Professor Peter Hayes: The German Foreign Office and Nazism: Image and Reality after 1945

'The German Foreign Office and Nazism: Image and Reality after
1945' was the title of this year's 8th Annual Lecture on
Contemporary German History, given by Professor Peter Hayes of
Northwestern University, Illinois, on 31 March. Professor Hayes was
a member of the Independent Historians' Commission appointed by the
Ausw„rtiges Amt (Federal Foreign Office of Germany) to investigate
its own history. The result was a comprehensive study entitled 'The
Foreign Office and the Past: German Diplomacy during the Third
Reich and the Federal Republic' which became a German bestseller
after its publication in 2010. As Professor Hayes pointed out,
German history did not end in May 1945. He lucidly depicted the
careers of diplomats before and after 1945 and discussed their
ambivalent role in the Third Reich and subsequently in setting up a
new diplomatic service in the Federal Republic. The lecture was
followed by comments from Professor Neil Gregor, from the
University of Southampton, who then chaired a questions and answers
session providing over 130 guests the opportunity to ask further
questions.