The Complex Legacies of Nazism: Current Perspectives on the History and Memory of National Socialism

IES-GHI Annual Feldman Lecture | Organized by the GHI’s Pacific Office and the Institute of European Studies at UC Berkeley, co-sponsert by the Center for German and European Studies and the departments of History and German at UC Berkeley

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How could the rise of National Socialism and its unprecedented crimes against humanity happen? How should they be remembered? In this lecture, Michael Wildt, emeritus Professor of Modern German History at Humboldt University in Berlin, will explore these questions and reflect on how historians continue to grapple with the complex history and memory of Nazism. Although the subject has been studied extensively, definitive answers remain elusive. Unlike many other episodes in history, Nazism and the Holocaust are not perceived solely as historical events but also as universal symbols of crimes against humanity and as benchmarks against which contemporary atrocities are measured.

As scholarship continues to evolve, new perspectives on the history and memory of Nazism have emerged. Research in fields such as social history and the history of emotions has deepened our understanding of both perpetrators and victims, while comparative approaches—particularly those informed by studies of colonial violence—have opened new ways of analyzing the experience of countries occupied by the National Socialists.