Gerald Steinacher

Gerald J. Steinacher is the James A. Rawley Professor of History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (USA). His research focuses on 20th Century European History with an emphasis on the Holocaust, National Socialism, Italian Fascism, and intelligence studies. He has published four books, edited ten more, and written over seventy book chapters and journal articles on these topics. Steinacher’s research has been featured in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Jerusalem Post, and the German weekly Der Spiegel among others.

Steinacher’s 2011 book, Nazis on the Run: How Hitler's Henchmen Fled Justice, examines the post-war fate of Nazis and Holocaust perpetrators, and the institutions facilitating their escape from Europe. The book was published by Oxford University Press in 2011 and has been translated in several languages. It was awarded the 2011 National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust category. Steinacher’s most recent book, Humanitarians at War: The Red Cross in the Shadow of the Holocaust, was published with Oxford University Press in 2017. The book explores the lessons learned by the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross from its handling of the Holocaust, and the ensuing policy changes regarding genocide and victims of war.

Steinacher’s current research project, under the working title The Pope against Nuremberg: Nazi War Crimes Trials, the Vatican and the Question of Postwar Justice, examines the attitude of the Catholic Church leadership towards Nuremberg trials and the denazification of Germany in the first post-war decade. The project analyzes church alternatives to retributive justice as a way of dealing with guilt and responsibility after World War II and the Holocaust. Steinacher is also the co-editor of the series Contemporary Holocaust Studies published with the University of Nebraska Press. The most recent volume in the series is about Antisemitism on the Rise: The 1930s and Today.

Steinacher has held many distinguished research fellowships and visiting professorships. These include fellowships at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, at the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem (Jerusalem), at the Institute for Contemporary History (Munich), and most recently the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies. In 2006 he was a Visiting Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington, DC) and since then has continued to work closely with the Museum’s education and research programs.