Goshen College lecture explores entanglement of Mennonites and Nazis

GOSHEN — Historian Ben Goossen delivers the 2023 Beechy Peace, Justice and Reconciliation Lecture at 7 p.m. March 14, in Goshen College’s Church-Chapel Sanctuary.

Historians have revealed a substantial entanglement of Mennonite communities with National Socialism in the 1930s and 1940s. Recent conferences in Europe and the Americas have considered this past, and the findings have appeared in several books and many journal articles.

Onstage:Goshen College presents 10th annual ‘Goshen Monologues’

In this talk, titled “Reflection on the History of Mennonites and Nazism,” Goossen reflects on the ongoing recovery of the historic Mennonite encounters with Nazism. He will explore how new directions in Mennonite studies extend longstanding research traditions by scholars working in Jewish studies, German studies and related fields.

Goossen is a historian at the Institute on the Formation of Knowledge at the University of Chicago. He is the author of “Chosen Nation: Mennonites and Germany in a Global Era.”

Admission is free.

The lecture also will be live streamed at goshen.edu/live.