Lecture by Neil Gregor: The Symphony Concert in Nazi Germany - IN PERSON

The Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Centre for Regional and Local History at the University of Leicester warmly invite you to join us for an evening lecture by Professor Neil Gregor (University of Southampton) followed by a reception. This event is free and open to the public. Details on the location will be sent prior to the lecture.

Neil Gregor will discuss what a study of orchestras and their audiences can tell us about the social and cultural history of Nazi Germany more generally. It brings the regime's attempts to engineer a new 'listening community' in the concert hall from 1933 onwards into dialogue with wider questions surrounding the transformation - or not - of German subjectivities during the Nazi era. Dispensing with belletristic conceits regarding the concert hall as a space of political and emotional retreat, it explores how the mobilisation of German society behind the politics of the regime was pursued in the domain of classical music.

The lecture opens a two-day staff and student event on 'Rebellion, Revolt, Protest & Resistance: Historical and Contemporary Case Studies' taking place at the University of Leicester, 2-3 Dec 2025.

The two-day event will discuss questions such as: How do people mobilise and organise to challenge injustice? Why do some popular movements succeed and others fail? What have been the most effective strategies of protest and resistance? And what commonalities and divergencies emerge through exploring rebellion, revolt, protest and resistance in the recent and more distant past?

Neil Gregor's lecture will address an example that shows what can happen when people do not speak truth to power. He will further discuss to what extent there was scope for resistance even within the concert hall of Nazi Germany.

The event is co-hosted by the Stanley Burton Centre and the Centre for Regional and Local History within History as a subject area at the University of Leicester, currently under threat of staff cuts. The event showcases the wide range of themes and activities that History at the University of Leicester stands for. For more information on the threat of staff cuts see here.