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Jessica Reinisch

Director

Jessica is Reader in Modern European History at Birkbeck’s Department of History, Classics and Archaeology.

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Jessica is Reader in Modern European History at Birkbeck’s Department of History, Classics and Archaeology. She is co-editor of Contemporary European History. She was awarded a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award for ‘The Reluctant Internationalists’ (2013-2017), which mapped out European internationalisms in its various guises, and developed an actor-centred perspective. Her monograph, The Perils of Peace (Oxford University Press 2013) is the first detailed archival study of how the four occupiers of defeated Germany attempted to keep their own troops and the ex-enemy population alive. The book was re-issued as a free eBook. Her most recent edited volume, with Matthew Frank, is Refugees in Europe, 1919-1959 (Bloomsbury 2017).

Jessica is currently working on a book about the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). One of the focal points of this book is UNRRA’s work at the frontline of the emerging Cold War, where it spent the vast bulk of its resources. By 1946, the most significant work was carried out in areas which diplomats in Washington and London recognised to be on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain. The book reflects on the nature and implications of UNRRA’s activities in this part of the continent. The book also explores the varied legacies of the UNRRA interlude for the receiving countries in the Eastern bloc, as well as the consequences for post-war models of international collaboration and implications for emerging notions of ‘Europe’ and European-based internationalism.

Monographs

Special Issues

  • Guest editor, “Agents of Internationalism”, Contemporary European History, Vol.25, No.2, May 2016
  • Guest editor (with Matthew Frank), “Refugees and the Nation-State in Europe, 1919-1959”, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol.49, No.3, July 2014
  • Guest editor, “Relief Work in the Aftermath of War”, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol.43, No.3, July 2008

Edited Volumes

  • Editor (with Matthew Frank), Refugees in Europe, 1919-1959: A Forty Years’ Crisis? (Bloomsbury, 2017)
  • Editor (with Mark Mazower and David Feldman), Post-War Reconstruction in Europe: International Perspectives, 1945-1949, Past and Present Supplement 2011, ISBN 978-0-19-969274-3
  • Editor (with Elizabeth White), The Disentanglement of Populations: Migration, Expulsion and Displacement in postwar Europe, 1944-1949 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). ISBN 978-0-230-22204-5
  • Editor (with David Cesarani, Suzanne Bardgett and Dieter Steinert), Justice, Politics and Memory in Europe after the Second World War: Landscapes after Battle Vol.2 (Vallentine Mitchell, 2011). ISBN 978-0-85303-942-6
  • Editor (with David Cesarani, Suzanne Bardgett and Dieter Steinert), Survivors of Nazi persecution in Europe after the Second World War: Landscapes after Battle Vol.1 (Vallentine Mitchell, 2010). ISBN 978-0-85303-902-0

Articles and Chapters

  • “’The Story Remains the Same?’ Refugees in Europe from the ‘forty years’ crisis’ to today”, in: Matthew Frank and Jessica Reinisch (eds), Refugees in Europe, 1919-1959: A Forty Years’ Crisis? (Bloomsbury, 2017)
  • “Old Wine in New Bottles? UNRRA and the Mid-Century World of Refugees”, in: Matthew Frank and Jessica Reinisch (eds), Refugees in Europe, 1919-1959: A Forty Years’ Crisis? (Bloomsbury, 2017)
  • “Agents of Internationalism“, Contemporary European History, Vol.25, No.2, May 2016, 195-205, DOI: 10.1017/S0960777316000035
  • “’Forever Temporary’: Migrants in Calais, Then and Now”, The Political Quarterly, published online 18 September 2015, Print edition: Vol.86, No.4, September-December 2015, 515-522, DOI: 10.1111/1467-923X.12196
  • History matters… but which one? Every refugee crisis has a context”, History & Policy, published online 29 September 2015, http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/history-matters-but-which-one-every-refugee-crisis-has-a-context
  • “Refugees and the Nation-State in Europe, 1919-1959” (co-authored with Matthew Frank), Journal of Contemporary History, Vol.49, No.3, July 2014, 477-490, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009414529318
  • “Auntie UNRRA at the Crossroads”, Past and Present, Vol.218, Supplement 8, 2013, 70-97, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gts035
  • “Internationalism in relief: the birth (and death) of UNRRA”, Past and Present, Vol.210, Supplement 6, 2011, 258-289, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtq050
  • “Survivors and the politics of relief”, in: David Cesarani, Suzanne Bardgett, Jessica Reinisch and Dieter Steinert (eds.), Justice, Politics and Memory in Europe after the Second World War: Landscapes after Battle Vol.2 (Vallentine Mitchell, 2011), 1-18.
  • “Refugees and labour in the Soviet zone of Germany”, in: Jessica Reinisch and Elizabeth White (eds.), The Disentanglement of Populations: Migration, Expulsion and Displacement in postwar Europe, 1944-1949 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 185-209.
  • “Relief in the aftermath of war”, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol.43, No.3, July 2008, 371-404, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009408091819
  • “‘We shall rebuild anew a powerful nation’: UNRRA, internationalism and national reconstruction in Poland”, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol.43, No.3, July 2008, 451-476, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009408091835
  • “‘La nazione hanno bisogno di cittadini sani e coraggiosi’: le displaced persons, l’Unrra e la sanità pubblica”, in: Guido Crainz, Raoul Pupo and Silvia Salvatici (eds.), Naufraghi della pace: Il 1945, i profughi e le memorie divise d’Europa (Donzelli, 2008)
  • “Displaced Persons and Public Health in Germany after 1945”, in: J.D.Steinert & Inge Weber-Newth (eds.), Beyond Camps and Forced Labour: Current International Research on Survivors of Nazi Persecution, (Secolo Verlag: Osnabrück, 2008), 43-53.
  • “A new beginning? German medical and political traditions in the aftermath of the Second World War”, Minerva: a Journal of Science and Learning, Vol.45, No.3, September 2007, 241-257. DOI 10.1007/s11024-007-9045-z
  • “‘Zurück zu unserem Virchow!’ – Medizinische Karrieren, Nationalhelden und Geschichtsschreibung in Deutschland nach 1945”, in: Rolf Winau and Johanna Bleker (eds.), Gesundheit und Staat: Studien zur Geschichte der Gesundheitsämter in Deutschland, 1870-1950 (Matthiesen Verlag, 2007), 255-271. ISBN 978-3-7868-4104-3
  • “‘Man kommt zwangsläufig in die Rolle des Pg.-Schützers…’: Entnazifizierung und Gesundheitspolitik in der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone”, in: Peter Barker, Marc-Dietrich Ohse and Dennis Tate (eds.), Views from Abroad: die DDR aus britischer Perspektive (W.Bertelsmann Verlag, 2007), 79-91. ISBN 978-3-7639-3569-7
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