Auto(im)mobile Infrastructures in West Germany and Western Europe in the Great Acceleration

Joint project
Project Leaders: Rüdiger Graf und Christopher Neumaier
Funded by the Leibniz Association, funding line “Cooperative Excellence” (2026)

In light of current debates on climate change and the transformation of mobility patterns “Mobilitätswende”, this project re-evaluates the history of automobile infrastructure in West Germany and Western Europe since the mid-twentieth century. Concentrating on parking, gas stations, beltways and bridges, it scrutinizes both the conditions that enabled the rise of energy-intensive automobile societies as well as their social, economic, and environmental consequences. Funded by the Leibniz-Research-Alliance, the collaboration between ZZF Potsdam, IRS Erkner, TU Berlin, and WZB will engender and connect research on the history of auto(im)mobility in the Berlin region and beyond. Its central goal is to analyze how material infrastructure has shaped local life-worlds and behavioral patterns that have deeply affected life on earth.

Mitarbeiter:innen

Rüdiger Graf, Christopher Neumaier

Projekte

Beatrice Azzola

Gasoline Tales: A History of Oil, Power, and Gas Stations in Western Europe

Research project
This subproject reconstructs the history of gas stations in Western Europe since the 1950s, locating them within a broader context of expanding international oil policies that form the backdrop to the everyday life of their users. It focuses on a comparative analysis of West Germany and Italy,

Julian-Dakota Bock

Places of Standstill. Parking, Urban Space and Local Lifeworlds in West Germany and Great Britain, c. 1950-2000

PhD project
The subproject examines the accommodation of parked cars in Western European cities since the breakthrough of mass motorization in the 1950s. In particular, the project asks how mass motorization and the associated space requirements of parked vehicles have shaped local life worlds, everyday practices and spatial conflicts.

Leon Waldmann

Bypass roads in the ‘car country’– motorization and the environment of the Federal Republic of Germany in the Great Acceleration 1950-2000

PhD project
The project examines how automobile-based – and thus energy-intensive – lifestyles spread in the Federal Republic of Germany between 1950 and 2000 and, at the same time, came under criticism in the wake of debates on environmental pollution and climate change.