Abstract

Contemporary history is known to be when history is still smoking. But how can we study history that is even still burning? The paper presents initial findings of a history of COVID-19 in Germany to provide answers to this question. On the one hand, the focus is on methodological considerations of recent contemporary history: how should we work with digital sources in the future? How can a global pandemic be studied in a national, regional or local context? How can we research pandemics as social constructions? On the other hand, the essay aims to give new impetus to a contemporary history of health. The history of COVID-19 is also a plea for closer cooperation between different disciplines. Historians, physicians, sociologists, psychologists and many others should work more closely together to research pandemics and epidemics.