Charlie Krautwald

• Presentation
• CV
• Research outputs
• Prizes
• Activities

I am a historian and researcher specialised in fascism studies, right-wing and left-wing radical movements, gender history, political activism, and antisemitism studies.

My research and dissemination efforts have concentrated on modern political cultural history, especially from 1870 to 1945. Among my scholarly contributions is the development of a Danish research field on interwar political culture, contentious politics, and activism, with groundbreaking empirical research on street politics as well as antifascist and fascist activism. The primary findings of my Ph.D. dissertation, Fighting for the Streets: Street Politics and Spatial Claims in 1930s Political Culture (University of Agder 2021), documented the integrated role that the staging of public urban spaces played in the political culture of 1930s Denmark and revealed the interplay between street politics and parliamentary ambitions within political parties and youth movements.

I am also active in the Nordic research network Network for Nordic Fascism Studies (Norfas), and serve as the subject editor for Denmark 1870-1945 on the online encyclopedia Den Store Danske at Lex.dk.

Current research

Currently, I am employed as a postdoctoral researcher on two externally funded research projects:

• "Street-fighting Women. Gender, Body, and Violence on the Far Right in Interwar Scandinavia," funded by a grant from the Carlsberg Foundation (2024-2026). This project examines how gender was negotiated within radical conservative youth activism in interwar (1919-1939) Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, with a particular focus on women's participation in radical activism and political violence.
• "Code and Conspiracy: Antisemitism in Denmark after 1945," a DFF Research Project 2 funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark (2024-2026), with Associate Professor Sofie Lene Bak as the principal investigator. The aim of this project is to explain how and why antisemitism was able to survive and evolve as a political, social, and cultural phenomenon after the Holocaust. My postdoctoral project investigates Holocaust distortion within radical right- and left-wing circles.

Primary fields of research

• Interwar and Danish occupation history (1919-1945)
• Fascism
• Right- and left-wing radical movements
• Antisemitism
• Political culture
• Gender history
• Antifascism
• Urban history and public spaces
• Urban history

Teaching

• The history of the Occupation Years (1940-1945) between lieu memoire and history use
• Democracy and activism 1901-1939
• Interwar political culture between consensus and conflict
• Historical method
• Fascism