Class Colloquium 11: Richard Breitman – Refugees & Immigration, 1930s and now

ByArthur Segal

Some say that the challenges we face today resonate with at least one aspect of what the country faced in the 1930s — how to deal with refugees fleeing for their lives.

As luck would have it, one of the jewels in our Class, Richard Breitman (Wikipedia), has made a career researching, writing and teaching about that period, especially the role Franklin Roosevelt played vis a vis the Holocaust and related emergencies.

Join Class Colloquium 11 on July 14th (Bastille Day!) at 2:00 pm EDT for a presentation by Richard — where he’ll share some observations about what we can learn from that chapter of American History — and what it means for us today.   Be sure to register now for the zoom meeting.

We’ll follow the format for Class Colloquia, recently developed, which seems to work best: Having our expert briefly share some critical points they have assembled for YOU, followed by Q&A from you.  We are finding Q&A a richer form of exchange than full-on lecture/presentation… especially Q&A investigating the trenchant observations from the speaker, as tailored for our class.

For this Class Colloquium, we’ll also be exploring some new breakout room ideas.

So, register now and get it on your calendar!

Also …

Check out Richard’s newest book, The Berlin Mission, a wonderful biography of an unknown American hero … sort of our version of Oskar Schindler.  Richard’s research revealed how Geist expedited the exit of Albert Einstein.   Geist also extricated Sigmund Freud from Vienna and warned the US about the scale and urgency of the humanitarian crisis.

Even while hiding his own homosexual relationship with a German, Geist fearlessly challenged the Nazi police state whenever it abused Americans in Germany or threatened US interests. He made greater use of a restrictive US immigration quota and secured exit visas for hundreds of unaccompanied children. All the while, he maintained a working relationship with high Nazi officials such as Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, and Hermann Göring.

Check out some of the rave reviews from readers — 4.5 stars

About Richard Breitman

Co-author of twelve books and many articles in German history, U.S. history, and the Holocaust. His books The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution (New York: Knopf, 1991) and Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998), were translated into five foreign languages.

FDR and the Jews, co-authored with Allan J. Lichtman, won the 2013 National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish Studies and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History.

His latest book, The Berlin Mission: The American Who Resisted Nazi Germany from Within, was published by Public Affairs in late 2019. Breitman is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at American University and is editor of the journal Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

He received his B.A. from Yale and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard. He received an honorary doctorate from Hebrew Union College.  He received the distinguished achievement award for Holocaust studies and research from the Holocaust Educational Foundation in 2018. He lives in the Washington, DC area.

See ALL of Richard’s books here.

Honors, Awards, and Fellowships

  • Phi Beta Kappa (Yale)
  • Graduation Honors, Highest Distinction in History and Political Science and Summa cum Laude (Yale)
  • Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Fellowship 1987
  • Merit of Distinction Award, Center for Holocaust Studies, Anti-Defamation League for Breaking the Silence
  • Fraenkel Prize for Contemporary History for The Architect of Genocide
  • Finalist, National Jewish Book Award, 1999 for Holocaust Studies, for Official Secrets
  • Honorary Degree, (Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa), Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, 1999
  • Who’s Who in America
  • Ina Levine Invitational Scholar, U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2005-06.

Selected Publications

  • German History in Documents and Images: Nazi Germany (1933-45) (e-book available at  http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_docs.cfm?section_id=13
  • Richard Breitman, Barbara McDonald Stewart, and Severin Hochberg, eds., Advocate for the  Doomed: The Diaries and Papers of James G. McDonald, 1932-35, Bloomington: Indiana  University Press, 2007.
  • Richard Breitman, Norman J. W. Goda, and Timothy Naftali, U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis,  Washington, D. C.: The National Archives Trust Fund for the Nazi War Criminals Records  Interagency Working Group, 2004.
  • Ausbildungsziel Judenmord?: Weltanschauliche Erziehung von SS, Polizei, und Waffen-SS  im Rahmen der ‘Endlösung’, ed. Jürgen Matthäus Jürgen Förster, Konrad Kwiet and Richard  Breitman (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2003).
  • Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew (New York:  Hill and Wang/Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1998).
  • The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution, New York: Alfred A. Knopf,  1991.
  • Richard Breitman and Alan Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933-1945,  Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
  • Walter Laqueur and Richard Breitman, Breaking the Silence, New York: Simon and Schuster,      1986.
  • German Socialism and Weimar Democracy, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981.

Leave a Reply