Thomas Pegelow Kaplan published a new co-edited book this summer, titled . Read an English translation of the summary below:
How was the Holocaust possible? What made "ordinary men" become mass murderers? The historical analysis of democratic decay can be the starting point for recognizing the same dangers in today's societies. The debate about perpetration became effective a generation ago with Christopher Browning's "Ordinary Men". However, interpretive struggles around categories such as collaboration, space, and gender were not a purely German topic and are more current and contested in Western, Central, and Eastern European countries than ever before. This is because Browning's impulse was not only focused on historical research, but also on social debates about responsibility and ethical consequences for future generations. The contributions deal with new approaches to Holocaust research, police perpetration under National Socialism, their current socio-political readings, and contested historical consciousness-raising in multi-ethnic societies today.
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