Ruins, Housing, Railways and the Search for Order in Berlin, 1945-1949

While a fellow at ZZF, Professor Oberle will  be completing a study on Ruins, Housing, Railways and the Search for Order in Berlin, 1945-1949.  In this study she examines German and different Allied approaches to allocating space and attempts at establishing order during the immediate postwar.  She is interested in the debate and policies about of order, governance, as well as welfare as they emerged in the specific material context of the rubbled city.  A focus will be on Allied and Berlin municipal  housing and housing legislation, on exclusion/inclusion, and on the international exchange of ideas when it came to questions of welfare and the politics of housing. Likewise, she will examine the interplay between law and memory narratives when it came to the effect of housing legislation.

Clara M. Oberle, Ph.D. is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of San Diego where she offers courses on modern Europe, Eastern Europe, and Germany as well as a range of courses in urban history.   Her research focus is on Berlin urban history of the 1940s, on post-catastrophe cities, and on German history, with special interests in migrations, comparative military occupations, urban planning and housing, as well as the interplay between law and memory.  Her work on welfare and re-education, on photographs from Concentration Camps and from post-catastrophe urban landscapes, on refugees and housing, as well as health policies has appeared i.a. in New German Critique, Hygiea Internationalis, Journal of Social History, as well as with Berghahn, Tauris, and Böhlau publishers.

More about Clara M. Oberle here

During her stay at the ZZF, Clara M. Oberle researches in Department IV "Regime des Sozialen" Während ihres Gastaufenthalts am ZZF Potsdam forscht Clara M. Oberle in Abteilung IV "Regimes of the Social Sphere".