How do genocidal systems collapse? What is the fate of the people who lead them? 

Join the UAB Department of History, generously supported by the Rita and Sol Kimerling Public History Endowment and in partnership with the Alabama Holocaust Education Center, for our annual Kristallnacht Commemorative lecture, In this lecture, Holocaust historians Wendy Lower and Jonathan Petropoulos will map the infamous SS leader Heinrich Himmler’s journey during his last days, as he left the Führerbunker and fled to various outposts and hiding spots in the north of Germany. As they trace Himmler’s final movements and discuss how his tentacles of power unraveled, they will also explore the physical and psychic unraveling of this mass murderer, who became the most hunted war criminal in history. Finally, they will recount Himmler’s eventual capture, his interrogation, his suicide in British custody, and extraction of his brain after his death to study evil.