Dr Udo Grashoff

DAAD Francis L. Carsten Lecturer in Modern German History

My work mostly covers 20th-century Germany. I specialise in the history of the two German dictatorships. Due to my experience of the German Democratic Republic – with an atmosphere characterised by anxiety, forbiddances, rumours, mindfulness and reading between the lines – I'm particularly interested in taboo subjects.
Often I carry out pioneering research. I deal with suicide in the GDR, informal housing (Schwarzwohnen), and 'betrayal' within the Communist Party of Germany.
I examine resistance, opposition, political violence and individual agency in borderline situations. Instead of a simplifying contrasting juxtaposition of rulers and subjects, I’m interested in grey areas, negotiations, interactions and hybrid forms.