Annika Mombauer is a Senior Lecturer in Modern European History in the Department. She joined the Open University in 1998. She studied history at the Westfälische-Wilhelms-Universität in Münster, Germany, and at the University of Sussex where she was awarded a D.Phil in History in 1998. In 2003, she was a visiting fellow at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra.
From 2006 until 2011 she was the Secretary of the German History Society.
She is a member of the Editorial Board of 1914-1918 Online (Encyclopedia of the First World War).
She chairs the department’s Research Steering Group and the departmental REF panel.
From 2001 – 2005 she chaired AA312 and AA319, and its associated residential school AXR312: Total War and Social Change: Europe 1914-1955. She has written a number of teaching units for this course, and has also contributed teaching units on the New German Cinema to AA310: Film and Television History and on the German Empire to A200: Exploring History: Medieval to Modern 1400-1900. She served as deputy chair of the MA in History, and as co-chair of the second-level course A200: Exploring History: Medieval to Modern 1400-1900. She has also written a course unit on the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for A326: Empire 1492-1975. From November 2010 to January 2012 she co-chaired the production course team for the new third level twentieth century history course A327 Europe 1914-1989: war, peace, modernity, due for first presentation in October 2013, for which she has written teaching units on the origins and the nature of the First World War.
Annika Mombauer chairs the research group ‘War, Conflict and Politics in the 20th Century’. Her research interests are in nineteenth and twentieth-century European history, in particular Imperial Germany and the origins of the First World War, in the history of the First World War and in its historiography.
She has published widely on German military planning in the years before the First World War, and has contributed to the recent historiographical debate on the nature of the Schlieffen Plan. She is currently working on a comparative history of the Battle of the Marne of 1914 to be published by Cambridge University Press.
In 2011 she organised, together with Professor John Röhl, an international conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Fritz Fischer’s publication Griff nach der Weltmacht, which sparked the infamous Fischer controversy. The conference took place on 13-15 October 2011 at the German Historical Institute in London. She has edited some of the conference proceedings which were published in a special issue of The Journal of Contemporary History, entitled ‘The Fischer Controversy after 50 Years’ (April 2013; 48, 2).
She would be interested in supervising PhD students wishing to research a topic in modern German or European history. She currently supervises students working on the Special Operations Executive in Burma, and on literary representations of the First World War.
Annika Mombauer, Die Julikrise, Beck Verlag, Munich, forthcoming, 2014.
Annika Mombauer, The Origins of the First World War. Controversies and Consensus, Longman, 2002, 256 pp., 0-582-41872-0
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Online Reviews:
IHR review
H-Net review
Annika Mombauer, Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War, Cambridge University Press, 2001, 325 pp., 0-521-79101-4
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Online Reviews:
IHR review
H-Net review
She is currently working on a monograph entitled: The Battle of the Marne, 1914. A comparative history, to be published by Cambridge University Press.
Annika Mombauer, The Origins of the First World War: diplomatic and military documents, Manchester University Press, 2013
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Annika Mombauer (ed.) ‘The Fischer Controversy after 50 Years’, special issue of The Journal of Contemporary History, April 2013, 48 (2)
Annika Mombauer and Wilhelm Deist (eds.), The Kaiser. New Research on Wilhelm II’s role in Imperial Germany, Cambridge University Press, 2003, 299 pp., 0-521-82408-7
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University of Sussex Bulletin article
‘Germany and the Origins of World War One’, in Matthew Jeffries (ed.), Ashgate Reseach Companion to Imperial Germany, Ashgate forthcoming 2014
‘Germany’, in Holger Herwig and Richard Hamilton (eds), War Planning 1914, Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 48-79 Find out more about this book
‘Der Moltke Plan. Modifikation des Schlieffenplans bei gleichen Zielen?’, in Hans Ehlert, Michael Epkenhans and Gerhard P. Groß (eds), Der Schlieffenplan. Analyse und Dokumente, Paderborn, Schöningh 2006, pp.79-99
‘Das Bild Helmuth von Moltkes in der Biography’, in Michael Epkenhans, Stig Förster and Karen Hagemann (eds), Militärische Erinnerungskultur. Soldaten im Spiegel von Biographien, Memoiren und Selbstzeugnissen, Paderborn, Schöningh 2006, pp.132-151
‘The Coming of War, 1914’, in Gordon Martel (ed), A Companion to Europe, 1900-1945 ( Blackwell Companions to European History), Oxford, Blackwell 2006, pp.180-194
‘Wilhelm, Waldersee and the Boxer Rebellion’, in Annika Mombauer and Wilhelm Deist (eds), The Kaiser. New Research on Wilhelm II’s role in Imperial Germany, Cambridge University Press, 2003, 0-521-82408-7, pp.91-118.
‘Helmuth von Moltke: A General in crisis?’, in Matthew S. Seligmann and Matthew Hughes (eds), Leadership in Conflict, 1914-1918, Leo Cooper, London 2000, pp. 95-116, 0-85052-751-1.
‘The Fischer Controversy, Documents and the “Truth” About the Origins of the First World War’, The Journal of Contemporary History April 2013 48 (2), pp. 290-314
‘Introduction: The Fischer Controversy 50 years on’, The Journal of Contemporary History April 2013 48 (2), pp.231-240
‘The First World War: Inevitable, Avoidable, Improbable or Desirable? Recent Interpretations on War Guilt and the War’s Origins’, German History, vol. 25, No 1, 2007, pp.78-95
‘The Battle of the Marne. Myths and Reality of Germany’s “fateful battle”’, The Historian, vol.68, No 4, Winter 2006, pp.747-769
‘Of War Plans and War Guilt: the Debate surrounding the Schlieffen Plan’, The Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 28, 5, 2006, pp.857-885
‘From Imperial Army to Bundeswehr: continuity and change in the role of the military in German history’, Review Article, The Historical Journal, 47, 1 (2004), pp.1-7
‘Vom kurzen Krieg zum Ersten Weltkrieg: Der deutsche Kriegsverlauf im August und September 1914’, HISTORICUM, (Vienna) December 2001
‘Germany’s Last Kaiser - Wilhelm II and political decision-making in Imperial Germany’, New Perspective, Volume 4, Number 3, March 1999 Online article
Annika Mombauer co-organized an international conference on the 50th anniversary of the Fischer Controversy, which took place at the German Historical Institute in London in October 2011.
She has co-organized, together with the Scottish Centre for War Studies, University of Glasgow, an international conference on the Origins of the First World War which took place at Glasgow University in September 2004, and she is a frequent participant at academic conferences.
Past conference papers include:
‘Telling lies about the origins of the First World War: International Documents’, The Fischer controversy after 50 years, London, October 2011.
‘The Moltke-Plan: a defensive war plan?’, German Studies Association Annual Conference, San Diego, October 2007.
‘Historians and War Guilt’, The First World War – an improbable war, Emory University, Atlanta, USA, October 2004.
‘Der Moltke-Plan: Modifikation des Schlieffenplans bei gleichen Zielen?’, Der Schlieffenplan: Fakt und Mythos, Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, Potsdam, September 2004.
‘The Origins of the First World War: What is there left to argue about?’, European States and the Outbreak of the First World War, Glasgow University, September 2004
‘Der deutsche und der englische Generalstab und der Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkrieges’, Der Erste Weltkrieg. Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, May 2004
‘Das Moltke-Bild in Selbstzeugnissen und in der Biographie’, Arbeitskreis Militärgeschichte Annual Conference: Militärgeschichte und Biographie, Reinbek, Germany, October 2003
‘Writing the History of the Battle of the Marne’. German Studies Association 27th Annual Conference, New Orleans, USA, September 2003
‘Wilhelm, Waldersee and the Boxer Rebellion’. British International History Society Annual Conference, Nottingham, September 2003
‘Myths and Realities about Germany’s military planning and the outbreak of the First World War’. Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, December 2002
‘Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War’, Humboldt University, Berlin, and Hamburg University, June 2002
‘Schlieffen Plan, Moltke Plan, Grosser Ostaufmarschplan’, Society of Military History Annual Conference, Calgary, Canada, 24 – 27 May 2001
See also Open Research Online for further details of Annika Mombauer’s research publications.
