Bernd-Rainer Barth (born

East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...

1957) is a German

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

of the modern period.

Life

The son of an

East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

diplomat, Barth spent a large part of his early life in

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

, studying between 1977 and 1983 at the

Eötvös Loránd University Eötvös Loránd University ( hu, Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem, ELTE) is a Hungarian public research university based in Budapest. Founded in 1635, ELTE is one of the largest and most prestigious public higher education institutions in Hung ...

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

. His subject here was Hungarian studies (especially

philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...

and history). He then worked in various academic institutions in

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

until 1988 when he found himself banned from professional work. After the

reunification of Germany German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...

, during the 1990s, he worked as an academic research assistant at the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...

. Between May 2002 and September 2003 he was an academic research assistant focusing on the "Theory and history of power" (''"Theorie und Geschichte der Gewalt"'') at the

Hamburg Institute for Social Research The Hamburg Institute for Social Research is an independent private foundation whose scholarship is focused on both contemporary history and the social sciences. Founded in 1984 by Jan Philipp Reemtsma, it currently employs about 50 people with ...

. Since then he has worked as a freelance historian, translator and academic journalist.

Output

Bernd-Rainer Barth has become known, in particular, as a producer and co-author for the biographical collection "Wer war wer in der DDR?" ("Who was who in the German Democratic Republic"), a standard reference resource. Barth has himself contributed to more than 600 of the entries in it. He has also become known for a two volume study on

Noel Field Noel Haviland Field (January 23, 1904 – September 12, 1970) was an American communist activist, diplomat and spy for the NKVD, whose activities before and after World War II allowed the Eastern Bloc to use his name as a prosecuting rationale du ...

.Bernd-Rainer Barth, Werner Schweizer (Ed),

Thomas Grimm Thomas Grimm ( uk, Томас Ґрімм; born April 3, 1959, Lüscherz) is a Swiss jurist and football functionary, who has served as the president of the Ukrainian Premier League since 2018. Biography Grimm was born on April 3, 1959 in the Sw ...

: ''Der Fall Noel Field''. Basisdruck, Berlin 2006

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barth, Bernd-Rainer 1957 births Living people People from East Berlin 20th-century German historians