Winston Churchill as HistorianHosted by Bernd Greiner, Markus Pöhlmann and Dierk Walter

25 and 26 September 2015

He was one of the foremost figures of the 20th century, as a politician, statesman, author and historian. Winston Churchill made, wrote and commented on history, used language as a means of persuasion and, with his rhetoric, created politically conceptual worlds that themselves became political matters. In this sense his six-volume history of the Second World War went far beyond the genre of historiography. It gives readers an insight into how Churchill regarded the end of Britain’s status as a global power and how he wished to see the empire transition into a different political category. The colloquium offered an opportunity to discuss the Second World War from perspectives including this one. The year 2015, marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and 50 years since the death of Churchill, provided a fitting occasion to re-examine these contexts.    

Conference language was German.