Controversial kinship: From colonial rule to the Holocaust?

Hitler once called Eastern Europe "Germany's India." A new exhibition examines the links between colonialism and Nazism, and the bitter debate over where comparisons illuminate history and where they fall short. Racial hierarchy, dehumanization, concentration camps, settler expansion in the name of "living space," collective punishment and mass violence: at first glance, the continuities between colonial and Nazi violence appear obvious.

In 1941, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler himself compared Eastern Europe to "Germany's India" after the British colonial model, declaring "like the English, we shall rule this empire with handful of men." But the extent to which Nazism was shaped by the age of empire, and whether the two systems of violence can even be compared, remains the subject of intense debate. This is particularly true in Germany, where the fear is often expressed that any comparison risks relativizing or minimizing Nazi crimes, and particularly the Holocaust .