Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena

PD Dr Jochen Böhler

Academic staff Jochen Boehler

Research associate

Fürstengraben 13| 07743 Jena
Fon +49 (0) 3641 9 44 61
Mail: jochen.boehler(at)uni-jena(dot)de

Jochen Böhler is a temporary chair holder for  Eastern European History at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. As research associate at the Imre Kertész Kolleg, Jochen Böhler headed (since 2010) the research area “War, Violence and Oppression”, and co-heads (with Robert Gerwarth, University College Dublin) the research project “The Waffen-SS: A European History”, which focuses on the non-German ‘volunteers’ this paramilitary ‘Nazi elite formation’ recruited – often by force – in whole Europe from Spain to the Soviet Union and from Norway to Italy. An expert in Shoah and perpetrator studies since two decades, during the last years he has extended his expertise to the First World War and its violent aftermath in Central and Eastern Europe. In Winter 2017/18, he has taught these combined fields of knowledge as Invited Professor at the Chaire d’excellence, LabEx EHNE (“Writing a New History of Europe”), Research strand 5: The Europe of Wars and the Traces of War, at Sorbonne University, Paris. Before, Jochen Böhler had established and headed the research area “War and Foreign Rule in the Century of Extremes” at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw (2000–2010). Several of his books have been translated into English and Polish, thus popularizing the violent history of Central Europe in the 20th century for a broader Western and Eastern European audience.

Projects at the Kolleg

Currently, Jochen Böhler co-edits (with Joachim von Puttkamer and Włodzimierz Borodziej) the volume “Violence” in the Kolleg’s four-volume series The Routledge History Handbook of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century. He has just published the findings of his recent research project the battle for independence of nation states on the ruins of the fallen European land empires as a monograph with Oxford University Press (2018) titled ‘Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921. The Resurrection of Poland', which simultaneously has been published in Polish. His new research concentrates, again, on the Shoah: Conceived and implemented by Germans, it place in occupied Central and Eastern Europe. During and after the war, the daunting task for all German occupied countries was to engage with what the Germans had set in motion and were implementing. The Kolleg’s 2017 annual conference (co-organized by Raphael Utz) “Eastern Europe Facing the Shoah. A History of Engagement” gathered leading experts on the topic from all over the world, and a conference volume is in preparation.

Main areas of research

  • Military history
  • First World War
  • Third Reich
  • Second World War
  • German occupation of Europe 1939-1945
  • Research on the perpetrators of Nazi crimes
  • Second World War
  • East Central Europe between the Two World Wars

 

Monographs

Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921. The Reconstruction of Poland, Oxford 2018 (Polish: 2018)

with Jürgen Matthäus and Klaus-Michael Mallmann: War, Pacification, and Mass Murder. The Einsatzgruppen in Poland, Lanham/MD 2014) (German: 2008; Polish: 2009)

Der Überfall. Deutschlands Krieg gegen Polen, Frankfurt/Main 2009) (Polish: 2011)

Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg. Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939, Frankfurt/Main 2006 (Polish: 2009)


Edited Volumes

with Robert Gerwarth: The Waffen-SS. A European History, Oxford 2017

with Jacek Sawicki: SS-Oberscharführer Hermann Baltruschat’s career 1939-1943 (Gestapo album, edited in English, Polish, and German), Warszawa 2014, and herein (57–71): Gestapo Functionaries and Their Offices As Described in the Album.

with Stephan Lehnstaedt: Die Berichte der Einsatzgruppen aus Polen 1939. Vollständige Edition, Berlin 2014

with Joachim von Puttkamer und Włodzimierz Borodziej: Legacies of Violence. Eastern Europe’s First World War, München 2014.

with Stephan Lehnstaedt: Gewalt und Alltag im besetzten Polen 1939–1945 (Violence and Everyday Life in Occupied Poland) (Osnabrück: fibre, 2012)  (Polish: 2011, ed. by Tomasz Chinciński)

with Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk: Der Judenmord in den eingegliederten polnischen Gebieten 1939–1945, Osnabrück 2010 (Polish: 2008, ed. by Aleksandra Namysło)

“Größte Härte...” Verbrechen der Wehrmacht in Polen, September/Oktober 1939, Ausstellungskatalog, Osnabrück 2005 (Polish: 2004, ed. with Paweł Kosinski)


Articles

with Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk: Collaboration and Resistance in Wartime Poland (1939–1945). A Case for Differentiated Occupation Studies, in: Journal of Modern European History 16 (2018), 225–246 (peer reviewed).

with Robert Gerwarth: Ost- und Südosteuropäer in der Waffen-SS (= introduction to the special issue “Ost- und Südosteuropäer in der Waffen-SS – Kulturelle Aspekte und historischer Kontext”), in: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 65 (2017) 7/8, 605–610 (peer reviewed).

The Central European Civil War, in: Ute Daniel/Peter Gatrell/Oliver Janz/Heather Jones/Jennifer Keene/Alan Kramer/Bill Nasson: 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2016-10-08 (peer reviewed)

“Wer seid und auf welcher Seite steht Ihr?” – Polens literarische Kreise und die antisemitische Stimmung des Sommers 1956, in: Joachim von Puttkamer/Jurek Kochanowski (eds.): 1956 – Eine (etwas) andere Perspektive, Warszawa 2016, 55–71. 

Entry “Exactions et Crimes de Guerre”, in: Jean-François Muracciole and Guillaume Piketty (eds.): Encyclopédie de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Paris 2015, 417–423.

Can We Comprehend Mass Murder? German Extermination Techniques from the Invasion of Poland to Auschwitz and the Abysses of Ideology, in: Andrzej Nowakowski (ed.): Auschwitz. Beyond the Horizon of Events, Kraków 2015, 59–71

Ordinary Clerks or Trailblazers of Destruction? The ‘First Wave’ of Chiefs of Civil Administration and Their Implementation of Nazi Policy During the German Invasion of Poland in 1939, in Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust 29 (2015), 17–40 (peer reviewed)

Enduring Violence. The Post-War Struggles in East-Central Europe 1917–1921, in Journal of Contemporary History 50/1 (2015), 58–77 (peer reviewed)

Chapter “Race, Genocide, and Holocaust”, in Thomas Zeiler/Daniel Michael DuBois (eds.): A Companion to World War II (Wiley-Blackwell Companions to World History), vol. II, Malden/MA, Oxford 2013, 666–684

Die Wehrmacht im Vernichtungskrieg. Neue Erkenntnisse zum Denken und Handeln deutscher Soldaten, in Martin Cüppers/Jürgen Matthäus/Andrej Angrick (eds.): Nationalsozialistische Verbrechen. Taten und Bewältigungsversuche, Festschrift für Klaus-Michael Mallmann zum 65. Geburtstag, Darmstadt 2013, 89–102

Feldzug der 18 Tage oder Vernichtungskrieg? Das umkämpfte Polen 1939, in Hans Henning Hahn/Robert Traba (eds.): Deutsch-Polnische Erinnerungsorte, Band 1: Geteilt / Gemeinsam, Paderborn 2015, 359–373 (Polish 2015)

Die heile Welt des Eduard Schmidt. Gewalt und Alltag deutscher Polizeiformationen und -dienststellen im besetzten Polen, in Jochen Böhler/Stephan Lehnstaedt (eds.): Gewalt und Alltag im besetzten Polen 1939–1945, Osnabrück 2012, 89–116 (Polish: 2011)

A Monumental Project and a Small Miracle, in Yad Vashem Studies 39 (2011) Nr. 2, 259–271 (peer reviewed)

Erweiterte Polizeigefängnisse im besetzten Polen. Das Lager Błonie in Hohensalza, in Wolfgang Benz/Barbara Distel/Angelika Königseder (eds.): Nationalsozialistische Zwangslager. Strukturen und Regionen, Täter und Opfer, Berlin 2011, 48–66

Die Vertreter des Auswärtigen Amtes bei der Wehrmacht, Das „Sonderkommando Künsberg” in the chapter „Krieg – Besatzung – Holocaust”, in Eckart Conze/Norbert Frei/Peter Hayes/Moshe Zimmermann (eds.): Das Amt und die Vergangenheit. Deutsche Diplomaten im Dritten Reich und in der Bundesrepublik, München 2010, 167ff., 200–228, 230–238, 241f., 244ff., 250–253, 257ff., 261f., 269ff., 276–280.

Die Judenverfolgung im deutsch besetzten Polen zur Zeit der Militärverwaltung, in Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk/Jochen Böhler (eds.): Der Judenmord in den eingegliederten polnischen Gebieten 1939–1945, Osnabrück 2010, 79–97 (Polish: 2008)

Totentanz. Die Ermittlungen zur „Aktion Erntefest”, in Klaus-Michael Mallmann/Andrej Angrick (eds.): Die Gestapo nach 1945. Karrieren, Konflikte, Konstruktionen, Darmstadt 2009, 235-254 (Polnisch: 2009)

L’adversaire imaginaire. La «guerre des francs-tireurs» de l’armée allemande en Belgique en 1914 et de la Wehrmacht en Pologne en 1939. Considérations comparatives, in Gaël Eismann/Stefan Martens (Hg.): Occupation et répression militaire allemandes 1939-1945. La politique de «maintien de l’ordre» en Europe occupée, Paris 2007, 17–40

Intention oder Situation? Soldaten der Wehrmacht und die Anfänge des Vernichtungskrieges in Polen, in Timm C. Richter (ed.): Krieg und Verbrechen: Situation und Intention. Fallbeispiele, München 2006, 165–172

„Tragische Verstrickung” oder Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg? Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939, in Klaus-Michael Mallmann/Bogdan Musial (eds.): Die Genese des Genozids: Polen 1939–1941, Darmstadt 2004, 36–56


Reviews and newspaper articles

o.a. in ZEITUNGSZEUGEN, POLYTIKA, DIE ZEIT, RHEINISCHER MERKUR, MOWIĄ WIEKI, WPROST, NEWSWEEK POLSKA / American Historical Review, German History, Yad Vashem Studies, Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropaforschung, Jahrbücher für die Geschichte Osteuropas, Francia, Sehepunkte, H-SOZ-U-KULT, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus