Since April 2026, Research Assistant at the Chair of 19th and 20th Century German and European History (Prof. Dr Gunilla Budde, University of Oldenburg)

May 2022–March 2025: Combined Master of Arts in ‘Humanities and Cultural Studies’ at the University of Wuppertal, specialising in
, ‘Methods of Historical Research’
and ‘History of Science and Technology’

03/2025 Thesis entitled: Imagining the Unimaginable? An institutional history of the Protection Commission at the Federal Ministry of the Interior

2021–2025 Student Assistant at the University of Wuppertal
. in the History Mentoring Programme
. as a tutor for the course: ‘Introductory Tutorial: A Good Start to Studying History’
. in the ‘Coherence in Teacher Training’ (KoLBi) project
· at Research Training Group 2196: Document – Text – Edition
· in Research Training Group 2696: Transformations of Science and Technology since 1800: Contents, Processes, Institutions of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Science and Technology Research (IZWT)
· in the Department of History of Science and Technology

10/2021 External examination as part of the sales assistant training programme at the Bergisch Chamber of Industry and Commerce

10/2017 – 05/2022 Combined Bachelor of Arts at the University of Wuppertal, specialising in
· Geography
· History

05/2022 Thesis entitled: Research into Refugees and Displaced Persons at the Institute for Spatial Research – Continuities and Discontinuities with the ‘Third Reich’

Runways to a new future? The establishment and development of civil aviation infrastructure in North Rhine-Westphalia after the Second World War (working title)

After the Second World War, aviation infrastructure in Germany had – not just metaphorically – been grounded. It was not until around ten years after the experience of ‘total defeat’, with the restoration of air sovereignty on 5 May 1955, that tentative attempts could begin to establish and expand the civil aviation infrastructure in the Federal Republic under its own administration. At the same time, a new era was ushered in with the De Havilland Comet from the early 1950s and the Boeing 707 from the late 1950s: the Jet Age.

This research project aims to examine how the development of civil aviation infrastructure unfolded from the 1950s onwards in the most populous Federal State of West Germany. The main focus is on the construction and development of airports in North Rhine-Westphalia. The initial question to be addressed is what symbolic significance was attributed to airports as imagined places of the future with a regional character. Of interest here are not only the key players who advocated for expansion, but also those for whom the promises of the future posed a threat – for example, in the context of aircraft noise – meaning that the analysis will also focus on protest and resistance. At the same time, the local perspective must not lose sight of the context of regional interest politics, as airports, as economic entities, are in constant competition with one another.

The project thus focuses on both the local airport sites and the region of North Rhine-Westphalia, with the aim of bringing to light the history of the construction and expansion of airports as part of an interconnected system. The question of local visions for the future of airports will be just as important as the focus on protest and resistance from those affected by the plans, as well as the question of what happens when these visions for the future fail, for example in the context of the ‘Westfalen 3IF’ project.

• History of Infrastructure

• The history of spaces, spatial planning and regional development

• The Regional History of North Rhine-Westphalia

• History of Science and Technology

• Economic History

• Society for the History of Technology

Conference report:

Julian Heidinger / Nicolas Frederic Weber, Conference report: Invisibilities – Energy History between Materiality, Practice and Representation, in: H-Soz-Kult, 19 June 2026, https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/fdkn-162992.