Month: May 2025

Public lecture, presented at the Ratsaal des Bürgerhauses, Nordhausen Town Hall, Nordhausen am Harz, 9 May 2025.Read more...

Review of Mary Fulbrook's Bystander Society: Conformity and Complicity in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2023), The English Historical Review 140, Issue 602, February 2025, pp. 266–268.

In a political landscape where the stability of democracy seems once again to be embattled by the rise of far-right parties, Mary Fulbrook’s exploration of how quickly the general population might condone the ultimately genocidal persecution of minorities under an authoritarian regime is both salutary and sobering.Read more...

in Miniatures: A Reader in the History of Everyday Life, ed. Kate Ferris, Huw Halstead, Exeter (University of Exeter Press), 2025, pp. 54-65.

In spring 1936, teenage schoolboy Dick Hargreaves was given the chance to go on an all-expenses-paid exchange trip to Germany. But this was no ordinary school exchange – Hargreaves’ destination was Oranienstein, one of a system of new elite boarding schools known as Napolas. An accompanying essay demonstrates the ways in which this ego-document can help us understand the nature of dictatorship.Read more...

On 7 May 2025, the exhibition on which Helen has been collaborating with Brandenburg's State Centre for Civic Education (Brandenburgische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung) officially opened. The exhibition, which runs until 8 October, explores the history of the Napola in Potsdam, current site of the Brandenburg State Government, and draws extensively on Helen's research.Read more...

Helen has recently published a chapter in Miniatures: A Reader in the History of Everyday Life, entitled 'Diary of a Schoolboy in Nazi Germany', as well as publishing a review in the English Historical Review of Mary Fulbrook's monograph Bystander Society.Read more...

In 2024-5, Helen collaborated with Brandenburg's State Centre for Civic Education on an exhibition featuring the history of the Napola in Potsdam. The current site of the Centre, and the current State Government of Brandenburg, used to be the site of the Nazi elite-school in Potsdam. The Centre welcomed this opportunity to explore the contested history of the location. The exhibition will run until 8 October 2025 and is free to all members of the public.Read more...