German historians and the crucial dilemma

European Review

Volumn 14, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 373-384

  von der Dunk, Hermann W ^a,b  

^a UTRECHT UNIVERSITY   (Netherlands)

^b NONE   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

POLITICAL HISTORY; POST-WAR;

CENTRAL EUROPE; EURASIA; EUROPE; GERMANY;

EID: 33745045209     PISSN: 10627987     EISSN: 14740575     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S106279870600038X     Document Type: Article

References (25)

1. It is noteworthy that even Hitler's most determined and consequent foe, Winston Churchill, praised him at the outset for this very national function.
2. Most instructive is W. Schulze et al. (eds) (1999) Deutsche Historiker im Nationalsozialismus (Frankfurt).
3. H. Rothfels (1948) The German Opposition to Hitler. An Appraisal (Hinsdale III.).
4. G. Ritter (1956) Carl Goerdeler und die deutsche Widerstandsbewegung (Stuttgart). Rothfels is a special case. Although a Jew who had emigrated to the US, he sympathized with the conservative national tradition and when he returned he became, like Ritter, one of the authoritative opponents of its general incrimination.
5. See. F. Wielenga (2003) An inability to mourn? The Federal German Republic and the Nazi past. European Review, 11(4), 556.
6. L. Niethammer (2003) Die Mitlaüferfabrik. Die Entnazifizierung am
7. cited by F. Wielenga (2003) An inability to mourn? The Federal German Republic and the Nazi past. European Review, 11(4), 557.
8. F. Meinecke (1946) Die deutsche Katastrophe (Wiesbaden).
9. For example, G. Ritter (1948) Europa and die deutsche Frage (München)
10. The connection of this general human condition with the personal attitude during the Third Reich was, for example, one of the issues in the very thoughtful and tormented reflections of one of the most distinguished scholars of the post-war establishment, Hermann Heimpel.
11. Significant in this respect is the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich and the extensive and thorough documentations published by Helmut Krausnick, Hans Buchheim and Martin Broszat on national socialism, totalitarianism, the S.S.-empire and the concentration camps.
12. It was R. Giordano who called the repression of the past 'the second guilt'.
13. For example see the works of H.G. Adler (1955) Theresienstadt, das Antlitz einer Zwangesgemeinschaft. Geschichte, Soziologie, Psychologie (Tübingen).
14. G. Reitlinger (1953) The Final Solution (New York).
15. R. Hilberg (1961) The Destruction of the European Jews (Chicago).
16. Hans-Ulrich Wehler and the Bielefeld-school became particularly representative.
17. It was more conservative historians like Nolte and, with some restrictions, Hillgruber, Fest and Stürmer - more generally the adherents of the CDU - who collided vehemently with the more leftist SPD-minded colleagues like the Mommsen-brothers or Kocka on the issue of the uniqueness of the Nazi crimes and the Shoah.
18. G. Aly and S. Heim (1993) Vordenker der Vernichtung. Auschwitz und die deutschen Pläne für eine neue europäische Ordnung (Frankfurt 1993).
19. M. Burleigh (1988) Germany turns Eastwards. A Study of Ostforschung in the Third Reich (Cambridge).
20. M. Fahlbusch (1999) Wissenschaft im Dienst der nationalsozialistischen Politik? Die 'Volksdeutschen Forschungsgemeinschaften' von 1931-1945 (Baden-Baden).
21. B. Dietz, H. Gabel and U. Tiedan (eds) (2003) Die 'Westforschung' der völkisch-nationalen Wissenschaften zum nordwesteuropäischen Raum 1919-1960 (Münster).
22. H. Derks (2001) Deutsche Westforschung. Ideologie and Praxis im 20.Jahrhundert (Leipzig).
23. N. Berg (2003) Der Holocaust und die Westdeutschen Historiker. Erforschung und Erinnerung (Göttingen).
24. This does not mean that I agree with the controversial thesis of Daniel Goldhagen (1996) Hitler's Willing Executioners (New York), that there also was no real difference between 'ordinary Germans' and the executioners of the mass murder, or that the Holocaust was the logical result of a specific German anti-Semitism and even approved of by the German people. This incrimination of Germans as a specific race is a gross distortion and underestimation of the complexity of a totalitarian system. Besides, the special units of the executioners employed non-German members as well.
25. J. Friedrich (2002) Der Brand (München).