Professor Nikolaus Wachsmann awarded Wolfson History Prize
Professor Nikolaus Wachsmann, of Birkbeck’s Department of History, Classics and Archaeology, has been awarded the Wolfson History Prize for his book on the history of Nazi concentration camps.
Professor Nikolaus Wachsmann, of Birkbeck’s Department of History, Classics and Archaeology, has been awarded the Wolfson History Prize for his book on the history of Nazi concentration camps.
Announced at a ceremony at Claridges’ Hotel on the evening of Wednesday 15th June in London, Professor Wachsmann was praised for his book KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps by Prize judge Professor Julia Smith.
“Wachsmann consistently brings shrewd historical judgement paired with great moral integrity to wrestling with some of the hardest questions a historian can face,” she said. “Commencing in 1933, he charts the evolution and politics of the [Nazi’s] entire institutional apparatus of repression and extermination of criminals, communists, the disabled, gypsies, homosexuals and others, as well as Jews.
“Importantly, he blends this with detailed attention to the experiences of both the sufferers and their tormenters, making this history in the round – from below as well as above. This deft balancing of competing perspectives rests upon prodigious archival research and the judicious deployment of a wealth of anecdotal detail.”
Along with Professor Wachsmann, a second prize was awarded to Robin Lane Fox, an Emeritus Fellow of New College, Oxford, for his work Augustine: Conversions and Confessions. As part of being awarded the Wolfson Prize, each receives an award of £30,000. The judges for the prize were Professor Sir David Cannadine (Chairman), Professor Sir Richard Evans, Professor Julia Smith, and Professor Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch.
As well as his role as professor of modern European history at Birkbeck, Professor Wachsmann is also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and is also the author of the prize-winning Hitler's Prisons. He is also the co-editor of Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany: The New Histories.
The Wolfson History Prize has been awarded annually since 1972. It was established largely on the initiative of Leonard Wolfson, with the aim of recognising scholarly works which would enhance public understanding of history and so encourage historians to write for a wider audience than academia.
This is the eighth time a Birkbeck academic has won the award. Previous recipients from the college are:
- Professor Jerry White (2002) – London in the Twentieth Century: A City and its People
- Professor Mark Mazower (former lecturer) (2001) – The Balkans
- Professor Joanna Bourke (2000) – An Intimate History of Killing
- Professor Eric J. Hobsbawm (former President) (1997) – For his distinguished contribution to the writing of history
- Professor Orlando Figes (1997) – A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution
- Professor Sir Richard Evans (former Vice-Master and Acting Master) (1989) – Death in Hamburg
- Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (former lecturer) (1976) – A History of Building Types
Further Information:
- Professor Nikolaus Wachsmann
- Department of History, Classics and Archaeology
- School of Social Sciences, History and Philosophy
- The Wolfson History Prize
- The Wolfson Foundation
- KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps