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The Berlin Mission
February 11, 2021 at 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
A Conversation with Richard Breitman
A Public Webinar Discussion
Thursday, February 11, 2021
7:00 pm EDT
In 1929, Raymond Geist went to Berlin as a consul. Once the Nazis began to oppress Jews and others, Geist’s role became critical. Even while hiding his own homosexual relationship with a German, Geist challenged the Nazi state when it threatened US interests. He maintained a working relationship with high Nazi officials such as Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, and Hermann Göring. He also made great use of a restrictive US immigration quota, helping to secure the emigration of Sigmund Freud among others, including hundreds of unaccompanied children. He was the first American official to warn explicitly that what lay ahead for Germany’s Jews was what would become known as the Holocaust.
Join us for a conversation with Richard Breitman, author of The Berlin Mission: The American Who Resisted Nazi Germany From Within
Richard Breitman is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at American University. His many books include The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution (1991); Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew (1998); and FDR and the Jews (co-authored with Allan J. Lichtman).
Rebecca Erbelding is the author of Rescue Board: The Untold Story of America’s Efforts to Save the Jews of Europe, which won the 2018 JDC-Herbert Katzki National Jewish Book Award. She holds a PhD in American history from George Mason University and has worked as a historian, curator, and archivist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum since 2003.
Norman J.W. Goda is the Norman and Irma Braman Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Florida. His books include Tomorrow the World: Hitler, Northwest Africa, and the Path Toward America (1998); Tales from Spandau: Nazi Germany and the Cold War (2009); and The Holocaust: Europe, the World, and the Jews, 1918-1945 (2016).