German atonement for the Holocaust is widely hailed as a paragon of national reckoning, and African American intellectuals such as Ta-Nehisi Coates have invoked Germany as a useful model in their calls for Americans to confront the legacy of slavery. In tracing the complex process by which Germans have dealt with the Nazi past, Chin considers how the German case is instructive for Americans seeking to pursue redress, as well as how Germany’s vaunted memory culture has become fossilized such that it has recently become a stumbling block for a German society struggling with contemporary challenges.

Rita Chin is Louise A. Tilly Collegiate Professor of European History at the University of Michigan and served as Associate Dean for Academic Programs and Initiatives at Rackham Graduate School from 2018-25. A historian of post-1945 Europe, she focuses on issues of immigration, race, and cultural diversity. Her books include The Crisis of Multiculturalism in Europe: A History, The Guest Worker Question in Postwar Germany, and After the Nazi Racial State: Difference and Democracy in Germany and Beyond (co-author).

This event presented by the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies. It is made possible in part by a generous contribution from Kenneth and Frances Aftel Eisenberg.