The Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding 2012 is awarded in equal parts to the British historian Ian Kershaw and the US historian Timothy Snyder. Although both researchers focus on the Second World War in their most recent studies, their respective historical lines of questioning are so different that the works complement each other magnificently and can be read as counterparts. Equally, they have in common an ability to enable greater European understanding of our own horrific past.

The Free State of Saxony
The City of Leipzig
The German Publishers and Booksellers Association and
Leipziger Messe GmbH

award the

Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding 2012

to

Ian Kershaw

Ian Kershaw's major study "The End. Hitler's Germany 1944-45" stands out from the large array of historical works on the end of the war in its comprehensive portrayal, in-depth analysis and vivid narrative. Kershaw finds new answers to the question why the Germans, already vanquished on the battlefield, continued to fight for almost a year, bearing up in the face of their country's total destruction, and he finds numerous illuminative examples confirming the wealth of different reasons behind the Germans' self-destruction.

to

Timothy Snyder

Timothy Snyder merges painstakingly researched data on German and Soviet murders in the middle of the 20th century with recollections of individual suffering. In his work »Bloodlands. Europe between Hitler and Stalin«, he widens our perception of industrial mass murder by closing in on hunger and terror as the cause of more than half of the victims' deaths. In this, »Bloodlands« at all times avoids the risk of dulling our senses: despite the inconceivable statistics, Timothy Snyder keeps a clear eye for the people and their individual fates.