German history 
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SOURCE: The New Yorker
7/14/2021
Jenny Erpenbeck Is Keeping Time
German author Jenny Erpenbeck's work is an exercise in preserving the objects that place a person's memory in history, particularly her own childhood in East Germany.
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SOURCE: New York Times
7/8/2021
Germany Apologized for a Genocide. It’s Nowhere Near Enough
by Kavena Hambira and Miriam Gleckman-Krut
"To begin to atone for its Namibian genocide, Germany must negotiate directly with descendants of survivors — and commit to wide-ranging reparations."
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7/11/2021
Reflecting on the 80th Anniversary of the Nazi Invasion of Russia
by Rick Halperin
The Nazi invasion of Russia unleashed unprecedented brutality against civilians along the eastern front; those horrors should reinforce a commitment to human rights.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
5/28/2021
Germany Acknowledges Colonial Genocide in Namibia and Promises Development Projects
"We will from now on officially call these events what they are from a contemporary perspective: a genocide.”
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SOURCE: BBC
5/31/2021
Why Germany's Namibia Genocide Apology Isn't Enough
The BBC editorializes that the German government's apologies for its genocidal repression in southwest Africa is more public relations than reparation.
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SOURCE: WRAL
5/17/2021
Germany Nears Accord with Namibia on Colonial Killings
Germany has hinted at its readiness to make compensation payments to Namibia in reparation for the genocidal attacks on the Herero and other peoples in 1904, considered one of the first modern genocides.
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SOURCE: Black Perspectives
5/17/2021
Black Germans and New Forms of Resistance
by Tiffany Florvil
Black activists and intellectuals in Germany have worked to promote knowledge of colonial and Black history as a counter to the entrenched tendency to hide and evade the subject.
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SOURCE: HistoryExtra
5/11/2021
The Night of the Long Knives: The Bloody Purge that Secured Hitler’s Power
Hitler's 1934 purge of his perceived rival Ernst Röhm and his followers suspected of disloyalty foreshadowed the eliminationist violence of his regime.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
5/2/2021
Germany’s Anti-Vaccination History Is Riddled With Anti-Semitism
by Edna Bonhomme
Antisemitism has often flared during public health crises such as pandemics; it has also attached itself to suspicion of vaccination, a trend that has been disturbingly prominent among German anti-vaxxers.
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4/25/2021
Whither Germany? Historiography and Public Reckoning with the National Past
by Samuel Miner
Hedwig Richter's book "Democracy: A German Affair" has sparked controversy for its rejection of the idea that Germany has followed a "special path" to liberal democracy and catalyzed a broad debate about the role of historians in public reckoning with the crimes of the past.
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SOURCE: Public Seminar
4/8/2021
Why Weimar is an Imperfect Mirror
by Helmut Smith
Peter Gay's "Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider" became a key text for understanding the Weimar era as an allegory for understanding political conflict when it was published in 1968. But his psychoanalytical approach can be an impediment to understanding the historical specificity of the era.
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SOURCE: The Guardian
3/21/2021
Jonathan Steinberg: Wrote Influential English Study of Bismarck's Germany
Jonathan Steinberg's scholarly work ranged from evaluating participation in the Holocaust to a biographical study of the influential German chancellor, and his teaching work resulted in him supervising the Prince of Wales in his undergraduate history studies.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
3/21/2021
Letters Found In An Attic Reveal Eerie Similarities Between Adolf Hitler And His Father
A trove of letters discovered in an Austrian attic are a rare primary source about the parents of the Nazi leader.
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2/21/2021
Cynicism and Political Blunder: A Postscript to “The January 6th Assault on Congress and the Fate of the GOP’s Faustian Bargain"
by Jeffrey Herf
Mitch McConnell's decision to condemn Trump after voting for his acquittal wasn't just an act of cowardice. The acts taken together constitute a major tactical blunder in the emerging battle for control of the Republican Party.
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SOURCE: MSNBC
2/9/2021
Trump Probably Won't Speak at His Impeachment Trial. That May be a Good Thing
Columnist Hayes Brown suggests that there's enough evidence Democrats can bring against Trump without giving him a public platform to espouse conspiracy theories. German authorities came to regret giving Hitler such a platform in 1924, as summarized by historian Volker Ullrich.
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2/7/2021
Young Du Bois in Germany: On the “Great Socialistic State of the Day"
by Helmut Smith
As graduate student visiting imperial Germany in 1892, W.E.B. Du Bois was shaped by observations of social welfare policy and experiences of social acceptance that contrasted dramatically with Gilded Age and Jim Crow America.
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1/31/2021
The January 6th Assault on Congress and the Fate of the GOP’s Faustian Bargain with Trump: Notes from German History
by Jeffrey Herf
It does not seem that even facing the prospect of death at the hands of a Trumpist mob will convince the Republican Party to abandon its bargain with Trump. German conservative elites made a choice to stay the course in the 1930s that led to national ruin and defeat.
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1/24/2021
Cheese to Chalk: Can Democracies be Compared to Dictatorships?
by Leonid Luks
A German historian argues that American scholars and commentators have for years been too quick to equate antidemocratic measures taken by Republicans with Hitler's seizure of dictatorial power, dismissing ample research on the nature of totalitarian regimes. The last three months have shown that America's core institutions are not weak enough to be crushed.
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SOURCE: Public Seminar
1/21/2021
Embracing Democracy: The Storming of the US Capitol and the Positive Lessons of Weimar Germany
by Andrew I. Port
A 1922 political assassination rallied the German public and political class against the far right. The Weimar Republic's failure to consolidate itself around the idea of democracy shows that the January 6 Capitol riot cannot be allowed to fade from discussion lest the authoritarian beliefs behind it return even stronger.
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SOURCE: The Conversation
1/12/2021
How Can America Heal from the Trump Era? Lessons from Germany’s Transformation into a Prosperous Democracy after Nazi Rule
by Sylvia Taschka
The Federal Republic of Germany disappointed many who sought a complete reckoning with Nazi crimes. But it successfully balanced the exclusion of top Nazi leaders with winning the allegiance of party supporters to democratic government through a commitment to supporting lives of dignity and sufficiency for all Germans.