Tony Joel

Research Fellow
Alfred Deakin Research Institute
Deakin University

Dr Tony Joel is a historian whose main research interests are contemporary German history and the politics of war memory and commemoration. A Deakin employee for several years, Dr Joel has been involved with the Alfred Deakin Research Institute since its inception. His recent research has employed the WWII firebombing of Dresden as a case study for engaging in the heated ongoing international debate about the appropriateness or otherwise of Germans publicly representing and remembering themselves as war victims. He has contributed a chapter to the forthcoming edited collection The Heritage of War (Routledge UK, in press). Titled "Reconstruction over Ruins: rebuilding Dresden's Frauenkirche," it examines the popular but controversial decision in the 1990s to reconstruct the city's landmark church destroyed by bombing at the expense of its ruins that had manifested into arguably Germany's foremost antiwar site of memory. Dr Joel is currently developing a new project exploring how German politicians come to terms with the Nazi past when invoking history in public speeches and parliamentary debate.