Biography

Ansgar Schaefer is a researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History of the NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities. At the same time, he works as a scriptwriter, producer, and director of documentary films.

In 1986, he graduated in Political Science and Germanic Studies from the University of Trier (Germany) and, in 2002, he completed a Master’s degree in Contemporary History at the NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities. He obtained his PhD in 2014 at the same school with a thesis on the interrelationship between History and Documentary Film.

His fields of research are the political, economic, and social relations between Nazi Germany and the Estado Novo as well as Cinema and History, especially in its aspect of the discourse of the Colonial Empire in documentary film. He is currently vice-coordinator of a research project on forced labourers in Nazi Germany of Portuguese nationality.

He is co-founder of the production company Kintop where he has been involved as producer and researcher in the production and pre-production of a dozen documentaries.

Research fields

• Political, economic, and social relations between Nazi Germany and the Estado Novo
• Forced labour
• Cinema and history
• Colonialism

Selected publications

• Schaefer, Ansgar. “Imagens de A Guerra. Interacção entre os discursos visual e verbal na série de Joaquim Furtado,” Práticas da História 1 (2015): 33-60. [link] 🔓
• Schaefer, Ansgar. Portugal e os refugiados judeus provenientes do território alemão. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2014. [link] 🔓
• Schaefer, Ansgar, “Angola. Decisão de Continuar. Um documentário histórico à espera de ser exumado,” in O Eterno Retorno: estudos em homenagem a António Reis, coordinated by Maria Inácia Rezola and Pedro Aires Oliveira. Lisbon: Campo de Comunicação, 2013.
• Schaefer, Ansgar. “Angola – A Terra Prometida. Os projectos para uma colonização israelita de Angola,” História Ano XVII Nova Série 9 (1995).

Main projects

• Researcher in the project “Portuguese inmates in Nazi Concentration Camps” — Coordinated by Fernando Rosas and funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology.
• Researcher in the project “Portuguese Forced Labourers in the Third Reich” — Coordinated by Fernando Rosas and funded by EVZ – Erinnerung, Verantwortung, Zukunft (Memory, Responsibility, Future) and by the Goethe-Institut Portugal.