Geoff Eley is Karl Pohrt Distinguished University Professor of Contemporary History and Professor of German Studies at the University of Michigan, USA. He is the author of "Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000" (2002), "A Crooked Line: From Cultural History to the History of Society" (2005) and "Nazism as Fascism: Violence, Ideology, and the Ground of Consent in Germany, 1930-1945" (2013).