Controversial Kinship
Colonial and National Socialist Violence
Pei Building, Basement
What do colonial and Nazi violence have in common? How do they differ? And why has the question of a possible connection between the two remained controversial to this day? Since the 1930s, questions such as these have been debated by anti-colonial thinkers, journalists, politicians, historians, and Holocaust survivors. The exhibition "Controversial Kinship. Colonial and National Socialist Violence" examines a historical comparison that has been debated for nearly a century and extends far beyond the discipline of history. The exhibition traces the ongoing debate over similarities, differences, and equivalence back to its historical origins. The museum’s aim is to promote a more nuanced discussion of the topic and enable visitors to assess such comparisons for themselves on the basis of historical evidence.
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Publication
Controversial Kinship
Historical foundations of the debate on the relationship between colonial and national socialist violence
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![Cover of the 5th “Historische Urteilskraft” magazine.]()
Publication
Historical Judgement 05. Magazine of the Deutsches Historisches Museum
In the current issue of the magazine “Historische Urteilskraft”, Susan Buck-Morss, Christiane Bürger, Pascal Grosse, Thomas Khurana, Elísio Macamo, Willeke Sandler, David Simo, George Steinmetz, Benedikt Stuchtey, Lora Wildenthal, and Chunjie Zhang explore colonial and anti-colonial thinking in German history. Their contributions begin with Hegel, Herder, and Kant, move to the Weimar Republic and National Socialism, and conclude with East and West Germany in the 1960s and 1970s.
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Picture: Clearing of land by setting grass on fire during a German research expedition to Tendaguru in German East Africa (now Tanzania), 1909–1913, Photographer: Edwin Hennig or Werner Janensch © Berlin, Museum für Naturkunde, K 002, 414.