International Conference at the German Historical Institute Washington / Conveners: Ulrike von Hirschhausen (GHI Washington) and Robert Gerwarth (University College Dublin), 28-29 May 2026
The legacy of Western colonialism, its "imperial legacies," and its relationship to Nazi rule and the Holocaust have caused a fierce public debate raging on both sides of the Atlantic for several years now. This debate, widely known in Germany as the "Historikerstreit 2.0" revolves around two key questions: how mass crimes should be publicly remembered and whether there is a causal connection and/or structural similarities between colonial violence and Nazi mass violence, including the Shoah.
The seemingly irreconcilable positions of the debate so far have mostly been presented in programmatic essays and newspaper articles but are rarely substantiated by empirically grounded social-historical analyses.
Empirically oriented historians have so far only partially contributed to the discussion. This is precisely where the conference aims to intervene—by bringing greater objectivity to the currently heated debate through a clear empirical and social-historical analysis of systems of rule and mass violence.
We invite scholars from different methodological and historical backgrounds to submit proposals relevant to one of the planned panels of the conference.
- occupation regimes
- settlers
- counterinsurgency/partisan warfare
- camps
- collaboration
- forced labor and expropriation
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The event is jointly organized by the German Historical Institute Washington and the Centre for War Studies, University College Dublin. The conveners are Ulrike von Hirschhausen (GHI) and Robert Gerwarth (UCD). The conference will take place from May, 28 - 29, 2026 at the GHI.
Please submit an abstract (max. 500 words) and a short biography (max. 150 words) in English via the GHI online platform by July 1, 2025.
Applicants will be notified by early September 2025. Accommodation will be arranged and paid for by the conference organizers. Participants will make their own travel arrangements. Funding subsidies for travel are available upon request for selected scholars, especially those who might not otherwise be able to attend the workshop, including early-career scholars and scholars from universities with limited resources.
Please contact Nicola Hofstetter (hofstetter-phelps@ghi-dc.org) if you have any difficulties submitting your information online or if you have other questions related to the event.