Research projects and PhDs

1. How the past counts. On the history of the Federal Statistical Office (GeStat)
Cooperation project with the Federal Statistical Office, 2024-2028
Lead: Prof Dr Kerstin Brückweh and Prof Dr Markus Zwick (Federal Statistical Office)

In the "GeStat - how the past counts" project, the history of the authority will be researched together with the Federal Statistical Office from July 2024. The focus will be on the period from the 1980s onwards: The census boycott, the revival of a broader social interest in National Socialism and the beginning of the end of the GDR and accession to the Federal Republic of Germany represent key social conditions for the history of the Federal Statistical Office. The participatory involvement of the office's employees and thus a new approach to so-called government research is an important component of the project. Questions such as: What is of interest to the employees and what are their expectations of the project? How much reappraisal do we need - as the Federal Statistical Office and as a society?

2. Social data as sources for contemporary history
AG in the Association of German Historians

Social science long-term observations provide insights into the lives of many people. These qualitative and quantitative social data collected for the observation of societies allow a variety of insights into the present and past and thus form a complex, heterogeneous source that challenges contemporary historians: They are often stored in archives, sometimes in the basements of researchers, and require special methodological knowledge and contextualisation in terms of the history of knowledge. The purpose of the "Social Data and Contemporary History" working group, which was founded in 2025, is to discuss methodological, technical, content-related, legal and ethical standards when using social data. A first WG meeting is planned for the Historikertag 2025, the next annual conference for March 2026.

My interest in these questions arose from my habilitation thesis "Menschen zählen" (People count), a history of knowledge examination of the production of social data, and has developed into working with data as sources for contemporary history - primarily in the form of secondary analyses of qualitative and quantitative data. I am currently the spokesperson for the AG.

 "To whom does the city belong?" This question has come up time and again in recent years—sometimes from a citizen science perspective—and partially been answered. Less attention has been paid to the even more fundamental question: To whom does the land belong? My research into the reorganisation of home ownership in East Germany before, during and after 1989, and a first look at ownership structures in Great Britain have clearly shown that—in addition to the acute question of housing shortages—the relevant long-term question is that of land ownership. Historically, conflicts have always arisen when ownership of buildings and land have been in different hands. This is because the materiality of buildings is perishable—faster or slower depending on the durability of the material used (concrete vs. wood)—whereas land is a limited resource. It is highly decisive not only locally and nationally, but also globally for questions of social and economic organisation, order and distribution of power and thus for social and spatial inequalities.

 Cities, suburbs and rural regions, with their typical forms of development and the people living in them, are at the heart of several projects and applications— ranging from an experiential history of large housing estates (supervised doctoral thesis) and a funding application for a study on (in)visible homelessness to these ongoing projects:

1. The (nightmare-)dream of a detached house. The history of a way of life and ownership structure in the long 20th century (monograph)

 How do political participation and private property relate to each other? To what extent does private home ownership (e.g. through mortgages) restrict citizens’ scope of political activity—or does it generate greater involvement? The single-family home—particularly as it is manifested in suburban areas—is understood as a form of housing and lifestyle specific to the long 20th century. The history of a single house, placed in a larger historical context, serves as a common thread. This links micro- and macro-history and raises questions about the interplay between political circumstances and individual lifestyles, which are expressed in forms of, and aspirations to, housing and beholden to economic and social opportunities and limitations across history.

2. Where the Rich Live: Mapping Villa Neighbourhoods and Cultures of Wealth in Germany's Long Twentieth Century (RichMap)

Funded as part of the Leibniz Competition 2025-2028 in the "Cooperative Excellence" funding stream
Coordination: Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space, Erkner
Prof Dr Kerstin Brückweh and PD Dr Eva Maria Gajek

 Caption: Superbass and Raimond Spekking: Glienicker Bridge as seen from Babelsberg Palace. Aerial photograph.

 “Tell me where you live, and I'll tell you who you are.” This German proverb speaks to the close association between place of residence and social status. While poorer and more marginalised neighbourhoods have been the subject of intensive research, the question of where, in Germany, the wealthy live—and why—remains largely unanswered. Villa neighbourhoods, often referred to as ‘good addresses,’ embody exclusivity and social prestige. But how do such spaces of privilege come to be? How do they maintain this status over decades? Why do certain mansion districts lose their significance, and how do others manage to regain this status following political and social upheavals – particularly in eastern Germany after 1989? This interdisciplinary project combines an established method, thick description, with a digital tool, the rich map, and uses citizen science to find out how exclusive residential neighbourhoods are perceived and utilised, internally and externally.

When I started at the Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space in 2023, I asked myself what I, as a historian, should actually do with the drone available there. This resulted in a project funded by the Incubator Funds of the National Research Data Initiative "NFDI4Memory" on the use of drones in historical research, which was also accompanied by a seminar at the Viadrina. It is embedded in numerous activities on the topic of mapping in the research focus "Contemporary History and Archives" at the IRS.

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The central hypothesis of this dissertation is that land as a multi-layered entity has been a driving force of urbanisation, both through its material properties and in the way it has been socially and culturally constructed. This ambivalence is particularly evident in the context of Argentina's rapid urbanisation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The growth of the Argentinian capital Buenos Aires was simultaneously fuelled by the agricultural use of the surrounding grasslands, the pampas, and by the increasing expansion of underground infrastructure. These uses of the land were underpinned by representations such as military maps and cadastral plans and were often developed with the collaboration of German technical experts, scientists and companies. Their presence underlines the transnational interconnections of the urbanisation of Buenos Aires and points to the ideological importance of land. Soil and land have long played a central role in expansionist agendas, particularly in the slogan "blood and soil", which was popularised by Nazi Germany but can be traced back to the völkisch movement of the late 19th century. 

Building on these observations, I analyse the representations and uses of land, taking into account their ideological background, to examine the overlooked role of land in urbanisation. I explore how this multi-layered understanding can challenge dichotomies such as 'urban' vs 'rural' or 'natural' vs 'technological'. A cross-section through the soil of Greater Buenos Aires opens up a horizontal and vertical perspective, while the emphasis on German technical actors explores the transnational dimension of a site-specific entity such as soil. In this way, I would like to shed light on the multiscale dynamics of urbanisation through the soil.

"Something like this was blown up in the USA" was the headline of the Bild am Sonntag newspaper in the 1980s about large housing estates and also recommended thinking about demolishing the estates in the Federal Republic of Germany. Journalists, planners and researchers had also long been critical of the housing estates. In the 1980s, they therefore wanted to focus on the people who lived in the housing estates. Under the heading of "improvements", planners and residents discussed how the estates could be structurally changed. At the same time, further new housing estates for the population were being built in the GDR. Here, too, the spatial design was intended to do more justice to the people and their lives and not just fulfil planning requirements. The upheaval of 1989/1990 was a particular turning point for the residents and the GDR housing estates themselves. The focus was now on these estates: Residents, planners and journalists discussed both social and structural problems. While demolitions had been averted in West Germany in the 1980s, they had been carried out in East German housing estates since the end of the 1990s.

Pia Kleine's research project expands the planning, construction and discourse history of these large housing estates to include a perspective on the history(ies) of the residents. Using two case studies in Wolfsburg and Magdeburg, the project examines developments from the 1980s to the 2000s. Three thematic areas are central: 1. the descriptions and patterns of description of the large housing estates that both the residents and external actors chose during this period; 2. the spatial changes that the residents promoted or helped to shape; 3. everyday life in the large housing estates against the contemporary background of social developments.

The project is a cooperative doctoral project between the Berlin University of Applied Sciences (supervisor Prof Dr Eva Maria Froschauer) and the European University Viadrina (supervisor Prof Dr Kerstin Brückweh).

Statistics are the most important instrument for describing economic and social mass phenomena. The Federal Statistical Office is the central authority for the collection, processing and dissemination of this quantitative form of knowledge in the Federal Republic of Germany. As the production centre for official statistics, it is of outstanding importance for the state's understanding of the economy and population in the country. The forms of statistical description are not rigid. The methods and definitions of statistical descriptions of society are constantly changing - especially dynamically when their subject matter changes dynamically.

In the transformation period, profound economic and social processes have overlapped since the 1980s: West Germany underwent structural change due to the shift of a large proportion of the labour force from the industrial to the service sector, and the unification of the two German states resulted in the restructuring of the East German economic and social system. Not only were West German administrative structures transferred to East Germany - the statistical system with its methods, concepts and definitions was also replaced by the West German system. These processes changed the way in which statistics were described and the state structures they produced in a reciprocal relationship. Analysing this complex relationship over time is the central focus of my research project. In addition, the 1980s were also the starting point for a politicisation of official statistics, driven by scepticism towards the use of new information technologies in statistical work, which quickly turned against the state as a controlling institution.

In my dissertation, I analyse the developments at the Federal Statistical Office, its key players and official statistics. The question of the various dimensions of change structure the work: I examine structural, personnel and methodological aspects, but also content-related aspects such as the office's publication and interpretation practices. The dissertation project thus lies at the interface between historical research into authorities and institutions on the one hand and research into quantitative knowledge production on the other.