Fundstücke | »Guests of the Reich«. An American Riposte to the Nazi Catchphrase ‘Gastarbeiter’, 1943
A weekly newspaper from rural Georgia, July 23, 1943: Under the headline "Guests of the Reich," a short column dissects the National Socialist propaganda term Gastarbeiter in its English translation and calls it "Hitler tosh." The source predates the…
Team NGHM in Tutzing | Conference “From Geneva to Schengen
From June 29 to July 1, 2026, Jessica Wehner and Annika Heyen attended the international conference "From Geneva to Schengen. Shaping Immigration and Refugee Protection in Western Europe, 1951-1994" at the invitation of Michael Mayer (Akademie für…
NGHM reads | 11 | Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Masks (1980)
What does the racializing gaze do to those it falls upon? In "Black Skin, White Masks" (1952), Frantz Fanon interweaves psychiatry, philosophy, and anti-colonial critique – creating a foundational text of Postcolonial Studies. Episode 11 of #NGHMliest
NGHM reads | 10 | Detlev Peukert: Die Weimarer Republik (1987)
Detlev Peukert's 1987 study reframed Weimar not as democracy's failure, but as modernity's self-inflicted crisis. The tenth title on our reading list — and still essential reading. — Translated from nghm.hypotheses.org
Watching a Register Move | An Animated Card Index and the Production of Migration
This essay follows an animated visualization built from Osnabrück’s historic foreigners’ registration index to ask, from the perspective of CRC 1604 ‘Produktion von Migration’, whether a bureaucratic register merely records migration — or helps produce…
Report | Sixth Tiny Desk Colloquium: Displaced Persons, Urban Migration Policy, and the Historiography of the Refugee Regime
The most recent Tiny Desk Colloquium of the Chair of Contemporary History and Historical Migration Research, convened under the direction of Dr. Sebastian Musch, brought together five contributions ranging from West German postwar justice and digital…
NGHM reads | Eric J. Hobsbawm: The Age of Extremes (1994)
Can a century that one has lived through oneself be captured by the means of historiography, and if so, at what price? Eric J. Hobsbawm's The Age of Extremes. The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991, the tenth title on the NGHM reading list from the…
Notes from the DHIP-Summer University in Paris | Doing Migration History with Digital Methods.
This essay presents a shortened, reworked version of the keynote lecture given at the summer university 'Doing Migration History with Digital Methods', held at the German Historical Institute Paris (DHIP / Institut historique allemand) and organized by…
NGHM-Tracker (7/26)
The monthly newsletter of the Working Group on Contemporary History and Historical Migration Research at the University of Osnabrück. By Eduard Usov & Jessica Wehner. June brought a remarkable thematic density: displacement, memory, and the question…
›Production Site‹ | The First Episodes of the SFB 1604 Podcast Are Online
Czarina Wilpert, Gerhard Kromschröder, and the question of who studies migration, who describes it, and who is heard. The first episodes of ›Production Site‹ are online, and with them, the podcast of the Collaborative Research Center 1604 ›Production of…
Production of ‘Volksgemeinschaft’. Notes on a Conference in Hameln
The conference From 18 to 20 June 2026, the Dokumentations- und Lernort Bückeberg invited participants to Hameln, to the premises of the Zedita, in cooperation with the Stiftung niedersächsische Gedenkstätten and the Institut für Didaktik der…
Announcement: Tiny Desk Colloquium on 2 July 2026: Current Research in the History of Migration
On 2 July 2026, the sixth edition of the NGHM Tiny Desk Colloquium will take place. Once again, young historians from the University of Osnabrück will have the opportunity to present outstanding theses, and our guests will have the chance to present and…
NGHM reads | Carlo Ginzburg: The Cheese and the Worms (1976)
What can we learn from the words of a Friulian miller about the world of the late sixteenth century, and why from his words in particular? Carlo Ginzburg's The Cheese and the Worms, the next title on the NGHM reading list, is one of the classic texts of…
NGHM reads | Michel-Rolph Trouillot: Silencing the Past (1995)
What happens to a revolution that the dominant thinking of its time considered 'unthinkable'? Michel-Rolph Trouillot's Silencing the Past. Power and the Production of History, the eighth title on the NGHM reading list and this time assigned to the field…
›Twice Displaced‹: Queer ›Displacement‹ in Post-War Europe, Lecture of 4 June
4th Alfred Landecker Lecture with Samantha K. Knapton (University of Nottingham) When Pierre Seel, having returned to Alsace in 1945 after the camp and the Wehrmacht, wrote decades later about his liberation, he articulated a sobering finding: the true…
NGHM reads | Mark Wyman: DPs: Europe’s Displaced Persons, 1945–51 (1989/1998)
What happens to millions of people whose suffering under persecution and violence-induced mobility does not end with the conclusion of the war in 1945, but instead enters its own distinct, difficult-to-grasp next phase? Mark Wyman's DPs: Europe's…
Invitation: Lecture by Dr Samantha Knapton on Queer Experiences of Displacement, 4 June
On June 4 (6:30 pm), the Working Group on Modern History and Historical Migration Studies warmly invites you to a public evening lecture at 15/130. Samantha Knapton from the University of Nottingham will deliver a lecture in English titled "Twice…
NGHM-Tracker (6/26)
The monthly newsletter of the Working Group on Contemporary History and Historical Migration Research at the University of Osnabrück. By Eduard Usov & Jessica Wehner. May was marked by a remarkable diversity of activities, ranging from archival…