Die Stunde der Archivare. Die Entstehung der Erinnerungskultur im Südwesten Deutschlands um 1960

Lecture by Prof. Dr. Helmut Walser Smith

When it comes to critical historiography on Jewish persecution in the post-war period, we usually think of historians - and forget about archivists. This lecture focuses on three actors, Heinz Keil from Ulm and Maria Zelzer and Paul Sauer from Stuttgart, to show that the creation of archival knowledge in the early 1960s laid the foundation for a robust "culture of remembrance" in southwest Germany. However, the archivists did not create this knowledge alone. They were decisively supported by Jewish emigrants from all over the world.

Helmut Walser Smith has been Professor of History in the Martha Rivers Ingram Chair and Director of the Max Kade Center for European and German Studies at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, since 2004. He is the author of numerous books, including "The Slaughterer's Story. Murder and Anti-Semitism in a Small German Town" and "Vanishing Point 1941. Continuities in German History". In 2021, he published "Germany. History of a nation. From 1500 to the present day". In 2023/24 he was Senior Fellow at the Center for Jewish History/Leo Baeck Institute, New York. His research focuses on modern German history, especially the long 19th century, nationalism and anti-Semitism. He is currently working on a book with the provisional title "Hometowns: Local Truth and Jewish return in postwar Germany".