Peter Longerich

Peter Longerich (born 1955) is a German professor of history. He is regarded by fellow historians, including Ian Kershaw, Richard Evans, Timothy Snyder, Mark Roseman and Richard Overy, as one of the leading German authorities on the Holocaust.
He was born in Krefeld, West Germany.

In 2002–03, Longerich was the third holder of the Visiting Chair at the Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt. In 2003-04, he was J.B. and Maurice Shapiro Senior Scholar in Residence at the Centre for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, where he worked on a biography of Heinrich Himmler. In 2005-06, he was a Fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum Nordrhein-Westfalen.

Longerich was director of the Research Centre for the Holocaust and Twentieth-Century History at Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL), where he worked alongside the late David Cesarani. In 2015 he left his position at Royal Holloway and returned to Germany. His major research interests include the history of the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, the Second World War, the Holocaust, Heinrich Himmler, and Joseph Goebbels.

He has appeared in the media to comment upon the links between Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust, as well as on related topics, and has published, in 2001, a book documenting Hitler's pivotal role in the Holocaust entitled The Unwritten Order. The book arose from his expert testimony at the David Irving trial. Reviewing Longerich's work, Timothy Snyder declared Holocaust "profound" and Heinrich Himmler "magnificent".

English

• The Unwritten Order: Hitler's Role in the Final Solution. Stroud: Tempus Publishing. 2003 [2001]. ISBN 978-0-7524-2564-1. 
• Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Oxford: University Press. 2010. ISBN 978-0-19-280436-5. 
• Heinrich Himmler: A Life. Oxford: University Press. 2011. ISBN 978-0-19-959232-6. 
• Goebbels: A Biography. Random House. 2015. ISBN 978-1400067510.