The rise of the “German Pinkertons”? A (transatlantic) history of private security business in 20th century Germany
Marcus Böick is associate professor of modern European and German history at the Historical Institute of Ruhr University Bochum (RUB). From 2021-2022, he served as a junior research fellow jointly at the Institute for Advanced Studies at University College London and the German Historical Institute London. In 2022, he was visiting professor at the Imre Kertész Kolleg at Friedrich Schiller University Jena.
During his time at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES), Böick will investigate the rise of German security businesses during the 20th century. His project takes a long-term perspective on the establishment and transformations of commercial private security businesses in Germany specifically and more broadly across Europe and the United States. He will explore a new historical perspective on the transformations of private security as a vast field of negotiations and interactions between state, economy, society, and individuals, discussing the global emergence of a new type of “security capitalism.”
This information is accurate for the time period that the
visiting scholar is affiliated with CES.
The rise of the “German Pinkertons”? A (transatlantic) history of private security business in 20th century Germany
History
Economic, Social and Cultural, Transformations
History of Postsocialism
Security and Police History
History of Capitalism
Böick, Marcus, and Christoph Lorke. Zwischen Aufschwung und Anpassung: Eine kleine Geschichte des “Aufbau Ost.“ Bonn: Federal Agency for Civic Education, 2022.
Böick, Marcus. “In from the Socialist ‘Cold,’ but Burned by the Capitalist ‘Heat’? The Dynamics of Political Revolution and Economic Transformation in Eastern Germany after 1990.” Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy 16, no. 1 (2020): 143–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/15487733.2020.1792619
Böick, Marcus. “Weak States, Strong Businesses? The History of Private Security Firms in Twentieth-Century Germany.” Security and Insecurity in Business History, 2021: 27–50. https://doi.org/10.5771/9783748924579-27
Böick, Marcus. Die Treuhand: Idee – Praxis – Erfahrung. 4th Edition, Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2020.