Harry Legg (BA, MRes)
Thesis title: The Everyday Life of Non-Jewish 'Full Jews' in Nazi Germany and Austria, 1933-1945
PhD supervisors:
Background
Researching non-Jews labelled as 'Jewish' by Nazi racial law in Germany and Austria, 1933-1945. Email me if you have any questions or proposals for collaboration
AHRC funded: https://sgsahresearch.com/portfolio/harry-legg/
Past Fellow at the Munich Center for Holocaust Studies at the Institute for Contemporary History, March-May 2023.
Past European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) Fellow at the Berlin Bundesarchiv, early 2024.
Current Saul Kagan Fellow in Advanced Shoah Studies at the Claims Conference (2025/26) and incoming Visiting Fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC), University of Oxford (2026).
Qualifications
BA and MRes from Royal Holloway University of London
Undergraduate teaching
Introduction to Historiography, HIST08044 (2nd year course) (seminar leading & marking)
Global Connections since 1640, HIST08041 (2nd year course) (marking)
Writing Centre Tutor -- 1:1 sessions
In November 2025, I was awarded the Associate Fellowship in the Higher Education Academy.
Research summary
Approximately, I would say I am most interested in the following: everyday life history; the 'Volksgemeinschaft'; German-Jewish history; Nazi era; Holocaust commemorative debates; bridging the damaging gap between the historical profession and memory studies; General Holocaust/Nazism Historiography; 'Jewish'-'Aryan' social relationships under Nazism; popular opinion under Nazism; the coercion vs consent debate
Papers delivered
- [Future] Lessons & Legacies XVII - Presenter/discussant on the 'Mixed Couples and their Families in the Holocaust' seminar (November 2024, California)
- Institute of Historical Research "Mapping the Holocaust" workshop (May 2024, London) - "Mapping the November Pogrom: The Racially Inconsistent Targeting of Non-Jewish 'Jews'"
- International Association of Genocide Scholars Biannual Conference (July 2023, Barcelona) - "A Plea For Commemorative Equality - The Holocaust, Factual Specificity, and Commemorative Prioritisation".
- British and Irish Association for Holocaust Studies Annual Conference (June 2023, Newcastle) - "Generational Adaptions by Non-Jewish "Full Jews" to Nazi Social Regulations".
- British Association for Holocaust Studies Annual Post Graduate Conference (2021, online) – "The Everyday Lives of Christians labelled as “Jewish” by the 1935 Nuremberg Laws".
In the press
Newspaper article for The Jerusalem Post, Israel’s largest English speaking newspaper, about my 2025 Journal of Genocide Research article. https://www.jpost.com/history/article-879838 (How Nazi categories of ‘half-Jews’ and ‘quarter-Jews’ still decide who is a Jew – study)
Article for a Turkish Jewish newspaper about my piece in Contemporary European History: https://www.salom.com.tr/haber/136175/holokostta-yahudi-oldugunu-kesfetmek
Published:
- Harry Legg, 'The Nazis and the "Racial Jew": A Blindspot in Holocaust Studies', Journal of Genocide Research. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2025.2531640?src=exp-la -- This article is the leading piece of a forum, which will have responses from Jürgen Matthäus, Victoria J. Barnett, Amos Morris-Reich, and Máté Zombory.
- Harry Legg, 'The Problem of Inconsistencies: A Reply to Commentaries', Journal of Genocide Research. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2025.2531642?src=exp-la This is my response to the above scholars' commentaries.
- Harry Legg, '"I hid for days in the basement". Moments of "Jewish" Discovery in Pre-Holocaust Germany and Austria', Contemporary European History (2024, online version). https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/contemporary-european-history/article/i-hid-for-days-in-the-basement-moments-of-jewish-discovery-in-preholocaust-germany-and-austria/8809BD4A4C916CC15D2D626486BABB21
- Harry Legg, ‘Non-Jewish “Full Jews”: The Everyday Life of a Forgotten Group Within Nazi Germany’, Journal of Holocaust Research 36, no. 4 (2022), 299-326. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/25785648.2022.2122142
- Harry Legg, ‘A Plea for Commemorative Equality: The Holocaust, Factual Specificity, and Commemorative Prioritisation’, Journal of Genocide Research, 26, no. 2 (2022), 188-209. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14623528.2022.2159737
Accepted:
- Harry Legg, 'Nazism at Night: Nocturnal Suffering During the Holocaust', Holocaust and Genocide Studies (2026).
Under Review:
- Harry Legg, 'Popular Opinion in Nazi Germany: New Research Directions', Journal of Contemporary History.
- Harry Legg, 'Stuck Inside the Volksgemeinschaft: Coercion, Consent, and the Social Lives of non-Jewish 'full Jews' in Nazi Germany', German History.
Edited fora:
The Nazi 'Racial Jew' in History and Memory, Journal of Genocide Research (2025): https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjgr20/27/3.
Peter Longerich's Unwillige Volksgenossen (2025); Rethinking Popular Opinion in Nazi Germany, Journal of Contemporary History (2026).
Misc:
- Newspaper article for The Jerusalem Post, Israel’s largest English speaking newspaper, about my 2025 Journal of Genocide Research article. https://www.jpost.com/history/article-879838 (How Nazi categories of ‘half-Jews’ and ‘quarter-Jews’ still decide who is a Jew – study)
- Blog post for British and Irish Association for Holocaust Studies: https://biahs.co.uk/2022/03/11/non-jewish-full-jews-their-isolated-everyday-lives/
- Newspaper piece in a Turkish Jewish newspaper on my Contemporary European History piece: https://www.salom.com.tr/haber/136175/holokostta-yahudi-oldugunu-kesfetmek
- Reviews of my Journal of Holocaust Research & Contemporary European History articles in Contemporary Church Quartely: https://contemporarychurchhistory.org/2024/12/article-note-harry-legg-i-hid-for-days-in-the-basement-moments-of-jewish-discovery-in-pre-holocaust-germany-and-austria/ ; https://contemporarychurchhistory.org/2023/08/article-note-harry-legg-non-jewish-full-jews-the-everyday-life-of-a-forgotten-group-within-nazi-germany/