JOINED THE DEPARTMENT

2011

BIO

Gerald J. Steinacher is the James A. Rawley Professor of History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). His research focuses on modern European history with an emphasis on the Holocaust, and on modern German, Italian and Austrian history. He has published fifteen books and written over one hundred book chapters and journal articles on a wide range of topics such as Nazi perpetrators and postwar justice; the Vatican and the Holocaust; the history of espionage in WWII and the Early Cold War; anti-Nazi resistance groups; Italian Fascism and its policies against minorities, as well as the architecture of Italian Fascism; European antisemitism in past and present; refugees and migration after WWII; and humanitarianism in the 20th century. Steinacher’s research has been featured in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Jerusalem Post, and the German weekly Der Spiegel, among others.

Steinacher’s 2011 book Nazis on the Run: How Hitler's Henchmen Fled Justice examines the post-war fate of Nazis and Holocaust perpetrators and the institutions facilitating their escape from Europe. The book was published by Oxford University Press in 2011 and has been translated into several languages. It was awarded the 2011 National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust category. Steinacher’s most recent monograph, Humanitarians at War: The Red Cross in the Shadow of the Holocaust, was published by Oxford University Press in 2017. The book explores the lessons learned by the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross from its handling of the Holocaust, as well as the ensuing policy changes of the organization regarding genocide and victims of war.

Steinacher’s current research project, tentatively titled The Pope against Nuremberg: Nazi War Criminals, the Vatican and Postwar Justice, explores the Catholic Church leadership’s stance on Nazi war criminals and its role in the postwar reckoning with the Hitler regime. At the heart of this book are the questions of how a society can move forward after a dictatorship, war, or genocide. 

Steinacher has held many distinguished research fellowships and visiting professorships. These include fellowships at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, at the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem (Jerusalem), at the Institute for Contemporary History (Munich), and at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies. In 2006, he was a visiting fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and since then has continued to work closely with the Museum’s education and research programs. He has also taught or held visiting professorships at the University of Munich, University of Passau, University of Lucerne, Australian National University, University of Venice, Uppsala University, and Central European University.

Steinacher serves on Executive Boards and Advisory Councils of several professional organizations, including the Austrian Studies Association, the Holocaust Educational Foundation at Northwestern University (HEFNU), and the American Friends of the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance (DOEW). He is also the co-editor, along with Ari Kohen, of the series Contemporary Holocaust Studies published by the University of Nebraska Press.

CV

TEACHING

Undergraduate Courses

• HIST 131: Modern Europe
• HIST 328: History of Germany: 1914 to the Present
• HIST 333 / JUDS 333 / RELG 333: Jews in the Modern World
• HIST 337: History of Modern Espionage and Intelligence 
• HIST 339 / JUDS 339: The Holocaust 
• HIST 429: History of Fascism in Europe
• HIST 448: History Harvest
• HIST 450: Capstone Seminar
• UHON 395H: Honors Seminar

Graduate Courses

• HIST 828: History of Germany: 1914 to the Present
• HIST 829: History of Fascism in Europe
• HIST 839: The Holocaust
• HIST 848: History Harvest
• HIST 894: Independent Study 
• HIST 900: Introduction to Historical Study
• HIST 933: Readings and Problems in Recent European History
• HIST 985 / GERM 985: Readings and Problems in Central European History

SELECTED BOOKS

• Fascist Legacies: Far-Right Ideologies Then and Now. Co-edited with Ari Kohen. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, forthcoming.
• Antisemitism on the Rise: The 1930s and Today. Co-edited with Ari Kohen. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021.
• Humanitarians at War: The Red Cross in the Shadow of the Holocaust. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
• Nazis on the Run: How Hitler's Henchmen Fled Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
• Südtirol und die Geheimdienste 1943-1945. Vienna: Studienverlag, 2000.

BOOK REVIEWS

• Professor Steinacher’s talk at Harvard University about his new book project The Pope Against Nuremberg
• UNL Professor Steinacher talks about his book Nazis on the Run on C-SPAN TV
• Gerald Steinacher interviewed by HNN History News Network
• Review of Nazis on the Run by Philip Kerr in the Wall Street Journal
• Review of Nazis on the Run by David Cesarini in the New Statesman
• Review of Nazis on the Run by Robert Gerwarth in The Irish Times
• Review of Nazis on the Run by Steven P. Remy in Holocaust and Genocide Studies
• Review of Humanitarians at War by Edward B. Westermann in the German Studies Review
• Review of Humanitarians at War by Peter Crossland in Holocaust and Genocide Studies

SELECTED ARTICLES

• "Le pape contre Nuremberg: Les procès des crimes de guerre nazis, le Vatican et la question de la justice après la guerre", in Revue d’Histoire de la Shoah, automne 2023 (Vatican, Église et Shoah: Renouveau historiographique autour des archives Pie XII), pp. 301-322, [English version here: "The Pope against Nuremberg: Nazi war crimes trials, the Vatican, and the question of postwar justice"]
• "Forgive and Forget? The Vatican and the Escape of Nazi War Criminals from Justice" in: S:I.M.O.N. – Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation, 9 (2022) 1, 4-28.
• "Introduction", in: Antisemitism on the Rise: The 1930s and Today, ed. A. Kohen & G. Steinacher. Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 2021, 1-20.
• "The Oldest Post-Truth? The Rise of Antisemitism in America and Beyond", in: History in a Post-Truth World: Theory and Praxis, edited by Marius Gudonis and Benjamin T. Jones (Oxford: Routledge: 2020), 121-141.
• "Österreich und die Flucht von NS-Tätern nach Übersee", in: Jahrbuch Mauthausen 2016: NS-Täterinnen und Täter in der Nachkriegszeit, pp. 35-50.
• "Dolmetscher, Spione und Mörder: Südtiroler im Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers SS in Italien 1943-45", in: Das Lehnswesen im Alpenraum/Vassalli e feudi nelle Alpi, Geschichte und Region/Storia e regione, 22. Jahrgang, 2013, Helft 1 – anno XXII, 2013, n. 1, (Innsbruck, Wien, & Bozen/Bolzano: Studien Verlag, 2014), 109–136.
• "The University in Exile and the Garden of Eden: Alvin Johnson and his rescue efforts for European Jews and Intellectuals", in: Reassessing History from Two Continents: Festschrift Günter Bischof, edited by Martin Eichtinger et al., (Innsbruck: Innsbruck University Press, 2013) 49–68.
• "Il Signor Mengele di Bolzano": L'Alto Adige come via di fuga dei criminali nazisti (1945-1951), in: Dalla liberazione alla ricostruzione: Alto Adige/Südtirol 1945–1948, ed. Giorgio Mezzalira, Fabrizio Miori, Giovanni Perez, and Carlo Romeo (Bolzano: Edition Raetia, 2013) 33–56.
• "’A Man with a Wide Horizon’: The Postwar Professional Journey of SS Officer Karl Nicolussi-Leck", in: Nazi Self-Help and Recast Identities: Post-War Fates of Nazi Functional Elites, edited by David A. Messenger and Katrin Paehler (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2013) 225-248.
• "The Cape of Last Hope. The Postwar Flight of Nazi War Criminals through Italy/South Tyrol to South America", in: Transatlantic Relations: Austria and Latin America in the 19th and 20th Century (Transatlantica 1), edited by Klaus Eisterer and Günter Bischof (Innsbruck: Studienverlag, 2006) 203-224.

EXPERTISE

• Nazi Germany
• Holocaust
• Catholic Church
• Italian Fascism
• Antisemitism
• Jewish History
• Intelligence and Espionage History
• Central European History