Philippe Burrin (born 16 March 1952) is a Swiss historian specialising in ideologies, political movements, and mass violence in 20th-century Europe, particularly during the interwar period and the Second World War. His work has contributed significantly to the study of fascism, collaboration, and genocide.

Career

After earning an undergraduate degree in international relations (1975), he obtained his doctorate in political science (1985) at the

Graduate Institute of International Studies Graduate may refer to: Education * The subject of a graduation, i.e. someone awarded an academic degree ** Alumni, a former student who has either attended or graduated from an institution * High school graduate, someone who has completed hi ...

in Geneva under the supervision of

Saul Friedländer Saul Friedländer (; born October 11, 1932) is a Czech-born Jewish historian and a professor emeritus of history at UCLA. Biography Saul Friedländer was born in Prague to a family of German-speaking Jews. He was raised in France and lived thr ...

, a specialist in Nazi Germany. Burrin was a professor in contemporary history (1982–1988) at the University of Geneva, before returning to the Geneva Graduate Institute first as assistant professor (1988–1993), and then professor of history of international relations. In 2004, he became director of the Geneva Graduate Institute, a position held until 2020. In his book ''La dérive fasciste, Doriot, Déat, Bergery, 1933–1945,'' Burrin sought to trace the intellectual, political and ideological itinerary of

Jacques Doriot Jacques Doriot (; 26 September 1898 – 22 February 1945) was a French politician, initially communist, later fascist, before and during World War II. In 1936, after his exclusion from the French Communist Party, he founded the French Popular Pa ...

Marcel Déat Marcel Déat (; 7 March 1894 – 5 January 1955) was a French politician. Initially a socialist and a member of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), he led a breakaway group of right-wing Neosocialists out of the SFIO in 19 ...

and

Gaston Bergery The Frontist Party (), also known as the Common Front or Social Front, was a political party in France founded in 1936 by Gaston Bergery and Georges Izard. It was a founding member of the Popular Front. Gaston Bergery and the 'Common Front Agai ...

, left-wing French politicians whose views shifted from anti-fascism to embracing far-right movements and collaborating with the Vichy regime. In his analysis, Burrin points to the significance of France's social and political crisis during the interwar period, and seeks to demonstrate the process of the dissemination of fascism in France through this "fascistoid nebula". Indeed, if Déat, Doriot and Bergery borrowed elements from fascist ideology, the integral pacifism which united them (through the experience of the Great War) came up against the adoption of the ideology of territorial expansion specific to the fascism leading Burrin to speak of "deficit fascisms". Burrin deepened this thesis in La France à l'heure allemande, 1940–1944 which analyzed how the French reacted and behaved during the German occupation and toward the occupier. In ''Hitler and the Jews,'' Burrin offered a probable account of the sequence of events and Hitler's role in the decision to murder the Jews. Burrin is interested in forms of "accommodation" with the occupier, which he articulates by looking at the behavior of public figures and politicians, the clergy, employers, intellectuals, artists and collaborators. Burrin is one of a handful of French scholars thought to have made a "decisive contribution" to the understanding of fascism and of the Shoah. Alongside his research, Burrin is involved in several projects driven by a concern for the "duty of memory". Thus, he assisted in designing the information center of the Mahnmal Holocaust Memorial in Berlin (2001). He was also a member of the Historical Commission of the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah of Paris. And he was a member of the Scientific Council for an International History of the Shoah. Like Jean-Pierre Azéma, Henri Amouroux, Marc-Olivier Baruch, Jean Lacouture, Robert O. Paxton and René Rémond, Burrin testified as an expert at the trial of Maurice Papon in Bordeaux in 1997. During his intervention, he insisted on the knowledge of the French, before the war, of Nazi Germany's cruelty towards the Jews, particularly in Poland.

Publications

* , résentation en ligne résentation en ligne * ''Hitler et les Juifs. Genèse d’un génocide'', Paris, Le Seuil, 1989, 200 p. (édition de poche, 1995). * , résentation en ligne : Réédition : . * ''Fascisme, nazisme, autoritarisme'', Paris, Le Seuil, 2000, 315 p. * ''Strands of Nazi Anti-sémitism'', Oxford, Europaeum, 2004, 44 p. * ''Ressentiment et apocalypse. Essai sur l’antisémitisme nazi'', Paris, Le Seuil, 2004, 112 p. : Traduction espagnole : ''Resentimiento y apocalipsis'', Buenos Aires/Madrid, Katz editores S.A., 2007. * ''6 juin 44'' (avec Jean-Pierre Azéma et Robert O. Paxton), Paris, Perrin, 2004, 207 p.

Awards

* François-Millepierres Award of the French Academy en 1990, for his book ''Hitler et les juifs. Genèse d’un génocide.'' * Max-Planck Forschungspreis Award en 1997.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burrin, Philippe Living people 1952 births People from Valais Historians of fascism Historians of Nazism Historians of the Holocaust Scholars of antisemitism Political historians Swiss historians Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies alumni Academic staff of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies