Dr. Sophie Wunderlich

Professional Background

Sophie Wunderlich received a PhD in history from the University of Michigan in 2025. Dr. Wunderlich’s dissertation, titled “American Fascism and its Afterlives: The American Far Right and Paramilitarism in a Global Perspective, 1930-1965,” follows the trajectory of American interwar fascist movements to explore the genesis of the mid-century extreme right from neo-Nazism to Christian nationalism. Dr. Wunderlich also holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Williams College.

Dr. Wunderlich is a historian of violence, fascism, authoritarianism, and extremism in the modern United States and Europe. Wunderlich has worked with a variety of organizations dedicated to combatting past and present extremism, including the Southern Poverty Law Center. In 2024, Dr. Wunderlich received an Emerging Scholars Award from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation for work addressing issues of violence and violence prevention. Wunderlich has previously worked at the USHMM in a variety of roles, contributing to the Experiencing History: Holocaust Sources in Context digital primary-source teaching tool and the Holocaust Encyclopedia. Currently, Dr. Wunderlich works in the Office of the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues (SEHI) in the US State Department as a resident expert on Holocaust history and memory.

Fellowship Research

While at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a Broadening Academia Initiative USHMM-SEHI Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Wunderlich will continue researching the transnational interwar and mid-century extreme right. Expanding upon the dissertation, Wunderlich will explore the lives and politics of a number of twentieth century right-wing actors, including the Silver Legion of America, Gerald L.K. Smith, the John Birch Society, and the Christian Identity movement. In particular, Wunderlich will conduct research in the USHMM’s holdings relating to war crimes tribunals, comparing the American extreme right’s reaction to the 1944 domestic sedition case, United States v. McWilliams et al. to the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials.

Residency Period: December 2025 – December 2028