Wednesday, 27. November 2024, 18:30 - 20:00

Vienna Wiesenthal Institute, Research Lounge, 1010 Vienna, Rabensteig 3, 3rd Floor

How do genocidal systems collapse? What is the fate of genocidaires? The presentation maps Heinrich Himmler’s odyssey during his last days, as he left the Führerbunker and decamped from Berlin to various outposts and hiding spots in the north of Germany, while it traces the psychic and physical transformations of this mass murderer and most hunted war criminal in history. It shows how the tentacles of his power unraveled, and how this was part of the collapse of the Reich. At the same time, Himmler debated with the World Jewish Congress the fate of millions held in concentration camps, tried to negotiate peace with the Western Allies, and was obsessed with upholding his reputation in the press. His flight, capture, interrogation, suicide in British custody on 23 May 1945, and even the fate of his physical remains, including his brain (which was extracted to study evil), will be recounted and placed in historical context.

Wendy Lower is Professor of History at Claremont McKenna College (CA, USA), where she directs the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights. She chairs the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She published numerous books, including her latest The Ravine: A Family, A Photograph, A Holocaust Massacre Revealed (2021, National Jewish Book Award).

Jonathan Petropoulos is Professor of European History at Claremont McKenna College and a.o. the author of various publications, including Göring’s Man in Paris: The Story of a Nazi Art Plunderer and His World (2021). From 1998 to 2000, he served as Research Director for Art and Cultural Property on the Presidential Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States.

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