On the occasion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day the ACFDC and the Austrian Embassy were proud to present the newest publication of the renowned Austrian historian and author Prof. Oliver Rathkolb: “Schirach – A Generation between Goethe and Hitler (2020)”. The virtual book presentation by Prof. Rathkolb was followed by a discussion between the author and Dr. Jürgen Matthäus from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The Austrian Ambassador to the United States, H.E. Martin Weiss, gave welcoming words.
When: Wednesday, January 27, 2021 | 11am EST
Where: online | Zoom
Ticket: Free admission, mandatory registration
ABOUT THE BOOK
The invitation extended by the Führer to the 18-year-old Baldur von Schirach is tempting: “The party needs such young men, Germany needs them!” The prospective student of German studies and art history cannot resist Hitler's call; a steep career begins. In 1930 he is appointed Reichsjugendführer, youth leader of the Reich. As a loyal paladin of his master he committed the "Hitler Youth" to the "brown revolution". He dreams of a fascist Europe under German leadership and as Gauleiter of Vienna has the Jewish population deported to the death camps. In 1946, during the Nuremberg trials, Baldur von Schirach, now the father of four children, is sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for crimes against humanity.
ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS
OLIVER RATHKOLB
Photo © Stefan Knittel
Oliver Rathkolb is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Contemporary History at the University of Vienna, as well a member of the Senate of the University of Vienna. He was a Schumpeter Fellow at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University from 2000-2001 and visiting professor at the University of Chicago in 2003. Between 1984 and 1990 he worked for the former Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky as his personal historical advisor. Prof. Rathkolb is the author of several books focusing on contemporary history as well as editor and co-editor of several studies concerning interdisciplinary questions of contemporary history and communications/media history.
His prize-winning study The Paradoxical Republic: Austria 1945-2005 was published by Berghahn Books (New York/Oxford) in 2010, and came out as a paperback in 2014.
Rathkolb is chairman of the advisory board of the House of European History (European Parliament, Brussels) and chairman of the Advisory Board of the House of Austrian History.
JÜRGEN MATTHÄUS
Photo © Jürgen Matthäus
Jürgen Matthäus is a historian and research director at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC. He is an author and editor of multiple works on the history of World War II and the Holocaust. His recent book publications include (ed. with Th. Pegelow Kaplan) Beyond “Ordinary Men”: Christopher Browning and Holocaust Historiography (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2019); Predicting the Holocaust: Jewish Organizations Report from Geneva on the Emergence of the “Final Solution”, 1939-1942 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).
DISCLAIMER: The opinions voiced by Jürgen Matthäus are his and do not reflect those of the USHMM.