The research team at the Museum of Military History has a new head. From February 2026, Maria Fritsche will join Deputy Director Stephanie Pracherstorfer and Barbara Karl, Head of the Collections and Exhibitions Department, as Head of Research, and Birgit Johler, Head of the Exhibitions Department, in one of the largest museum reform projects in Europe, setting important accents in terms of organization and content.
“With Maria Fritsche, the Museum of Military History will welcome an excellent scientist and university professor with extensive international experience and networking to the team. I am delighted that the museum is continuing to drive forward the reform with this strong team,” said Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner.
Director Georg Hoffmann was also delighted with the appointment to the management position in his team: “With her international experience in the fields of war, the military and post-war societies, Maria Fritsche will secure the Museum of Military History the place it deserves in the European research landscape and beyond. The broad-based research team will thus not only have an organizational leader, but also a renowned scientist who will represent it internationally and strengthen the HGM as a research hub.”
Maria Fritsche is a historian and university professor whose research focuses on modern military history, European contemporary history, film and judicial history and gender studies. Her work combines social, cultural and military-historical perspectives and is internationally recognized as a pioneer in the multi-perspective study of war and post-war societies. After studying in Vienna and Bern, she completed her doctorate at the University of Portsmouth on Austrian post-war film.
Research stations took her to the University of Southampton and the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C., before she moved to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 2010, where she was appointed professor in 2016. Her current research focuses on social experiences in war and occupation contexts as well as cultural practices and media worlds in 20th century Europe.
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