An acclaimed historian was named Mississippi State University’s Outstanding Humanist after 25 years of service. From Germany to Mississippi, Johnpeter Grill received the humanitarian award for his study of history, specializing in studies of Adolf Hitler, the Holocaust and Nazi Germany. Born into the Third Reich in Munich, Germany, Grill said his father was a member of the German air force, known as the Luftwaffe.
“I remember days of playing in the rubble (that was a result from World War II),” Grill said, explaining how he also remembers that he was the only child in his neighborhood whose father came back from the war normal or alive.
Grill holds undergraduate and master’s degrees in history from the University of Virginia and a doctorate in history from the University of Michigan. His philosophy on higher education is that all good teachers must do research and that all universities need professors who publish their research.
MSU’s Institute for the Humanities, along with the Mississippi Humanities Council, selected Grill as the outstanding humanist. Bob Wolverton, a professor of classics, chaired the committee that selected Grill.
Wolverton said Grill met the criteria for selection with ease.
“Dr. Grill has excelled in good teaching and good research,” Wolverton said. “His body of work is very solid. The recognition he has received from peers is very important. He has been published by reputable places and read by scholars who think his books contribute to the body of knowledge.”
Grill authored “The Nazi Movement in Baden, 1920-1945” and “The American South and Nazi Germany: 1933-1945.” He is currently working on his third book, “Hitler’s General SS: Function and Structure of the Allgemeine SS in Nazi Germany.”
Grill said he is constantly trying to improve his books. He said he loves teaching and doing research and that he teaches in a comparative way to avoid generalizing. For example, instead of just finding out why the Germans committed mass murder, he looks also at why blacks were lynched and mobbed in the mid-20th century in the Deep South.
He compares different cultures in his writing and teaching to find a more broad explanation of why people do evil things. “Racism is universal, not a German phenomenon,” Grill said. “If you study just one culture, how can you answer the question of why people commit mass murder. This is why I think comparative studies are important.”
It is the simplistic, ethnic interpretation of why people commit evil deeds and the focus on national character that Grill tries to avoid in his teaching and research.
People, he said, don’t read much history anymore, and that is why it is so important that the teacher localize the information to make it real to the student.
Anyone who wins the outstanding humanist award, which is $500, is entitled to deliver a scholarly address. Grill’s speech, “Teaching the Holocaust in Mississippi: Challenge and Opportunity,” was delivered Oct. 30.
He said that the challenges of teaching the Holocaust here is the fact that students find history boring, but he said there is a good opportunity to compare the Holocaust with Jim Crowism.
Grill didn’t start off as a student of the humanities.
“I fell in love with the study of humanities; at first I wanted to be a big, fat lawyer,” Grill said. “One day I woke up and fell in love with history and took a vow to be poor.”
Grill said that the humanities are the most dynamic field of study because it focuses on the most dynamic things there are–people.
“The human being is exciting; he’s interesting. What else is there?” Grill asked. “I decided to go into humanities because most people I met lived for Friday at five o’clock. What are you doing with your life if you’re living like that?
“With this job, teaching, you learn new things; you get stimulated,” he said.
Grill said he is deeply moved by receiving the award, but what moves him most is past students sending him letters of congratulations.
“Dr. Grill has a phenomenal way of reaching his students,” MSU student Julia Nutter said. “I had him for an upper level history class and took another class from him, even though it didn’t pertain to my major, just because he is such an amazing teacher.
“The fact that he is from Germany gives him extensive knowledge and personal experience that adds so much to his teaching.”
“I’m sincerely, deeply honored,” Grill said on receiving the award. “I feel good. I know MSU has its financial problems, but I’m a historian; I know things will change. I look back on the past 25 years and know that I have had some good colleagues and good students.”
He said that he still loves teaching and doing research, but the temptation to retire, he said, is strengthened by the opportunities that come with retirement, like the freedoms of traveling and writing. However, he said if he retired right now he would miss teaching.
“When I walk into a classroom, and I don’t get that high, I’ll retire,” Grill said.