Michael Brenner, an American University distinguished professor of history, will present ‘When Democracy Died in Darkness: German-Jewish Responses to Hitler’s Rise’ 

A pre-eminent scholar of German-Jewish studies will present a lecture Tuesday focusing on democracy and the German-Jewish responses to Adolf Hitler’s rise.

Michael Brenner, a distinguished professor of history and the Seymour and Lillian Abensohn Chair in Israel Studies at American University and the Chair of Jewish History and Culture at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany, will present “When Democracy Died in Darkness: German-Jewish Responses to Hitler’s Rise” at 5 p.m. Tuesday in the Norlin Library’s Center for British and Irish Studies Room; tickets are not required. The presentation will also be streamed on Zoom. For more information, email Eli Sacks.

Brenner’s visit is co-sponsored by the University of Colorado Boulder Center for Humanities and the Arts; the departments of German and Slavic Languages and Literatures and History; the Program in Jewish Studies; the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization; CU Boulder Hillel; and the Louis P. Singer Chair in Jewish History.

His lecture will address the different ways in which German Jews of all shades responded to the revocation of their equal rights of being German citizens, answering the questions: What were their expectations as 1933 began; how did they react to the rapidly changing circumstances after Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933; and what is the relevance of these events in the light of present threats to American democracy?

Brenner was born to Holocaust survivors in Germany shortly after the war and genocide. He has received many prizes and fellowships, including the Baron Award for Scholarly Excellence in Research of the Jewish Experience. He is the author of 10 books that have been translated into more than a dozen languages. His latest are In Hitler’s Munich: Jews, the Revolution, and the Rise of Nazism and In Search of Israel: The History of an Idea.

Brenner also will present a special research colloquium for students and faculty on various aspects of his work at 8 a.m. Tuesday in E250 at the Center for Academic Success and Engagement (CASE). For more information email Thomas Pegelow Kaplan.

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