Richard Steigmann-Gall (born October 3, 1965) is an associate professor of history at Kent State University, and the former director of the Jewish Studies Program from 2004 to 2010.
Education Steigmann-Gall received a BA in history in 1989, an MA in European History in 1992 from the University of Michigan, and a PhD in European History in 1999 from the University of Toronto.
Career On September 30, 2009, Steigmann-Gall was unwittingly featured on the History Channel in a sensationalist documentary discussing Hitler's religious views."Hitler's Blood Oath" (2009). Nostradamus Effect. History. 30 September 2009. Clip 1 234 567Kent State University (2011). "Faculty News." Department of History Newsletter (Spring): 12. "A particularly valuable lesson was learned when he agreed to appear in a History Channel documentary about Hitler. A pleasant March weekend in sunny Burbank, California left him feeling like a star but left him somewhat puzzled that the production team apparently had yet to come up with a title for the program. Two weeks before its premier last September, he finally got word: "The Nostradamus Effect: Hitler's Blood Oath"! Not anticipating becoming a talking head for one of the more sensationalistic theories about Hitler currently in circulation, he learned a valuable lesson about the limits of controlling your message."
Since 2016, Steigmann-Gall has turned his attention to the question of fascism in the United States. He published a scholarly article named "Star-Spangled Fascism" in the journal Social History that explores the traditions of American historical writing and the ways in which the American far right in the period between World War I and II can be called fascist in spite of these traditions. For the last several years, he has turned to public commentary on the question of fascism in contemporary American politics. His articles on this can be found in Tikkun, the Huffington Post, Politico, and Jacobin.
The Holy Reich In 2003, Steigmann-Gall published The Holy Reich through Cambridge University Press, which explored Nazi conceptions of Christianity. The Holy Reich argues that the Nazi Party was not anti-Christian as popularly understood, nor was it in any sense a paganist movement. Rather, Steigmann-Gall writes that many in the Nazi Party leadership believed themselves and their movement to be inherently Christian (positive Christianity).Steigmann-Gall, Richard (2003). The Holy Reich: Nazi conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 3.
The Holy Reich has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian.Steigmann-Gall, Richard (2007). "Christianity and the Nazi Movement: A Response." 42 (2): 185–211. A symposium on the book was published by the Journal of Contemporary History in 2007.
See also Adolf Hitler's religious views German Christians (movement) Positive Christianity Religion in Nazi Germany Religious aspects of Nazism
References
External links Faculty Page at Kent University' Dissertation: "The Holy Reich: Religious Dimensions of Nazi Ideology, 1919-1945" (1999) Introduction to The Holy Reich - courtesy Cambridge University Press Christianity and the Nazi Movement: A response to critics - by Richard Steigmann-Gall Richard Steigmann-Gall Interview - by Stephen Crittenden, The Religion Report