In co-operation with the Modern History Research Seminar, University of Oxford.
On 19 December,1980, Shlomo Lewin, the former head of the Nuremberg Jewish community, and his partner Frida Poeschke were shot in their home in Erlangen. Instead of following the leads that would take them to the right-wing extremist perpetrator, the state lawyer and the police focused on Lewin’s social environment. This antisemitic murder is part of a long history of terrorist violence by the right in (West-)Germany that has been almost aggressively suppressed. This lecture reconstructs the lives of the victims and examines the activities of the ‘paramilitary sports group’ the murderer had belonged to, and those of its founder Karl-Heinz Hoffmann. It compares this attack to other attacks by right-wing extremists in 1980, discussing the problematic mechanisms behind how Germany as a whole and German historians dealt with right-wing violence.
Uffa Jensen, born in 1969, is a historian and deputy head of the Center for Research on Antisemitism. He focuses on various topics within the history of antisemitism and Jewish history, as well as within the histories of science, emotions, and images.
This lecture will take place as a hybrid event at the GHIL and online via Zoom. In order to attend this event, please register via Eventbrite to take part in person or online.