Kara Ritzheimer
I am an associate professor of Modern European history. I teach a range of courses that focus on 19th and 20th century Europe as well as Western Civilization: 1789 to the Present, the Historian's Craft, the HST407 seminar, and special topic graduate seminars. My research focuses on early 19th and 20th century Germany, and I am particularly interested in the intersection of legal, social, and cultural history.
My first book, "Trash," Censorship, and National Identity in Early Twentieth-Century Germany (Cambridge, 2016), traces the history and impact of two national censorship laws created during the Weimar era–the 1920 National Motion Picture Law and the 1926 Law to Protect Youth from Trashy and Filthy Publications. My current book project, titled Nazi Girl: Girls and Girlhood in Hitler's Germany, is both a history of girls and girlhood during the Third Reich and, using girls as an entry point, a reconsideration of the Nazi regime.
I grew up in Missoula, Montana and received my BA from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. I earned my MA and PhD in European History from Binghamton University, where I worked with Dr. Jean Quataert.
Publications
Books and Manuscripts
“Trash,” Censorship, and National Identity in Early Twentieth Century Germany. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Paperback edition appeared in 2018.
Manuscript in Progress:
Nazi Girl: Girls and Girlhood in Hitler's Germany. Anticipated completion by September 2025.
Articles
Article: “For Want of Membership and Money: The 1936 Hitler Youth Law and the Hitler Youth’s Home Procurement Campaign,” Central European History 57 no. 3 (September 2024): 357-376. Digitally published in April 2024.
Chapters
Gender Anxieties and Censorship in Weimar: Aufklärungsfilme and Article 118,” in Gender in Germany and Beyond: Exploring the Legacy of Jean Quataert, eds. Jennifer V. Evans and Shelley E. Rose. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Press, 2023), 83-106.
“Forging a Patriotic Youth: Penny Dreadfuls and Military Censorship in World War I Germany,” in War and Childhood in the Era of the Two World Wars, eds. Mischa Honeck and James Marten. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019, 35-52.
“Protecting Gender Norms at the Local Movie Theater: The Heidelberg Committee for Monitoring Local Movie Theaters, 1919-1933,” in Consuming Modernity: Gendered Behavior and Consumerism Before the Baby Boom, editors Cheryl Warsh and Dan Malleck, University of British Columbia Press, 2013.
Book Reviews:
Review, Phi Leask, Friendship without Borders: Women’s Stories of Power, Politics, and Everyday Life across East and West Germany (Berghahn Books, 2020), German Studies Review (October 2022).
Review, Mary E. Cox, Hunger in War & Peace: Women & Children in Germany, 1914-1924 (Oxford University Press, 2019), Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth (Spring 2021).
Review, Evan Burr Bukey, Juvenile Crime and Dissent in Nazi Vienna, 1938-1945 (Bloomsburg, 2020), Central European History (2021).
Review, Jeffrey Zalar, Reading and Rebellion in Catholic Germany, 1770–1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Journal of Modern History (September 2021).
Review, Timothy Blackmore, Gorgeous War: The Branding War between the Third Reich and the United States (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2019), Journal of Military History (October 2020.
Review, Barnet Hartston, The Trial of Gustav Graef: Art, Sex, and Scandal in Late Nineteenth-Century Germany (Northern Illinois Press, 2017), Central European History, 51 (June 2018).
Review, Michele Troy, Strange Bird: The Albatross Press and the Third Reich (Yale University Press, 2017), Journal of Modern History 90 (2018).
Review, Nicholas Schlosser, Cold War on the Airwaves: The Radio Propaganda War against East Germany (University of Illinois Press, 2015), German Studies Review (November 2017).
Review, Heidi Sack, Moderne Jugend vor Gericht: ‘Sexualtragodie’ und die Krise der Jugend in der Weimarer Republik (Bielefeld, 2016), German History (October 2017).
Review, Guenter Lewy, Harmful and Undesirable: Book Censorship in Nazi Germany (Oxford University Press, 2016), Central European History ( Spring 2017).
Review, Adam C. Stanley, Modernizing Tradition: Gender and Consumerism in Interwar France and Germany (Louisiana State University Press, 2008), German Studies Review (February 2011).
Review, Martin Dean, Robbing the Jews: The Confiscation of Jewish Property in the Holocaust, 1933-1945, 1945 (Cambridge University Press, 2008), German Studies Review (February 2010).
Review, Peter Fritzsche, Life and Death in the Third Reich (Belknap, 2008), German Studies Review (October 2009).
PhD, Modern European History, Binghamton University, 2007
Dissertation Title: “Protecting Youth from ‘Trash’: Anti-Schund Campaigns in Baden, 1900-1933”
M.A. Modern European History, Binghamton University, 2000
B.A. Honors in History, magna cum laude, Willamette University, Salem, OR 1997
Second Major: Politics, graduated with Honors
Oregon State University
Associate Professor of Modern European History 2017-present
Assistant Professor of Modern European History 2011-2017
Visiting Assistant Professor of Modern European History 2007-2011
Willamette University
Instructor 2004-2007
Visiting Professor/Sabbatical Replacement 2003-2004
“Recruiting BDM Girls for Germanization: A Case-Study of Persuasion,” German Studies Association 2023, Montreal, Canada.
“The Battle Over SS Bride Schools: Interparty Rivalries and Nazi Gender Policy,” Western Association of Women’s Historians 2021, Virtual Panel.
“Sex, Lies, and Loitering: Nazi Regulation of Adolescent Female Sexuality,” German Studies Association 2021, Indianapolis, Indiana.
“The State of Gender Studies in Modern German History: The Decline of Gender or Ready to be Reimagined?” German Studies Association 2019, Portland, Oregon, Roundtable Participant.
“The State of Gender Studies in Modern German History: Intersecting Gender in Early 20th Century Germany: Religion, Education, and Citizenship,” German Studies Association 2019, Portland, Oregon, Panel Commentator.
“’The BDM is Nothing but Whores’: Treachery, Rumor and BDM Girls,” German Studies Association 2019, Portland, Oregon.
“Girlhood and Agency in Hitler’s Germany,” Society for the History of Childhood and Youth, 2019, Sydney, Australia.
“Girls’ Bodies and Girls’ Sexuality in Gestapo Cases,” German Studies Association, 2018, Pittsburgh, PA.
“Girls and Girlhood in Nazi Germany,” Retirement Conference for Dr. Jean Quataert, Binghamton University, September 2017.
“Censorship, Morality, and National Identity in Weimar Germany,” German Studies Association, October 2016, San Diego, CA.
“Nazi Girlhood and the Nazi Girl,” International Girl Studies Association Inaugural Conference, April 2016, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom.
“Ursel and Sabine in the Wartheland: Nazi Girlhood in Policy and Propaganda,” German Studies Association, 2015, Washington, D.C.
“Girlhood and Germanization in the Reichsgau Wartheland, 1939-1944,” Conference for the Society for the History of Childhood and Youth, 2015, Vancouver, B.C.
“WWI and Its Impact on the Citizen-State Relationship,” panel at Oregon Historical Society, “Perspectives on WWI,” March 9, 2015.
“Protests again Islam in Germany before and after the attack on Charlie Hebdo,” panel at Oregon State University, “Je Suis Charlie? Islamophobia, Anti-Semitism, and Satire,” January 20, 2015. Speaker and panel organizer.
“WWI and Its Impact on the Citizen-State Relationship,” panel at Special Collections & Archives Research Center, Oregon State University, “Perspectives on WWI,” November 5, 2014.
“Heinz Brandt Got His Gun: Kriegsschundliteratur and Youth in WWI Germany,” German Historical Institute, conference titled “War and Childhood in the Age of the World Wars: Local and Global Perspectives,” Washington D.C., June 2014.
“A Nation Lacking Its Moral Center: Censorship and National Identity in Post-WWI Germany,” Center for the Humanities, Oregon State University, May 2014.
“Saved from Sin, Rescued for the Nation: The schulentlassende weibliche Jugend in Imperial Germany,” Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, 2014, Toronto, Canada.
“Nazi Racial Laws and the 1936 Olympic Games: A Usable Comparison?” panel at Oregon State University, “Russia’s Anti-Gay Laws and the Sochi Olympics,” January 15, 2014. Speaker and panel organizer.
“The Gender of Germanization: The BDM in the Reichsgau Wartheland,” German Studies Association, 2013, Denver, Colorado.
“Gender and the ‘Imagined Community’ in Post-WWI Germany,” Conference for the Western Association of Women Historians, 2013, Portland, Oregon.
“Articulated Nation: Mass Culture, Censorship, and German Identity in the Early Twentieth Century,” German Studies Association, 2011, Louisville, Kentucky.
“‘The Lovely Female Reader’: Gender Prescriptions and Nationalist Messages Made Possible by the ‘Day of the Book, 1932’ in Weimar Germany,” Conference for the Western Association of Women Historians, 2010, Tacoma, Washington.
“Reconsidering Weimar Through the Lens of ‘Trash,’” German Studies Association, 2009, Washington, D.C.
“Battling Schund and Constructing Citizens: Exploring anti-Schund Campaigns and the Category of Trash in Baden, 1900-1933,” German Studies Association, 2008, St. Paul, Minnesota.
“Making Common Cause: Rethinking Women’s Political Identity in the Context of Anti-‘Trash’ Debates in Weimar Germany,” Conference for the Western Association of Women Historians, 2008, Vancouver, B.C.
Research Sabbatical, Oregon State University, January-June 2021
Faculty Fellow, Center for the Humanities at Oregon State University, 2018-2019
Trow Teaching Excellence Award, 2017-2018
Faculty Release Time Award, Oregon State University Research Office, 2017
Invited Participant, “War and Childhood in the Age of the World Wars: Local and Global Perspectives,” German Historical Institute, Washington D.C., June 2014. All participants received funding in the form of airfare and lodging.
Faculty Fellow, Center for the Humanities at Oregon State University, 2013/2014.
Invited Participant, Curt C. and Else Silberman Seminar for Faculty, “Teaching the Gendered Experience of the Holocaust,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C., June 2012.
Faculty Fellow and Release Time Award, Horning Endowment for the Humanities, Oregon State University, 2012.
Faculty Release Time Award, Oregon State University Research Office, 2012.
Library Research Travel Grant, Oregon State University, Spring 2011.
Fulbright Seminar Participant, Berlin, Schwerin, and Hamburg, “The Viability of the Post-War Welfare State in Germany and Europe,” June 2010. All participants received funding in the form of airfare, lodging, and a spending stipend.
Binghamton University Dissertation Year Fellowship, 2002-2003.
Fulbright Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, Germany, 2001-2002.
Western Civilization: 1789 to Present (HST103)
Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini (HST238)
Historian’s Craft (HST310)
19th Century Europe (HST335)
20th Century Europe (HST336)
Hitler’s Europe (HST338)
History Thesis Seminar (rotating topic) (HST407)
The Holocaust in Its History (425)
Teaching the Holocaust (HST427/527)
Modern Germany (HST436/536)
History of Childhood (HST438)