The Rise of Antisemitism and Nazi Propaganda with Björn Krondorfer

In June of 2021, Holocaust education became a required subject in Arizona public middle and high schools, making space for a discussion on the rise of antisemitic propaganda in 20th century Germany. This presentation will begin with a brief look at the early stages of antisemitic messaging in the 1890s, 09’s and WWI into the 1920s. Moving along chronologically the timeline, crude political satire can be traced through legal sanction and (pseudo-) scientific justifications. The presentation also touches on the Nazi policy of “Lebensraum” (living space), in which race and space ideologies paved the way for the eventual genocidal campaign against European Jews.

This program is cohosted by Maricopa County Library District – Georgia T. Lord Library.

About the speaker:

Björn Krondorfer is Regents’ Professor and the Director of the Martin-Springer Institute at Northern Arizona University. As Endowed Professor of Religious Studies, he also teaches in the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies. His field of expertise is religion/gender/culture and (post-) Holocaust and reconciliation studies. He received a Senior Research Fellowship at the Vrije University in Amsterdam and held visiting faculty positions in Germany and South Africa. He is currently the VP of the Association for Public Religion and Intellectual Life; in 2020 he became chair of the Consortium of Higher Education Centers for Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Studies.