Dr. Katharina Stengel

Research Associate

Since 2021, Katharina Stengel has been working on the research project »Disruptive Factor of Reconstruction. The Association of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime«, funded by the Alfred Landecker Foundation. She studied medieval and modern history, sociology and political science at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. She completed her doctorate at Ruhr University Bochum in 2012 under Prof. Dr Constantin Goschler. Stengel worked as a research associate at the Fritz Bauer Institute on projects focussing on the first Frankfurt Auschwitz trials, expropriation, compensation and restitution, the work of survivor associations and concentration camp committees. From 2004 to 2018 she has managed the travelling exhibition »Legalisierter Raub. Der Fiskus und die Ausplünderung der Juden in Hessen 1933–1945« (Legalised theft. The fiscal authorities and the plundering of Jews in Hesse 1933–1945) since 2004. Stengel has also conducted local historical research on the Nazi period. She is currently research associate at the Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture – Simon Dubnow, Leipzig, on the research project »Opferzeugen in NS-Prozessen. Eine Analyse ihrer wechselhaften Rolle in sechzig Jahren Bundesrepublik«, (Victim witnesses in Nazi trials. An analysis of their changing role in sixty years of the German Federal Republic) conducted in cooperation with the Fritz Bauer Institute and funded since 2014 by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German research foundation).

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Research focal areas

• History and impact of the Holocaust 
• Individuals persecuted by the Nazis in post-war societies 
• Expropriation and “restitution”
• Regional history of Nazi persecution of the Jews

Selected publications

• Die Überlebenden vor Gericht. Auschwitz-Häftlinge als Zeugen in NS-Prozessen (1950–1976), Göttingen 2022.
• with Bettina Leder and Christoph Schneider, Ausgeplündert und verwaltet. Geschichten vom legalisierten Raub an Juden in Hessen, Berlin 2018.
• Nationalsozialismus in der Schwalm 1930–1939, Marburg 2016.
• Hermann Langbein. Ein Auschwitz-Überlebender in den erinnerungspolitischen Konflikten der Nachkriegszeit, Frankfurt am Main, New York 2012.

List of publications

• Publications (pdf-file)