Ludwig Decke
Position title: TA: History 350 with Professor Ussishkin; History Lab Tutor
Email: decke@wisc.edu
Address:
Advisor: Giuliana Chamedes
Curriculum Vitae (pdf) | Website
Office: 4271 Mosse Humanities Building
Mailbox: 5064 Mosse Humanities Building
Office Hours: Tuesdays 1:00-3:00 (in-person or virtual)

Biography
I am studying modern European history with an emphasis on Germany, modern Jewish history, and international political and legal thought. I am particularly intrigued by questions regarding the place of minorities in liberal democracies. Based on my master’s thesis that explored how, during the Holocaust, scholars of the American Jewish Committee envisioned a new global postwar order, my current research turns to the role of Jews and other minorities in the political reorganization of Western Europe after 1945.
Education
M.A., 2020, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
B.A., 2016, University of Leipzig
Field
- European History
Selected Publications
- “Ungleiche Weggefährten: Hannah Arendt, Melvin Lasky und der Antitotalitarismus im kulturellen Kalten Krieg,” Dubnow Institute Yearbook 17 (2018), pp. 117-144, .
- “Illiberale Demokratie avant la lettre: Zu Carl Schmitts demokratietheoretischen Überlegungen in der Weimar Republik,” in Konflikt und Konsens: Demokratische Transformation in der Weimarer und Bonner Republik, ed. Sebastian Elsbach and Ronny Noak (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2019), pp. 279-294.
- “Carl Schmitt,” in Handbuch der völkischen Wissenschaften: Akteure, Netzwerke, Forschungsprogramme, ed. Michael Fahlbusch, Ingo Haar and Alexander Pinwinkler (Berlin/Boston, Mass.: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2017), pp. 732-736 (together with Raphael Gross).
- “Alternatives Deutschland” Review essay on Samuel Salzborn, Angriff der Antidemokraten: Die völkische Rebellion der Neuen Rechten (Weinheim/Basel: Beltz Verlag, 2017), Phase 2 55 (2018).
- “Im Gleichschritt gegen die Moderne” Zum (Miss-)Verhältnis von Postmoderne und der Neuen Rechten,” sprachlos-blog.de, Dec. 2016.
Selected Awards
- Student Research Grants Competition, Conference Presentation Award, Graduate School, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2021)
- George L. Mosse Distinguished Graduate Fellowship in European Cultural History, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2020-2026)
- Fulbright Study Scholarship (2018-2019)
- ERASMUS+ Study Scholarship (2018)
- Matthias Erzberger Award for the Best B.A. Thesis on History, Politics, and Culture of the Weimar Republic (2017)
- DAAD Travel Grant (2015)
- Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Study Fellowship (2013-2020)
Professional Affiliations
- American Historical Association
- Central European History Society
- Council for European Studies
- German Studies Association