"Hitler’s Soldiers on Trial: The High Command Case in Historical Perspective"
Professional Background
Ms. Valerie Hébert received an M.A. and a B.A. in history from McGill University in Montreal. During her fellowship at the Museum, she was a Ph.D. candidate in history at the University of Toronto. For her Charles H. Revson Foundation Fellowship for Archival Research, Ms. Hébert conducted research on “Hitler’s Soldiers on Trial: The High Command Case in Historical Perspective.”
As a teaching assistant at the University of Toronto, Ms. Hébert taught several history courses such as Nazi Germany, Occupied Europe and the Destruction of European Jewry, and Europe in the Contemporary Era. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including the Ontario Graduate Scholarship; the Holocaust Education Foundation Research Fellowship; the German Historical Institute Dissertation Fellowship; the Harry S. Truman Library Institute Research Grant; and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship. Ms. Hébert has presented her work at several academic venues including the 2003 summer research workshop “Interpreting Testimony” at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Her article “Disguised Resistance: The Story of Kurt Gerstein” appeared in the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies’ journal Holocaust and Genocide Studies (vol. 20, no. 1, 2006).
Fellowship Research
During her residency at the Center, Ms. Hébert conducted research for her dissertation on one of the lesser known Subsequent Nuremberg trials, the High Command Case. Through an examination of the trial transcript, evidence, and supporting materials, Ms. Hébert studied how the trial contributed to the understanding of the Wehrmacht and their crimes; the effectiveness of the court as a didactic tool; and the responses to the trial by the West German press, churches and government.
Ms. Hébert was in residence at the Mandel Center from June 1 to August 1, 2005.