German history

Does Germany's Holocaust Education Give Cover to Nativism?

The anti-antisemitism of German Holocaust education is based on the implicit premise that immigrants will identify with a sense of shame held by ethnic Germans. If those immigrants ask instead whether contemporary nativism could result in their own persecution, it is seen as a sign of their non-Germanness. 

Untangling Fact and Fiction in the Story of a Nazi-Era Brothel

Kitty Schmidt's Berlin brothel has been the subject of lurid speculation that its owner was forced by the Nazis to spy on her clients for evidence of subversion and disloyalty. A new book tries to untangle the more complicated history of commercial sex in the Weimar and Nazi eras, but struggles against the pervasiveness of myth. 

The Lesson of Germany's Most Famous Trans Woman? Freedom Requires Joy

by Samuel Huneke

As anti-trans and homophobic legislation and rhetoric pervade the political arena, this Pride month may feel less than celebratory. A historian of queer life under both Nazism and East German Communism says it's a mistake to embrace doom. 

Former East Germans Largely Eschewed Opportunity to Read their Stasi Files—What that Says about Ethics

Few of the former residents of East Germany have chosen to view the files kept on them by the communist secret police; scholars have investigated this as an example of strategic ignorance that can help individuals function and preserve social harmony. 

A Small Village's History During the Third Reich Raises Big Questions about Complicity

by Julia Boyd

A new history of the personal experiences of the residents of a small Bavarian village show that, while Nazism was driven by ideologues, it was able to maintain power because the personal risks of nonsupport convinced many to put their moral objections aside.

Cracking Stasi Puzzles is Key to Some Germans Finding the Truth

by Katja Hoyer

With an informant for every 90 citizens, the East German secret police left behind 16,000 sacks of shredded documents. Can information technology help reconstruct a record of what happens when a government commits to spying on its own citizens? 

Natalye Pass Harpin on the Lives of Black Germans under Nazism

Nazi policy toward the nation's Black residents was strongly influenced by American Jim Crow laws and illustrates the dangers of militantly racial ideas of nationhood. 

Will Ukraine Be the Death of German Pacifism?

by Stephen Milder

The real transformation wrought in Europe by the Russian invasion isn't the return of war (which was certainly present in the 1990s) but the turn of Germany away from a post-fascist pacifist posture to a potential remilitarization. 

The Complicated History of Germany's Christmas Markets

It's unclear when medieval Germany's winter markets became affixed to nostalgic ideas of Christmas. But they've been adopted by ruling classes to offer prescriptive visions of class hierarchy, religion, and even Nazism. 

Richard Evans on the Ideology of the German Coup Attempt

The historian of Nazism discusses the surprising arrest of German Reichsburger adherents for plotting a coup against the German parliament. 

Take Calls for a "Fourth Reich" Seriously

by Gavriel Rosenfeld

The concept of a new German Reich emerged almost immediately after the fall of Hitler, and reflected the incomplete effort to remove the far-right from German politics as well as the growth of an international authoritarian movement. 

What the German Coup Plotters Took from the American Right

by Lucian Staiano-Daniels

The German Reichsburger movement has been influenced both by the legalistic theories of the American "sovereign citizen" movement and the lurid conspiratorial fantasies of QAnon. 

The Disturbing Truth: What's Behind the German Coup

by Annika Brockschmidt

Like January 6, the German coup reflects the radicalization of a significant portion of the affluent "bourgeois center" of the society, making a reckoning with the sources of far-right allegiance particularly urgent. 

German Debate About Arming Ukraine is an Argument About Germany

by Anne Applebaum

Do Germany's lessons from the Nazi era mean that Germans should help other natins resist aggressive war, or that Germany shouldn't be involved? Germans still aren't sure. 

The Tortured Confession of a "Werewolf" Horrified 1500s Europe

In centuries where Europe was plagued by war, famine and plague, the supernatural became luridly appealing. Unlike more common trials for witchcraft, werewolf prosecutions remain more of a historical mystery. 

Journalist Dorothy Thompson's Warnings About Fascism – Abroad and at Home

by Ben Railton

After being expelled as a journalist from Germany for criticizing Hitler, Dorothy Thompson worked to make clear to Americans what fascist movements stood for and how they could take root in the soil of racism and nativism here. 

The Nazi use of Legalism to Consolidate Power and Eliminate Democracy

by Christopher R. Browning

Hitler's lesson after a token prison sentence for organizing a coup attempt was to work to seize power through legal means with the support of ideologically sympathetic courts. Non-MAGA conservatives appear to be missing important lessons. 

The Story of the School that Defied Nazi Ideological Control

by Deborah Cadbury

Amid the intense politicization of education today, what can we learn from one remarkable story of a teacher's defiance of official ideological control? 

Dangerous as the Plague: The History of Moral Panics over Queer "Seduction"

by Samuel Huneke

From the perspective of the post-Obergefell US, this year's politicized attacks on LGBTQ people—particularly as threats to the nation's youth—seem like a sudden reversal. But such attacks have a long and miserable history that has shadowed movements for queer freedom at every turn. 

Germany's Racial Reckoning Offers Warnings for US

"Seen from an American perspective, Germany is often portrayed as the wise and capable professor of remembrance; the U.S its difficult student."