David Harrisville, “Morality, Nazi Ideology, and the Individual in the Third Reich”

"Mosse's Europe: New Perspectives in the History of German Judaism, Fascism, and Sexuality"

9 June 2019

David Harrisville, “Morality, Nazi Ideology, and the Individual in the Third Reich”

David Harrisville is Visiting Assistant Professor of Modern European History at Furman University in Greenville, SC. He received his B.A. in History from Carleton College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His teaching and research interests span the history of modern Europe, with special emphasis on Germany, the Second World War, and the history of morality. His current book project examines how soldiers of the Wehrmacht maintained the conviction that they were decent men fighting for a morally worthy cause even as they took part in war crimes during the invasion of the Soviet Union. The self-exonerating letters they wrote home, he argues, laid the foundations for the myth of the “clean” Wehrmacht that would shape German memory for decades to come.

Sponsored by:
George L. Mosse Program in History
Fritz Thyssen Stiftung
The Mosse Foundation
Deutsches Historisches Museum
Jüdisches Museum Berlin
University of Wisconsin-Madison History Department
Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem Department of History
Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center for German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History
Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung
Technische Universität Berlin
Koebner Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Leo Baeck Institute London
Leo Baeck Institute New York
Mosse-Lectures an der Humboldt-Universität
Schwules Museum Berlin