Kevin McNamara
Kevin previously completed a BA in English Literature and European History at the University of Limerick (2010) followed by a MA in Modern History at the University of St Andrews (2010) in which his dissertation examined the issue of whether consent or coercion formed the basis of support for the National Socialist regime in the Interwar period.
Contact Details: kjmn@st-andrews.ac.uk
Title: In the Service of His Majesty’s Government: The British Embassy and Consulate Network in Nazi Germany between 1937-1939.
Supervisor: Professor Conan Fischer
His PhD project will focus on the network of British Consulates in Nazi Germany in association with the British Embassy in Berlin where Sir Nevile Henderson served as Ambassador between 1937-39. The project will analyse the British Consulate reports on anti-Semitic persecution during this period and the influence that the dispatches had upon British Foreign policy towards the National Socialist regime. Up until the outbreak of war in September 1939, the regular reporting of British Consulates to Nazi Germany allowed the embassy in Berlin and the Foreign Office in London to gain valuable insight into a broad range of social, political and economic aspects of life in the Third Reich. The network of consuls transmitted publicly available information on anti-Semitic persecution from German newspapers, official reports and also through informal personal conversations or on the spot observations. Despite a new emphasis on ‘Alltagsgeschichte’ in German historiography, the treasure trove of uncensored diplomatic material on the Third Reich has received inadequate attention from Modern German historians. Thus, this project aims to cast a new light on the ‘history of everyday life’ in Germany and will provide a new foundation on British appeasement policy based on Nazi domestic strategies to which no firm consensus can be found.