{{Short description|Swiss historian (born 1952)}} {{Use Oxford spelling|date=May 2025}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2025}} {{Infobox academic | name = Philippe Burrin | image = Philippe Burrin (1993) by Erling Mandelmann.jpg | caption = Burrin in 1993 | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1952|3|16|df=y}} | birth_place = Chamoson, Switzerland | occupation = Historian | known_for = Studies on fascism, collaboration, antisemitism, and the Holocaust | title = Professor and former director, Geneva Graduate Institute | awards = François-Millepierres Prize (1990)<br>Max-Planck Forschungspreis (1997) | website = [https://www.graduateinstitute.ch/discover-institute/philippe-burrin Graduate Institute profile] | education = International relations (undergraduate) | alma_mater = Graduate Institute of International Studies | thesis_year = 1985 | doctoral_advisor = Saul Friedländer | discipline = Historian | sub_discipline = Fascism, Holocaust studies, political ideologies | workplaces = University of Geneva<br>Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies | main_interests = Mass violence, fascism, collaborationism, antisemitism | notable_works = ''La dérive fasciste'', ''La France à l'heure allemande'', ''Hitler et les Juifs'' }} '''Philippe Burrin''' (born 16 March 1952) is a Swiss historian specialising in ideologies, political movements, and mass violence in 20th-century Europe, particularly during the interwar period and the Second World War. His work has contributed significantly to the study of fascism, collaboration, and genocide.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Friedländer |first1=Saul |title=Pie XII et le IIIe Reich |date=1964 |publisher=Éditions du Seuil |location=Paris}}</ref>
== Career == After earning an undergraduate degree in international relations (1975), he obtained his doctorate in political science (1985) at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva under the supervision of Saul Friedländer, a specialist in Nazi Germany.
Burrin was a professor in contemporary history (1982–1988) at the University of Geneva, before returning to the Geneva Graduate Institute first as assistant professor (1988–1993), and then professor of history of international relations. In 2004, he became director of the Geneva Graduate Institute, a position held until 2020.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.fondation-pierredubois.ch/foundation-board/professor-philippe-burrin/ |title=Professor Philippe Burrin – Fondation Pierre du Bois |publisher=Fondation-pierredubois.ch |date=6 June 1944 |accessdate=8 March 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.graduateinstitute.ch/discover-institute/philippe-burrin |title=Philippe BURRIN | IHEID |publisher=Graduateinstitute.ch |date= |accessdate=8 March 2023}}</ref>
In his book ''La dérive fasciste, Doriot, Déat, Bergery, 1933–1945,'' Burrin sought to trace the intellectual, political and ideological itinerary of Jacques Doriot, Marcel Déat and Gaston Bergery, left-wing French politicians whose views shifted from anti-fascism to embracing far-right movements and collaborating with the Vichy regime. In his analysis, Burrin points to the significance of France's social and political crisis during the interwar period, and seeks to demonstrate the process of the dissemination of fascism in France through this "fascistoid nebula". Indeed, if Déat, Doriot and Bergery borrowed elements from fascist ideology, the integral pacifism which united them (through the experience of the Great War) came up against the adoption of the ideology of territorial expansion specific to the fascism leading Burrin to speak of "deficit fascisms".<ref>{{cite journal|author=Beaudin Jean-Paul |url=https://www.persee.fr/doc/rhmc_0048-8003_1989_num_36_3_1511_t1_0530_0000_2 |title=Philippe Burrin, La dérive fasciste, Doriot, Déat, Bergery, 1933–1945 – Persée |journal=Revue d'Histoire Moderne & Contemporaine |publisher=Persee.fr |date=29 June 2017 |volume=36 |issue=3 |pages=530–531 |accessdate=8 March 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/468217 | doi=10.1086/468217 | title=La Derive Fasciste: Doriot, Deat, Bergery, 1933-1945. Philippe Burrin | year=1989 | last1=Paxton | first1=Robert O. | journal=The Journal of Modern History | volume=61 | pages=172–173 | url-access=subscription }}</ref>
Burrin deepened this thesis in La France à l'heure allemande, 1940–1944 which analyzed how the French reacted and behaved during the German occupation and toward the occupier.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2953625 | jstor=2953625 | last1=Sweets | first1=John F. | title=Reviewed work: La France à l'heure Allemande, 1940–1944., Philippe Burrin | journal=The Journal of Modern History | year=1997 | volume=69 | issue=3 | pages=611–613 | doi=10.1086/245567 | url-access=subscription }}</ref>
In ''Hitler and the Jews,'' Burrin offered a probable account of the sequence of events and Hitler's role in the decision to murder the Jews.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/REVIEWS/Burrin.HTM |title=Hitler and the Jews: The Genesis of the Holocaust |publisher=Fcit.usf.edu |date= |accessdate=8 March 2023}}</ref> Burrin is interested in forms of "accommodation" with the occupier, which he articulates by looking at the behavior of public figures and politicians, the clergy, employers, intellectuals, artists and collaborators.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/crw027 | doi=10.1093/fh/crw027 | title=Cohabitation and opportunistic accommodation in Occupied France: A test case from the Western Pyrenees | year=2016 | last1=Ott | first1=Sandra | journal=French History | volume=30 | issue=3 | pages=401–422 | url-access=subscription }}</ref>
Burrin is one of a handful of French scholars thought to have made a "decisive contribution" to the understanding of fascism<ref>{{cite book |editor-last1=Bosworth |editor-first1=R. J. B. |title=BOOKThe Oxford Handbook of Fascism The Oxford Handbook of Fascism |date=28 October 2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199594788.001.0001 |isbn=978-0-19-959478-8 |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199594788.001.0001}}</ref> and of the Shoah.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hindley |first1=Meredith |title=Hindley on Burrin, 'Hitler and the Jews: The Path to Genocide' |website=Humanities and Social Sciences Online |publisher=Michigan State University Department of History}}</ref>
Alongside his research, Burrin is involved in several projects driven by a concern for the "duty of memory". Thus, he assisted in designing the information center of the Mahnmal Holocaust Memorial in Berlin (2001). He was also a member of the Historical Commission of the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah of Paris. And he was a member of the Scientific Council for an International History of the Shoah.
Like Jean-Pierre Azéma, Henri Amouroux, Marc-Olivier Baruch, Jean Lacouture, Robert O. Paxton and René Rémond, Burrin testified as an expert at the trial of Maurice Papon in Bordeaux in 1997. During his intervention, he insisted on the knowledge of the French, before the war, of Nazi Germany's cruelty towards the Jews, particularly in Poland.
== Publications == * {{Cite book |orig-date=1986 |title=La Dérive fasciste |publisher=Éditions du Seuil |year=2015 |isbn=978-2-02-058923-9 |series=Points. Histoire |location=Paris |page=585 |language=fr |issue=325}}, [présentation en ligne], [présentation en ligne]. * ''Hitler et les Juifs. Genèse d’un génocide'', Paris, Le Seuil, 1989, 200 p. (édition de poche, 1995). {{ISBN|2020108844|2020234084}} * {{Cite book |title=La France à l'heure allemande, 1940–1944 |publisher=Seuil |year=1995 |isbn=2-02-018322-6 |series=L'univers historique |location=Paris |page=559 |language=fr}}, [présentation en ligne]. : Réédition : {{cite book|language=fr|title=La France à l'heure allemande 1940-1944 |location=Paris |publisher=Seuil |series=Points. Histoire |issue=239 |year=1997 |page=559 |isbn=2-02-031477-0}}. * ''Fascisme, nazisme, autoritarisme'', Paris, Le Seuil, 2000, 315 p. {{ISBN|2020414821}} * ''Strands of Nazi Anti-sémitism'', Oxford, Europaeum, 2004, 44 p. * ''Ressentiment et apocalypse. Essai sur l’antisémitisme nazi'', Paris, Le Seuil, 2004, 112 p. {{ISBN|2020632624}} : Traduction espagnole : ''Resentimiento y apocalipsis'', Buenos Aires/Madrid, Katz editores S.A., 2007. {{ISBN|8493543209}} * ''6 juin 44'' (avec Jean-Pierre Azéma et Robert O. Paxton), Paris, Perrin, 2004, 207 p. {{ISBN|2262019819}}
== Awards == * François-Millepierres Award of the French Academy en 1990, for his book ''Hitler et les juifs. Genèse d’un génocide.''<ref>{{Cite web |title=Philippe BURRIN {{!}} Académie française |url=https://www.academie-francaise.fr/philippe-burrin |access-date=29 December 2024 |website=www.academie-francaise.fr}}</ref> * Max-Planck Forschungspreis Award en 1997.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Wider das Vergessen |url=https://idw-online.de/en/news35941 |website=Informationsdienst Wissenschaft}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Burrin, Philippe}} Category:Living people Category:1952 births Category:People from Valais Category:Historians of fascism Category:Historians of Nazism Category:Historians of the Holocaust Category:Scholars of antisemitism Category:Political historians Category:Swiss historians Category:Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies alumni Category:Academic staff of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies