Dr. Alex Kay

Dr. Alex Kay

Senior Lecturer at the Chair of Military History / Cultural History of Violence

•  +49 331 977 4913
•  alexkayuuni-potsdampde

 

Campus Am Neuen Palais
Haus 11, 1.Z.05
(mezzanine!)

 

consulting hours
during the lecture period: Tuesday 10:30 - 12:00

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Alex J. Kay is Senior Lecturer at the Chair of War Studies, where he has taught since 2017. As of March 2022, he is also the holder of a three-year German Research Foundation scholarship as a member of the research unit "Military Cultures of Violence – Illegitimate Military Violence from the Early Modern Period to the Second World War", as part of which he is examining cultures of violence in the British and Canadian militaries and the related discourses during the age of the world wars. In 2016, he was elected lifetime Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. From 2014 to 2016, Dr Kay was Senior Academic Project Coordinator at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) in Berlin. In April 2024, he was Guest Professor at the School of Advanced Studies, University of Udine.

After completing his university studies in history at the Universities of Huddersfield (BA) and Sheffield (MA), England, Dr Kay obtained his PhD in Modern and Contemporary History in 2005 from the Humboldt University, Berlin, where he also taught courses on British history during the early modern period. In 2006, he was awarded the Journal of Contemporary History’s first George L. Mosse Prize.

His main research and teaching topics to date are the history of Germany from 1918 to 1945, National Socialist policies of extermination, and the comparative study of genocide and mass violence. He has published five acclaimed books on Nazi Germany, including The Making of an SS Killer (2016, German edition 2017) and the award-winning Empire of Destruction (2021, German edition 2023), the first comparative, comprehensive history of Nazi mass killing. He is also the author of more than twenty book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals. His work has been translated into Polish, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian.

Dr Kay is a regular contributor to television documentaries, talk radio and print media.

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• 2025: Open Access Publication Fund grant, University of Potsdam
• 2024: German Research Foundation scholarship (2025–2028)
• 2024: Open Access Publication Fund grant, University of Potsdam
• 2023: Das Reich der Vernichtung longlisted in the humanities / social sciences / cultural sciences category for the Academic Book of the Year 2024, awarded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research 
• 2022: Empire of Destruction selected for BookAuthority’s “Best New Nazi Germany Books” list
• 2022: International Collaboration Fund grant, University of Huddersfield
• 2021: German Research Foundation scholarship (2022–2025)
• 2019: Open Access Publication Fund grant, University of Potsdam
• 2016: Elected lifetime Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
• 2006: George L. Mosse Prize of the Journal of Contemporary History

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• Since 2023: Member of the Working Group against Right-Wing Extremism, University of Potsdam
• Since 2023: Member of the Second World War Research Group (SWWRG)
• Since 2016: Lifetime Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
• Since 2016: Member of the German History Society (GHS)

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• 2024. Participant in roundtable on “Colonial Violence and its Legacies: A Transimperial Perspective” at the annual conference of the Society for the History of War on ‘Legacies of War and Violence’, University of Cyprus Library, Nicosia, 28–29 November.
• 2024. Invited paper on “Britain, Canada and the World Wars: Military Cultures of Violence in the ‘White Empire’, 1914–1945”, Directorate of History and Heritage, Ottawa, 12 August (online). 
• 2024. Invited paper on “Colonial Warfare in Europe: The British Army on the Western Front, 1914–1918” at the workshop “Dis:connections in Wartime”, organised by the Käte Hamburger Research Centre, LMU Munich, 24–25 April.
• 2024. Paper on “Britain, Canada and the World Wars: Military Cultures of Violence in the ‘White Empire’, 1914–1945”, University of Potsdam, 15 March.
• 2024. Invited paper on “Military Cultures of Violence in the ‘White Empire’: A British – Canadian Comparison during the Age of the World Wars, 1914–1945”, Friedrich Meinecke Institute of History, Free University, Berlin, 30 January.
• 2023. Paper on “Face-to-Face Atrocities by British and Canadian Ground Forces during the World Wars, 1914–1945: A Comparison”, University of Potsdam, 8 December.
• 2023. Paper on “Dehumanisation, Racialised Othering and Atrocity: Continuities in Colonial and Intra-European Violence” at the annual conference of the Society for the History of War on “Histories of Violence in War”, National Library of Portugal, Lisbon, 23–24 November.  
• 2023. Invited paper on “Military Cultures of Violence in the ‘White Empire’: A British – Canadian Comparison during the Age of the World Wars, 1914–1945”, Department of History, Stellenbosch University, South Africa, 27 September.
• 2023. Invited paper on “Colonial Warfare in Europe: The British Army on the Western Front, 1914–1918”, King’s College London, Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War, 14 March.
• 2023. Invited paper on “The Extermination of Red Army Soldiers in German Captivity, 1941–1945” at the workshop “Atrocity and Excess”, organised by the Second World War Research Group North America, Sam Houston State University, 17–18 February (online).
• 2023. Paper on “A Commonwealth culture of violence? A British – Canadian comparison during the age of the world wars (1914–1945)”, University of Potsdam, 10 February.
• 2022. Invited paper on “Hunger als Massenmordstrategie am Beispiel des NS-Regimes” at the workshop “Hungern, Verhungern, Aushungern. Ressourcenentzug als Gewalt 1914–1945”, organised by the LLF-Forschungsgruppe “Gewalt-Zeiten: Temporalitäten von Gewaltunternehmungen”, University of Hamburg, 11–12 November.
• 2022. Invited paper on “Empire of Destruction: A History of Nazi Mass Killing”, King’s College London, Department of War Studies, 25 October.
• 2022. Paper on "British and Canadian Atrocities on the Western Front, 1914–1918" at the 61st International Conference for Military History (ITMG) of the Centre for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr (ZMSBw) on “(Il)Legality of Military Force and Violence”, 12–14 October (online).
• 2022. Paper on “Merged Conceptions of Colonial and European Warfare: The British Army on the Western Front, 1914-1918”, University of Potsdam, 30 June.
• 2022. Invited paper on “Empire of Destruction: A History of Nazi Mass Killing”, Yale Center Beijing, 9 May (online).
• 2021. Invited paper on “Empire of Destruction: A History of Nazi Mass Killing”, Modern German History Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, London, 1 December (online).
• 2021. Invited interviewee at the “Book Talk: Empire of Destruction”, British Association for Holocaust Studies, 28 October (online).
• 2021. Invited interviewee at the “Virtual HGRP Book Talk – Empire of Destruction: A History of Nazi Mass Killing”, Wiener Holocaust Library, London, 5 October (online).
• 2021. Invited interviewee at the “Book Launch – Empire of Destruction: A History of Nazi Mass Killing”, Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre, Huddersfield, 8 September (online).
• 2021. Invited chair of panel “Reckonings and Forced Confrontations after the Holocaust”, part of the Death Marches: Evidence and Memory exhibition events series, Wiener Holocaust Library, London, 6 July (online).
• 2021. Invited participant in the round-table discussion “The Mid-Level Managers of the Holocaust”, Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre, Huddersfield, 25 March (online).
• 2020. Invited paper on “Holocaust Research in Germany: Current Status and Future Challenges” at the international conference Holocaust Memory: Recent Challenges in Research and Representation, Holocaust Memorial Center, Budapest, 10–11 November (online).
• 2020. Invited paper on “The Holocaust in the USSR: International Scholarship and Research Findings” on the panel “Violence during the Second World War: New Research, New Documents” at the international conference World War II and the Great Patriotic War: 75th Anniversary of its End, German Historical Institute Moscow, 28–30 September (online).
• 2018. Paper on “Reconceiving Criminality in the German Army on the Eastern Front, 1941–1942” on the panel “Making Sense of Mass Violence: Perpetrators, Occupation and Everyday Life in the Second World War” (Panel of the German Historical Institute London) at the German History Society Annual Conference, University of Leicester, 13–15 September.
• 2016. Invited paper on “Alfred Filbert. Erster Chef des SS-Einsatzkommandos 9 im Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion”, organised by the Stiftung Topographie des Terrors [Topography of Terror Foundation] and the Institut für Zeitgeschichte [Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History], at the Topographie des Terrors, Berlin, 11 October.
• 2015. Invited paper on “Bericht über die englische Ausgabe der Quellenedition ‘Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945’”, Institut für Zeitgeschichte [Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History], Berlin, 7 December.
• 2015. Invited paper on “The Making of an SS Killer: Case Study of a Perpetrator” at the 4th International Workshop for Professional Officers on Dealing with the Past of Auschwitz Burdened by Violence, organised by the Maximilian Kolbe Foundation and zebis – Centre of Ethical Education in the Armed Forces, at the Centre for Dialogue and Prayer, Oświęcim, Poland, 26–30 October. http://www.maximilian-kolbe-stiftung.de/de/aktivitaeten/KAY_The-Making-of-an-SS-Killer.pdf​
• 2012. Invited chair of panel “Hunger Politics” at the international conference War of Annihilation, Reactions, Remembrance: The German Occupation Regime in the Soviet Union 1941–1944, organised by the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, at the Neue Mälzerei, Berlin, 22–24 November.
• 2012. Invited lecture on “Ausbeutung, Umsiedlung, Massenmord. NS-Zukunftspläne für den Osten: Backe-Plan und Generalplan Ost”, organised by KONTAKTE-KOHTAKTbI e.V. Verein für Kontakte zu Ländern der ehemaligen Sowjetunion, at the Humboldt University, Berlin, 13 January.
• 2011. Address at the opening of the travelling exhibition “Bestandserhaltung – Schutz des Kulturgutes in den hessischen Kommunalarchiven”, Haus der Geschichte, Darmstadt, 15 February.
• 2009. Invited lecture on “The Archaic Face of the Holocaust: Soviet Jewry’s Annihilation”, Kingston University, London, 15 June.
• 2008. Invited paper on “German Economic Plans for the Occupied Soviet Union and their Implementation” at the workshop United Europe – Divided Memory I, Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, 19–21 September.
• 2008. Commentary on the panel “The Wehrmacht in the Second World War: Straddling the Frontier between Sober Professionalism and Ideological Irrationality” at the 75th Annual Conference of the Society for Military History on “The Military and Frontiers”, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 17–19 April.

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• Empire of Destruction: A History of Nazi Mass Killing (New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press, hardback & audiobook 2021), xxi + 376 pages.
  - German: Das Reich der Vernichtung. Eine Gesamtgeschichte des nationalsozialistischen Massenmordens (Darmstadt: wbg Theiss, hardback 2023, Sonderausgabe der Zentralen für politische Bildung 2023), 455 pages.
  - Italian: L’impero della distruzione. Una storia dell’uccisione di massa nazista (Turin: Einaudi, hardback 2022), xii + 441 pages [= La Biblioteca, Vol. 77].
  - Polish: Imperium zniszczenia. Historia nazistowskiej masowej zagłady (Poznań: REBIS, hardback 2024), 472 pages.
  - Russian: Imperiya istrebleniya: Istoriya massovykh ubiistv, sovershennykh natsistami.(Moscow: Alpina Non-Fiction, 2024), 528 pages.
• The Making of an SS Killer: The Life of Colonel Alfred Filbert, 1905–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, hardback & paperback 2016), xvii + 241 pages.
  - German: The Making of an SS Killer. Das Leben des Obersturmbannführers Alfred Filbert 1905–1990 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, hardback 2017), 253 pages.
• Exploitation, Resettlement, Mass Murder: Political and Economic Planning for German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1940–1941 (New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, hardback 2006, paperback 2011), xiii + 242 pages [= Studies on War and Genocide, Vol. 10].
  –Russian: under contract with Piter

•  Yura’s War: Diary of a Teenager under Siege in Leningrad (co-edited with Chelsea Sambells), in progress.
• Mass Violence in Nazi-Occupied Europe (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, hardback & paperback 2018), viii + 307 pages (co-edited with David Stahel).
• Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941: Total War, Genocide, and Radicalization (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, hardback 2012, paperback 2014), x + 359 pages (co-edited with Jeff Rutherford and David Stahel, with a Foreword by Christian Streit) [= Rochester Studies in East and Central Europe, Vol. 9].

• “More Prussian than the Prussian”? Battlefield Prisoner Killing by British and Canadian Forces on the Western Front, 1914–1918, in: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (2025). (Open Access thanks to the generous support of the University of Potsdam)
• Britain, Canada and the World Wars: Military Cultures of Violence in the “White Empire”, 1914–1945, in: Birgit Aschmann, Jan C. Behrends, Sönke Neitzel and Christin Pschichholz (eds.), “When you catch one kill him slowly”. Militärische Gewaltkulturen von der Frühen Neuzeit bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg (Frankfurt/New York: Campus, 2024), pp. 343-370.
• The Extermination of Red Army Soldiers in German Captivity, 1941–1945: Causes, Patterns, Dimensions, in: Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 37:1 (2024), pp. 80–104. (Open Access thanks to the generous support of the University of Potsdam).
• Holocaust Research in Germany: Current Status and Future Challenges, in: Hurbán, 2 (2023), pp. 22–28; online 10 January 2024. 
• Alfred Filbert, in: Neue Deutsche Biographie online, 1 July 2022.
• The Holocaust in the USSR: International Scholarship and Research Findings, in: Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Historical Society, et al. (eds.), Vtoraya mirovaya i Velikaya Otechestvennaya: k 75-letiyu okonchaniya (Moscow/Saint Petersburg: Tsentr gumanitarnykh initsiativ, 2022), pp. 155–164 [= Historia Russica].
• Crimes of the Wehrmacht: A Re-evaluation, in: Journal of Perpetrator Research, 3:1 (2020), pp. 95–127 (co-authored with David Stahel).
• Speaking the Unspeakable: The Portrayal of the Wannsee Conference in the Film Conspiracy, in: Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History, 27:2 (2021), pp. 187–200; online 9 August 2019. (Open Access thanks to the generous support of the University of Potsdam)
• Reconceiving Criminality in the German Army on the Eastern Front, 1941–1942, in: Alex J. Kay and David Stahel (eds.), Mass Violence in Nazi-Occupied Europe (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2018), pp. 173–194 (co-authored with David Stahel).
• Disagreement is fine. Misrepresentation is not. Response to John Morello, in: The International History Review, 39:5 (2017), pp. 929–930.
• Dr. Hanns Martin Schleyer: “Ich bin alter Nationalsozialist und SS-Führer”, in: Wolfgang Proske (ed.), Täter – Helfer – Trittbrettfahrer, Band 6: NS-Belastete aus Südbaden (Gerstetten: Kugelberg, 2017), pp. 301–311.
• Alfred Filbert. Erster Chef des SS-Einsatzkommandos 9 im Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion, in: Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte, 18:1 (2017), pp. 151–158.
• German Economic Plans for the Occupied Soviet Union and their Implementation, 1941–1944, in: Timothy Snyder and Ray Brandon (eds.), Stalin and Europe: Imitation and Domination, 1928–1953 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 163–189.
  -    Polish:Niemieckie Plany Gospodarcze dla Okupowanych Terenów Związku Sowieckiego i ich Realizacja, 1941–1944, in: Timothy Snyder and Ray Brandon (eds.), Stalin i Europa, 1928–1953 (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 2014), pp. 151–169, 304–310.
• Transition to Genocide, July 1941: Einsatzkommando 9 and the Annihilation of Soviet Jewry, in: Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 27:3 (2013), pp. 411–442.
• Ungleiche Brüder. Der SS-Massenmörder und der KZ-Häftling, in: Einsicht 10. Bulletin des Fritz Bauer Instituts (2013), pp. 49–55.
• Brothers – The SS Mass Murderer and the Concentration Camp Inmate, in: Tr@nsit online, 8 August 2013.
• “The Purpose of the Russian Campaign is the Decimation of the Slavic Population by Thirty Million”: The Radicalization of German Food Policy in early 1941, in: Alex J. Kay, Jeff Rutherford and David Stahel (eds.), Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941: Total War, Genocide, and Radicalization (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2012), pp. 101–129.
• Death Threat in the Reichstag, June 13, 1929: Nazi Parliamentary Practice and the Fate of Ernst Heilmann, in: German Studies Review, 35:1 (2012), pp. 19–32.
• A “War in a Region beyond State Control”? The German-Soviet War, 1941–1944, in: War in History, 18:1 (2011), pp. 109–122.
• Verhungernlassen als Massenmordstrategie. Das Treffen der deutschen Staatssekretäre am 2. Mai 1941, in: Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte, 11:1 (2010), pp. 81–105.
• “Hierbei werden zweifellos zig Millionen Menschen verhungern.” Die deutsche Wirtschaftsplanung für die besetzte Sowjetunion und ihre Umsetzung 1941–1944, in: Transit: Europäische Revue, 38 (2009), pp. 57–77.
• Revisiting the Meeting of the Staatssekretäre on 2 May 1941: A Response to Klaus Jochen Arnold and Gert C. Lübbers, in: Journal of Contemporary History, 43:1 (2008), pp. 93–104.
• Germany’s Staatssekretäre, Mass Starvation and the Meeting of 2 May 1941, in: Journal of Contemporary History, 41:4 (2006), pp. 685–700.

Approximately 35 reviews to date in the following newspapers and journals:

• American Historical Review
• Archiv für Sozialgeschichte
• Beiträge zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus
•  Central European History
• Einsicht. Bulletin des Fritz Bauer Instituts
• German History
• H-German
• Historische Zeitschrift
• Holocaust and Genocide Studies
• H-Soz-Kult
• Journal of Contemporary History
• sehepunkte. Rezensionsjournal für die Geschichtswissenschaften
• Süddeutsche Zeitung    
• University of Sussex Journal of Contemporary History
• War in History
• Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte

• An American massacre – 1,200 dead. After Wounded Knee, before My Lai, the US Army slaughtered over a thousand men, women and children in the Philippines In: Prospect Magazine, November 2024, pp. 68–69; online 25 September 2024. 
• Erheblicher Verbesserungsbedarf. Zur Holocaust-Forschung in Deutschland, in: Forschung & Lehre, 6/24 (June 2024), pp. 442–445.
• Ground Zero, in: Radio Times, 2–8 September 2023, pp. 22–23.
• Never again? The ways in which we remember the Holocaust might not help to prevent the rise of violent fascism in future, in: Prospect Magazine, April 2023, pp. 63–65; online 1 March 2023.
• El exterminio de los cautivos del Ejército Rojo, in: Desperta Ferro Contemporánea, 56 (March/April 2023), pp. 56–60.
• Walter Mattner and the Murder of Jewish Infants, in: YaleBooks. Yale University Press Official London Blog, 19 July 2022.
• Die schrecklichsten Monate, in: Forschung & Lehre, 26 January 2021.
• Falsche Helden. Die Ausstellung der Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand beschönigt die Biographien einiger Militärs. Ihre Überarbeitung ist überfällig, in: Der Tagesspiegel, 2 January 2013, p. 23.
• Der sichere Tod. Nach dem Überfall auf die Sowjetunion sollte Weißrussland systematisch ausgehungert werden. Das Programm des Massenmords hatte die NS-Ministerialbürokratie entworfen, in: Der Freitag, 22 July 2010, p. 12.
• Angekündigter Mord. Vor 70 Jahren wurde der Sozialdemokrat Ernst Heilmann im KZ Buchenwald ermordet. Damit gedroht hatte NS-Führer Frick schon 1929 im Reichstag, in: Der Freitag, 18 March 2010, p. 12.
• Hungertod nach Plan. Hunderttausende Menschen starben während der Blockade Leningrads im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Ein Beispiel für die systematische deutsche Hungerpolitik gegen die sowjetische Bevölkerung, in: Der Freitag, 23 January 2009, p. 11.
• “Viele zehn Millionen Menschen werden überflüssig”. Gab es im Russlandfeldzug eine logistische Katastrophe oder Massenverhungern als Staatspolitik? Eine Antwort auf Stefan Scheil, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 13 June 2007, p. N 3.
• Zunächst kommt die Truppe. Wehrmacht und Hungerpolitik: Eine Erwiderung auf Stefan Scheil, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 14 February 2007, p. N 3.

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