Prof. Dr. Maren Röger

Maren Röger has been Director of the GWZO and Professor of Eastern European/East-Central European History at the University of Leipzig since November 2021. Her research areas include the history of violence in Eastern Europe, including the history of forced migration, war and occupation, as well as its aftermath in the culture of remembrance and the history politics. Maren Röger also researches the history of political communication and the media.

She was awarded her doctorate from the University of Giessen in 2010 for a study on the German-Polish culture of remembrance regarding the forced migration of Germans, which was published in German in 2011 and in Polish in 2016. Her second monograph, »Kriegsbeziehungen«, a study on sexualised violence, prostitution and bartering in occupied Poland, which she wrote as a researcher at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw (2010-2015), was published in 2015 in S.-Fischer-Verlag's »Schwarze Reihe«. The book was also published in Polish in the same year. Awarded the Wiener Library Prize and the Humanities International Translation Prize, an English edition was published by Oxford University Press in 2021. In 2023, she published her third monograph, »Karten in die Moderne«, a visual history of the multi-ethnic Habsburg crown land of Bukovina. The book is the result of her research on the historical region, which resulted from her management of the Augsburg Bukovina Institute in the years 2017-2021. At the same time, she held a (junior) professorship at the University of Augsburg on the history of interdependence with Eastern Europe.

Maren Röger is currently working on a European history of intimate partner violence and femicide (monograph) and on an anthology that takes a comparative look at sexualised war violence in Asia and Eastern Europe.

Maren Röger fulfils numerous functions in committees of national and international academic institutions.

• History of East-Central Europe from the 19^th to the 21^st century
• Comparative contemporary European history
• History of migration and forced migrations in the 19th and 20th centuries; »flight and expulsion« [»Flucht und Vertreibung«]
• History of violence, especially Second World War history and the Holocaust
• Cultures of remembrance and the politics of history in Eastern Europe
• History of political communication, media history and public history
• Gender and sexuality history
• Nationalism studies

Strongly shortened selection. See below for complete list of publications.

Monographs

• Gezeigte Grenzen. Erkundungen deutsch-polnisch-jüdischer Beziehungsbilder zwischen 1890 und 1920. Dresden: Sandstein Verlag 2023. [Visuelle Geschichtskultur 23]. (together with Małgorzata Stolarska-Fronia)
• Karten in die Moderne: Eine visuelle Geschichte des multiethnischen Grenzlandes Bukowina 1895-1918. Dresden: Sandstein Verlag 2023. [Visuelle Geschichtskultur 20].
• Wartime Relations. Intimacy, Violence, and Prostitution in Occupied Poland, 1939–1945: Oxford: Oxford University Press 2021. [German Original: Kriegsbeziehungen: Intimität, Gewalt und Prostitution im besetzten Polen, 1939–1945. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag 2015. Polish Translation: Wojenne związki. Polki i Niemcy podczas okupacji. Warszawa: Świat Książki 2016.]
• Flucht, Vertreibung und Umsiedlung. Mediale Erinnerungen und Debatten in Deutschland und Polen seit 1989. Marburg: Herder-Verlag 2011. [Studien zur Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 23]. [Polish Translation: Ucieczka, wypędzenie i przesiedlenie. Medialne Wspomnienia i Debaty w Niemczech i w Polsce po 1989 roku. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie 2016.]

Editorships

• Völker verkaufen. Politik und Ökonomie der Postkartenproduktion im östlichen Europa um 1900. Dresden: Sandstein Verlag 2023. [Visuelle Geschichtskultur 22]. (together wir´th Vincent Hoyer)
• Spielen im Staatssozialismus. Zwischen Sozialdisziplinierung und VergnügenVergnügen [Themenheft], in: Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung 2021. Berlin: Metropol-Verlag 2021 (together with Sabine Stach and Juliane Brauer)
• Bukowina-Deutsche. Erfindungen, Erfahrungen und Erzählungen einer (imaginierten) Gemeinschaft 1775 bis heute. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2020 (Danubiana Carpathica. Jahrbuch für Geschichte und Kultur in den deutschen Siedlungsgebieten Südosteuropas 10/57) (together with Alexander Weidle).
• Bukovina: A Borderland Region in (Trans-)national Historiographies after 1945 and 1989–1991 [Special Section], in: East European Politics and Societies 33/1 (2019) (together with Gaëlle Fisher).
• Die Erinnerung an Flucht und Vertreibung. Ein Handbuch der Medien und Praktiken. Paderborn: Schöningh 2015 (together with Stephan Scholz and Bill Niven).
• Growing up in the Shadow of the Second World War. European Perspectives/ Grandir dans les brumes de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Perspectives européennes [Special Issue], in: European Review of History/ Revue européenne d'histoire 22/2 (2015) (together with Machteld Venken)
• Women and Men at War – A Gender Perspective on World War II and its Aftermath in Central and Eastern Europe, Osnabrück: fibre-Verlag 2012. (together with Ruth Leiserowitz)

Journal articles (selection)

• Kartonierte Möglichkeitsräume. Welten und Grenzen sozialistischer Brettspiele, in: Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung 2021. Special section: Spielen im Staatssozialismus. Zwischen Sozialdisziplinierung und Vergnügen. Hg. v. Ulrich Mählert, S. 103-122 (together with Juliane Brauer, Sabine Stach).
• Ethnopolitisches Engineering im Zeitalter des Nationalismus: Identitätsstiftung und ihre Grenzen bei den Bukowina-Deutschen, in: Danubiana Carpathica. Jahrbuch für Geschichte und Kultur in den deutschen Siedlungsgebieten Südosteuropas 57/10 (2020). Special section: Bukowina-Deutsche. Erfindung, Erfahrungen und Erzählungen einer (imaginierten) Gemeinschaft. Edited by Maren Röger and Alexander Weidle, S. 39-56.
• Den Kalten Krieg spielen: Brett- und Computerspiele in der Systemkonfrontation, in: Zeithistorische Forschungen 16/1 (2019), S. 46-73 (together with Florian Greiner). (peer-reviewed)
• Die Grenzen der »Volksgemeinschaft«. Deutsch-ausländische Eheschließungen 1933–1945, in: Beiträge zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus 34 (2018), Special section: Geschlechterbeziehungen und »Volksgemeinschaft«, S. 87–108. (peer-reviewed)
• Besatzungskinder in Polen. Nationalsozialistische Politik und Erfahrungen in der Volksrepublik, in: Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte 65/1 (2017), S. 26-51. (peer-reviewed)
• From Control to Terror: German Prostitution Policies in Eastern and Western Occupied Territories of both World Wars, in: Gender & History 28/3 (2016), S. 687-708 (zus. mit Emmanuel Debruyne). (peer-reviewed)
• The Sexual Policies and Sexual Realities of German Occupiers in World War II Poland, in: Contemporary European History 23 (2016), 1, S. 1–21. (peer-reviewed)
• Von Fischotter und seiner Frau: Besatzungsalltag und NS-Rassenpolitik am Beispiel eines deutsch-polnischen Paares im Generalgouvernement, in: Historische Zeitschrift 299/1 (2014), S. 70-98. (peer-reviewed)
• Narrating the Shoah in Poland: Post-1989 Movies about Polish-Jewish Relations in Times of German Extermination Politics, in: Berezhnaya, Liliya; Schmitt, Christian (Eds.): Iconic turns. Cinema in Central Europe, Leiden et. al.: Brill 2013, S. 201-216. (peer-reviewed)

• Spokesperson of the Leibniz Research Network »Central and Eastern Europe« [Leibniz-Forschungsnetzwerk östliches Europa] (since 2022)
• Member of the Foundation Board of the Max Weber Foundation (since 2023)
• Member of the Board of Trustees of the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam [Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam] (since 2025)

Member of various Advisory Boards, e.g.

• Member of the Advisory Board of the Fritz Bauer Institute (since 2022)
• Member of the  Advisory Board of the Documentation Centre for Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation [Dokumentationszentrum Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung] (since 2022)
• Member of the Advisory Board of the Specialised Information Service for East, Central and Southeast European Studies [Fachinformationsdienst Ost-, Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek (DFG)] (since 2017)

In addition, she is a regular member of evaluation commissions in Eastern Europe and acts as an evaluator at both national and international level.

• Co-editor of the GWZO-series »Visuelle Geschichtskultur« (together with Arnold Bartetzky), »GWZO Studies on Central and Eastern Europe: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Culture, History and the Environment« (together with Julia Herzberg) and the GWZO annual journal »Mitropa«
• Co-editor of the series »Modern European history« [Moderne Europäische Geschichte] at Wallstein Verlag
• Co-editor of the Journal of East Central European Studies / Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung (since 2021)

• For the book »Kriegsbeziehungen«: Special prize from »Geisteswissenschaften International - Preis zur Förderung der Übersetzung geisteswissenschaftlicher Werke« (2016) and Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History (Category A) of the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide (2016)
• Prize of the Department of History at the University of Augsburg for special commitment to teaching (for exhibition #Postkartenfieber, 10/2019)
• Scholarship for excellent young academics as part of the Bavarian equal opportunities program (bayerische Gleichstellungsförderung) (part-time, 12/2020–6/2021) and Scholarship holder of the »Fast Track« program of the Robert Bosch Foundation (10/2014-10/2016)
• DFG doctoral scholarship as part of the Research Training Group »Transnational Media Events from the Early Modern Period to the Present« [»Transnationale Medienereignisse von der Frühen Neuzeit bis zur Gegenwart«], University of Giessen (11/2006-10/2009)

Maren Röger has taught a wide range of courses at the Universities of Giessen (2009), Hamburg (2014/15) and Augsburg (2015-2021), in the fields of History, Art and Cultural History, Interdisciplinary European Studies. 

She has been teaching and lecturing at the Department of History and the Global and European Studies Institue of Leipzig University since summer semester 2022.

Completed Dissertations

• Jakub Gałęziowski, M.A.: Zmącone biografie. Powojenne losy dzieci (urodzonych) z (powodu) wojny [published in 2022 by Krytyka Polityczna under the title: Niedopowiedziane biografie. Polskie dzieci urodzone z powodu wojny, awarded the prize for the best debut in the historical sciences of the journal Polityka 2023, funded by: Horizon 2020, Intern. Training Network, currently researcher at the Institute of Art History of the University of Warsaw]
• Michal Korhel, M.A.: On the Nation’s Border: Czech-German Children in Post-WWII Czechoslovakia, 1945–1960 [Funded by: Horizon 2020, Intern. Training Network, currently researcher at the Polish Academy of Sciences]
• Philipp Kröger, M.A.: Die deutsche Nationalitätenstatistik und ihr Blick auf Ostmitteleuropa, 1860–1945 [published in 2023 by Wallstein under the title: Das vermessene Volk. Nationalitätenstatistik und Bevölkerungspolitik in Deutschlands östlichen Grenzländern, awarded the prize of the Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, der Medizin und der Technik e.V. (GWMT) 2022, Förderung: Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, currently Research Assistant at the Chair of Contemporary History at the University of Siegen]

Ongoing Dissertations

• Ilona Dauw, M.A.: The Spanish Flu in Belgium and Poland [Funded by Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS), Cotutelle with the Université catholique de Louvain, Associate Researcher at the GWZO]
• Polina Gundarina, M.A.: Socialist Palaces of Culture After 1991: Spatial and Societal Aspects of Transformation [researcher at GWZO]
• Lisa Haberkern, M.A.: Upper Silesian family memories [Funded by: Horizon 2020, Intern. Training Network, now Managing Director of Kulturwerk Schlesien]
• Vincent Hoyer, M.A.: Leisure under Control? - The Politicization of Pleasure Cultures in the Multiethnic Cities of Warsaw, Poznan, and Lviv 1890–1914 [Funded by: German Research Foundation (DFG), Intern: German Research Foundation (DFG), Research Associate  at the GWZO]
• Johannes Leonte, M.A.: Heinrich Zillich - A political biography [Project collaborator at the IKGS Munich in the reappraisal of Heinrich Zillich's diaries, funded by: Immanuel Kant Scholarship from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media]
• Lilit Mnatsakanyan, M.A.: Constructive Relativities: Deconstructing the idea of East/ern Europe in Armenian Sources [Erasmus + Research scholarship]
• Daria Reznyk, M.A.: Living with the deportation experience: an oral history of mass deportations from the western part of Ukraine (1944–1953) [Funded by: doctoral scholarship of the KAAD – Katholischer akadamischer Ausländer-Dienst]
• Schorr, Julian, M.A.: The Regional Parliament of Bukovina: Effects and Achievements of Regional Parliamentarism 1861-1910 [Der Bukowiner Landtag – Wirkungen und Leistungen des Regionalparlamentarismus 1861–1910]  
• Alexander Weidle, M.Ed.: Institutionalized Memory and its Limits: The Homeland Society and Life Stories of »Bukovina Germans« [Landsmannschaft und Lebensgeschichten der »Buchenlanddeutschen«] [Funded by: Cusanus-Werk, Researcher and Science Communication at the GWZO].