The director of the ZZF, Frank Bösch, is developing overarching research topics, major third-party funded projects, and numerous individual studies, which are integrated into the ZZF departments.
His projects include a research group on the history of the radical right in Germany after 1945, which took up its work in 2021 and involves several postdocs and doctoral students who are investigating the ideology, living environment, parties, youth groups, activities within the Bundeswehr, and violence of the extreme right. The project, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, is headed by Bösch as spokesperson together with Gideon Botsch from the Moses Mendelssohn Centre Potsdam (MMZ).
Bösch also leads several projects that are investigating the transition from the state-socialist GDR to all-German society since 1990. For instance, a project with three doctoral students is researching the reorganisation of East German universities and two others the reorganisation of political parties in East Germany. As spokesperson of the Leibniz Lab "Social Upheavals and Transformations", which was acquired in 2024, Bösch organises the communication of research from 28 Leibniz Institutes. As spokesperson at the ZZF, he heads the joint project "The Media Heritage of the GDR" (with the LMU Munich and the FU Berlin), which primarily examines popular media, from photo albums to pop music, in the upheavals of the 1980s/90s. In addition, Bösch, together with Winfried Süss, heads the Research Training Group “Soziale Folgen des Wandels der Arbeitswelt" ("Social Consequences of Change in the World of Work”), with four doctoral students at the institute.
An overarching focus of Frank Bösch – supported through third-party funded projects and his own research – is German contemporary history in its global context. His monograph on Germany's dealings with global autocracies was published in spring 2024 under the title, “Deals mit Diktaturen. Eine andere Geschichte der Bundesrepublik” ("Deals with Dictatorships. A different history of the Federal Republic”).
The Directorate's research also includes projects on public history, on the Leibniz Research Alliance ‘Value of the Past’ and the "Upheavals and Transformations".
