HIST136 - NAZI GERMANY & HOLOCAUST

Often considered a watershed of the 20th century, the defeat of the Third Reich and discovery of its crimes remains a central event in the post-World War II world. But what factors led to the rise of the Nazi regime and its persecution, incarceration, and murder of millions of Europeans in the Holocaust? Why do the subjects of the Nazi Germany and Holocaust continue to engage scholars and the general public alike? This course approaches Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, and Holocaust over the long-term and examines them within their global contexts. Through instructor lectures, assigned readings, source analyses, and weekly discussion groups, we will explore themes beginning with Jewish life in medieval Europe through the origins and later rise of the Nazi party until the explosion of Holocaust memory after the 1970s. We will consider questions about the nature of Hitler's national community, or Volksgemeinschaft; the persection and extermination of Europe's Jewish populations and other minority groups; the development of concentration and extermination camps; the complicity of so-called ordinary Germans in Nazi crimes; and the divergent perspectives of the victims and perpetrators. We will further discuss the aftermath of Nazi Germany and Holocaust including issues related to displaced persons & refugees, postwar justice, & memory.