ANNUAL LECTURE OF THE GERMAN HISTORY SOCIETY IN LONDON
During the final weeks of the Second World War hundreds of ordinary German civilians were murdered by SS killing squads, retreating Wehrmacht units or local functionaries of the Nazi Party. Despite the relatively small numbers of victims, these incidents provide revealing insights not only into how hard-core Nazis perceived total defeat, but also into how the “Third Reich” was interpreted in (West) Germany during the late 1940s and 1950s. When West German courts began to deal with Nazi crimes after 1945, these killings were among the first cases investigated. They corresponded to the interest of the German public and media in regarding ordinary Germans as victims of fanatical Nazis.
Patrick Wagner is Professor of Modern History at the University of Halle. His major fields of research lie in the social history, the history of science and police history of Germany during the nineteenth and twentieth century. His book publications include Bauern, Junker und Beamte. Lokale Herrschaft und Partizipation im Ostelbien des 19. Jahrhunderts (2005); Hitlers Kriminalisten. Die deutsche Kriminalpolizei und der Nationalsozialismus zwischen 1920 und 1960 (2002); Displaced Persons in Hamburg. Stationen einer halbherzigen Integration 1945 bis 1958 (1997)