[2] From 1985 to 1987, Berger attended the University of Cologne, where he studied history, political science and German literature.
[3] In 1990, he graduated with a PhD from the University of Oxford, with a thesis on The Labour Party and the SPD.
Until 2011, he was Professor of Modern German and Comparative European History at the University of Manchester, UK.
[3] A significant part of Berger's research and works is on the nationalization of history.
Berger was instrumental in the programme 'Representations of the Past: The Writing of National Histories in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Europe (NHIST)' that the European Science Foundation organized between 2003 and 2008.