With a Penetrating Gaze from the Sidelines

René Schlott is a freelance historian and associated researcher at the Centre for Contemporary History in Potsdam. He received his PhD in 2011 at the University of Giessen and is working on a biography of Raul Hilberg. He was awarded scholarships from the German Historical Institutes in Paris, Rome, and Washington, from the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and from the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies. He published numerous papers about life, work, and legacy of Raul Hilberg and is coeditor, with Walter H. Pehle, of Raul Hilberg's The Anatomy of the Holocaust. Selected Works from a Life of Scholarship (2020).

• List of IllustrationsIntroduction: Raul Hilberg: Life, Work, and Memory: Some Introductory ReflectionsRené Schlott and Wulf KansteinerPart I: The Destruction as Text: Evolution, Rhetoric, Aesthetics and BlindspotsChapter 1. Revisiting Hilberg’s Conceptual Model of the Development of the Destruction of the European JewsDan MichmanChapter 2. Emigration and Expropriation in Raul Hilberg’s Work The Destruction of the European JewsPeter KleinChapter 3. Law and History: Raul Hilberg, the Nuremberg Trial Documents, and Narrative Legacies of the ‘Final Solution’Hilary EarlChapter 4. Raul Hilberg and the Discussion around the FührerbefehlJürgen MatthäusChapter 5. “Much is Unsaid”: Women in the Life and Work of Raul HilbergDoris L. BergenChapter 6. “I Was Determined to Work on this Topic”. An Unpublished Interview with Raul Hilberg 1992Eveyln AdunkaChapter 7. Inside the Written Items: On the Laconism of Raul HilbergNicolas BergChapter 8. On the Moral Imprecision of Irony: Raul Hilberg’s Machinery of DestructionWulf KansteinerConclusion I: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Blind Spots. The Work of Raul Hilberg in Historiographical PerspectiveOlof BortzPart II: Hilberg and Holocaust HistoriographyChapter 9. After Destruction: Assessing Hilberg’s Mid-Career ScholarshipChristopher R. BrowningChapter 10. Raul Hilberg and the Perpetrator DocumentsSusanne HeimChapter 11. Precision, Severity, and Seriousness. Raul Hilberg’s Significance for Holocaust ResearchSybille SteinbacherChapter 12. Raul Hilberg, the Term Holocaust, and the Conferences from San José to StuttgartMagnus BrechtkenChapter 13. Franz Neumann’s Behemoth and the Beginnings of Holocaust Research with Raul HilbergAlfons SöllnerChapter 14. Two Different Fathers of Holocaust Research. Raul Hilberg and Philip FriedmanElisabeth GallasChapter 15. “Over and Over, She Returns Like a Ghost.” Reflections on the Conflict between Hannah Arendt and Raul HilbergAnna CorstenConclusion II: Raul Hilberg as a “First Mover”Peter HayesIndex