SCHIRACH

SCHIRACH
A generation between Goethe and Hitler

Historian Oliver Rathkolb in conversation with Cathrin Kahlweit, correspondent for the Süddeutsche Zeitung

„An eye-opener about one of the most dubious figures of the Nazi regime.“
Joachim Riedl, DIE ZEIT

The Führer's offer to the 18-year-old Baldur von Schirach is tempting: „The party needs young men like this, Germany needs them!“ The budding student of German studies and art history could not resist Hitler's call, and a stellar career began. In 1930, he was appointed Reich Youth Leader and, as a loyal paladin of his master, he swore in the „Hitler Youth“ for the „brown revolution“. He dreamed of a fascist Europe under German leadership and, as Gauleiter of Vienna, had the Jewish population deported to the death camps. In 1946, Baldur von Schirach, now the father of four children, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Nuremberg for crimes against humanity. His family has to live with the dark shadows of Nazi involvement ...

Oliver Rathkolb's latest book about the former youth leader of the Nazi regime and Gauleiter of Vienna, Baldur von Schirach, was voted one of the top 5 books by a jury of experts. Science book of the year nominated.

Oliver Rathkolb: Schirach - A generation between Goethe and Hitler.
Molden Verlag, Vienna 2020; ISBN 978-3-222-15058-6, 352 p., 32,- €

Oliver Rathkolb,
Director of the Institute of Contemporary History and member of the Senate of the University of Vienna. Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Boards of the House of European History in Brussels at the ERP and the House of Austrian History. Former Director of the Bruno Kreisky Archive Foundation and 1992-2004 Scientific Coordinator of the Bruno Kreisky Forum. Numerous publications, including. The Paradoxical Republic. Austria 1945-2015 (Paul Zsolnay Verlag), which was honoured with the Danubius Donauland Non-Fiction Prize and the Bruno Kreisky Prize for the political book.

Cathrin Kahlweit,
Studied Russian and politics in Eugene (USA), Tübingen, Göttingen and Moscow; then Hamburg School of Journalism (Gruner & Jahr). Since 1989 editor at the Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2012 to 2017 SZ correspondent for Central Europe based in Vienna. From 2017 to 2020 correspondent for the United Kingdom based in London; since September 2020 back in Vienna as correspondent for Central and Eastern Europe. Author of books.