Nazism

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  2/20/2021
  

  US Deports 95-Year-Old Former Concentration Camp Guard To Germany

  Friedrich Karl Berger, a German citizen, was sent back to Germany this month for serving as a guard of a Neuengamme concentration camp subcamp near Hamburg in 1945.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/5/2021
  

  Woman, 95, Indicted on 10,000 Counts of Accessory to Murder in Nazi Camp

  "Public prosecutors in Germany have indicted a 95-year-old woman for her role supporting the Nazi killing machinery as a secretary in a concentration camp, charging her with 10,000 counts of being an accessory to murder, and complicity in attempted murders."

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  1/27/2021
  

  The Persistence of Hate In American Politics

  After Charlottesville, the historian Joan Wallach Scott wanted to find out how societies face up to their past—and why some fail. Aryeh Neier reviews Scott's comparative history of the Nuremberg Trials, the South African Truth and Reconciliation effort, and the debate over reparations to African Americans for slavery and Jim Crow. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/27/2021
  

  No More Lies. My Grandfather Was a Nazi

  "Suddenly, I no longer had any idea who my grandfather was, what Lithuania was, and how my own story fit in. How could I reconcile two realities? Was Jonas Noreika a monster who slaughtered thousands of Jews or a hero who fought to save his country from the Communists?" writes Silvia Foti. 

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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: Made By History at the Washington Post
  1/9/2021
  

  Pre-Nazi Germany Tells us the Fight to Save American Democracy is Just Beginning

  by Michael Brenner

  German history highlights how the real risk to American democracy came hours after order had been restored in the U.S. Capitol when seven U.S. senators and 138 members of the House of Representatives voted to sustain an objection to Pennsylvania’s electoral votes.

• 
• SOURCE: Salon
  1/18/2021
  

  My Grandfather was a Nazi. Our Family's Story of Complicity Shows Where the Road to Extremism Leads

  by Mary Louise Wells

  Republicans who continued to contest the legitimacy of the election after the Capitol riots should consider the German example, which shows the potential for disaster if people accept authoritarianism out of expediency.

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  12/2/2020
  

  Revisiting Hitler’s Final Days in the Bunker

  The use of the German film "Downfall" in internet memes points to the danger of treating Hitler's demise as a closure to the murderous ideologies he propagated. 

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• 12/6/2020
  

  Is There Anything Left to Learn about Hitler?

  by James Thornton Harris

  Volker Ullrich presents a picture of a leader whose "egocentrism... inability to self-criticize…tendency to overestimate himself... contempt for others and lack of empathy" made him willing to destroy his nation along with himself, but warns that the Third Reich was "a dictatorship of consent." 

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• SOURCE: New Statesman
  12/2/2020
  

  What The Hitler Conspiracies Mean

  by Richard J. Evans

  Against evidence and common sense, theories persist that Adolf Hitler escaped Berlin to live in Argentina. An expert on the memory of the Third Reich argues that the conspiracy theories reflect a broad rejection of expertise and show the need for historians to engage the public. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/30/2020
  

  1918 Germany Has a Warning for America

  German editorialist Jochen Bittner warns that Trump's insistence that the election has been stolen from him echoes the Dolchstosslegende rhetoric which sustained the ascendant National Socialists for years after the end of World War I.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
  11/16/2020
  

  Can We Hold Trump And His Allies Accountable Without Further Splitting America?

  by Samuel Huneke

  A process of accountability must target official decisionmakers who broke the law, avoid imposing collective guilt on Trump supporters, and above all, not expect quick or complete success. 

• 
• SOURCE: TIME
  11/12/2020
  

  What We Can Learn About Nazi Psychology From the Wives of Hitler’s Top Officials

  A new book, excerpted here, assess everyday life under Nazism by attention to the lives of the wives of leading Nazis. 

• 
• SOURCE: ABC News
  11/8/2020
  

  Dutch Protestant Church Admits Failing Jews in World War II

  René de Reuver, speaking on behalf of the General Synod of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, said the church’s role began long before Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany.

• 
• SOURCE: Vanity Fair
  

  “Nationalism Will Run Roughshod Over Democracy”: What Can Nazi Germany Tell Us About Trump’s GOP? (Podcast)

  As Trump’s fearmongering, demonization, and threats of violence have invited comparisons to Hitler’s rise, historian Peter Fritzsche separates fact from exaggeration on "The Hive" podcast.  

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• SOURCE: Medium
  9/15/2020
  

  Trump’s Brownshirt and Incitement to violence: A view from History

  by Waitman Beorn

  Donald Trump's public approval of right-wing militia activity in an election year resembles the way that Adolf Hitler pursued power through electoral channels while applying selective political violence to left-wing opponents. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/8/2020
  

  ‘JFK,’ by Fredrik Logevall: An Excerpt

  Read an excerpt from Fredrik Logevall's new biography of John F. Kennedy touching on the collegiate Kennedy's observations of Europe as World War II began.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/4/2020
  

  A Secret Diary Chronicled the ‘Satanic World’ That Was Dachau

  For two years, a prisoner in the German concentration camp kept a journal that would later be used to convict those who had persecuted him and killed his fellow prisoners.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/6/2020
  

  ‘Weimar America’? The Trump Show Is No Cabaret

  by Niall Ferguson

  Popular culture and lazy historical comparisons have elevated Weimar Germany as an analogue for contemporary America. Ferguson suggests reasons to dial back the comparisons; while current events are troubling, US democracy is more stable and stronger than the Weimar Republic.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/28/2020
  

  Unsealed Archives Give Fresh Clues to Pope Pius XII’s Response to the Holocaust

  Reports by historian David Kertzer that documents in the Vatican archives reflect on the antisemitism of Pope Pius XII and his advisors have sparked countercharges by church historians that reports based on newly available sources will give priority to sensational findings.