On 2/24/21, Hunter hosted this program as part of the Robert Seltzer Lunch Lecture Series.
In the final days of April 1945, guards at the Dachau Main Camp forced nearly 7,000 prisoners onto the roads of southern Bavaria, headed for the Alps as American troops closed in.
This lecture discussed the course and aftermath of the last of the Dachau death marches, using testimonies by survivors, American soldiers, and German civilians from communities through which the march passed.
How can we use survivor testimony to reconstruct events that happened sometimes decades before those testimonies were recorded? How did those Germans who witnessed these horrific events later come to understand their role in the crimes of the Nazi state?
Adam R. Seipp is a Professor of History at Texas A&M University, where he also serves as Assistant Provost for Graduate and Professional Studies. His teaching and research focus on German and transatlantic history in the 20th century. He is the author and editor of several books including, Strangers in the Wild Place: Refugees, Americans, and a German Town, 1945-1952. He is currently working on several research projects, including a study of Holocaust-era liberator testimonies. He recently published Buschenwald Stories: Testimony, Military History, and the American Encounter with the Holocaust in the Journal of Military History.
Watch the program below.
