GHS Undergraduate Essay Prize

The German History Society offers an annual prize of £300 for the best undergraduate essay on German History written by a student of history (single or joint honours, or in a cognate discipline) at a UK or Irish university.

The Rules

  • Essays should be no less than 8,000 words in length and should address a theme in German history, broadly defined, covering any period from the Middle Ages to the present day.
  • Candidates should be nominated by their undergraduate supervisors. Please send submissions, in electronic format, to Róisín Watson
  • One submission is permitted per supervisor.

The Decision

  • The essays submitted will be read by a jury of three historians.
  • The jury will evaluate the submissions in terms of their originality, depth, scope and rigour, and the extent to which they make a new contribution to historical understanding, as well as qualities of style and presentation.
  • The jury reserves the right not to award a prize in any particular year.
  • The decision of the jury is final.
  • The jury will make its decision by October and inform the prize candidates as soon as possible after that. Please note that we cannot offer feedback on entries for the prize.
  • Names of prize-winners will be posted on the GHS website and social media.

ENTRIES FOR THE 2025 PRIZE ARE NOW CLOSED

This Year's Winners

2nd Place

Sophie Rebairo (University of Manchester)

For From Enemy to Friend Bodies: Burying and Exhuming German Servicemen and Civilian Internees in the United Kingdom, 1914-1967
1st Place

Aidan Woo (University of Oxford)

For Picturing Socialism: Industrial Work in East German Photography, 1949-1990
2nd Place

Megan Handy (University of Manchester)

For Staging Survival: Theatre as an Experimental Tool for the Reconstruction of Jewish Identity in Post-War German Displaced Persons Camps

Previous Winners

Eleanor Vincent (University of Cambridge)

- 2nd Place 2025
‘Representations of the body in the works of Mechthild of Magdeburg and Gertrude of Helfta, c. 1250-1302.’

Alexander Beard (University of Oxford)

- 1st Place 2025
‘‘Migration according to plan’: A cultural history of Vietnamese contract labour in East Germany, 1980-1990.’

Connor Wimblett

- 1st Place 2023
“She Tries to Make a Whole Woman Out of Me”: Trans* Sexuality and Womanly Relationships in the Weimar Queer Press

James Walker

- 1st Place 2023
German Combat Art and the Eastern Front, 1939–45

Michelle Kiessling

- 2nd Place 2022
Perceptions and Representations of German War-Neurotics: A Study of Weimar Medical Literature, Art, and Media c. 1914-1933