Overview
Why did so many Germans take part in the crimes of Nazi Germany? How did they come to support Hitler and follow him almost to the very end? For too long, the Nazis have been presented as little more than psychopaths or criminals. In his major new work, renowned historian Professor Sir Richard J Evans makes use of a mass of recently unearthed new evidence to strip away the veneer of myth and legend from the faces of the Third Reich and present a more realistic view of Nazi perpetrators as human beings who were disturbingly like us.
Evans offers rounded, fresh and often startling new portraits of the men and women who created and served Nazi Germany, beginning with Hitler himself and going on to encompass leading figures like Göring, Goebbels and Himmler, enforcers of Hitler’s orders such as Eichmann and Heydrich, propagandists like Leni Riefenstahl, low-level perpetrators such as the notorious Irma Grese, and unknown sympathizers and fellow-travellers who helped the regime in myriad ways.
Speaker
Professor Sir Richard J Evans FBA is an Honorary Fellow of Â鶹ËÞÉáµçÊÓ¾çCollege and served as its President from 2010 to 2017. He is Regius Professor Emeritus of History at Cambridge, and holds honorary degrees from Oxford, London and Queen's University in Canada. In 2014 he was the recipient of the British Academy Leverhulme Prize and Medal, awarded every six years for outstanding contributions to the Humanities and Social Sciences. One of the world's leading historians of modern Germany, he is the author of The Coming of the Third Reich (2003), The Third Reich in Power (2005), and The Third Reich at War (2008). In 2000 he was the lead expert witness for the High Court in the unsuccessful libel suit brought by David Irving over allegations of Holocaust Denial and the falsification of history by the American historian Deborah Lipstadt, subsequently the subject of the Hollywood film Denial (2016). He was Provost of Gresham College, in the City of London, from 2014 to 2020. In 2012 he was knighted for services to scholarship.
Details
The event is open to all and free to attend - .
The talk will be followed by a drinks reception in The Gallery.
Access
This event will take place in the Dining Hall on the first floor of our main building. There is step-free access with a lift and an accessible toilet.
