Research

Eduard Bernstein (1850–1932) was a German Social Democrat, democratic socialist, and founder of revisionism. From 1878 onwards, he lived abroad, working as a journalist and making a name for himself as a critic of Marxist theory. Bernstein, for example, rejected the idea of an inevitable collapse of capitalism. Instead of revolution, he placed his hopes in democratic reform, approved of cooperation with liberal forces, and advocated the creation of a socialist people’s party.

Klaus Leesch holds a doctorate in history and works as a librarian and press archivist. In 2024, he published Eduard Bernstein (1850–1932). Leben und Werk with Campus Verlag  the first academic biography of this key figure in German Social Democracy.

Lutz Vössing spoke with Dr Klaus Leesch about Bernstein’s life as a champion of socialist reform.

From what kind of family and…

Efraim Frisch (1873–1942) was a writer and editor of the journal Der Neue Merkur, which from 1914 to 1925 provided a forum for liberal, international, and democratic voices. Raised in an Orthodox family in the Galician town of Brody, he turned early to secular studies and literature, without ever completely abandoning his religious roots. He moved in the circles of figures such as Martin Buber, Heinrich Mann and Christian Morgenstern, and was intellectually closely accompanied by his wife, the translator Fega Frisch. In his essays, he combined humanist ideals with sharp criticism of nationalism and antisemitism – long before these became the majority view in German society.

Dr Stephan Bauer is a trained political scientist and worked after his studies in political and social sciences in Munich between 2017 and 2023 at the University of Potsdam. In 2024, he published his dissertation entitled ‘Efraim Frisch and Albrecht Mendelssohn…

Sally Bein (1881–1942) served for many years as head and teacher of the Israelite Educational Institute in Beelitz, near Berlin, a pioneering establishment for children with intellectual or physical disabilities. Under his leadership, the school became a respected centre of therapeutic pedagogy, combining care, education, and vocational training. In 1942, Bein, together with his wife and the remaining pupils, was deported to Sobibor and murdered.

Tatjana Matanya Ruge works at a Jewish private school in Berlin. Since 2009, she has been researching the history of the Beelitz institute with her partner, Ronny M. Dotan. Together with Andreas Paetz, they published a short monograph on the institution and its director with Hentrich & Hentrich. Ruge and Dotan also organised the relocation of a Holocaust-era railway carriage to Netanya, Israel, where it now serves as a memorial site.

Lutz Vössing…

Siegfried Aufhäuser (1880 - 1969) was one of the Weimar Republic’s most prominent trade unionists and socialist politicians. A committed democrat and staunch opponent of National Socialism, he was a tireless advocate for the rights of salaried employees. He co-founded the General Federation of Free Employees (AfA-Bund) and served as its chair from 1921 until the organisation’s forced dissolution in 1933. From 1920, he represented first the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), and later the SPD, in the Reichstag, where he was widely regarded as a leading voice on the union left. Following Hitler’s rise to power, Aufhäuser went into exile - first in Prague, then in the United States - where he remained politically active, though increasingly isolated. He later returned to Germany and continued his lifelong advocacy for workers’ rights and democratic reform.

Christian Zech studied Political Science, History, and Communication…

Dr Monja Stahlberger is the Leo Baeck Institute London’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow for 2025–26. Her current research project explores how German-Jewish exile families have transmitted cultural memory and negotiated identity across borders and generations, from the National Socialist period to the present. Drawing on archival materials and oral histories, her study uncovers how individual narratives reflect broader patterns of cultural adaptation, trauma transmission, and transnational belonging within German-Jewish exile communities.

The project adopts a transnational comparative approach, examining ego-documents such as diaries, memoirs, and oral histories alongside organisational records and academic publications. This methodology enables the analysis of how different national contexts shaped the preservation and transformation of German-Jewish cultural memory. Archival evidence reveals processes of identity negotiation that challenge simple categories of national…

Hans Litten was one of the most courageous figures in the legal resistance to Hitler. Born in 1903 in Halle and raised in Königsberg, he became a prominent lawyer known for his unflinching opposition to National Socialism – most famously when he summoned Adolf Hitler to testify in court during the Edenpalast Trial of 1931. Litten’s defiance would cost him dearly: he was arrested after the Reichstag fire in 1933 and died in Dachau in 1938. In recent years, his story has gained renewed public attention – thanks in part to the television series Babylon Berlin, where the charismatic Litten is portrayed by actor Trystan Pütter.

Knut Bergbauer, a social pedagogue and researcher at the Technical University of Braunschweig, has long studied the Jewish youth movement, the history of labour activism, and forms of resistance to Nazism. In 2022, together with Sabine Fröhlich and Stefanie Schüler-Springorum, he published Hans Litten –…

Hugo Haase. Photo: LBI

Hugo Haase, born in 1863 in Allenstein, East Prussia (today Olsztyn, Poland), was the eldest of ten children and trained as a solicitor. Though his time on the political stage was relatively brief, Haase made a lasting impression. A passionate orator and outspoken opponent of Germany’s war credits during the First World War, he became one of the most influential figures in early Weimar politics. Yet today, few remember the Social Democrat who, until his assassination in 1919, helped set major political developments in motion.

At the turn of the 20th century, German Social Democracy was more than just a political party – it was a way of life. For many working-class supporters, it offered a sense of dignity and belonging through a broad network of institutions: daily newspapers, trade unions, cooperatives, and cultural organisations. Haase was deeply embedded in this world, as historian and author Dr…

Lina Morgenstern was one of the most remarkable social reformers of the 19th century. In Berlin, she founded the first public kitchens, helping to feed the poor – but her work went far beyond that. She was a tireless advocate for women’s rights and for improving the lives of those on the margins of society. During wartime, she organised aid for wounded soldiers; in peacetime, she campaigned for peace itself. Morgenstern also wrote more than 30 books, using her voice to push for change in a society where women had little say in political or social affairs. She stood up for what she believed was good, just, and humane – and in doing so, she shaped a whole generation of reformers.

The Austrian author and filmmaker Gerhard J. Rekel has explored Morgenstern’s legacy in his recent biography Lina Morgenstern – The Story of a Rebel. Born in Graz in 1965, Rekel studied at the Vienna Film Academy and the Munich Screenwriting Workshop, and has worked…

Tony Sender was born Sidonie Zippora Sender on 29 November 1888 in Biebrich near Wiesbaden and died in 1964 in New York. For thirteen years, she was a leading voice on the left of the Social Democratic parliamentary group in the German Reichstag. After emigrating to the United States, she remained active as a trade unionist, speaker, lecturer, and economic policy expert. Yet despite her political achievements, international network, and striking personal charisma, Tony Sender is now remembered by relatively few.

Historian and political scientist Dr Christl Wickert completed her doctorate on the first generation of women elected to the Reichstag and the Prussian Landtag during the Weimar Republic. Alongside her academic research – particularly on women under National Socialism – she organises exhibitions and conferences and is actively involved in adult education. In October 2022, thanks to her initiative, a commemorative plaque was unveiled at Tony…

Hermann Heller (1891–1933) was a German constitutional lawyer and political theorist, best known for his pioneering work in constitutional law and democratic theory. A staunch opponent of National Socialism, he championed democracy, individual rights, and a version of ‘democratic socialism’ that fused socialist ideals with a strong rejection of authoritarianism. Although he died young, at just 42, his intellectual legacy remains significant – particularly in times of democratic crisis.

Dr Thilo Scholle, in addition to his role as a department head in a federal ministry, is a prolific writer on the intellectual history of the German labour movement and theories of the state. His books include monographs on Paul Levi, Hugo Haase, and Hermann Heller, all published by Hentrich & Hentrich.

Lutz Vössing spoke with Thilo Scholle about the multifaceted work and brief life of Hermann Heller.

When did you…

Moritz Lazarus was one of the most influential Jewish intellectuals of the 19th century. A pioneering philosopher and cultural theorist, he championed a liberal vision of society grounded in individual freedom and civic participation. For Lazarus, the strength of a nation lay not in uniformity but in the ability of its citizens – whether Christian, Danish, Polish, or Jewish – to flourish together. His career unfolded during a period of unprecedented emancipation and integration for German Jews, yet it also witnessed the emergence of the antisemitic ideologies that would later have catastrophic consequences.

We spoke with Dr Mathias Berek about the enduring significance of Lazarus’s work and why his ideas – of a pluralistic, inclusive society – resonate so strongly today.

Dr Mathias Berek is a cultural studies scholar at the Centre for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin and the Research Institute for…

In the period of social upheaval in Germany after the First World War, there were forces from both the left and right with diametrically opposed ideas for reshaping the country. Positioned somewhat in between was Hugo Preuß, who moved from being a liberal theorist to becoming one of the most important figures in drafting a democratic constitution for the Weimar Republic. Few people today are aware of this influential figure. His political legacy is impressive, and his significance for democracy in today’s Federal Republic is reason enough to take a closer look at his life.

Dr Joseph Cronin is Director of the Leo Baeck Institute in London and specialises in research on Jewish life in Germany after the Shoah. He has taught at King’s College London and Queen Mary University of London and is currently a lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London. He is particularly interested in how the history of German Jews remains relevant to contemporary issues…

Leopold Zunz (1794–1886) was a historian, religious scholar, and a pioneering figure in the development of the modern Science of Judaism (Wissenschaft des Judentums) – the academic study of Judaism. He was a tireless advocate for Jewish emancipation and integration into broader society. For Zunz, Judaism was neither simply a religion nor a national identity, but a rich culture deserving of systematic scholarly study and full participation in modern life. His work shaped the field of Jewish studies and played a key role in the intellectual and civic integration of Jews in 19th-century Europe.

Rachel Livne Freudenthal, born in 1940, is a historian and leading scholar of Jewish history. Based at the Leo Baeck Institute in Jerusalem, she has published widely on Jewish life in Germany, including her book The Verein: Pioneers of the ‘Wissenschaft des Judentums’ in Germany (in Hebrew) and her contributions to the volume Jews…

Daniel Lichman studied history at Nottingham University prior to completing rabbinic training at Leo Baeck College. He subsequently worked as a rabbi for university students and was the founding rabbi of the Willesden Green based synagogue Makor Hayim. 

He is passionate about the study of Jewish thought. He sees in this discipline, and specifically in the legacy of German-Jewish thought, keys to renewed visions for Judaisms that contribute a vital voice to the wider community.

The working title of his PhD research is ‘The afterlife of the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in post-war Anglo-Jewry’. This research will assess key themes and concerns present in German-Jewish thought and evidenced in the concerns of those associated with the Jewish studies, and rabbinical training, institute the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums (Higher Institute for Jewish Studies) in the Weimar era.…

The Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem together with Leo Baeck Institute London and the association Freunde und Förderer des Leo Baeck Instituts are preparing a hybrid exhibition project centered on the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums and the remnants of its library. The online exhibition and its accompanying Social Media campaign shall be launched in Autumn of 2023 and will run until the end of 2024. Physical installations promoting the exhibition in different spaces related to the legacy of the Hochschule across the globe will follow suit. This exhibition project aspires to engage broad international audiences in joining the search for the library’s lost books as citizen scientists.

For 70 years, the Hochschule in Berlin constituted a vibrant world of study and scholarship. The Hochschule, founded in 1872, served as a rabbinical seminary and as a research hub for the scientific study of Judaism. It was the…

Our former Director, Dr Daniel Wildmann takes part in “The Diaries of Anne Frank” project of the Lichtenberg-Kolleg and the Fritz Bauer Institute.

Seventy years after the end of the Second World War our knowledge about the war and the Holocaust is based upon a wide variety of sources and a rich range of historiographies. Amongst the first sources to be published, and quickly acquiring a rather unique status, were the diary notes of Anne Frank. Around the world many children and teenagers have read and are still reading editions of Anne´s diaries – either at school or in private. In the biography of many readers as well as in national commemorative cultures the engagement with the war and the Holocaust began with the diary of Anne Frank. It became a symbol.

Meanwhile Anne Frank’s notes have been aligned with a wide range of moral debates – on refugees, on asylum, on human rights. From a historian’s perspective this is not without problems. Historical dimensions…

The Leo Baeck Institute’s Library and Pamphlet collection is a valuable resource for the study of German-Jewish history and culture. In 2017, the LBI forged a new strategic partnership with Queen Mary University Library Services, allowing for better access to this resource.

Over the last year, large parts of the library have been catalogued in collaboration with Queen Mary University Library Services. The next phase of work on the Leo Baeck Collection will focus on the pamphlet collection (image below), which contains a mixture of personal documents, unpublished manuscripts, and publications by Jewish institutions. In 2019, the LBI won funding by private foundation for professionally cataloguing this resource for the first time, and to make it accessible to the public through online finding aids.

This was complemented by a display in the university Library, showcasing the archive material, which promises to open up many avenues for future research,…

Responses to National Socialist antisemitism covered a wide spectrum, ranging from open resistance to voluntary support. This project seeks to examine how Protestant political theology is situated within this spectrum, and to sketch the various positions articulated in response to the increasing radicalisation of National Socialist “Judenpolitik”. Neither the inclusion of the so-called “Arierparagraph”, legislation regarding “Aryan” origin, within church law, for instance, nor the introduction of the Nuremberg Laws themselves were met with silence. On the contrary: it is possible to show how theologians attempted in the course of a number of debates to assimilate their worldview to these political changes.

By bringing together a number of sub-disciplines, such as research on antisemitism, the history of National Socialism and church history, as well as the history of theology, the project examines two main questions: first, how antisemitic policies were commented upon,…

This project investigated how Jewish authors addressed the problem of historical transmission (Tradierung) from the early 19th century onwards. It analysed selected texts by Heinrich Heine, Franz Kafka, Sigmund Freud, Erwin Straus, Theodor W. Adorno, and others, covering a period from 1826 to 1944. The project sought to reconstruct how these writings revealed the process of historical transmission and which concepts, figures, and images were created by the authors to represent it. The question of how to conceptualise historical transmission was combined with a *Theorie des Ereignisses* (theory of incidence), which focused on the concept of trauma and thus on the connections between shock, repetition, language, and narrative.

In order to reconstruct the connection between trauma and historical transmission and place it in the context of German-Jewish history, this study investigated a series of exemplary textual constellations. In Heine’s work, these were three…

This project was based on the conviction that it was wrong to regard the relationship between the members of the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft and their regime solely as a relationship of power and coercion, without considering that the moral justification of what the perpetrators did or allowed to happen played an important role. It was often argued that people were seduced by their Führer and that acts of violence did not result from their own free will. Other frequently cited stereotypes were that of the Mitläufer (fellow traveller) who was forced to join in and that of the amoral person who committed violence out of political conviction and did not lay claim to any moral justification.

This study pursued the argument from a new angle, namely that the members of the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft were acting on a concept of morality and that they therefore had an interest in their principles being universally applicable. This Nazi morality appeared to be made up of three elements…

Tabea Richardson studied Drama and Theatre studies at the Universities of Winchester and Bochum (Germany) before completing a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism and an MA in International Studies at the University of Sheffield.

Her keen interest in the playing out of historical interrelations of national and cultural identities have led to her academic focus on British and German national identity construction with regards to their historic pasts as well as their differing relations with the State of Israel in the 20th century.

She is interested in researching how differing communities of memory and experience negotiate a shared co-existence in the present. This has led her to focus her current PhD project on the history of what has been called the Christian-Jewish Dialogue in Germany after the Holocaust.

In her thesis entitled

Divisive voices-deliberate vocations: 3 female protagonists and their take on…

Carmel Heeley received her BA in Philosophy and Holocaust Studies at the University of Manchester before completing an MA in European Jewish History at the Leo Baeck Institute, Queen Mary. Her MA thesis, entitled Volksgemeinschaft, Gender and the Nazi Concentration Camps, explored the relationship between moral sentiments, moral values and Nazism’s racialized conceptions of gender that underpinned the concentration camp system between 1933-1939.

Her research interests include: Third Reich history, German-Jewish history, anti-Semitism and Nazism’s persecutory policies, the history of emotions, as well as the moral framework of Nazi Germany.

Working Title: ‘German Jews, German Gentiles and the Alps: How Conceptions of Heimat, Bavarian Traditions and Moral Values defined ‘German’ Belongings and German-Jewish experience, 1920-1940.’

At its heart, my project engages with recent historiographical efforts to work with the category…

Art History as an academic discipline in Britain is commonly regarded as a German import. Before the 1930s, British art writing was the domain of the amateur and connoisseur. This only changed radically with the influx of émigré scholars – most of them of German-Jewish descent – to Britain after 1933. These highly skilled professional art historians played a pivotal role in developing the research and teaching programmes of both the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes.

The project Innovation and Acculturation: the Émigré Art Historians and Britain aims to reappraise and – where appropriate – to challenge the received narrative about the history of art history in Britain.

Its aim is to situate the work of the German (-Jewish) émigré art historians in a wider sociology of British Academia, and the intellectual debates within and beyond art historical scholarship. The project seeks to re-evaluate just how ‘German’ British art history became between 1920…

Florence Largillière studied for her BA at Sciences Po Paris, and graduated in 2011. She went on to complete a first Research Master in History at the same institution, under the supervision of Prof. Marc Lazar. She then completed an MPhil in Modern European History at the University of Cambridge. Her dissertation, supervised by Dr. John Pollard, focused on the discourses of Italian Fascist Jews who had asked to be exempted from the Racial Laws in 1938.

Her research interests include modern European Jewish history, nationalism, the construction of identities, and, more generally, the social and cultural history of interwar Europe.

Nationalist Jews in France, Germany, and Italy Faced with Anti-Semitism: 1914-1940

I will be studying the minority of the French, German, and Italian Jewish communities who overtly supported right-wing nationalist movements and ideas during the interwar period. I will analyse the private and public discourses…

Rodney Reznek MA, FRANZCR(hon),FFR RCSI(hon), FRCP,FRCR is currently Emeritus Professor of Diagnostic Imaging in the Cancer Institute, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London. He has authored/co-authored 195 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, 120 invited reviews and book chapters, over 200 scientific abstracts and edited 17 textbooks. He has been Editor-in-chief of 2 major scientific journals, section editor of another and on the editorial board of 2 other journals. He has held 8 visiting professorships and given several eponymous lectures around the world.

A Vocabulary of Difference: How Jews Were Denied Entry to South Africa in the 1930’s

Standard texts on the history of South Africa’s Jewish community portray it as the goldene medina (the golden utopia), yet on two separate occasions immigration of Jews was either severely curtailed or stopped: in 1930, an Immigration Quotas Act was…

Perceptions of Jews are crucially shaped by visual imaginations and arguments. Even a quick glimpse in the visual archive of European history demonstrates this: from paintings in Medieval churches (‘Judensau’), over Early Modern leaflets (Jud Suess) to the famous journalistic and ethnographic projects of Jewish photographers (Roman Vishniac) in the early 20th century. Visual language, coined by both Jews and Gentiles, shaped European ‘knowledge’ about Jews and Judaism. This knowledge also influenced and was further developed by film, one of the most important mass media of the 20th and 21st century.

Jewish characters in German films are a continuous phenomenon since the silent film era. These images of Jews tell stories and convey messages by appealing to moral sentiments such as shame, anger or empathy, bound up with moral values. The project’s central question is: how do film productions try to convince their audience of the moral significance and place in…

 Joseph Cronin studied at Durham University before going on to undertake PhD research at the Leo Baeck Institute and Queen Mary University of London in 2012.

His thesis, completed in 2016, is entitled: “Die Russen sind angekommen!”: Perceptions of Jews from the former Soviet Union in Germany’s Jewish Communities, 1990–2005.

Joseph’s research interests include postwar German-Jewish history, Holocaust memory and migration studies.

(Completed: 2016)

Dana Smith received her BA from Centre College (Kentucky), where she majored in history. She then completed her MA at the University of Vermont under the supervision of Dr. Alan Steinweis, focusing on modern European history and Holocaust Studies. Her research interests include German Jewish history, National Socialism, Holocaust memory in post-war Germany, and the history of anti-Semitism. She was awarded the John A.S. Grenville Studentship in Modern Jewish History and Culture in 2012. She has passed her viva in 2015.

The “Jüdischer Kulturbund”: Jewish Cultural Life and Identity under Nazism

My research focuses on the “Jüdischer Kulturbund” (Jewish Cultural League), which existed throughout National Socialist Germany from 1933 until 1938, and continued to operate in Berlin until 1941. I am especially interested in the regional variations of artistic creation (particularly the case of the Bavarian Kulturbund), and the ways in which cultural…

This was a long-term project, carried out by Ulrich Charpa, Ute Deichmann, and Anthony S. Travis. The project aimed at documenting, evaluating and explaining the role of Jews in German-speaking academia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In connection with the project international workshops were organised in Leipzig (2002), Jerusalem (2003), Brighton (2004), and Jerusalem (2006), Beer Sheva (2007, 2008, 2009), London (2010). Among the publications related to the project are two collections: 

External talks were given at various conferences and at universities and research institutions in Aachen, Berlin, Bochum,…

Antisemitism will be examined not as a mob-related problem (“The Socialism of fools”, August Bebel) but as the practice of political, economic and cultural elites. This project will explore its forms, and how it functions. Instead of starting with definitions, which anticipate expected results, this project tries to investigate the meaning of elites within the context of antisemitism or philosemitism. From this approach several questions structuring the subject result: Do elites constitute themselves as antisemitic, or Aryan, or Christian (Catholic) counter-elites? Which factors are essential for this process? Is antisemitism a result of, for example, economic, cultural, political, religious conditions? Or is it rather a result of personal decisions made through the free will of those who adopt it? Do experiences of sudden awakening play a role and, if so, how do they work? What functions do elites have in the production and distribution of certain stereotypes, images, and symbolic…