Jan Musekamp is the deputy director of the German Historical Institute in Warsaw. He graduated with a Ph.D. and a habilitation (“2nd book”) from European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). From 2018 to 2024, he was a visiting associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Previously, he taught at Viadrina University and was a visiting assistant professor at UT Austin.
Dr. Musekamp holds a diploma (M.A. equivalent) in cultural studies and history from Viadrina University. He studied abroad in Toruń/Poland and Brno/Czech Republic. From 2003 to 2006, dr. Musekamp was a doctoral student at Viadrina in the ZEIT Foundation`s “Germany and its Eastern Neighbors“ graduate program. Subsequently, the German Foreign Office employed him as a desk officer for one and a half years. 2007, Dr. Musekamp returned to academia to work on his second book; he finished his habilitation thesis at Viadrina in 2017. He was also a postdoctoral fellow in the International and Area Studies Program at Washington University in St. Louis during this time. Alongside his academic career, Jan Musekamp was also a guide for bike tours in Poland and Germany, and he contributed to exhibitions at the Documentation Center of GDR Everyday Culture in Eisenhüttenstadt/Germany, at Viadrina University in Frankfurt (Oder), and the National Museum in Szczecin/Poland.

Dr. Musekamp focuses on East Central European cultural and migration history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His main areas of interest are questions of mobility, (forced) migrations, cultural appropriation in borderlands, and transnational history.

Jan’s first book, “Zwischen Stettin und Szczecin: Metamorphosen einer Stadt von 1945 bis 2005” (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2010; Polish translation 2013), focuses on forced migrations and cultural appropriation in the Polish border city of Szczecin between 1945 and 2005. His second book, “Shifting Lines, Entangled Borderlands. Mobilities and Migration along the Prussian Eastern Railroad” (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2024), analyzes the impact of the railroad on the development of international networks, mobility, and migration in the long nineteenth century. His current research project deals with the migration history of Ukraine’s German speakers along “global color lines” (W.E.B. Du Bois) in the Baltic states, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Poland, and Siberia.

Monographs

Shifting Lines, Entangled Borderlands: Mobilities and Migration along the Prussian Eastern Railroad. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2024.

Między Stettinem a Szczecinem. Metamorfozy miasta od 1945 do 2005. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Nauka i Innowacje, 2013.

Zwischen Stettin und Szczecin. Metamorphosen einer Stadt von 1945 bis 2005. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2010.

Edited volumes

Jan Musekamp, Michael Zok et al., eds., Journal of Modern European History 24, no. 1 (2026).

Anna Flack, Jan Musekamp, Jannis Panagiotidis, and Hans-Christian Petersen, eds., Russian Germans on Four Continents: Histories of a Global Diaspora. Lanham, MD: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024.

Anika Walke, Jan Musekamp, and Nicole Svobodny, eds., Migration and Mobility in the Modern Age: Refugees, Travelers, and Traffickers in Europe and Eurasia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017.

Journal articles

Mobility, Migration and Networks in Historiographical Research: How Sources Restore Agency to ‘Ordinary People.’ In Journal of Modern European History 24, no. 1 (2026): 2–16. With Michael Zok.

Wschodniopruska Kolej Południowa. Połączenia Ełku ze światem. In Ełcki Przegląd Historyczny. Rocznik Muzeum Historycznego w Ełku 3 (2025): 209–230.

Archäologie lokaler Identitäten. Schichten der Erinnerung in Stettin seit 1989. In Osteuropa 63, no. 8 (2013): 19–33.

1945 – ein Bruch? Stadtplaner in Stettin und Szczecin. In Nordost-Archiv. Zeitschrift für Regionalgeschichte, n.s. 15 (2006): 38–59. With Katja Bernhardt.

Brno/Brünn 1938–1948. Eine Stadt in einem Jahrzehnt erzwungener Wanderungen. In Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 53 (2004): 1–45.

Chapters in edited volumes

Navigating Global Color Lines: Volhynia’s German-Speakers on the Move. In Anna Flack, Jan Musekamp, Jannis Panagiotidis, and Hans-Christian Petersen, eds., Russian Germans on Four Continents: Histories of a Global Diaspora, 49–85. Lanham, MD: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024.

Przełom roku 1945? Urbaniści w Stettinie i w Szczecinie. With Katja Bernhardt. In Paweł Migdalski, ed., Odbudowa miast Pomorza Zachodniego po II wojnie światowej. Wybrane problemy, 179–194. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Stargard: Muzeum Archeologiczno-Historyczne w Stargardzie, 2021.

Big History and Local Experiences: Migration and Identity in a European Borderland. In Tabea Linhard and Timothy Parsons, eds., Mapping Migration, Identity, and Space, 55–83. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

Saisonale Migration als Bedrohung für den Staat? ›Sachsengänger‹ und die Eisenbahn im östlichen Preußen vor 1914. In Jochen Oltmer, ed., Migrationsregime vor Ort und lokales Aushandeln von Migration, 69–103. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2018.

Paris – St. Petersburg: Shrinking Spaces in the Nineteenth Century. In Jan Musekamp, Nicole Svobodny, and Anika Walke, eds., Migration and Mobility in the Modern Age: Refugees, Travelers, and Traffickers in Europe and Eurasia, 35–54. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017.

Die Ostbahn im Spannungsfeld zwischen geostrategischen und wirtschaftlichen Interessen und der Verfassungsfrage. In Bernhart Jähnig, Jürgen Klosterhuis, and Wulf D. Wagner, eds., Preußenland und Preußen. Polyzentrik im Zentralstaat 1525–1945, 153–182. Osnabrück: Fibre, 2016.

Friedrich List, die Eisenbahn, das Militär und Europa. In Themenportal Europäische Geschichte (2015). http://www.europa.clio-online.de/2015/Article=735.

DX-Nr. 7150 und der Waffenstillstand im Äther. In Katharina Kucher, Gregor Thum, and Sören Urbansky, eds., Stille Revolutionen: Die Neuformierung der Welt seit 1989, 187–196. Frankfurt am Main, New York: Campus, 2013.

The Royal Prussian Eastern Railway (Ostbahn) and Its Importance for East–West Transportation. In Henry Jacolin and Ralf Roth, eds., Eastern European Railways in Transition: 19th to 21st Centuries, 117–127. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013.

Szczecin’s Identity after 1989: A Local Turn. In John J. Czaplicka, Nida Gelazis, and Blair A. Ruble, eds., Cities after the Fall of Communism: Reshaping Cultural Landscapes and European Identity, 305–334. Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2009.