David Frey

Professor @United States Military Academy At West Point

West Point, NY, US

David Frey is Professor of History and Founding Director of the Stewart & Lynda Resnick Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies (RCHGS) at the US Military Academy, where he has taught since 2004. As RCHGS Director, Dr. Frey oversees a comprehensive atrocity studies program, managing an annual budget of nearly and supervising three employees. He spearheads efforts to increase Defense Department understanding of, research into, & efforts to prevent mass atrocity. He has testified in the Senate & advised multiple government agencies on matters related to mass atrocities & human rights. In 2018, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum honored him as one of eight international agents of change and in 2023 named the Resnick Center one of the winners of its prestigious Elie Wiesel Award.Dr. Frey is the author of Jews, Nazis, and the Cinema of Hungary: The Tragedy of Success, 1929-44 which won the 2019 biennial Hungarian Studies Association Book Award; co-author of Least-Worst Decisions: The Leadership of LGen Roméo Dallaire during the Genocide in Rwanda (forthcoming); & co-author of Ordinary Soldiers: A Study in Law, Ethics & Leadership (USHMM, 2014). He has written/co-written more than a score of articles, chapters, & reports on antisemitism, Hungarian film, the Holocaust, German history, genocide, leadership, espionage, extremism, & pedagogy. His current research primarily focuses on Jewish refugees who joined the US Army military intelligence during World War II. This work led to appearances on 60 Minutes and was the focus of his 2021-22 William J. Lowenberg Memorial Fellowship at the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. He directs multiple multidisciplinary, mass-atrocity related research projects. He has received individual grants/fellowships from DARPA, Fulbright, Fulbright-Hays, ACLS, the German Academic Exchange, and the Mellon, Harriman, Lucius Littauer, & Lantos Foundations. In 2020, West Point awarded him its highest teaching and scholarship honor.