This conference is held in honour of late Dr. Rolf Hosfeld, historian, writer and academic director of the Lepsiushaus in Potsdam since 2011 who passed away on July 23, 2021. For the past decade, Dr. Hosfeld initiated numerous regional and international research and education projects about the Armenian genocide and the history of humanitarianism. This international conference was amongst the main projects he had been working on these past two years, dear to his heart and to his commitment to promoting 20th century history in all its accuracy.

The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919. That summer marked the beginning of two contrasting historical developments. One movement that gathered
momentum advocated for peaceful international solutions and justice and for the rescue of the victims, especially those of the Armenian Genocide and other mass atrocities. First steps of international justice were debated, the first High Commission for Refugees was created by the League of Nations. On the other hand, a contrasting moment set the ideological foundations of the worst atrocities the century was yet to experience.
 

In this regard, the conference sits at the intersection of two burgeoning fields of historical inquiry: the history of humanitarianism and international justice, on the one hand, and the history of political violence and radical political ideology in the interwar period, on the other. It aims to explore how these contrasting movements were affected by the atrocities of World War I and by the Treaties that ended the war (from Versailles to Lausanne), and what part they eventually played in political thinking in Europe.