Mike Schmeitzner (born 29 July 1968, in

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

) 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 species; as well as the ...

. His focus is on twentieth century German history. Schmeitzner was born in the southern part of what was then the

German Democratic Republic East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

. His 1968 birth year meant that his university-level education straddled the events that led to

German reunification German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic and the int ...

in the second half of 1990. He successfully completed his schooling in Dresden at the "Friedrich Engels Extended Secondary School (EOS) - Dresden south" in 1987 and then, in 1987/88, worked for

VEB Robotron VEB Kombinat Robotron () (or simply Robotron) was the largest East German electronics manufacturer. It was headquartered in Dresden and employed 68,000 people in 1989. Its products included personal computers, SM EVM minicomputers, the ESER m ...

, a large electronics manufacturing operation. He then returned to academe, studying

History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

, German Language, Culture and Linguistics and Education, initially at Dresden's Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander Pedagogical Academy and then at the

Dresden University of Technology TU Dresden (for , abbreviated as TUD), also as the Dresden University of Technology, is a public research university in Dresden, Germany. It is the largest institute of higher education in the city of Dresden, the largest university in Saxony a ...

. His work has focused on the History of the "Weimar Republic", of the

Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

, of the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ / ''Sowjetische Besatzungszone'') in what had previously been Germany, and on the formative years of the

which grew out of it. He has also undertaken extensive historical research into nineteenth and twentieth century Parliamentary structures, Youth movements and left-wing

Totalitarianism Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition from political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and completely controls the public s ...

. He is a member of various academic bodies including the advisory board of the Saxony Memorials Foundation and of the Friedrich Ebert Memorial House. He is also a member of the Editorial board for the quarterly journal: "Dresdner Hefte. Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte".

Publications

(not a complete list) Monographs * ''Alfred Fellisch 1884–1973. Eine politische Biographie.'' Böhlau Verlag, Köln/Weimar/Wien 1999, . * mit Stefan Donth: ''Die Partei der Diktaturdurchsetzung. KPD/SED in Sachsen 1945–1952.'' Böhlau Verlag, Köln/Weimar/Wien 2002, . * ''Doppelt verfolgt. Das widerständige Leben des Arno Wend.'' Vorwärts-Buchverlag, Berlin 2009, . * ''Der Fall Mutschmann. Sachsens Gauleiter vor Stalins Tribunal.'' Sax-Verlag, Beucha/Markkleeberg 2011, . Collaboratively * with Michael Rudloff: ''Geschichte der Sozialdemokratie im Sächsischen Landtag. Darstellung und Dokumentation 1877–1997'' (= ''Beiträge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung.'' Band 40). Kommunikation Schnell, Dresden 1997, . * with Michael Rudloff: ''„Solche Schädlinge gibt es auch in Leipzig“. Sozialdemokraten und die SED.'' Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1997, . * mit Andreas Wagner: ''Von Macht und Ohnmacht. Sächsische Ministerpräsidenten im Zeitalter der Extreme 1912–1952.'' Sax-Verlag, Beucha 2006, . * ''Totalitarismuskritik von links. Deutsche Diskurse im 20. Jahrhundert'' (= ''Schriften des HAIT.'' Band 34). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, . * with Michael Richter, Thomas Schaarschmidt: ''Länder, Gaue und Bezirke. Mitteldeutschland im 20. Jahrhundert.'' Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2007, . * with Christine Pieper, Gerhard Naser: ''Braune Karrieren. Dresdner Täter und Akteure im Nationalsozialismus.'' Sandstein Verlag, Dresden 2012, . Edited by... * Richard Löwenthal: ''Faschismus – Bolschewismus – Totalitarismus. Schriften zur modernen Weltanschauungsdiktatur'' (= ''Wege der Totalitarismusforschung des HAIT.'' Band 1). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2009, .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schmeitzner, Mike 1968 births Living people Historians of Germany Historians of fascism 20th-century German historians 21st-century German historians Writers from Dresden German male non-fiction writers