Room 211, 31 South Prospect Street
Burlington, VT 05405
United States
- Ph.D. Indiana University, Bloomington, 1996
Areas of expertise
Collective memory, theory, Max Weber, comparative historical sociology, disability studies, sociology of religion, sociology of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.
BIO
Lutz Kaelber is an internationally renowned scholar on the topic of the persecution of individuals with disabilities in Nazi Germany, particularly children. He has published and lectured widely on such so-called “euthanasia” crimes both in the U.S. and abroad.
Prof. Kaelber received graduate degrees in economics and sociology from the University of Mannheim, Germany, and his PhD in sociology from Indiana University, Bloomington, working under the distinguished historical sociologist David Zaret.
His dissertation on the sociology of Max Weber and precursors to the Protestant ethic in the Middle Ages was published in a revised form as Schools of Asceticism: Ideology and Organization in Medieval Religious Communities, which was awarded the Best Book Award of the Sociology of Religion section of the American Sociological Association. He has translated and introduced Max Weber's History of Commercial Partnerships in the Middle Ages, co-edited The Protestant Ethic Turns 100: Essays on the Centenary of the Weber Thesis (with William Swatos), and published an edited volume with Raimond Reiter entitled Child Murder and “Special Children’s Wards” in National Socialism: Commemoration and Research (in German).
Recently, he has authored more than two dozen entries on Nazi “children’s euthanasia wards” for The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1S33–1S45, Vol. 5: Nazi Sites for Racial Persecution, Detention, Murder, and Resettlement of Non-Jews, edited by Alexandra Lohse (Washington, D.C.: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum), which is currently projected for publication in 2027.
Other publications include the entry “Eugenics” in the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior and Society, 2nd ed., edited by William C. Cockerham, Robert Dingwall, and Stella Ǫuah (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2026); essays on the fate of Jewish parents of mixed-race children during the Holocaust; the “Review Essay: Sociology and the Holocaust” in Contemporary Sociology; and “Disability in Nazi Germany: Memory of ‘Euthanasia’ Crimes and Commemoration of Their Victims” in Dis/ability and Culture in German-Speaking Europe, edited by Linda Leskau, Tanja Nusser, and Katherine Sorrels (Rochester: Camden House 2022).
He has been a member of the Faculty Committee of the Carolyn and Leonard Miller Center for Holocaust Studies at the University of Vermont since 2007.
His contributions to teaching include innovative courses that are unique or rarely taught on North American college campuses. They include courses such as The Sociology of the Holocaust, Disability as Deviance, and Global Deviance.
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Publications
Bio
Lutz Kaelber is an internationally renowned scholar on the topic of the persecution of individuals with disabilities in Nazi Germany, particularly children. He has published and lectured widely on such so-called “euthanasia” crimes both in the U.S. and abroad.
Prof. Kaelber received graduate degrees in economics and sociology from the University of Mannheim, Germany, and his PhD in sociology from Indiana University, Bloomington, working under the distinguished historical sociologist David Zaret.
His dissertation on the sociology of Max Weber and precursors to the Protestant ethic in the Middle Ages was published in a revised form as Schools of Asceticism: Ideology and Organization in Medieval Religious Communities, which was awarded the Best Book Award of the Sociology of Religion section of the American Sociological Association. He has translated and introduced Max Weber's History of Commercial Partnerships in the Middle Ages, co-edited The Protestant Ethic Turns 100: Essays on the Centenary of the Weber Thesis (with William Swatos), and published an edited volume with Raimond Reiter entitled Child Murder and “Special Children’s Wards” in National Socialism: Commemoration and Research (in German).
Recently, he has authored more than two dozen entries on Nazi “children’s euthanasia wards” for The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1S33–1S45, Vol. 5: Nazi Sites for Racial Persecution, Detention, Murder, and Resettlement of Non-Jews, edited by Alexandra Lohse (Washington, D.C.: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum), which is currently projected for publication in 2027.
Other publications include the entry “Eugenics” in the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior and Society, 2nd ed., edited by William C. Cockerham, Robert Dingwall, and Stella Ǫuah (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2026); essays on the fate of Jewish parents of mixed-race children during the Holocaust; the “Review Essay: Sociology and the Holocaust” in Contemporary Sociology; and “Disability in Nazi Germany: Memory of ‘Euthanasia’ Crimes and Commemoration of Their Victims” in Dis/ability and Culture in German-Speaking Europe, edited by Linda Leskau, Tanja Nusser, and Katherine Sorrels (Rochester: Camden House 2022).
He has been a member of the Faculty Committee of the Carolyn and Leonard Miller Center for Holocaust Studies at the University of Vermont since 2007.
His contributions to teaching include innovative courses that are unique or rarely taught on North American college campuses. They include courses such as The Sociology of the Holocaust, Disability as Deviance, and Global Deviance.
This page was composed without the assistance of AI.