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Simon Unger’s research focuses on Christian ideas in twentieth-century politics. He earned his doctorate in modern European history at the University of Oxford in 2018, and his Swiss Habilitation from the University of Fribourg in 2023. Before coming to Princeton, Unger led an international research group in the Vatican Archives and at the German Historical Institute in Rome (‘The Global Pontificate of Pius XII: Catholicism in a Divided World’). Previously, he taught as a visiting professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and as a lecturer at Magdalen College, Oxford. His first monograph, “The Periodicals ‘Eckart’ and ‘Hochland’”, retraced the history of Christian political journalism in twentieth-century Germany (Schöningh-Verlag, 2023). His second book, titled “Consensus in Conflict: Nazism and the Shared Foundations of German Intellectual Culture”, concentrated on political language under Nazi dictatorship (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming in 2026). He is currently working on a new book project titled “Shadows of the Occident: Catholicism in the Political Thought of Post-War Europe, 1945–1960”.
Christianity under fascism, Theologies of resistance & collaboration, Christianity in the Cold War, History of democratization, History of the Vatican, Catholic-Protestant relations, Media history & political language
‘Public Criticism and Private Consent: Protestant Journalism between Theology and Nazism, 1920-1960’, Central European History, 53/1 (2020), pp. 94-119.https://doi.org/10.1017/S000893891900092X
‘Threats and Premonitions: German Intellectual Debates on Antisemitism in 1932’, Contemporary European History, 33/4 (2024), pp. 1137-1154.https://doi.org/10.1017/S096077732200090X
‘Ambiguïtés de l’Aufarbeitung chrétienne: Débats catholiques sur le legs du régime nazi dans l’Allemagne d’après-guerre, 1945-1960’, Revue d’Histoire de la Shoah, 218/2 (2023), pp. 323-348.https://doi.org/10.3917/rhsho.218.0323
‘The Social Backgrounds of Nazi Leaders: A Statistical Analysis of Political Elites in Weimar Germany, 1918-1933’, Journal of Historical Sociology, 35/2 (2022), pp. 222-249.https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12370
‘“Leaders, not Lords!” – Führertum, Nazism, and Democracy in the Weimar Republic’, German History, 39/4 (2021), pp. 560–584.https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghab067[Winner of the Graduate Essay Prize of the German History Society, 2019]
2022-26: Transnational Research Group Grant, Max-Weber-Foundation/DHI Rome, 2.5 million Euro (Writer of the Grant Proposal & PI)
2022-25: Aspen Junior Fellow, Aspen Institute Italy
2023: Görres Society, Publication Grant
2021: Thyssen Foundation, Conference & Publication Grant
2019: Graduate Essay Prize of the German History Society (United Kingdom)
2018-19: German Historical Institute, Washington DC, Postdoctoral Fellowship
2015-18: German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung), PhD Scholarship
2014-16: British Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), PhD Scholarship
2010-14: German National Academic Foundation, B.A & M.A. Scholarship
Funded by the German Max Weber Foundation, this research group analyzes newly available sources on Pope Pius XII in the Vatican Archives. Our team unites scholars from the German Historical Institutes in Rome and Warsaw, the University of Oxford, KU Leuven, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Fribourg University, and LMU Munich (https://piusxii.hypotheses.org). While the opening of the Apostolic Archive in 2020 has been accompanied by strong media attention and many questions about the Church’s actions during the Second World War, our group focuses on the post-war period and the Vatican’s role in globalization. How did it react to the Cold War, to decolonization, to the historical memory of the Holocaust, and to the democratization of the Western world?
The members of this group are researching these questions not only in the Vatican and in Europe, but also in archives in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Ultimately, our project aims to transcend classical thematic labels such as ‘church history’. Instead, it engages with newer approaches of global, transnational and postcolonial history. Thereby, this research will re-introduce questions about religion into the modern post-war historiography.
