Warren Rosenblum | Webster University (original) (raw)
Historian of modern Europe. My first book, Beyond the Prison Gates: Punishment and Welfare in Modern Germany (UNC Press), was a study of criminal policy from 1848 through the Nazi seizure of power.
I have also written essays and reviews on comparative punishment, public history, and the history of mental disability.
I am currently finishing a book about the case of Rudolf Haas, a Jewish industrialist falsely accused of murder during the Weimar Republic. The book is at once a microhistory of this affair and a broader exploration of the dynamics of antisemitism and the crisis of trust in justice during the so-called "years of relative stability" in Germany.
My next project is a social and cultural history of mental disability in modern Europe. I am interested in why confinement became the dominant and accepted model of treatment in Germany and Austria, while achieving much less acceptance in France, Italy, and Spain.
I've been a Fulbright Fellow in Belgium, visiting scholar at the Center for European Studies at Harvard, and a fellow at the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Research at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. I am a professor at Webster University, St. Louis and serve on the Board of the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum.
Phone: 3149687066
Address: History, Politics, & IR Department
Webster University
407 E. Lockwood Ave.
Saint Louis, MO 63119
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Papers by Warren Rosenblum
In Disability in German-Speaking Europe: History, Memory, and Culture, eds. Linda Leskau, Tanja Nusser (Camden House)., 2022
On intellectual disability in Germany, ca. 1848-1920
” in Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens. Anwalt zwischen Deutschtum und Judentum eds. Tilmann Gempp-Friedrich and Rebekka Denz, (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter)., 2021
Explores the impact of the Dreyfus affair upon Jewish strategies of self-defense in Germany from ... more Explores the impact of the Dreyfus affair upon Jewish strategies of self-defense in Germany from 1900 to 1933. I analyze in particular the renaissance of interest in Dreyfus in the late Weimar Republic, as manifested in theater, film, journalism, and fiction.
The image of justice as the triumph of reason over emotion legitimized state power in nineteenth ... more The image of justice as the triumph of reason over emotion legitimized state power in nineteenth century Germany. The allegorical figure of a serene and blindfolded Justitia embodied a promise of rationality and fairness for all citizens, regardless of politics, class, race or religion. After the turn of the century, however, there was growing dissatisfaction with this ideal of blind and dispassionate justice. A crisis of trust in justice climaxed in the Weimar Republic, when various “scandals” undermined the façade of legal reason and validated a new politics of emotion. This essay looks at two justice affairs, both from the city of Magdeburg, which marked a turning-point in left-liberal attitudes toward justice.
Preface to a special section of the Leo Baeck Institute Year Book (2013)
In the summer of 1926, authorities in Magdeburg charged the Jewish industrialist Rudolf Haas with... more In the summer of 1926, authorities in Magdeburg charged the Jewish industrialist Rudolf Haas with murdering his former accountan. This essay explores the "Magdeburg justice scandal" in the context of German Jews' historic relationship with the legal system and their struggle against antisemitism. The successful campaign for Haas's exoneration, I argue, transformed Jewish strategies of self defense and their investments in law and procedural justice.
This essay challenges the idea that restrictive immigration policies toward persons with disabili... more This essay challenges the idea that restrictive immigration policies toward persons with disabilities were a uniquely American phenomenon. I focus in particular on the place of mental disability in the history of French, German, and British immigration. I explore where and how disability was a “question” in European immigration and how it related to broader preoccupations with employment, racial fitness, and productive capacity.
Books by Warren Rosenblum
The book traces the origins and development of social welfare approaches to criminal justice in G... more The book traces the origins and development of social welfare approaches to criminal justice in Germany, mainly from 1848 to 1933. It recovers the rich, vibrant tradition in Germany of seeking to understand and treat criminals as "social beings." At the same time, it demonstrates the complex and ambiguous role of criminal reformers in the political and cultural crises of the Weimar Republic.
Book Reviews by Warren Rosenblum
In Disability in German-Speaking Europe: History, Memory, and Culture, eds. Linda Leskau, Tanja Nusser (Camden House)., 2022
On intellectual disability in Germany, ca. 1848-1920
” in Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens. Anwalt zwischen Deutschtum und Judentum eds. Tilmann Gempp-Friedrich and Rebekka Denz, (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter)., 2021
Explores the impact of the Dreyfus affair upon Jewish strategies of self-defense in Germany from ... more Explores the impact of the Dreyfus affair upon Jewish strategies of self-defense in Germany from 1900 to 1933. I analyze in particular the renaissance of interest in Dreyfus in the late Weimar Republic, as manifested in theater, film, journalism, and fiction.
The image of justice as the triumph of reason over emotion legitimized state power in nineteenth ... more The image of justice as the triumph of reason over emotion legitimized state power in nineteenth century Germany. The allegorical figure of a serene and blindfolded Justitia embodied a promise of rationality and fairness for all citizens, regardless of politics, class, race or religion. After the turn of the century, however, there was growing dissatisfaction with this ideal of blind and dispassionate justice. A crisis of trust in justice climaxed in the Weimar Republic, when various “scandals” undermined the façade of legal reason and validated a new politics of emotion. This essay looks at two justice affairs, both from the city of Magdeburg, which marked a turning-point in left-liberal attitudes toward justice.
Preface to a special section of the Leo Baeck Institute Year Book (2013)
In the summer of 1926, authorities in Magdeburg charged the Jewish industrialist Rudolf Haas with... more In the summer of 1926, authorities in Magdeburg charged the Jewish industrialist Rudolf Haas with murdering his former accountan. This essay explores the "Magdeburg justice scandal" in the context of German Jews' historic relationship with the legal system and their struggle against antisemitism. The successful campaign for Haas's exoneration, I argue, transformed Jewish strategies of self defense and their investments in law and procedural justice.
This essay challenges the idea that restrictive immigration policies toward persons with disabili... more This essay challenges the idea that restrictive immigration policies toward persons with disabilities were a uniquely American phenomenon. I focus in particular on the place of mental disability in the history of French, German, and British immigration. I explore where and how disability was a “question” in European immigration and how it related to broader preoccupations with employment, racial fitness, and productive capacity.
The book traces the origins and development of social welfare approaches to criminal justice in G... more The book traces the origins and development of social welfare approaches to criminal justice in Germany, mainly from 1848 to 1933. It recovers the rich, vibrant tradition in Germany of seeking to understand and treat criminals as "social beings." At the same time, it demonstrates the complex and ambiguous role of criminal reformers in the political and cultural crises of the Weimar Republic.
Review published in the Journal of Modern History
Israel-Palestine conflict history
