This conference is held in honour of late Dr. Rolf Hosfeld, historian, writer and academic director of the Lepsiushaus in Potsdam since 2011 who passed away on July 23, 2021.
For the past decade, Dr. Hosfeld initiated numerous regional and international research and education projects about the Armenian genocide and the history of humanitarianism. This international conference was amongst the main projects he had been working on these past two years, dear to his heart and to his commitment to promoting 20th century history in all its accuracy.
Ideas & their consequences: Genocide & International Justice after 1919
This conference aims to examine the growth of two opposing movement of ideas which emerged after the signature of the Treaty of Versailles in the summer 1919. One movement that gathered momentum advocated for international justice and for the rescue of the victims, especially those of the Armenian Genocide, as the allies established tribunals to try the perpetrators of atrocities and created the first High Commission for Refugees. On the other hand, a contrasting moment set the ideological foundations of the worst atrocities the century was yet to experience.
The conference will bring together key academics in two burgeoning fields of historical inquiry: the history of humanitarianism and international justice, on the one hand, and the history of political violence and radical political ideology in the interwar period, on the other.
Day One
17/4
7:45pm
Welcoming Dinner
Venue - European Academy Berlin
Day Two
28/08
Chair: Olaf Glöckner (Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies)
11.00 - 13.00
Stefan Ihrig (University of Haifa): Learning from the Turks - Interwar Germany, the Nazis and the Quest for Violent Solutions
Momme Schwarz (Saxonian Academy of Sciences, Leipzig): Jewish Minority Protection during the Interwar Period - The Comité des délégations juives and the Schwarzbard Trial
Chalak Kaveh (Volda University College): The Apex of European Traditional «Gypsy policy» in the Interwar Period – A History of Policy Radicalization
Panel 2: Remembrance, Trauma & Denialism
Chair: Roy Knocke (Lepsiushaus Potsdam)
14.00 - 16.30
Fatma Müge Göçek (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor): The Complexity of Denialism in Turkey during the Interwar Period
Gerd Hankel (Hamburg Foundation for the Promotion of Science and Culture, HSFWK): The Relationship between International Criminal Justice and Remembrance
Michael B. Elm (Tel Aviv University/Free University of Berlin): Remembering
the Great War in the Middle East. Constructing Cultural Trauma in Aljazeera (English) Documentaries
Day Three
29/08
Chair: Meinolf Arens (Internationales Institut für Nationalitätenrecht und Regionalismus, Munich)
11.00 - 13.00
Hülya Adak (Sabanci University/Free University of Berlin): Andrei N. Mandelstam and the History of Human Rights between the World Wars
Edita Gzoyan (Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, Yerevan):
Violence against Women and Children
in the Context of the Development
of International Law
Roy Knocke (Lepsiushaus Potsdam): Fridtjof Nansen: The Plight of Statelessness as an International Challenge
Panel 4: Atrocities Against Civilians and the Rise of Humanitarian Movements
Chair: Ronald G. Suny (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)
14.00 - 16.30
NB: this panel will take place online
Melanie Tanielian (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor): Violence, Aid and Non-State Actors: Humanitarian Intervention in Nineteenth-Century Anatolia
Charlie Laderman (King's College London): The Anglo-American Struggle to Save the Armenians and Remake Global Order
Hilmar Kaiser (Yerevan State University): The Armenian Origins of the Near East Relief
Genocide, Mass Violence & International Justice after 1919
The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919. That summer marked the beginning of two contrasting historical developments. One movement that gathered
momentum advocated for peaceful international solutions and justice and for the rescue of the victims, especially those of the Armenian Genocide and other mass atrocities. First steps of international justice were debated, the first High Commission for Refugees was created by the League of Nations. On the other hand, a contrasting moment set the ideological foundations of the worst atrocities the century was yet to experience.
In this regard, the conference sits at the intersection of two burgeoning fields of historical inquiry: the history of humanitarianism and international justice, on the one hand, and the history of political violence and radical political ideology in the interwar period, on the other. It aims to explore how these contrasting movements were affected by the atrocities of World War I and by the Treaties that ended the war (from Versailles to Lausanne), and what part they eventually played in political thinking in Europe.
Day One
27/08
19.00 - 20.30
Welcome Remarks
Keynote
Céline Gulekjian - AGBU Europe
Mila Stojanović - EUJS
Atanas Stoyanov - Phiren Amenca
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Roy Knocke - Lepsiushaus Potsdam
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"No peace to end all violence": Nationalism, Imperialism and Internationalism after 1919"
The European Academy Berlin
In the green heart of Berlin, a venue for ideas set in a 19th century style country house.
Europäische Akademie Berlin
Bismarckallee 46/48
14193 Berlin
Phone: +49 30 89 59 51 0
Fax: +49 30 89 59 51 95
Via Bus:
M19 to Tauberstr. (Berlin)
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Via S-Bahn:
S7 to S Grunewald (Berlin)
