“In view of the desolate situation of this subject in Bavaria and in Germany, the emphasis on fundamental research, which ideally goes hand in hand with learning specialist working methods, may be considered a highly unique and specific characteristic of the Bamberg programme that can really set students apart in the labour market.”

(Quotation from the expert assessment regarding professional experience as part of the accreditation of this study programme)

The World Heritage city of Bamberg is the ideal place to pursue thought-provoking studies in History. Did you know, for example, that Bamberg:

  • has the only papal grave north of the Alps in its cathedral, where it is in the good company of the tombs of a king, an emperor and a saint?
  • was a centre of the European witch hunts in the Early Modern period?
  • was where Bavaria’s first democratic constitution was adopted in 1919?
  • was host to the assemblies of the League of German Girls (Bund Deutscher Mädel) during the Nazi era?

The vestiges of one thousand years of urban history and four archives with extensive records provide students with abundant incentives to expand their historical knowledge and conduct research on their local environment. The cooperations between our university, Bamberg State Library and Bamberg State Archive are just as much part of the programme as interdisciplinary cooperations within the university or within the Centre for Medieval Studies.

The academic units within the Institute of History and European Ethnology also provide students with particular perspectives within this discipline from the standpoint of economic, legal, sexual and regional history, in addition to a broad thematic overview covering subjects from antiquity to the contemporary era.

With the professorships in History Didactics and the Auxiliary Sciences of History and the first professorship in Bavaria for Digital History, the methodological skills for researching history or working with historical material are also given particular consideration.

Maren Ederberg, History student

I’m studying History part time. It’s really good at the University of Bamberg because the classes offered, which are always interesting, don’t have a rigid, strict schedule from semester to semester. And if any kind of special challenges come up, all the teaching staff are happy to give you the support you need, whether it’s in classes or with organisational things.

Current research in the teaching curriculum

The work carried out by researchers within the institute and the projects funded by the European Research Council, the German Research Foundation (DFG) or the Max Planck Society are incorporated into the programme’s teaching curriculum.

A selection of projects:

  • ERC Starting Grant
  • Christian-Jewish commercial ties in the late stages of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation
  • Konrad Rott, the merchant from Augsburg, and his failed pepper trade monopoly

The result is that History students have the opportunity to study a wide range of always-relevant subjects supplemented by internal and external cooperations and that can be accessed through the individual modules.