Year: 2022
Review of 'German Catholicism at War' by Thomas BrodieReview of Thomas Brodie, German Catholicism at War 1939-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), History. The Journal of the Historical Association 107, Issue 374, January 2022, pp. 184-6.
Thomas Brodie’s engaging and eminently readable study of German Catholicism during the Second World War represents both a tour de force of highly original and meticulous scholarship, and an exceptional work of Alltagsgeschichte. Brodie provides his readers with a fully nuanced account of Catholic reactions to war and genocide.Read more...
Presented as part of a virtual lecture series for Ukrainian students entitled 'Empire, War, Identities: Ancient Lessons for the Present Day', 13 June 2022.Read more...
Presented at a virtual workshop on 'The Politics of Decadence', International Institute for Cultural Enquiry, University of Exeter, 16 May 2022.Read more...
Guest lecture, presented at University College, Durham, 14 March 2022.Read more...
'Nazi Elite Boarding Schools and the Attempted Creation of a New Class System'in Global Perspectives on Boarding Schools in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, ed. Daniel Gerster, Felicity Jenz, Basingstoke (Palgrave Macmillan), 2022, pp. 79-100.
This article uses the elite education provided by the Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten (Napolas) as a case study of the Nazi regime’s drive to eradicate class-based social differences. Nazi propaganda claimed that the Napolas embodied the most ‘socialist’ elements of National Socialism, and that they were instrumental in realising the Nazi ideal of the Volksgemeinschaft.Read more...
Helen's book The Third Reich's Elite Schools: A History of the Napolas has recently been featured by boarding-school syndrome expert and therapist Piers Cross on his podcast 'An Evolving Man'. You can watch the podcast on Youtube here.Read more...
In 2022, three of Helen's book reviews were published in History. The Journal of the Historical Association, the Journal of Hellenic Studies and Germania: Anzeiger der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts.
On 13 May 2022, Helen's book The Third Reich's Elite Schools: A History of the Napolas received an extremely favourable review in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany's leading broadsheets. The book has also received critical acclaim in the online journal Sehepunkte.Read more...
Invited lecture, given via zoom to pupils at Brentwood School, 20 January 2022.Read more...
At 10pm on Wednesday 16 March, Helen will be speaking about her research on the Napolas on BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking programme, with presenter Anne McElvoy, author Philip Oltermann, playwright Pamela Carter, and Germanist Karen Leeder. You can tune in here or on BBC Sounds.Read more...