In this seminar we will analyze three key aspects of the history of Nazi Germany and the Second World War: Nazi domination, occupation and the war economy. We will focus on Nazi military expansion until 1945. In this context we will take closer look at the German war of annihilation (Vernichtungskrieg) and the Holocaust in the east. Although terror and mass murder played a key role in Nazi policy, we will also study how the Nazi policy differed in the east and west towards local populations and how this policy was connected to the war economy. The seminar will be strongly text-based. You will be asked to read one to two texts and answer in-depth questions at each session.

In this seminar we will analyze three key aspects of the history of Nazi Germany and the Second World War: Nazi domination, occupation and the war economy. We will focus on Nazi military expansion until 1945. In this context we will take closer look at the German war of annihilation (Vernichtungskrieg) and the Holocaust in the east. Although terror and mass murder played a key role in Nazi policy, we will also study how the Nazi policy differed in the east and west towards local populations and how this policy was connected to the war economy. The seminar will be strongly text-based. You will be asked to read one to two texts and answer in-depth questions at each session. The course takes place online.

DEAN, Martin: Robbing the Jews: The Confiscation of Jewish Property in the Holocaust, 1935–1945, Cambridge 2008.

MAZOWER, Mark: Hitler's Empire. Nazi Rule in occupied Europe, London 2008.

MEGARGEE, Geoffrey P.: War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front 1941, Blue Ridge Summit 2007.

SNYDER, Timothy : Bloodlands. Europe between Hitler and Stalin, New York 2010.

TOOZE, Adam: The Wages of Destruction: The Making and the Breaking of the Nazi Economy, New York 2006.