Conversations with Third Reich Contemporaries

Conversations with Third Reich Contemporaries presents a selection of excerpts from a recently opened collection of filmed interviews conducted by British documentary filmmaker Luke Holland (1948-2020). Most of the interviewees were young adults when the war ended. Some of them, or their families, had benefited materially through ‘Aryanisation’, Party-facilitated careers or exploiting forced labour. Others had enabled and enacted persecution or perpetrated violence, perhaps in anti-partisan warfare. They all built new lives in the three successor states of West Germany (FRG), East Germany (GDR), and Austria, and dealt with the Nazi past in different ways, including Holocaust denial, attempts at separating their lives from Nazi crimes, and reform.

The role played by ‘ordinary Germans’ in the ‘Third Reich’ and the Holocaust continues to stir debate. In the wider context of mass public engagement with the Holocaust and in light of new forms of racism, antisemitism and prejudice, this compelling sourcebook raises critical awareness of important issues around representation, authenticity, and the co-production of narratives. It attends to the issues of how and by whom knowledge is produced, the contingency of life narratives, performativity, and pedagogy. By suggesting critical questions and providing a reading list, it is an urgent and effective tool for thinking and teaching.