What Would Hitler Do?

Godwin's Law, Holocaust Denial & Historical Evidence

Monday, April 27 2015 at 7:30PM

Farm Road Sports & Social Club
Farm Road
Sheffield
South Yorkshire S2 2TP

Who?
Vicky Stiles

What's the talk about?

The Third Reich was a large, complex, modern state with a thriving mass media, diverse population, and fruitful trade and cultural links with the rest of the world. The ideology behind National Socialism drew upon well-established strands of nationalist and racialist thinking as well as centuries-old anti-Semitism, and the Nazi Party and its government used cutting-edge technology and techniques to give these ideas the broadest possible audience and appeal.

All too often, this baffling web of networks, policies and overlapping interest groups, which changed constantly over the twelve years the Third Reich lasted, gets reduced to the ideas and actions of just one man. From the top of the ivory tower, to the very bottom of the bottom half of the internet, this talk will explore what Adolf Hitler means to all of us, and how our obsession with him is sucking the meaning out one of our most potent historical symbols: the Holocaust.

Victoria Stiles recently completed a PhD in History at the University of Nottingham and is a co-organiser of the Greater Manchester Skeptics Society. Her research encompasses stereotype formation, the manipulation of evidence and attitudes towards imperialism in Nazi Germany, as well as Anglo-German relations. She occasionally blogs about her sources and what it means to "do" history at http://tattyjackets.blogspot.co.uk/

Around the world, humanists and atheists face increasing discrimination, persecution and violence. Andrew Copson will talk about ‘Freedom of Thought 2014: A Global Report on the Rights, Legal Status, and Discrimination Against Humanists, Atheists, and the Non-religious’ published recently by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), which details the situation of non-religious people in every country of the world for the first time.

Andrew Copson is Chief Executive Officer of the British Humanist Association. He is a former director of the European Humanist Federation (EHF) and is currently First Vice President of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), where he leads on Communications. He has previously served as a delegate of the IHEU to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and has also represented humanist organisations to the United Nations (UN) and Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). He has advised on Humanism for the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Authority, the Department for Children, Schools and Families, the BBC, and the Office of National Statistics among others.