Christoph Rass

Christoph A. Rass (born 1969 in Saarlouis) is a German historian and professor of Modern History and Historical Migration Studies at Osnabrück University. His research focuses on migration history, the social history of organized violence, and conflict landscape studies.

Education and career Rass studied economic and social history, modern history, and information science at Saarland University in Saarbrücken from 1990 to 1996. He completed his doctorate at RWTH Aachen University in 2001 with a dissertation titled Menschenmaterial: Sozialprofil, Machtstrukturen und Handlungsmuster einer Infanteriedivision der Wehrmacht im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Human Material: Social Profile, Power Structures and Patterns of Action of a Wehrmacht Infantry Division in the Second World War). He completed his habilitation at RWTH Aachen University in 2007 with the work Institutionalisierungsprozesse auf einem internationalen Arbeitsmarkt: Bilaterale Wanderungsverträge in Europa zwischen 1919 und 1974 (Institutionalization Processes in an International Labor Market: Bilateral Migration Agreements in Europe, 1919–1974), published in 2010.

Since April 2024, Rass serves as Principal Investigator in the German Research Foundation (DFG)-funded Collaborative Research Centre (Sonderforschungsbereich) 1604 "Production of Migration" at Osnabrück University. The research center, which received €8.3 million for its first funding phase through 2027, is the first SFB in Germany dedicated to migration studies.

Research His research focuses on three main areas: historical migration studies, the social history of organized violence (particularly the Wehrmacht), and conflict landscape studies combining historical research with archaeological methods.

German military history His dissertation, published as Menschenmaterial (2003), is a social-historical study of an average Wehrmacht infantry division during the Eastern Front campaign. Based on 2,300 personnel files from the 253rd Infantry Division, the study was the first to comprehensively analyze the social structures, behavioral patterns, and conditions of everyday life in a typical Wehrmacht infantry division on the Eastern Front. Historian Christian Hartmann, reviewing the book for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, praised it as "Grundlagenforschung im besten Sinne" (foundational research in the best sense). Johannes Klotz, writing in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, noted that the study definitively answered questions about Wehrmacht soldiers' participation in the war of annihilation.

History of German Federal Intelligence Service As part of the Independent Historians Commission (Unabhängige Historikerkommission) for the History of the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) 1945–1968, Rass authored Das Sozialprofil des Bundesnachrichtendienstes (The Social Profile of the German Federal Intelligence Service, 2016). Based on 3,650 biographical records from a random sample of all full-time BND employees, the study analyzed the social composition of the intelligence service and the extent of Nazi-era continuities in its personnel. It was the first volume of the commission's 15-volume publication series.

Migration studies Rass has published extensively on European labor migration systems, the history of migration categories, and the conceptual history of migration terminology. His habilitation thesis examined bilateral migration agreements across eighteen European countries from 1919 to 1974, offering the first comparative long-term study of the "guest worker" system.

His 2024 article "Migrating Concepts: The Transatlantic Origins of the Bracero Program, 1919–1942," co-authored with Julie M. Weise (University of Oregon), was published in the American Historical Review and awarded the 2025 Best Article in Social Sciences prize by the Mexico Section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA).

Awards and honors 2017: Kalliope Prize for Practice-Oriented Migration Research, German Emigration Center Bremerhaven 2025: Best Article in Social Sciences, LASA Mexico Section (with Julie M. Weise)

Selected publications Monographs Menschenmaterial: Deutsche Soldaten an der Ostfront. Innenansichten einer Infanteriedivision 1939–1945 (Schöningh, 2003) Institutionalisierungsprozesse auf einem internationalen Arbeitsmarkt. Bilaterale Wanderungsverträge in Europa zwischen 1919 und 1974 (Schöningh, 2010) Das Sozialprofil des Bundesnachrichtendienstes: Von den Anfängen bis 1968 (Ch. Links Verlag, 2016)

Edited volumes (editor) Militärische Migration vom Altertum bis zur Gegenwart (Schöningh, 2016) (with Andreas Pott and Frank Wolff, eds.) Was ist ein Migrationsregime? What Is a Migration Regime? (Springer VS, 2018)

Contributions Germany and the Second World War Vol. IX/I: German Wartime Society 1939–1945: Politicization, Disintegration, and the Struggle for Survival (2008), with , Jörg Echternkamp, Karola Fings, Jürgen Förster, , ,