Kristallnacht Commemorative Lecture: “Himmler’s Last Days and the Fate of Nazi Leadership”
About the Event
How do genocidal systems collapse? What is the fate of the people who lead them?
Join the Alabama Holocaust Education Center for our annual Kristallnacht Commemorative lecture, in partnership with the UAB Department of History. In this lecture, Holocaust historians Wendy Lower and Jonathan Petropoulos will map the infamous SS leader Heinrich Himmler’s journey during his last days, as he left the Führerbunker and fled to various outposts and hiding spots in the north of Germany. As they trace Himmler’s final movements and discuss how his tentacles of power unraveled, they will also explore the physical and psychic unraveling of this mass murderer, who became the most hunted war criminal in history. Finally, they will recount Himmler’s eventual capture, his interrogation, his suicide in British custody, and extraction of his brain after his death to study evil.
Doors open at 5:30 PM.
Our Sponsors:
About the Speakers
Wendy Lower
𝐖𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐲 𝐋𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 is the John K. Roth Professor of History at Claremont McKenna College (CA, USA), and she chairs the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She has published numerous books, including her latest, The Ravine: A Family, A Photograph, A Holocaust Massacre Revealed (2021, National Jewish Book Award).
Jonathan Petropoulos
𝐉𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐏𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐨𝐬 is Professor of European History at Claremont McKenna College and 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.