Karina Urbach


Karina Urbach is a German historian with a special interest in the Nazi period. She has written several books on 19th and 20th century European political and cultural history.
Urbach is currently researching American intelligence operations against the National Socialists in wartime and postwar.

Education and career

Urbach was a Kurt Hahn Scholar at the University of Cambridge where she took her MPhil in International Relations and her PhD in history. For her German Habilitation she was awarded the Bavarian Ministry of Culture prize. She taught at the University of Bayreuth, was a Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute London and thereafter at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London.
Urbach is a board member of the :de:Otto-von-Bismarck-Stiftung|Otto-von-Bismarck Foundation. In 2015 she became a long term visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey.
In 2015 Urbach took part in uncovering a 1934 film clip of the British royal family making the fascist salute.< She has since then been campaigning with The Times and The Guardian for the release of Interwar period material from the royal archives.
Urbach has worked as historical adviser on many BBC, PBS and German TV documentaries.
In 2017 Urbach published the historical novel Cambridge 5 under the pseudonym Hannah Coler. It was shortlisted for the Friedrich Glauser prize and won the in 2018.
Urbach is the daughter of the actress Wera Frydtberg.

Monographs