After the Nazi racial state: difference and democracy in Germany and Europe

Abstract

An investigation of the concept of in post-Nazi Germanyat happened to 'race', race thinking, and racial distinctions in Germany, and Europe more broadly, after the demise of the Nazi racial state? After the Nazi Racial State investigates the afterlife of 'race' since 1945 and challenges the long-dominant assumption among historians that it disappeared from public discourse and policy-making with the defeat of the Third Reich and its genocidal European empire. Drawing on case studies of Afro-Germans, Jews, and Turks - arguably the three most important minority communities in postwar Germany - the authors detail continuities and change across the 1945 divide and offer the beginnings of a history of race and racialization after Hitler. This book explores why the concept of 'race' became taboo as a tool for understanding German society after 1945. Most crucially, it suggests the social and epistemic consequences of this determined retreat from for Germany and Europe as a whole.Currently a Woodrow Wilson Center Fellow, Rita Chin is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Michigan. Heidi Fehrenbach is Presidential Research Professor at Northern Illinois University. Geoff Eley is Karl Pohrt Distinguished University Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Michigan. Atina Grossmann is Professor of History at Cooper Union.