OU Lecture 2005: Hitler's Place in History - About the Lecturer

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Sir Ian Kershaw is Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield and one of the world's leading authorities on Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.

His magisterial two-volume biography of the dictator, titled Hubris and Nemesis respectively, has redefined the way we look at that darkest of eras

Ian Kershaw studied at Liverpool and Oxford Universities. He was a lecturer first in medieval, then in modern history at the University of Manchester. In 1983-4 he was Visiting Professor of Modern History at the Ruhr University in Bochum, West Germany. From 1987 to 1989 he was Professor of Modern History at the University of Nottingham, and since 1989 has been Professor of Modern History at Sheffield. He is a fellow of the British Academy, of the Royal Historical Society, of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung in Bonn.

He was the historical advisor to the BAFTA-winning BBC series The Nazis; A Warning from History, as well as consultant to BBC Two's War of the Century. He was also consultant on the highly acclaimed BBC Two series Auschwitz: The Nazis and the “Final Solution”, broadcast in January 2005..

He is also the author of 'The Hitler Myth': Image and Reality in the Third Reich, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich, Bavaria 1933-45, and The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation; the editor of Weimar: Why Did German Democracy Fail? and Hitler: A Profile in Power; and co-editor, with Moshe Lewin, of Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison.

Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris was shortlisted for the 1998 Whitbread Biography Award and the first Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis was shortlisted for the 2000 Whitbread Biography Award, and was awarded the Bruno Kreisky Prize in Austria for the Political Book of the Year and the Wolfson Literary Award for History 2000.

Publications:

• Making Friends with Hitler: Lord Londonderry and the British Road to War, (London, 2004)
• Hitler, 1936-2000: Nemesis, (London, 2000)
• Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris, (London, 1998)
• Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison, (ed. with Moshe Lewin) (Cambridge, 1997)
• Hitler: A Profile in Power, (London, 1991, rev. 2001)
• Weimar. Why did German Democracy Fail?, (ed.) (London, 1990)
• The 'Hitler Myth'. Image and Reality in the Third Reich (Oxford, 1987, rev. 2001).
• The Nazi Dictatorship. Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, (London, 1985, 4th ed., 2000)
• Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich. Bavaria, 1933-45, (Oxford, 1983, rev. 2002)

OU Lecture 2005: Hitler's Place in History in more depth: