About Thomas Zimmer

I am an independent historian and author living in Hamburg, Germany.

My work focuses on the past, present, and future of democracy and its discontents – in the United States and beyond. More specifically, I am interested in anti-democratic tendencies and impulses on the right as well as the relationship between mainstream conservatism and the far right.

Before moving to Hamburg with my wife and my two kids in the summer of 2025, I taught U.S. and international political history as a DAAD Professor at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Before joining Georgetown in January 2021, I was an Assistant Professor at Freiburg University in Germany.