Skip to main content

Distributed for UCL Press

Conversations with Third Reich Contemporaries

From Luke Holland’s Final Account

A collection of filmmaker Luke Holland’s interviews with elderly Germans who witnessed—or participated in—the atrocities of the Holocaust. 

Conversations with Third Reich Contemporaries presents excerpts from filmed interviews conducted by British documentary filmmaker Luke Holland across a span of over a decade. These interviews were compiled into the German-language documentary film Final Account (2020), completed shortly before Holland’s death. Most interviewees were young adults when the war ended; some had benefited from Nazism, and others had directly enacted persecution or state violence. In addition to making this vital interview collection more widely accessible, the sourcebook raises critical awareness of issues around representation, authenticity, memory, and the co-production of narratives, reshaping discussions around the role of “ordinary” citizens under the Third Reich. It is the first sourcebook to engage directly with issues of representation and identity after 1945. 

356 pages | 6.14 x 9.21 | © 2025

History: European History


UCL Press image

View all books from UCL Press

Reviews

"How do we approach testimonies by those complicit in mass violence in a way that is attuned to the historical context, the passing of time, and the needs of the present? This vital and timely sourcebook offers critical approaches to carefully curated excerpts of Luke Holland’s interview collection. It challenges static interpretations of perpetrator narratives, foregrounding agency, memory, and the ethics of testimony. This will be an essential resource for scholars and educators working on Holocaust testimony and oral history."
 

Susanne C. Knittel, Utrecht University

Table of Contents

List of figures
List of excerpts
Glossary
Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part I: Belonging: community as opportunity
Youth and education
Careers and complicity
Social and economic exclusion
‘Kristallnacht’
Facets of ‘Aryanisation’
Antisemitism(s)
Experiences of persecution

Part II: Territorial expansion, war and genocide
War and empire building
Waffen-SS and SS
European perspectives
Women in Nazi organisations, German society, and war and occupation
Concentration camps and forced and slave labour
Persecution and murder of Jews
Killing of partisans, POWs, and civilians

Part III: Aftermath
The immediate post-war period
Interpreting the past
Confrontations

Appendix: sources
Bibliography
Index

Be the first to know

Get the latest updates on new releases, special offers, and media highlights when you subscribe to our email lists!

Sign up here for updates about the Press