Thomas Lindenberger

Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary History at Potsdam University

Thomas Lindenberger holds a Ph.D. in Modern History from Berlin Technical University and is a habilitated lecturer in Modern and Contemporary History at Potsdam University, Germany.

He has been a long time research director at the Potsdam Center for Contemporary History Research and is currently directing the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for European History and Public Spheres in Vienna. His fields of research cover German and European History in the 20^th Century with a particular emphasis on the history of policing and physical violence, the history of everyday life (Alltagsgeschichte), the history of communism and European Cold War culture. In recent years his work focused on the history of party rule and everyday life in the East German communist dictatorship. His publications include Straßenpolitik. Zur Sozialgeschichte der öffentlichen Ordnung in Berlin, 1900-1914 (Bonn: Dietz 1995); ed., Herrschaft und Eigen-Sinn in der Diktatur. Studien zur Gesellschaftsgeschichte der DDR (Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau 1999); Volkspolizei. Herrschaftspraxis und öffentliche Ordnung im SED-Staat, 1952-1968 (Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau 2003); „The Fragmented Society: ‘Societal Activism’ and Authority in GDR State Socialism“, zeitgeschichte 37 (2010) 1 (forthcoming).

As a specialist of communist practice of rule in the GDR, he has widely used East German police files. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Research Department of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives (BStU) in Germany, and on several occasions has commented on the dealing with the Stasi files and the representation of the Stasi in the public sphere: „affirmative action – zur politischen Philosophie des Stasiunterlagengesetzes und ihren Folgen für die wissenschaftliche Erforschung der DDR-Geschichte“, Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte 53 (2003) 3, 338-344; „Stasiploitation – Why Not? Reconciliation and Misogyny in Florian von Donnersmarck’s The Lives of Others”, German Studies Review 31/3 (2008), 558-566; „Des dossiers de police à l’histoire sociale de l’Allemagne“ (entretien), Sonia Combe, ed., Archives et histoires dans les sociétés postcommunistes (Paris: LaDecouverte/BDIC 2009), 277-287.

Thomas Lindenberger is member of the international editorial committees of Genèses, Critique internationale and WerkstattGeschichte.