Dr Richard Millington
Programme Leader German / Lecturer in German
Richard started working in the department in 2012 as a Visiting Lecturer, before joining as Lecturer in German in 2014.
He completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Liverpool, where he also worked as a University Teacher. Richard has also worked as a Foreign News Editor for an international media company in Liverpool.
Richard teaches on a range of modules on the German programme, as well as lecturing on European politics, culture, film and literature. His teaching interests include contemporary German society and politics, and the Cold War in Germany.
Richard's current research investigates crime and criminality in East Germany. His doctoral research focused on East German citizens' experiences and memories of the uprising of 17 June 1953 in East Germany. Richard has more general research interests in everyday life in dictatorships, oral history and memory studies.
Richard runs the Twitter account 'EastGermanyOnline' (@DDROnline) and recently created a Twitter project (@17juni1953live) to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the uprising of 17 June 1953 in 2018.
Monographs
State, Society and Memories of the Uprising of 17 June 1953 in the GDR (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
Journal articles
‘The People’s Sport: Petty Theft in the German Democratic Republic, 1963-1985’, East Central Europe 50 (2023), 14-36.
‘“He didn’t really talk about it”: The (re)construction and transmission of a Free French past’, Modern and Contemporary France 29 (2021), 325-39.
‘Screening Dissent: The Uprising of 17 June 1953 in East German Film’, Historical Journal of Film, Television and Radio, 41 (2021), 462-76.
'State Power and '‘Everyday Criminality'’ in the German Democratic Republic, 1961–1989', German History, 38 (2020), 440–460.
‘The Politics of Anniversaries: Commemorating 17 June 1953 in the United Germany, 1990-2018’, German Life and Letters, 73 (2020), 401-19.
‘"Crime has no chance": The Discourse of Everyday Criminality in the Neue Berliner Illustrierte, 1961-1989', Central European History 50.1 (2017), 59-85.
‘The Limits of Control: The “Public Discourse” about the Uprising of 17 June 1953 in Novels and Films in the German Democratic Republic’, German History 31 (2013), 42-60.
Book chapters
‘Der Aufstand vom 17. Juni 1953 im kollektiven Gedächtnis und Bewusstsein der Magdeburger vor 1990’ in Sachsen und Anhalt. Band 35, ed. by Chrisoph Volkmar et al (Halle/Saale: Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 2023), pp. 231-269.
‘Remembering the uprising of 17 June 1953’, in 20 Years On: Remembering the German Democratic Republic, ed. by David Clarke and Ute Wölfel (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 157-169.
Magazine Articles
‘Could the Soviet Union have survived?’, History Today, September 2020.
‘Who’s afraid of the Stasi?’, History Today, August 2020.
‘Day of Dissent in the DDR, History Today (July, 2018).
'The Fall of the Berlin Wall', History Today, (November, 2014).
Media
Live talks
State, Society and Memories of the Uprising of 17 June 1953 in the GDR.
The Stasi – Anatomy of an Investigation with Dr Richard Millington.
Ostalgie - East German Nostalgia - An Analysis by Dr Richard Millington.
Cold War Conversations Podcast, 'Episode 6 – The 1953 East German Uprising with Dr Richard Millington.
- BA (French and German)
- MA (Modern Languages)
- PhD (German), University of Liverpool