Volker Ullrich


Volker Ullrich is a German historian, journalist and author.

Career

Volker Ullrich was born in Celle, Lower Saxony, Germany. He studied history, literature, philosophy and education at the University of Hamburg. From 1966 to 1969 he was assistant to the Egmont Zechlin Professor. He graduated in 1975 after a dissertation on the Hamburg labour movement of the early 20th Century, after which he worked as a school teacher in Hamburg. He was, for a time, a lecturer in politics at the Lüneburg University, and in 1988 he became a research fellow at Hamburg's Foundation for 20th-Century Social History. In 1990 Ullrich became the head of the political section of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit.
Ullrich has published articles and books on 19th- and 20th-century history. In 1996 he reviewed the thesis postulated in Daniel Goldhagen’s book Hitler's Willing Executioners that provoked fresh debate among historians.
In 1992 he was awarded the Alfred Kerr Prize for literary criticism, and, in 2008, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Jena.

Publications (selection)