Many observers from abroad have long regarded Germany’s confrontation with its Nazi past as exemplary. For some months, however, this assessment has been massively questioned. The understanding of the Holocaust as a "breach of civilisation" is seen by some as a politically convenient dogma that hinders confrontation with Germany's colonial crimes.

Norbert Frei, Chair of Modern and Contemporary History at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, contradicts this thesis by describing the complex history of Germany’s handling of the Nazi past as a project of societal self-enlightenment.

The annual Alfred Landecker Memorial Lecture is followed by a panel discussion with the Blavatnik School of Government's Maya Tudor, Mary Fulbrook (Professor of German History at UCL) and Nicholas Stargadt (Professor of Modern European History at Magdalen College, Oxford).