Richard J. Evans is one of the world’s leading experts on National Socialism. A highly respected public intellectual, he appears regularly on radio and TV, most recently in the BBC documentary series Rise of the Nazis. His publications include a three-volume standard work on German history 1871-1945 and The Hitler Conspiracies: The Third Reich and the Paranoid Imagination, which unmasks the myths surrounding the burning down of the Reichstag in 1933 and Hitler’s death in the bunker in 1945.
Sir Richard was invited by Prof. Henk de Berg to give a talk in Sheffield on 14 March 2024.
Using a range of examples, Richard Evans first refuted five widespread assumptions about conspiracy theories; namely, that they are a new phenomenon; that they are the product of postmodern relativism; that they are always wrong; that they are the product of democratic pluralism and freedom of speech; and that they all tend to follow a similar pattern.
He went on to discuss the difference between systemic conspiracy theories and event conspiracy theories: whereas the former focus on a single conspiratorial entity (say, the Illuminati) carrying out a wide variety of activities, the latter propound there is a secret group behind a single event, such as the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy in 1963 or the moon landing in 1969. Finally, the talk explored the dangers posed by conspiratorial thinking in the age of social media.
An edited recording of Richard Evans' lecture and a short interview with Henk de Berg will be available soon.
Henk de Berg, teaches – together with Seán Williams – the second-year option course “Analysing Evil: National Socialism as Ideology and Brand”.