Expanding Targets: Eastern Europeans and Redefinitions

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Jochen Hellbeck about Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Jews. They discuss Soviet communism and anti-semitism as unified opposition for the Nazis, anti-communism fueling public agreement, western views of anti-communism and anti-semitism, and how this was given to the German public. They also talk about Hitler invading Poland, pivot to genocide, killing Eastern Europeans, how Germans were treated after the end of WWII, and many more topics.

Jochen Hellbeck is Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University, specializing in modern Russia, the Soviet Union, and the history of World War II. The recipient of fellowships from the New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the American Academy in Berlin, among others, he is the acclaimed author of Stalingrad: The City That Defeated the Third Reich, Revolution on My Mind: Writing a Diary under Stalin, and latest book, World Enemy #1: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Fate of the Jews.