With a Penetrating Gaze from the Sidelines

Raul Hilberg, the Destruction of European Jews, and the History of Holocaust Historiography

René Schlott, Wulf Kansteiner (Herausgeber)

Buch | Hardcover

398 Seiten

2026
Berghahn Books (Verlag)
9781836953302 (ISBN)

Noch nicht erschienen (ca. Februar 2026)
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Raul Hilberg’s The Destruction of the European Jews (1961) was a foundational text in the field of Holocaust historiography. Hilberg describes the persecution as a bureaucratic process involving the entire German society. This volume explores the origins of Hilberg’s study, debates in which it was implicated, its accomplishments and shortcomings.

Raul Hilberg (1926-2007) was a pioneer of Holocaust historiography. After sifting through tens of thousands of perpetrators documents, he published The Destruction of the European Jews in 1961, with two revised editions to follow in 1985 and 2003. Hilberg’s magnum opus describes the persecution as a complex bureaucratic process involving the entire German society. The book has served as a foundational text and intellectual companion to the field of Holocaust historiography since its first publication.

The contributions in this volume explore the origins of Hilberg’s pioneering study, map out the debates in which it was implicated, highlight its unprecedented accomplishments as well as disturbing blind spots, and use “The Destruction” as a prism for an appraisal of eight decades of Holocaust research.

René Schlott is a freelance historian and associated researcher at the Centre for Contemporary History in Potsdam. He received his PhD in 2001 at the University of Giessen and is working on a biography of Raul Hilberg. He was awarded scholarships from the German Historical Institutes in Paris, Rome, and Washington, from the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and from the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies. He published numerous papers about life, work, and legacy of Raul Hilberg and is coeditor, with Walter H. Pehle, of Raul Hilbergs The Anatomy of the Holocaust. Selected Works from a Life of Scholarship (2020).

List of Illustrations

Introduction: Raul Hilberg: Life, Work, and Memory: Some Introductory Reflections

René Schlott and Wulf Kansteiner

Part I: The Destruction as Text: Evolution, Rhetoric, Aesthetics and Blindspots

Chapter 1. Revisiting Hilberg’s Conceptual Model of the Development of the Destruction of the European Jews

Dan Michman

Chapter 2. Emigration and Expropriation in Raul Hilberg’s Work The Destruction of the European Jews

Peter Klein

Chapter 3. Law and History: Raul Hilberg, the Nuremberg Trial Documents, and Narrative Legacies of the ‘Final Solution’

Hilary Earl

Chapter 4. Raul Hilberg and the Discussion around the Führerbefehl

Jürgen Matthäus

Chapter 5. “Much is Unsaid”: Women in the Life and Work of Raul Hilberg

Doris L. Bergen

Chapter 6. “I Was Determined to Work on this Topic”. An Unpublished Interview with Raul Hilberg 1992

Eveyln Adunka

Chapter 7. Inside the Written Items: On the Laconism of Raul Hilberg

Nicolas Berg

Chapter 8. On the Moral Imprecision of Irony: Raul Hilberg’s Machinery of Destruction

Wulf Kansteiner

Conclusion I: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Blind Spots. The Work of Raul Hilberg in Historiographical Perspective

Olof Bortz

Part II: Hilberg and Holocaust Historiography

Chapter 9. After Destruction: Assessing Hilberg’s Mid-Career Scholarship

Christopher R. Browning

Chapter 10. Raul Hilberg and the Perpetrator Documents

Susanne Heim

Chapter 11. Precision, Severity, and Seriousness. Raul Hilberg’s Significance for Holocaust Research

Sybille Steinbacher

Chapter 12. Raul Hilberg, the Term Holocaust, and the Conferences from San José to Stuttgart

Magnus Brechtken

Chapter 13. Franz Neumann’s Behemoth and the Beginnings of Holocaust Research with Raul Hilberg

Alfons Söllner

Chapter 14. Two Different Fathers of Holocaust Research. Raul Hilberg and Philip Friedman

Elisabeth Gallas

Chapter 15. “Over and Over, She Returns Like a Ghost.” Reflections on the Conflict between Hannah Arendt and Raul Hilberg

Anna Corsten

Conclusion II: Raul Hilberg as a “First Mover”

Peter Hayes

Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	1.2.2026
Reihe/Serie	Vermont Studies on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust ; 10
Zusatzinfo	Bibliography; Index
Verlagsort	Oxford
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► 1918 bis 1945
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
ISBN-13	9781836953302 / 9781836953302
Zustand	Neuware