Syllabus
1. Conceptual discussion, program, aims of the course
2. Cleansing and genocide before the 20th century
3. The Balkan wars 1912/13
4. The Armenian genocide
5. The Shoa I: National-socialist racism until World War II
6. The Shoa II: National-socialist annihilation policy 1939-45
7. Crimes against humanity: The Nuremberg trials and the UN-genocide convention
8. Communist cleansing: Stalinism in power
9. Cambodia: The Pol Pot regime
10. Ruanda 1994
11. Cleansing in Yugoslavia in the 1990s
12. Concluding debates
Annotation
In 1944 the term „genocide“ was coined by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raffael Lemkin, the term „ethnic cleansing“ became popular in Western languages not before 1992. However, mass murder and cleansing, organized by governments, are phenomena which appeared much ealier in world history. 1. The lecturer gives an overview about the theoretical problems caused by the interdisciplinary international discussions concerning the topic (history, international law, sociology, political science). 2. It focusses on several cases of genocide in the 20th century and analysis the contexts in which extrem forms of mass violence, committed by a state, became possible. 3. It discusses several reactions of the so called „world community“ to stop any kind of crimes against humanity both by international law and by military intervention.
The students should be prepared to give short presentations (10-15 minutes).
The lecture will start on 1st of March.