An international jury came to the decision that the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding 2012 will be awarded equally to the British historian Ian Kershaw and the US historian Timothy Snyder.

In their most recent books, both authors deal with the second world war, but their respective historical approaches are so different that they perfectly complement each other and that their books may be read so. A second link between the two works is that they afford Europeans a deeper understanding of their own horrifying past.

The award ceremony will be held during the opening of the Leipzig Book Fair 2012 on 14 March at the Leipzig Gewandhaus.

Ian Kershaw's "The End: Hitler's Germany, 1944–45", which was published last year, stands out among the wealth of historical works about the end of the war because of its comprehensive representation, profound analysis and vivid depiction (German translation by Deutsche Verlags Anstalt 2011, "Das Ende. Kampf bis in den Untergang. NS-Deutschland 1944/45"). Kershaw finds new answers to the question of why the Germans, tough already defeated, continued to fight for almost another year and held out until their country was almost completely devastated. Providing countless striking examples, he describes the wide range of different causes for the self-destruction of Germany.

In his book "Bloodlands. Europe between Hitler and Stalin", published in 2010, Timothy Snyder links meticulously researched details about the German and Soviet killings during the mid-20th century with the memory of individual suffering (German translation by C. H. Beck 2011, "Bloodlands. Europa zwischen Hitler und Stalin."). He extends our notion of industrialised mass murder by bringing into focus hunger and terror as causes of death of more than half of the German and Soviet victims. Yet, "Bloodlands" avoids the danger of becoming a dull book of numbers because Snyder always keeps the people and their individual fates visible behind the inconceivable figures.

Timothy David Snyder, born in 1969, is an American historian who teaches history at Yale University. His work focuses on Eastern European history and Holocaust research. Snyder is a permanent fellow at the Vienna Institute for Human Sciences (IWM). He received several awards for his historical work, including the 2003 George Louis Beer Prize of the American Historical Association.

Ian Kershaw, born in 1943 in the UK, taught contemporary history at the University of Sheffield until his retirement. Kershaw is considered one of the most important experts on German history of the 20th century. His extensive biography of Hitler, which appeared in two volumes in 1998 and 2000, won him a wide readership and is considered as a standard work on the subject to this day. In 1994, Kershaw was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his scientific achievements in German history. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. for Services to History in 2002.
 
 

• Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding