Syllabus
Syllabus/Structure
1. (5 October) Organisation and Introduction
2. (12 October) The War Aim: Genocide and Word Domination. The Hitler Speech of 22 August 1939
3. (19 October) Lightening Victories
4. (26 October) A New Racial Order
5. (2 November) A Dreadful Rabble
6. (9 November) Life Unworthy of Life
7. (16 November) Operation Barbarossa
8. (23 November) Launching Genocide
9. (30 November) Total War?
10. (7 December) Fear and Guilt
11. (14 December) Final Discussion
12. (21 December) Topics for Essays
Annotation
In this seminar we are going to tackle the question how the Nazis managed to wage war in 1939 and dominate broad parts of Europe and Northern Africa by 1941/42. How these military triumphs were possible was, as we will see, intertwined with both the ideological war aim of Adolf Hitler and how this racial war of destruction and conquest was actually led by the Germans: ruthlessly, without pity and with the vision of genocide and world domination in mind.