House of the Wannsee Conference

TOPICS OF SEMINARS AND STUDY DAYS

The following list contains suggestions for topics for investigation which are significant in regard to the history of National Socialist crimes against the Jews and the current approach to this history. They can be varied and also combined with each other, depending on the respective interests of the participants.

Judaism and Jewish Life in Europe prior to 1933
- Topics -

• Jewish life in Berlin

• Aspects of Jewish history in Germany

• Jews in Western Europe

• Aspects of the social and cultural history of East-European Jews

• Religious and political developments within Judaism

• German-Jewish literature

• History of hostility against Jews and of racist anti-Semitism
  

Jews under the National Socialist regime
- Topics -

• The image of the Jews in Nazi ideology

• Anti-Semitic propaganda in National Socialist films

• Discrimination and deprivation of rights

• ”Aryanisation“ and those who benefited from it

• The judicial system of National Socialism and the Jews

• Jewish self-help, self-assertion and resistance

• Jewish youth movements

• Jewish sports organisations

• Emigration, escape, expulsion, and exile

• The November Pogrom (“Reich Kristallnacht”)

• Life in the ghetto

• Jews in concentration camps

• Forced labour

• The deportations

• Survival in the illegal underground
  

Dictatorship and daily life under National Socialism
- Topics -

• Antecedents and the development of the National Socialist ideology in the 19^th and 20^th centuries

• The rise of the National Socialist movement

• Strategies to safeguard Nazi rule by propaganda, forced conformity, and terror

• Display of power and manipulation through propaganda (media, the arts, architecture, technology)

• Language and communication

• Music during National Socialism

• Sports and glorification of the body under National Socialism

• The churches in the National Socialist state

• Scholars and Scientists during National Socialism

• Education and values in the family, school and youth movement during National Socialism

• Youth opposition

• Socialisation and personality structure of perpetrators and bystanders 

• The penal system during National Socialism

• The system of concentration camps and extermination camps

• Nazi crimes committed against children and adolescents

• Women’s careers in Nazi organisations

• Women in concentration camps as prisoners and as guards

• Persecution and extermination of Sinti and Roma
  

Planning and Organisation of the Holocaust
- Topics -

• ”Racial hygiene“, ”Euthanasia“, and the “Final Solution“

• Stages of the extermination process: Definition and registration, expropriation, concentration, deportation, extermination

• The decision-making process: intention to kill, resolution to kill, giving the orders, execution of the orders

• Involvement of the public administration: judiciary, police, railway office, communal, health and fiscal administration, regional planning 

• The role of the German army 

• The role of the police, the Reich Security Main Office, and the SS 

• The Wannsee Conference
  

The Aftermath of the Nazi Regime in Politics and Society since 1945
- Topics -

• The National Socialist past and the present political culture

• Denazification and continuity among the elite

• Attempts to bring Nazi criminals to justice

• Disputes about the compensation of victims

• Biographies of survivors of National Socialist persecution

• Jews and Jewish religious communities in the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany 
  

Present Day Debates on the Nazi Regime and its Crimes
- Topics -

• Remembrance and memorial sites

• Guilt and responsibility 

• The genocide of the Jews in historical research and in the historical perspective of Germans today

• The persecution and extermination of the Jews as subject matter in the arts, literature and films 

• Comparative investigations of 20^th century genocides

• The international comparative debate on the consequences of dictatorships

• Preparing for study tours to Israel: the meaning of the Shoah for Israel’s society

• Preparing for tours to Polish memorial sites

• Preparing for study tours within the Czech Republic.
  

Patterns of Continuity – Current Problems
- Topics -

• Nationalism, xenophobia, racism, neo-Nazism
  Open and covert anti-Semitism today
  

Workshops with pedagogical methods of Gestalt and theme-centred interaction

• How to deal with right wing extremism and violence

• Self-awareness - perception of others - forming one’s own opinion

• Obedience versus personal courage 

• The impact of propaganda - being aware of one’s own susceptibility
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