After the Nazi Racial State: Difference and Democracy in Germany and Europe (Social History, Popular Culture and Politics in Germany) - Softcover

"These pathbreaking essays lay out an important new framework for exploring the ways in which, to borrow from Robert Miles, overtly racist discourses about human biology became 'silent' but remained operative in the new discourses about cultural differences in the history of the Federal Republic." --The Journal of Central European History --Dennis Sweeney"The Journal of Central European History" (05/12/2011) "After the Nazi Racial State offers a comprehensive, persuasive, and ambitious argument in favor of making 'race' a more central analytical category for the writing of post-1945 history. This is an extremely important project, and the volume indeed has the potential to reshape the field of post-1945 German history." --Frank Biess, University of California, San Diego "These pathbreaking essays lay out an important new framework for exploring the ways in which, to borrow from Robert Miles, overtly racist discourses about human biology became 'silent' but remained operative in the new discourses about cultural differences in the history of the Federal Republic."---The Journal of Central European History

This is an investigation of the concept of 'race' in post-Nazi Germany.What happened to 'race', race thinking, and racial distinctions in Germany, and Europe more broadly, after the demise of the Nazi racial state? ""After the Nazi Racial State"" investigates the afterlife of 'race' since 1945 and challenges the long-dominant assumption among historians that it disappeared from public discourse and policy-making with the defeat of the Third Reich and its genocidal European empire. Drawing on case studies of Afro-Germans, Jews, and Turks - arguably the three most important minority communities in postwar Germany - the authors detail continuities and change across the 1945 divide and offer the beginnings of a history of race and racialization after Hitler. This book explores why the concept of 'race' became taboo as a tool for understanding German society after 1945. Most crucially, it suggests the social and epistemic consequences of this determined retreat from ""race"" for Germany and Europe as a whole.Currently a Woodrow Wilson Center Fellow, Rita Chin is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Michigan. Heidi Fehrenbach is Presidential Research Professor at Northern Illinois University. Geoff Eley is Karl Pohrt Distinguished University Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Michigan. Atina Grossmann is Professor of History at Cooper Union.