Dr. John J. Delaney

Professional Background

Professor John J. Delaney received a Ph.D. in history with an emphasis on modern Germany from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and an M.A. and a B.A. in history from Boston College. During his fellowship at the Museum, he was Associate Professor of History at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. For his Charles H. Revson Foundation Fellowship for Archival Research, Professor Delaney conducted research on his project “Unfit to Belong: Foreign Workers, POW’s, Nazi Racial Policy and the Gestapo in Bavaria, 1939-1945.”

Professor Delaney is the author of several scholarly articles including the book chapter “Sowing Volksgemeinschaft in Bavaria’s Stony Soil: Catholic Peasant Rejection of Anti-Polish Racial Policy, 1939-1945” in Christian Responses to the Holocaust: Moral and Ethical Issues Donald J. Dietrich, ed. (Syracuse University Press, 2003) and “Social Contract and Personal Relations of German Catholic Peasants and Polish Workers (POWs, Civilian and Forced Laborers) in Bavaria’s Rural War Economy, 1939-1945” in Annali dell’Instituto storico italo-germanico in Trento (vol. 28, 20022002). The recipient of several prestigious honors, Dr. Delaney was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet in Munich, Germany and another to participate in the Fulbright German Studies Seminar in Berlin, Germany. He participated in the 2003 summer workshop on “Forced Foreign Laborers, POWs, and Jewish Slave Workers in the Third Reich: Regional Studies and New Directions” at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Fellowship Research

During his tenure at the Museum, Professor Delaney expanded upon existing research in the field on Nazi foreign forced laborers. While other Holocaust scholars have addressed Nazi racial policy and labor practices in the broader context of the regime’s racial and economic goals, Professor Delaney examined such practices from the perspective of Slavic forced laborers and their interaction with local populations. He analyzed the reception of Nazi political, social, and cultural developments in everyday life and the broad range of local responses.

Professor Delaney was in residence at the Mandel Center from June 1 to September 1, 2005.