office: HSS 4047
Office phone (858) 822 2643
e-mail: fbiess@ucsd.edu

Profile

Education | Employment | Awards

Modern Germany; 20th Century Europe; Political, Social, and Gender History.

(for a full CV, click here )


Education:

  • Brown University, Ph.D., 2000
  • Washington University, St.Louis, M.A. (European Studies, 1992; History, 1993)
  • University of Tübingen, Germany (1990-1991)
  • University of Marburg, Germany (1988-1990)

Academic Employment

  • Associate Professor, University of California, San Diego (2006-present)
  • Assistant Professor, University of California, San Diego (2000-2006)
  • Postdoctoral Fellow, Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis (1999-2000)

Awards, Honors, and Professional Activities (selected):

  • Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellowship (1/11/2007-4/30/2009)
  • Co-Organizer (with Bob Moeller) of International Conference "Histories of the Aftermath: The European 'Postwar' in Comparative Perspective," UCSD, Feb.16-18, 2007.
  • Vice Chair for Undergraduate Studies (2005-2007)
  • Chair, European Studies Initiative, UC-San Diego (2004/05)
  • University of California, San Diego Hellmann Fellowship (2004/05)
  • Faculty Career Development Grant (2003/04)
  • Instructional Improvement Grant (2003/04)
  • Jürgen Heideking Fellowship, German Historical Institute-Thyssen Foundation (2002/03)
  • University of California President's Fellowship in the Humanities (2002/03)
  • Co-Organizer (with Mark Roseman and Hanna Schissler) of International Conference "From the Empire to the Federal Republic. Elites, Society, and Violence in Germany," Columbia University, March 2003
  • Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize (German Historical Institute, Washington DC), 2000
  • Postdoctoral Fellowship, Center for Historical Analysis, Rutgers University), 1999



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Publications

Books | Articles and Chapters | Book Reviews | Other Writings, Interviews

Books:

  • Histories of the Aftermath: The Legacies of the Second World War in Europe . Ed. with Robert Moeller (New York, Berghahn Books, 2010)
  • Conflict, Catastrophe, and Continuity in Modern German History. Ed. with Hanna Schissler and Mark Roseman, (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007)
  • Homecomings. Returning POWs and the Legacies of Defeat in Postwar Germany  (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006, paperback 2009).

Articles and Chapters:

  • Discussion Forum "The History of Emotions", Organizer and Editor, in German History 28/1 , 67-80.

  • "Introduction: Histories of the Aftermath," in Biess and Moeller, ed., Histories of the Aftermath. The Legacies of the Second World War in Europe (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), 1-10.

  • "Feelings in the Aftermath: Toward a History of Postwar Emotions" in Biess and Moeller, ed., Histories of the Aftermath. The Legacies of the Second World War in Europe (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), 30-48.

  • En attendant ‘le desting auquel l'Allemagne est promis': la crainte du châtiment dans l'Allemagne de l'après guerre in Le Retour a l'intime au sortir de la guerre. Eds. Bruno Cabanes and Guilaume Piketty (Paris: Edition Tallandier, 2009), 181-198.

  • "Jeder Hat eine Chance." Die Zivilschutzkampagnen der 1960er Jahre und die Angstgeschichte der Bundesrepublik, in Die Politik der Angst im Kalten Krieg. Eds. Bernd Greiner und Dierk Walter (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2009) , 61-93.

  • "'Everybody Has a Chance'." Civil Defense . Nuclear Angst , and the History of Emotions in Postwar Germany" German History 27/2 (2009), 215-43.

  • "Die Sensibilisierung des Subjekts: Angst und "neue Subjektivität" in den 1970er Jahren Werkstatt Geschichte 49 (2008): 51-72.

  • "Anxiété d'après-guerre : peurs et fantasmes de représailles l'Allemagne," Revue Ecrire L'Histoire: Emotions 2 (2008): 65-73.

  • with Mark Roseman, "Introduction," in Conflict, Catastrophe, and Continuity in Modern German History . Ed. with Hanna Schissler and Mark Roseman, (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007)

  • "The Search for Missing Soldiers: MIAs, POWs, and Ordinary Germans, 1943-45," in Conflict, Catastrophe, and Continuity in Modern German History . Ed. with Hanna Schissler and Mark Roseman, (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007)

  • "Between  Amnesty and Anti-Communism. The West German Kameradenschinder Trials 1948-1961," in Crimes of War. Guilt and Denial in the Twentieth Century , eds. Omer Bartov, Atina Grossmann, and Mary Nolan (New York: New Press, 2002), 138-160.

  • "Russenknechte" und "West-Agenten": Kriegsheimkehrer und die (De)legitimierung von Kriegsgefangenschaftserfahrungen in Ost- und Westdeutschland," in Nachkrieg in Deutschland , ed. Klaus Naumann (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2001), 59-89.

  • "The Protracted War: Returning POWs and the Making of East and West German Citizens, 1945-1955", Bulletin of the German Historical Institute 28 (Spring 2001), 155-169.

  • "Männer des Wiederaufbaus, Wiederaufbau der Männer: Kriegsheimkehrer in Ost- und Westdeutschland," in Heimat-Front. Militär und Geschlechterverhältnisse im Zeitalter der Weltkriege , eds. Karen Hagemann und Stephanie Schüler-Springorum (Frankfurt: Campus, 2002), 345-365.

  • [English translation] "Men of Reconstruction, the Reconstruction of Men. Returning POWs in East and West Germany," in Home/Front. The Military, War, and Gender in Twentieth Century Germany , eds. Karen Hagemann and Stephanie Schüler-Springorum (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2002), 335-58.

  • "Survivors of Totalitarianism: Returning POWs and the Reconstruction of Masculine Citizenship in West Germany, 1945-1955," in The Miracle Years Revisited. A Cultural History of West Germany , ed. Hanna Schissler (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 57-82.

  • "'Pioneers of a New Germany'. Returning POWs from the Soviet Union and the Making of East German Citizens, 1945-1950," Central European History   32 (1999): 143-180.

  • "Vom Opfer zum Überlebenden des Totalitarismus: Westdeutsche Reaktionen auf die Rückkehr der Kriegsgefangenen aus der Sowjetunion, 1945-1955," in Kriegsgefangenschaft im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Eine vergleichende Perspektive , eds. Günter Bischof and Rüdiger Overmans (Ternitz-Pottschach: Verlag Gerhard Höller, 1998), 365-389.

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Book Reviews:

  • Germany in 1945. From War to Peace . By Richard Bessel (New York: Harper, 2009), Journal of Modern History , forthcoming.

  • Review Essay "Die Konjunktur der Kriegskinder," Review of Lu Seegers, Jürgen Reulecke (ed), Die "Generation der Kriegskinder." Historische Hintergründe und Deutungen (Gießen: Psychosozial Verlag, 2009), H-Soz-Kult, Nov.29, 2009.

  • Haunted City. Nuremberg and the Nazi Past . By Neil Gregor (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008), Journal of Modern History , forthcoming.

  • Between Mass Death and Individual Loss. The Place of the Dead in Twentieth Century Germany . Ed by Alon Confino, Paul Betts, and Dirk Schumann (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008), German History 27/3 (2009): 459-61

  • Die deutsche Nachkriegsfotografie. Eine Mentalitätsgeschichte in Bildern . By Jörn Glasenapp. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2008. German History 27/2 (2009): 306-7.

  • Black Market, Cold War: Everyday Life in Berlin, 1946-1949 . By Paul Steege. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, American Historical Review .  114/1 (February 2009), 232-33

  • The Guest Worker Question in Postwar Germany . By Rita Chin. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, Journal of Modern History 81 (June 2009): 485-86.

  • After Hitler. Recivilizing Germans, 1945-1955 . By Konrad Jarausch (Translated by Brandon Hunziker).Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. German History 26(2): 331-33.

  • Hitler's African Victims: The German Army Massacres of Black French Soldiers in 1940 . By Raffael Scheck. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, H-German, H-German, 2007.

  • Review Essay Gefangen im Grossen Krieg. Kriegsgefangenschaft in Deutschland, 1914-1921 . By Uta Hinz. Essen: Klartext, 2006 and Kriegsgefangene im Europa das Ersten Weltkrieges . Edited by Jochen Oltmer. Paderborn: Schönigh, 2006, Werkstatt Geschichte, 16/46 (2007): 98-101

  • The War in the Empty Air. Victims, Perpetrators, and Postwar German . By Dagmar Barnouw. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005. H-German, March 7, 2006.

  • In the House of the Hangman. The Agonies of German Defeat, 1943-1949 . By Jeffrey Olick. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2005. Ethics and International Affairs , 20/1 (Spring 2006): 135-38.

  • A Church Divided. German Protestants Confront the Nazi Past . By Matthew D. Hockenos. Bloomington and Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2004. Central European History 39/1 (March 2006): 173-75.

  • Writing World History, 1800-2000 . Edited by Benedikt Stuchley and Eckhardt Fuchs. London: Oxford University Press, 2003. Neue Politische Literatur 49 (2004): 487-89.

  • Review Essay "Between Society and Culture: New Approaches to the History of 20th Century Germany," The Work of Memory. New Directions in the Study of German Society and Culture . Edited by Alon Confino and Peter Fritzsche. Chicago and Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002  and Pain and Prosperity. Reconsidering Twentieth-Century German History. Edited by Paul Betts and Greg Eghigian .Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003, Social History 32/1 (February 2007): 74-79.

  • Hysterical Men. War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890-1930 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003). German Politics and Society 22/4 (2004): 167-71.

  • Shell Shock. Traumatic Neurosis and the British Soldiers of the First World War. By Peter Leese. New York: Plagrave Macmillian, 2002. War in History 12/2 (2005): 354-56.

  • GIs and Fräuleins. The German-American Encounter in 1950s West Germany . By Maria Höhn. Chapel Hill. University of North Carolina Press, 2002, Social History 31/2 (May 2006): 91-93.

  • The Secret Police and the Revolution. The Fall of the German Democratic Republic. By Edward N. Peterson. Westport, Ct: Praeger. 2002, Central European History 37 (2004): 181-82.

  • Genocide on Trial. War Crimes and the Formation of Holocaust History and Memory by Donald Bloxham. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 3/2 (2002): 122-24

  • The War Come Home. Disabled Veterans in Germany and Britain, 1918-1939 by Deborah Cohen. Berkeley:  University of California Press, Germans Politics and Society 20 (Fall 2002): 112-15.

  • The Spirit of 1914. Militarism, Myth, and Mobilization in Germany by Jeffrey Verhey. London: Cambridge University Press, 2001. German Politics and Society 19 (Fall 2001): 133-37

  • Berlin by David Clay Large, San Diego Union Tribune , November 26, 2000.

  • Auf dem Weg zum sozialitischen Dorf? Zum Wander der dörflichen Lebenswelt in der DDR und der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1952-1959 . By Antonia Maria Humm.  Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1999, Journal of Modern History 73 (September 2001): 706-08.

  • Heimkehr 1948. Geschichte und Schicksal deutscher Kriegsgefangener. Edited by Annette Kaminsky. Munich: CH Beck, 1998; Neue Politische Literatur 46 (2001): 344-45.

  • Divided Memory. The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys . By Jeffrey Herf. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997; German Politics & Society 17 (1999): 144-51.

  • Ehrenmänner. Das Duell in der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft . By Ute Frevert. München: CH Beck 1991 and Dueling. The Cult of Honor in Fin-de-Siècle Germany . By Kevin McAleer. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994; Società e Soria (77) 1998: 695-700.

  • Visions of Modernity. American Business and the Modernization of Germany .  By Mary Nolan.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1994; The Journal of Economic History (54) 1995: 532-534.

  • American Policy and the Reconstruction of West Germany, 1945-1955 . Edited by Jeffry M. Diefendorf, Axel Frohn, Hermann-Josef Rupieper. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993; The Journal of Economic History (53) 1994: 965-66.

Other Writings, Interviews:

  • "German Angst?" Psychologie Heute 2 (2009): 28-34.

  • "Die Deutschen und ihre Krisen, Newspaper Interview,  Stern.de , 9 March 2009

  • "Die Furcht ist ein Meister aus Deutschland," Newspaper interview, WAZ Der Westen , 27 February 2009

  • "Hat uns der Zweite Weltkrieg traumatisiert," Radio interview (together with Bernd Weisbrod), DeutschlandRadio Kultur , 13 December 2007.

  • TV-Interview, Morningstar Entertainment, for Documentary on the Second World War. December 2004

  • "Die Rückkehr der Kriegsgefangenen: Heimkehr nach Ost- und Westdeutschland, 1945-  1955"  DAMALS. Das Magazin für Geschichte und Kultur, 8/2003, 32-37.

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Current Research:

  • I have recently completed a study that explores how Germans confronted defeat during the last years of the Nazi dictatorship and in the postwar period. I employ the issue of German MIA and POWs as a vehicle to write a comparative history of the German postwar period. The book combines the political history of postwar reconstruction with the social history of returnees and the cultural history of war memories and gender identities. It demonstrates that both German societies were indeed "postwar" societies in a sense that they remained infused with the consequences of war and defeat far into the 1950s and beyond.
  • Histories of the Aftermath: The European "Postwar" in Comparative Perspective
  • German Angst: War Scares and Security Concepts in 20th Century Germany
cover           homecomings

Courses:

 

Lower Division Courses:

Upper Division Courses:

Undergraduate Colloquia:

  • History and Memory (last offered FA 01)
  • Nazi Germany (last offered SP 05)
  • Nazi Europe: Occupation, Collaboration, and Resistance (last offered WI 06)
  • The Two Germanies since 1945 (last offered SP 01)

Freshmen Seminars (HITO 87):

  • The Americanization of Europe (last offered SP 04)
  • Critics of Communism: Reading Eastern European Dissidents (last offered FA 04)

Graduate Seminars:

  • HIGR 222: The Literature of European History, 1850-Present (last offered SP 05)
  • HIGR 231: Research Seminar: History and Memory (last offered FA 06)

Links:


UCSD Department of History

History Links:


Image Database, 20th Century World History (UCSD instructors only)

German History in Documents and Images (German Historical Institute, Washington DC)

Museum of German History (online-exhibition of 20th century Germany, in German)

US Holocaust Museum (changing online exhibitions on various aspects of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust)

Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation (testimonies of Holocaust survivors, Steven Spielberg's project at Yale University)

German Propaganda Archive (Calvin College, propaganda material from Nazi Germany and East Germany)

World War II Poster Collection (Northwestern University)

Virtual Archive, Cold War International History Project (Woodrow Wilson Center)

Internet Modern History Sourcebook (Fordham University)

The Avalon Project, Documents in Law, History, Diplomacy (Yale Law School)

Euro Docs (Doccument collection, European History)

Keesings Record of World Events (1960-present)

Internet Movie Database

Ulrike Strasser (UC-Irvine, Dept. of History)