birth_place title article_title birth_date known_for residence employer education name occupation alma_mater
newfoundland earl ray beck professor of history robert gellately
 1943 research on nazi-era germany tallahassee , florida florida state university ph.d. , 1974 robert gellately professor , historian memorial university of newfoundland london school of economics
robert gellately

robert gellately -lrb- born 1943 -rrb- is a canadian academic who is one of the leading historians of modern europe , particularly during world war ii and the cold war era .
he is earl ray beck professor of history at florida state university .
he often teaches classes about world war ii and the cold war , but his extensive interest in the holocaust has led to his conducting research regarding other genocides as well .
he is occasionally known to give lectures on specific genocides .
gellately has very strict guidelines for what he will deem a genocide , and has had several televised debates regarding his somewhat controversial views .
gellately 's most recent work is `` stalin 's curse : battling for communism in war and cold war '' -lrb- knopf -lrb- march 5 , 2013 -rrb- .
gellately recently published a set of original documents by leon goldensohn dealing with the 1945-46 nuremberg trials of war criminals in `` the nuremberg interviews : an american psychiatrist 's conversations with the defendants and witnesses '' -lrb- alfred a. knopf , 2004 -rrb- .
his other books include `` backing hitler : consent and coercion in nazi germany , 1933-1945 '' -lrb- oxford university press , 2001 -rrb- .
it has been published in german , dutch , spanish , czech , and italian .
japanese and french translations are in press .
`` backing hitler '' was chosen as a main selection for book clubs in north america and the united kingdom .
in the book `` backing hitler : consent and coercion in nazi germany , 1933-1945 '' , gellately argues that the gestapo were not in fact all-pervasive and intrusive as they have been described .
the gestapo only numbered 32,000 for the entire population of germany , and this clearly limited their impact .
in the city of hanover there were only 42 officers .
instead , gellately says that the atmosphere of terror and fear was maintained by ` denunciations ' from ordinary germans , whereby they would inform any suspicious ` anti-nazi ' activity to the local nazi authority .
according to gellatley , these denunciations were the cause of most prosecutions , as in saarbrücken 87.5 per cent of cases of ` slander against the regime ' came from denunciations .
this diminished the gestapo 's role in maintaining fear and terror throughout the third reich , however they still proved to be a powerful instrument for hitler and continued to provide the security apparatus needed for the nazi regime .
his first book was `` the politics of economic despair : shopkeepers in german politics , 1890-1914 '' -lrb- london , 1974 -rrb- .
in 1991 he published `` the gestapo and german society : enforcing racial policy , 1933-1945 '' -lrb- oxford university press . -rrb-
it has been translated into german and spanish .
in addition , gellately has co-edited a volume of essays with russian specialist sheila fitzpatrick , `` accusatory practices : denunciation in modern european history , 1789-1989 '' -lrb- university of chicago press , 1997 -rrb- .
with his colleague nathan stoltzfus -lrb- also at florida state university -rrb- he co-edited a collection called `` social outsiders in nazi germany '' -lrb- princeton university press , 2001 -rrb- .
with ben kiernan , director of the genocide studies program at yale , he recently co-edited `` the specter of genocide : mass murder in historical perspective '' -lrb- cambridge university press , 2003 -rrb- .
professor gellately has won numerous research awards , including grants from the alexander von humboldt foundation in germany and the social sciences and humanities research council of canada .
many of the books written or edited by him are used as textbooks in college classrooms across america .
