Lecture & Discussion

Bonn: »Bloodlands«

The Amerika Haus e.V. NRW invited in cooperation with Stiftung Haus der Geschichte to a lecture with Timothy Snyder, winner of the Leipzig Book Award 2012.

We were delighted to welcome the American author and historian Timothy Snyder who was only recently awarded with the Leipzig Book Award.

His prize-winning book Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, a history of Nazi and Soviet mass killing on the lands between Berlin and Moscow, published in 2010, was awarded with the Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding earlier this year. It has been translated into twenty languages, becoming book of the year 2010 and a bestseller.

Numerous attendees came to the Haus der Geschichte (HdG) in Bonn, on Mai 6, 2012 to listen to the lecture held by Timothy Snyder, who was just awarded the Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding. All seats were taken. In his welcoming speech Prof. Dr. Hans Walter Hütter, HdG’s President, pointed out that the topic prevails and that Timothy Snyder had impressingly accomplished to redefine the area under examination of mass murder during World War II.

In his lecture, which Timothy Snyder gave in German, he first spoke about the inhabitants of the Bloodlands, the Eastern-European area decisive for Hitler’s and Stalin’s power political campaigns. Referring to diary entries and letters, he told the story of a starving man digging his own grave in order to avoid an anonymous mass grave. Furthermore he told the story of a family living in a ghetto, missing their relatives. Timothy Snyder highlighted that the family was regarded as most important support, by those suffering hardship.

These were only two out of 14 million stories which had taken place in the bloodlands. Timothy Snyder gave insight to his sources and left room for questions: If so many people lost their lives in the bloodlands, why was the momentousness not accordingly acknowledged? As a possible answer to that question, Timothy Snyder suggested, that man would view history on a national level. German and Soviet crimes would be seen as separate from one another and examined according to that. On a historical level the overlaps were therefore not fully reviewed. This separation of the areas under examination is quite convenient, Timothy Snyder pointed out, but history had nothing to do with convenience. Accordingly, when writing he had tried to avoid “Special Treatment”.

With respect to World War II he observed that the Holocaust was the worst catastrophe, but not the only one. As he pointed out, the mass dying in the bloodlands was mostly caused by deliberate starving campaigns; the wider context should therefore not be left unacknowledged. The Yale Professor further explained why the Hitler and Stalin regimes decided to become militarily active in the bloodlands. Both campaigns were neo-colonial projects which covered the same regions of Europe. According to Timothy Snyder, The Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union of 1939 had come to pass, because Poland was an obstacle for both Hitler and Stalin. But because Ukraine was supposed to become the “breadbasket” for both parties, and could only be controlled by one, war broke out in 1941.

Timothy Snyder emphasized that Bloodlands did not aim to make a comparison between two evils. Comparing the Holocaust to any other genocide is highly controversial in Germany. Yet he pointed out that a supranational historiography may at times need to make a comparison to substantiate an argument. A comparison should therefore not be tabooed.

Before Timothy Snyder engaged in a discussion with his discussion partner Prof. Dr. Joachim  Scholtyseck and the audience, he stated his motivation for writing Bloodlands:  to turn casualty figures back into names.

Summary by Julia Große-Vorholt, Amerika Hau e.V. NRW

Timothy Snyder is Bird White Housum Professor of History at Yale University since 2001, teaching courses in modern East European political history. Previously, Timothy Snyder has lived and worked in Europe. He speaks five and reads ten languages. Snyder’s research findings have not only been published within scientific but in many journalistic journals, such as the New York Times.

Moderation: Prof. Dr. Joachim Scholtyseck, University of Bonn

Amerika Haus e.V. NRW

In coorperation with Stiftung Haus der Geschichte Bonn