Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Social and Economic History

Biography

Alexander Nützenadel is Professor of Social and Economic History at Humboldt University Berlin.

He earned his M.A. (History, Economics and Computer sciences) in 1990 at the University of Göttingen and his Ph.D. (Modern History) in 1995 at the University of Cologne with a study on Agrarian Policy in Italian Fascism. In 2004, he completed his Habilitation at the University of Cologne with a book on Economic Experts in Postwar Germany.

Alexander Nützenadel taught Modern History at the University of Cologne and was Principal Investigator of the Research Group ‘Globalisation as a Historical Process. Agrarian Markets and International Politics 1870-1970’, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. Before joining the Humboldt University in 2009, he was Professor of European Economic and Social History at the University of Frankfurt/Oder.

Alexander Nützenadel held fellowships at the University of Venice, the German Historical Institute in Rome, Columbia University New York, Science Po Paris and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study. In 2021/22, he was the Gerda Henkel Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences.

Research Grants and Coordinated Projects

• Co-ordinator of the Priority Program PP 1859 ‘Experiences and Expectations: Historical Foundations of Economic Behavior’, funded by the German Research Foundation (2016-22, together with Jochen Streb)
• Spokesman of the Independent Historical Commission ‘The Ministry of Labour in the Third Reich’, funded by the German Ministry of Labour (2013–20)
• Member of the Historical Commission 'The Ministry of Finance in Germany 1945-1990'
• For other Projects click here

Service to the Profession

• Member of the Humboldt University Council and the University Tenure Board
• Editorial boards: Journal of Modern European History, Economic History Yearbook, Journal of European Economic History, Neue Politische Literatur and Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft 

Areas of Research

• European fascism in comparative perspective
• Economic knowledge and experts 
• Banking, debts and financial regulation in the 20th century
• Historical experiences and economic expectations

Work in Progress

• Economic Populism in Europe during the Interwar Period (Book Project)
• Experiences and Expectations: A History of Economic Future (Book Project with Jochen Streb)
• Internationalization of European Banking since the 1970s (Article)
• Paradoxes of Regulation. The Banking Crisis of the 1930s and its Legacies (Article)

Recent Publications (selection)

• Risk Management, Expectations and Global Finance. The Case of Deutsche Bank 1970-1990. Working Papers of the Priority Programme 1859 “Experience and Expectation. Historical Foundations of Economic Behaviour” No 36 (November 2022)
• Fascism and Finance: Economic Populism in Inter-War Europe, in: German Historical Institute London Bulletin 44,1 (2022), 3–27
• The financial crisis of 2008 — Experience, memory, history, in: Journal of Modern European History (=Forum: The Financial Crisis and Its Legacies), 19,1 (2021), p. 1-5 https://doi.org/10.1177/1611894420973590
• Deutsche Bank. The Global Hausbank 1870-2020, London: Bloomsbury 2020 (with Catherine Schenk and Werner Plumpe)

• 1950 – Wirtschaftswunder global, in: Andreas Fahrmeier (Hg.), Deutschland. Eine Globalgeschichte, Munich 2020, p. 691-694

• State, Banks and the Financialization of Sovereign Debt in Italy since the 1970s, in: Nicolas Barreyre, Nicolas Delalande (eds.), World of Public Debts: A Political History (Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance), Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2020, p. 405-425 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48794-2_16
• Bureaucracy, Work and Violence. The Reich Ministry of Labour in Nazi Germany, 1933–1945, Oxford/New York: Berghahn 2020