Department of History

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Elizabeth Harvey

Professor of History, Faculty of Arts

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Biography

I joined the University of Nottingham in 2005, having previously held posts at the Universities of Liverpool, Salford and Dundee. In 2004 I held a visiting professorship at the University of Vienna and in 2008 I was again at the University of Vienna as a visiting scholar. From 2014 to 2017 I was Chair of the German History Society.

Since 2013 I have been a member of the Historikerkommission appointed by the German Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs to investigate the history of the Reich Labour Ministry during the National Socialist era. Within this project I have embarked on research on forced labour from the perspective of gender history. Since 1 September 2017 I have been pursuing this research supported by a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship, which ends on 31 August 2020.

Together with Maiken Umbach, I am also involved in a project on the history of photography in 20th-century Germany, looking particularly at the relationship between professional and amateur photography in Nazi Germany and at the photographic documentation of population transfers and the experience of displacement.

From 2012-2020 I was a member of the Wissenschaftlicher Beirat of the Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin. In spring 2015 I spent three months as a visiting researcher at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich as part of the collaborative project funded by the Leibniz-Gesellschaft 'Private Life in Nazi Germany'.

Since 2017 I have been a member of the international advisory committee for the English translation of the multi-volume documents edition project 'Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland' run jointly by the University of Freiburg and the Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin. The project is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. From 1 September 2020 I will be on leave of absence from the University of Nottingham in order to join the team producing the English-language series 'Persecution and Murder of the European Jews by Nazi Germany' as project lead.

Expertise Summary

Areas of supervision for prospective research students: twentieth-century Germany; comparative perspectives in twentieth-century European social and cultural history, particularly in relation to gender, nationalism and imperialism; youth and youth movements; gender, war and reconstruction; the history of visual culture; the comparative history of welfare.

Teaching Summary

I have been on research leave since September 2017 supported by a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship.

I regularly teach a year 2 module on European Fascisms, comparing the rise of fascism in Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Romania and Britain, exploring the relations between state and society in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, and examining Fascist and Nazi warfare, conquest and genocide.

I have regularly offered a Special Subject, entitled 'From Racial State to Reconstruction: Women and Gender Relations in Germany 1933-1949', examining the history of Nazi Germany and Germany under post-war Allied occupation from a perspective of gender.

Research Summary

I am an historian of twentieth-century Germany and Europe with a focus on gender history and on the period of the Second World War.

My current research, supported by a Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust, involves applying a gender history perspective to the history of forced labour in Second World War Europe. This has developed in conjunction with the wider project being carried out by the research team supervised by the Independent Historians' Commission on the History of the Reich Labour Ministry during the National Socialist Era that was appointed in 2013 by the German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.

In recent years I have also been active in a collaborative project with the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin on 'The Private in Nazi Germany' funded by the Leibniz-Gemeinschaft ('Das Private im Nationalsozialismus'). I co-organized a conference 'The Private in Nazi Germany' at the University of Nottingham in June 2016 and the volume arising from this conference was published by Cambridge University Press in summer 2019 under the title Private Life and Privacy in Nazi Germany, edited by Elizabeth Harvey, Johannes Hürter, Maiken Umbach and Andreas Wirsching.

A further strand of my research focuses on the history of photography in 20th-century Germany. I have co-organized two workshops on the history of amateur and professional photography and on the use of 'perpetrator photographs' in museums and exhibitions. This forms part of the ongoing project funded by Nottingham's Centre for Advanced Studies on 'Living For the Camera' (with Prof. Maiken Umbach). My own research on the history of photography has involved work on female photojournalists in Nazi Germany and is now focusing on the photographic documentation of the Nazi resettlement of ethnic Germans from eastern and southeastern Europe 1939-41.

My current research-related activities and institutional affiliations:

  • member of the Independent Historians' Commission on the History of the Reich Labour Ministry during the National Socialist Era
  • member of the international advisory committee for the edition project Persecution and Murder of the European Jews by National Socialist Germany
  • member of the international advisory committee of the Bundeskanzler-Willy-Brandt-Stiftung
  • member of the editorial advisory board of the Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte
  • member of the editorial advisory board of Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften
  • member of the editorial advisory board of Women's History Review

Supervision

Areas of supervision for prospective research students: twentieth-century Germany; comparative perspectives in twentieth-century European social and cultural history, particularly in relation to gender, nationalism and imperialism; youth and youth movements; gender, war and reconstruction.

I have supervised doctoral work on the history of consumer culture in Britain and Germany and on the history of women's organizations in the Nottingham region. This has included a Collaborative Doctoral Award partnership with Nottingham City Museums and Galleries which focused on the John Player Advertising Archive: the project focused on the promotional and advertising campaigns undertaken by Player's between the 1950s and the 1980s and the holder of this award, Daniel O'Neill, graduated with his PhD in August 2015.

I am currently co-supervising the PhD students Alice Tofts (Collaborative Doctoral Partnership with the Imperial War Museum) and Nadine Tauchner (University of Leicester).

Recent Publications

  • HARVEY, E.R., 2020. Vom "Arbeitsvertragsbruch" in die polizeiliche Vorbeugungshaft. Ein Weg in das KZ Ravensbrück. In: AREND, SABINE, ed., Ravensbrück denken: Gedenk- und Erinnerungskultur im Spannungsfeld von Gegenwart und Zukunft. Festschrift zum Abschied von Insa Eschebach als Leiterin der Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück Metropol Verlag. 23-30
  • HARVEY, E. R., HÜRTER, J., UMBACH, M. and WIRSCHING, A., eds., 2019. Private Life and Privacy in Nazi Germany Cambridge University Press.
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2019. Kommentar [Geschlechtergeschichte]. In: HÜRTER, J. and WENTKER, H., eds., Wege der Diktaturforschung De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
  • HARVEY, E.R. and HÜRTER, J., eds., 2018. Hitler - New Research: German Contemporary History Yearbook 3 De Gruyter Oldenbourg.

Past Research

My areas of research hitherto have included the history of the welfare state in Weimar Germany; youth organizations and political culture in inter-war Germany; gender and nationalist movements in central and eastern Europe; and women's involvement in National Socialist expansionism in eastern Europe and the implementation of Germanization policies in occupied Poland.

Future Research

In addition to my work on twentieth-century Germany, my broader interests in 20th-century gender history and cultural history have fed into collaborative projects based in the Nottingham region, notably the partnership with Nottingham City Museums and Galleries to develop the John Player's Advertising Archive. This was supported by AHRC-funded Knowledge Transfer Partnership (2009-11) and continued with an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award (October 2011 -) held by Daniel O'Neill, who graduated in August 2015. The PhD project examines the promotional and sponsorship campaigns undertaken by John Player's in the 1960s and 1970s in the context of a critical history of smoking, advertising and consumer culture.

  • HARVEY, E.R., 2020. Vom "Arbeitsvertragsbruch" in die polizeiliche Vorbeugungshaft. Ein Weg in das KZ Ravensbrück. In: AREND, SABINE, ed., Ravensbrück denken: Gedenk- und Erinnerungskultur im Spannungsfeld von Gegenwart und Zukunft. Festschrift zum Abschied von Insa Eschebach als Leiterin der Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück Metropol Verlag. 23-30
  • HARVEY, E. R., HÜRTER, J., UMBACH, M. and WIRSCHING, A., eds., 2019. Private Life and Privacy in Nazi Germany Cambridge University Press.
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2019. Kommentar [Geschlechtergeschichte]. In: HÜRTER, J. and WENTKER, H., eds., Wege der Diktaturforschung De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
  • HARVEY, E.R. and HÜRTER, J., eds., 2018. Hitler - New Research: German Contemporary History Yearbook 3 De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2018. Documenting Heimkehr: Photography, Displacement and 'Homecoming' in the Nazi Resettlement of the Ethnic Germans, 1939-1940. In: EVANS, JENNIFER, BETTS, PAUL and HOFFMANN, STEFAN-LUDWIG, eds., The Ethics of Seeing.: Photography and Twentieth-Century German History Berghahn. 79-107
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2018. Die Inszenierung der expandierenden 'Volksgemeinschaft': Offizielle Fotos der 'Heimkehr' deutscher Minderheiten ins Reich, 1939-1941. In: SCHMIECHEN-ACKERMANN, DETLEF, BUCHHOLZ, MARLIS, ROITSCH, BIANCA and SCHRÖDER, CHRISTIANE, eds., Der Ort der 'Volksgemeinschaft' in der deutschen Gesellschaftsgeschichte Schöningh. 353-374
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2018. Gender. In: BARANOWSKI, SHELLEY, NOLZEN, ARMIN and SZEJNMANN, CLAUS-CHRISTIAN J., eds., A Companion to Nazi Germany Wiley. 315-332
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2017. Arbeitsverwaltung und Arbeitskräfterekrutierung im besetzen Europa: Belgien und das Generalgouvernement. In: ALEXANDER NÜTZENADEL, ed., Das Reichsarbeitsministerium im Nationalsozialismus: Verwaltung, Politik, Verbrechen Wallstein. 348-386
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2016. Last resort or key resource? Women workers from the Nazi-occupied Soviet territories, the Reich Labour Administration and the German War Effort Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. 26,
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2015. Geschlechterordnung und 'Volksgemeinschaft' im Nationalsozialismus. In: WINFRIED NERDINGER, ed., Muenchen und der Nationalsozialismus: Katalog des NS-Dokumentationszentrums Muenchen C. H. Beck. 490-496
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2015. Housework, domestic privacy and the 'German home': Paradoxes of private life during the Second World War. In: RUEDIGER HACHTMANN and SVEN REICHARDT, eds., Detlev Peukert und die NS-Forschung Wallstein. 115-131
  • HARVEY, E. R. and UMBACH, M., 2015. Introduction: Photography and Twentieth-Century German History Central European History. 48(3), 287-299
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2012. Weibliche Gemeinschaft als 'Volksgemeinschaft': Vergnügen, Konformität und Zwang. In: DETLEF SCHMIECHEN-ACKERMANN, ed., 'Volksgemeinschaft': Mythos, wirkungsmächtige soziale Verheißung oder soziale Realität im ‘Dritten Reich’? Zwischenbilanz einer kontroversen Debatte Schöningh. 249-264
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2012. Homelands on the move: gender, space and dislocation in the Nazi resettlement of German minorities from Eastern and Southeastern Europe. In: ROEGER, M. and LEISEROWITZ, R., eds., Women and men at war: a gender perspective on World War II and its aftermath in Central and Eastern Europe fibre Verlag. 35-57
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2011. Emissaries of Nazism: German student travellers in Romania in the 1930s Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften. 22(1), 135-160
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2011. Seeing the world: photography, photojournalism, and visual pleasure in the Third Reich. In: SWETT, P.E., ROSS, C. and ALMEIDA, F. D'., eds., Pleasure and power in Nazi Germany Palgrave Macmillan. 177-204
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2010. Mobilisierung oder Erfassung? Studentischer Aktivismus und deutsche 'Volkstumsarbeit' in Jugoslawien und Rumänien 1933-1941. In: SACHSE, C., ed., "Mitteleuropa" und "Südosteuropa" als Planungsraum: wirtschafts- und kulturpolitische Expertisen im Zeitalter der Weltkriege Wallstein. 363-390
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2010. Chronicles of Disconnection: Gendered Narratives and the Aftermath of the Second World War. In: HELMUT KONRAD and STEFAN BENEDIK, eds., Mapping Contemporary History II: 25 Jahre Zeitgeschichte an der Universität Graz Böhlau. 179-191
  • HARVEY, E. R., 2009. 'Der Osten braucht dich!': Frauen und nationalsozialistische Germanisierungspolitik Hamburger Edition.
  • HARVEY, E. R., 2008. ‘Wir kamen in vollkommenes Neugebiet rein’: Der ‘Einsatz’ von Mitgliedern nationalsozialistische Frauenorganisationen im besetzten Polen. In: MARITA KRAUSS, ed., Sie waren dabei: Mitläuferinnen, Nutzniesserinnen, Täterinnen im Nationalsozialismus Wallstein. 83-102
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2008. Raum und Partizipation: Zum Verhältnis von Frauen und Politik in Deutschland im 20. Jahrhundert. In: CHRISTINE HIKEL, NICOLE KRAMER and ELISABETH ZELLMER, eds., Lieschen Müller wird politisch: Geschlecht, Staat und Partizipation im 20. Jahrhundert Oldenbourg. 13-26
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2007. ‘Ich war überall': die NS-Propagandaphotographin Liselotte Purper. In: STEINBACHER, S., ed., Volksgenossinnen: Frauen in der NS-Volksgemeinschaft. (Beiträge zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus, 23) Göttingen: Wallstein. 138-153
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2007. 'Osteinsatz' des Bundes Deutscher Mädel im Krieg. In: REESE, D., ed., Die BDM-Generation: Eine weibliche Generation in der deutschen Geschichte des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts Verlag Berlin-Brandenburg. 289-318 (In Press.)
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2007. Autonomía, conformidad y rebelión: movimientos y culturas juveniles en Alemania en el periodo de entreguerras Hispania. 57(no. 225), 103-126
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2006. The cult of youth. In: MARTEL, G., ed., A companion to Europe, 1900-1945 Oxford: Blackwell. 66-81
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2005. Management and manipulation: Nazi settlement planners and ethnic German settlers in occupied Poland. In: ELKINS, C. and PEDERSEN, S., eds., Settler colonialism in the twentieth century: projects, practices, legacies New York: Routledge. 95-112
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2005. Contemporary history, gender history and being a historian of one's own times: some perspectives from the UK Zeitgeschichte. 32(5), 287-300
  • GEHMACHER, J., HARVEY, E.R. and KEMLEIN, S., eds., 2004. Zwischen Kriegen: Nationen, Nationalismen und Geschlechterverhältnisse in Mittel- und Osteuropa 1918-1939 Osnabrück: Fibre Verlag.
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2004. National icons and visions of modernity: asserting and debating gender identities in new national contexts. In: GEHMACHER, J., HARVEY, E.R. and KEMLEIN, S., eds., Zwischen Kriegen: Nationen, Nationalismen und Geschlechterverhältnisse in Mittel- und Osteuropa 1918-1939 Osnabrück: Fibre Verlag. 305-315
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2003. Women and the Nazi East: agents and witnesses of Germanization New Haven: Yale University Press.
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2002. Remembering and repressing: German women's recollections of the 'ethnic struggle' in occupied Poland during the Second World War. In: HAGEMANN, K. and SCHÜLER-SPRINGORUM, S., eds., Home/front: the military, war and gender in twentieth-century Germany Oxford: Berg. 275-296
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2002. Erinnern und verdrängen: deutsche Frauen und der 'Volkstumskampf' im besetzten Polen. In: HAGEMANN, K and SCHÜLER-SPRINGORUM, S., eds., Heimat-Front: Militär und Geschlechterverhältnisse im Zeitalter der Weltkriege Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag. 291-310
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2001. "We forgot all Jews and Poles": German women and the 'ethnic struggle' in Nazi-occupied Poland Contemporary European History. 10(3), 447-462
  • HARVEY, E.R., 2001. "Man muß bloß einen unerschütterlichen Willen haben": deutsche Kindergärtnerinnen und der nationalsozialistische "Volkstumskampf" im "Distrikt Galizien" L'Homme: Zeitschrift für Feministische Geschichtswissenschaft. 12(1), 98-123
  • HARVEY, E.R., 1998. Die deutsche Frau im Osten: 'Rasse', Geschlecht und öffentlicher Raum im besetzen Polen 1940-1944 Archiv für Sozialgeschichte. 38, 191-213
  • HARVEY, E.R., 1997. Youth welfare, social crisis and political reaction: correctional education in the final phase of the Weimar Republic. In: SÜNKER, H. and OTTO, H.-U., eds., Education and fascism: political identity and social education in Nazi Germany Brighton: Falmer Press.
  • HARVEY, E.R., 1997. Culture and society in Weimar Germany: the impact of modernism and mass culture. In: FULBROOK, M., ed., German history since 1800 London: Arnold. 279-297
  • ABRAMS, L. and HARVEY, E.R., eds., 1996. Gender relations in German history: power, agency and experience from the sixteenth to the twentieth century London: UCL Press.
  • HARVEY, E.R., 1995. La Polonia sotto la Germania nazista: il ruole delle donne nella colonizzazione delle provincie annesse Italia Contemporanea. 423-436
  • HARVEY, E.R., 1995. Gender, generation and politics: young Protestant women in the final years of the Weimar Republic. In: ROSEMAN, M., ed., Generations in conflict: youth revolt and generation formation in Germany 1770-1968 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. xiii, 314
  • HARVEY, E.R., 1993. Youth and the welfare state in Weimar Germany Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • HARVEY, E.R., 1992. Zwischen Reformpädagogik und der 'Hygiene des Geisteslebens': die öffentliche Jugendfürsorge in Hamburg während der Weimarer Republik. In: GLENSK, E. and ROTHMALER, C., eds., Kehrseiten der Wohlfahrt: die Hamburger Fürsorge auf ihrem Weg von der Weimarer Republik in den Nationalsozialismus Hamburg: Ergebnisse Verlag. 98-119
  • HARVEY, E.R., 1992. Serving the Volk, saving the nation: 'women in the German youth movement and the public sphere in the Weimar Republic'. In: RETALLACK, J. and JONES, L.E., eds., Elections, mass politics and social change in modern Germany: new perspectives Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 201-221
  • BIRKETT, J. and HARVEY, E.R., eds., 1991. Determined women: studies in the construction of the female subject, 1900-90 London: Macmillan.
  • HARVEY, E.R., 1991. 'Private fantasy and public intervention: girls' reading in Weimar Germany'. In: BIRKETT J. and HARVEY, E.R., eds., Determined women: studies in the construction of the female subject, 1900-90 London: Macmillan. 38-67
  • HARVEY, E.R., 1988. 'Weg von der Strasse? Die Hamburger Volks- und Berufsschulen und die Jugendarbeitslosigkeit 1918-1933'. In: LORENT, H.-P. DE. and ULLRICH, V., eds., Der Traum von der freien Schule: Schule und Schulpolitik in der Weimarer Republik Hamburg: Ergebnisse. 179-194
  • HARVEY, E.R., 1987. Youth unemployment and the state: public policies towards unemployed youth in Hamburg during the world economic crisis. In: EVANS, RICHARD J. and GEARY, DICK, eds., The German unemployed: experiences and consequences of mass unemployment from the Weimar Republic to the Third Reich London: Croom Helm. 141-171

Department of History

University of Nottingham
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Nottingham, NG7 2RD

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