William Patch Kenan Professor of History

540-263-2005
patchw@wlu.edu
Curriculum Vitae

Education

Ph.D. Yale University, 1981

B.A. with Great Distinction, University of California at Berkeley, 1975

Research

The Weimar Republic

German Federal Republic

Christian social movements

Teaching

Modern Europe

German history

International Relations

Selected Publications

Christian Trade Unions in the Weimar Republic, 1918-1933 (Yale University Press, 1985)

Heinrich Brüning and the Dissolution of the Weimar Republic (Cambridge University Press, 1998)

Christian Democratic Workers and the Forging of German Democracy, 1920-1980 (Cambridge University Press, 2018)

Substantial research articles on the Vatican’s relations with the Third Reich, organized labor’s response to the Nazi seizure of power, and the role of presidential power and presidential emergency decrees in the history of the Weimar Republic.

Current Research

The political influence of organized labor and big business and the expansion of the ‘welfare state’ in the Federal Republic of Germany.