Interpretative Conflicts. Colonial Violence and the Holocaust

The experiences of colonialism and National Socialism are entangled in many ways. The colonial world was a theater of World War Two, with soldiers from the colonial world moreover fighting on all fronts – both on the side of the Axis powers and of the Allies. Various anticolonial pioneers, including the Martinique-born Frantz Fanon, whose book »The Wretched of the Earth« (1961) became the manifesto of Third-Worldism, even enlisted voluntarily to fight against National Socialism. The pathos of universalism and the Free World that the Western Allies in particular mobilized in their struggle against the »Third Reich« stoked hopes of national independence in the colonies. This is one of the reasons why World War Two not infrequently morphed seamlessly into anticolonial struggles. 

These transformations and entanglements sometimes led to the differences between the two experiences, namely the crimes of colonialism and those of National Socialism, as expressed most centrally in the annihilation of Europe’s Jews, being blurred in contemporary consciousness. Not just the proponents of national liberation movements, but also many of their European supporters, some of whom could look back on their experiences fighting against National Socialism, wished to view anticolonial uprisings as a consistent continuation of antifascist resistance. This perception was enhanced through the special situation of the Cold War, which buried many of the existing differences and historical idiosyncrasies below a binary semantics of the social.

This seminar is dedicated to historical interpretations of this entangled history of colonial and Nazi violence. On the basis of texts that have since become canonical and secondary literature on these interpretative conflicts, it will investigate both the overlaps and differences between these two systems of crime.

Literature: A reading list will be provided in advance.

Open for senior students: no