Background
Baberowski was born in Radolfzell am Bodensee, West Germany.
historian university professor
Baberowski was born in Radolfzell am Bodensee, West Germany.
He studied history and philosophy at the University of Göttingen between 1982 and 1988, and was notably influenced by Manfred Hildermeier.
He joined the Communist League of West Germany as a pupil. As a student he also learned Russian, and he wrote his master"s thesis on "political justice" in the last years of the Russian Empire. From 1989, he worked as a researcher in eastern European history at the Goethe University Frankfurt and earned his doctorate there in 1993 with a dissertation titled Autokratie und Justiz im Zarenreich ("Autocracy and Justice in Czarist Russia").
He joined the Institute of Eastern European History at Tübingen in 1993, and earned his Habilitation in 2000 with the dissertation Auf der Suche nach Eindeutigkeit, which was published as a book titled Stalinismus im Kaukasus.
He has conducted archival studies in Azerbaijan, Finland, Russia and other countries. He was appointed to a chair in Eastern European History at the University of Leipzig in 2001, before joining the Humboldt University as a Professor of Eastern European History in 2002.
He has also been director of its Institute of History. Stalins Herrschaft der Gewalt.
In response to the refugee crisis in Europe in 2015, Baberowski called for a more restrictive policy toward refugees in Germany and criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel"s approach.
He is a world-renowned expert on the history of Stalinism, particularly Stalinist violence, genocide and terror against the peoples of Eastern and Central Europe.