Hans Rothfels
Encyclopedia
Hans Rothfels was a nationalist conservative
German
historian
. He supported an idea of authoritarian German state, dominance of Germany over Europe and was hostile to Germany's eastern neighbours. After his applications for honorary Aryan status were rejected, due to his Jewish ancestry and increased persecution of Jewish people by Nazis, he was forced to emigrate to Great Britain
and later to United States
during Second World War, after which he became opposed to Nazi regime. Rothfels returned to West Germany after 1945 where he continued to influence history teaching and became an influential figure among West German scholars.
, Hesse-Nassau. In 1910, he converted to Lutheranism
. He converted to Protestantism before First World War broke out He was studying history and philosophy at Heidelberg University when World War I
broke out in 1914. As a student, Rothfels had been a leading pupil of Friedrich Meinecke
. Rothfels served in the German Army
as a reserve officer and was badly wounded near Soissons
. He lost one of his legs and was in a hospital until 1917. He was awarded the Iron Cross
, Second Class. In 1918, Rothfels's dissertation on Carl von Clausewitz
, "Carl von Clausewitz: Politik und Krieg", led to Heidelberg granting him a degree in History. In 1920, Rothfels's dissertation was published as a book. In 1922, he edited and published a collection of Clausewitz's private letters. In addition, Rothfels published several collections of Otto von Bismarck
's letters, and was the first historian to be authorized by the Bismarck family to publish the Iron Chancellor's correspondence. Rothfels was noted for his claim that Bismarck was neither the "iron chancellor" of "banal legend" nor an "opportunist", but rather a profoundly religious man struggling to deal with a reality that whose full complexity was only understandable to God. He defended Bismarck's Germanization policies against Poles claiming they were "defensive".
Between 1924-1926, Rothfels taught at the University of Berlin. From 1926 to 1934, he worked as a professor, holding the Chair of History at the University of Königsberg
. During his time in Königsberg
, he was well known for his highly nationalistic interpretation of German history. A reactionary
in his politics, Rothfels was hostile towards the Weimar Republic
, through combination of authoritarianism and mass national movement, he hoped, it would be destroyed, and connections with Western democracies broken, and envisioned that on ruins of this state a new Reich would emerged formed out of East Prussian Baltic Northeast and Southeastern outposts of former Habsburg Empire. In foreign affairs, he often denounced the Treaty of Versailles
and the eastern borders it had imposed on Germany. Rothfels advocated German domination of Eastern Europe and making its population into serfs. As a historian, his major interests were Otto von Bismarck
, Clausewitz, and later on, the conservative German opposition to Adolf Hitler
. A major interest of Rothfels in the 1920s was his belief in the obsolescence of the nation-state, and the need for a "loosening up" of the Versailles borders through increased protection of minorities. Rothfels promoted an idea of race classification based on readiness of non-German ethnic groups in Eastern Europe to submit themselves to rule of German Third Reich The Eastern and Southeastern nationalities were to be "restructured" and integrated with German "master race
". Non-Germans would have been subject to hierarchical employment conditions and essentially have status of indentured workers, based on racist criteria Those living outside the "German sphere" were to be classified by hierarchy based on their "cultural heritage" and ruled under direction of Germans and a vassal class that would collaborated with them.
Although supportive of right wing politics (according to some, he might have voted for Hitler in 1932), he was subject to increasing persecution, being Jewish by birth. Eventually, Rothfels was forced to leave his s university position due to his Jewish ancestry, despite intervention by Hermann Rauschning
the Nazi president of Danzig Senate and Theodor Oberlander
, director of League of German East(Bund der Deutschen Osten) and NSDAP's East Prussian intelligence agency and forbidden to teach a year later. While Rothfels tried to get a honorary Aryan status with support by Joachim von Ribbentrop
, his efforts were fruitless. Subject to increasing persecution and discrimination by the State, he reluctantly left Germany
in 1938 for Britain
. What decided the issue for him was his experience during the Kristallnacht
pogrom
when his house was looted and trashed by the SA
and he himself was arrested and held by the Gestapo
for several hours, during which he was deprived of his crutches and beaten up. Together with his wife and their three children, Rothfels left for the United Kingdom, where he hastily began to learn English
, a language that he subsequently mastered.
, Oxford
from 1938 to 1940, Rothfels was interned on Isle of Man
. In this period his only known publication is an essay from 1940 where he discusses Soviet and German interaction in the Baltics, in which he defended German hegemony over this "outpost of Western Europe and Western civilization" and complained about resettlement of Germans there due to Soviet-Nazi treaties Rothfels left for the United States
, where he stayed until 1951, and took U.S. citizenship. He taught in the Brown University
in Providence
, Rhode Island
and at the University of Chicago
in Chicago
, Illinois
where he became professor. Considering his views at that time, a Jewish-German student was surprised that Rothfels was forced to leave Germany in the first place During his time in the United States, he befriended the American publisher Henry Regnery
and became active in the Republican Party
.
In an essay published in 1943, in the book The Makers of Modern Strategy on Clausewitz, has been praised by Michael Howard
as the first serious essay ever published on Clausewitz in English
. In his essay, Rothfels argued that Clausewitz's military theories were more sophisticated than the "Mahdi of Mass" interpretation of Clausewitz that had been popularized by such historians as Sir Basil Liddell Hart
. Rothfels argued that it was inappropriate to view Clausewitz in the context of later events; instead Rothfels insisted on understanding Clausewitz and his theory of war in the context of the Napoleonic Wars
and on understanding the Clausewitz the man as the key to understanding Clausewitz the military thinker. Rothfels maintained Clausewitz's personality, social background, war experience, and his schooling all needed to be understood to properly appreciate his theories about war. Most notably, Rothfels portrayed Clausewitz as a man under considerable psychological strain caused by his commoner background in the largely aristorcratic Prussian Army. Through Rothfels contended that aspects of Vom Krieg were outdated due to advances in military techonology and tactics, nonetheless, Rothfels felt that Clausewitz was the most important military philiosopher of all time. The U.S. military historian Peter Paret
has differed with some of Rothfels's interpretation of Clausewitz, but acknowledged Rothfels as a major influence on his work on Clausewitz.
In 1948, Rothfels published his most famous book, The German Opposition To Hitler, which celebrated those conservatives who attempted the July 20 Plot
of 1944, which was based upon a lecture given at the University of Chicago in 1947. Rothfels, who remained a steadfast German nationalist all his life, saw the conspirators against the National Socialist
regime as representative of all that was best about German life and argued that the actions of the conspirators had restored Germany's honour from the disgrace the Nazis had brought upon it. Rothfels accepted Edmund Burke
's idea that the best defenders of liberty come from the upper crust of society and cast the men and women of July 20 as a perfect example of Burke's theory. Rothfels claimed that the German opposition was motivated by the highest possible ethical and moral considerations, and asserted that there were no self-interested motives whatsoever amongst the men and women of the July 20. Rothfels argued that the actions of the July 20 conspirators were motivated a sense of noblesse oblige, devotion to the principles of Christianity
and the highest form of patriotism
. Rothfels was fond of pointing out the difficulties involved in attempting to overthrow one’s government in war-time, which in Rothfels view, was a sign of the true patriotism of the July 20 conspirators.
Rothfels saw Nazism as a type of totalitarianism
, and often argued that there was no moral difference between Nazi Germany
and the Soviet Union
; in his view, the Cold War
was merely a continuation of the struggle between what he called the “conservative freedom movement” and totalitarian forces. In particular, Rothfels was opposed to any sort of Sonderweg
interpretation of German history
, and argued that Nazism
was the result of the general problems of modern civilization, which Rothfels saw as based on a set of values that were overtly materialistic, secular, and dehumanizing, and which had reduced most people to a mindless mass. Rothfels wrote "In many respects, Nationals can be considered as the final summit of an extreme consequence of the secularization movmement of the nineteenth century". In Rothfels’s view, the values of modern mass civilization had led most people to forget the fundamental values of the West
, which in his opinion were based on respect for God
and the individual. Rothfels argued that "Modern mass civilization generates a reservoir of evil forces whose release spells barbarism...What triumphed after the pseudo-legal revolution of 1933 was in fact and to a great extent the dark forces forming the sedimment of every modern society". Rothfels argued that the Nazis came to power as a result of a series of unfortunate developments that had occurred in Germany after World War I such as the Great Inflation of 1923 and the Great Depression
, and often criticized those in his view promoted the view that sought to equate Deutschum with Nazism such as Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier
, William L. Shirer
, A.J.P. Taylor and Sir John Wheeler-Bennett
. Moreover, far from Nazism being rooted in German traditions, Rothfels claimed that the strongest opposition to Nazism came from those grounded in traditional values. In Rothfels's opinion, "the traditions of a genuine 'Prussian militarism'" provived the principle "bulwark against nationalistic and demagogic excesses". The German Opposition to Hitler ended with a call for people all over the West to embrace what Rothfels regarded as the noble ideas of the conservative opponents of Nazism, which Rothfels saw as leading to back to the higher values of the West.
The German Opposition To Hitler was a controversial book because Rothfels focused his attention largely on anti-Nazis on the Right and for the most part ignored anti-Nazis on the Left. In addition, many felt that the book was a hagiographical treatment of anti-Nazi conservatives. His motive in writing the book was in part to prevent the emergence of a new stab-in-the-back legend that might once again undermine democracy in Germany. He was dismayed by public opinion polls taken immediately after World War II
in the American zone of occupation that showed the majority of Germans had a low opinion of the men and women involved in the July 20 plot. Rothfels was determined that Germans should see them as heroes, not villains.
, where he taught at the University of Tübingen. He worked hard for the rest of his life to exonerate German nationalism from the taint of Nazism. Upon his return to Germany, Rothfels founded the Institut für Zeitgeschichte
(Institute for Contemporary History), an historical study center devoted to the Nazi period. The institute's journal, the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (Journal for Contemporary History) has become one of the world's leading periodicals for the study of Nazi Germany
. Within a few years, the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte had the highest circulation of any historical journal in West Germany. During the 1950s, Rothfels was one of the few German historians who attempted a serious examination of the Holocaust
, which was a subject that most German historians preferred to ignore during that decade. In particular, he broke new ground by publishing Kurt Gerstein
's reports relating to the Final Solution in the first edition of the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte in 1953 and another article in 1959 that examined the plight of Polish Jewry under Nazi rule.
In his works Rothfels aimed at minimising the German hostility to Jews, while highlighting any attempts to save them by German individuals. Crimes and support for anti-semitism were downplayed, and opposition to racial discrimination portrayed by Rothfels as dominant. As such his text produced a vision of history in which for example the 1930s were virtually absent from anti-semitism, and non-Jewish Germans were completely willing to help Jews.
After his return to Germany, Rothfels was a pioneer of contemporary history, the study of the “epoch of those who lived at the time” to use Rothfels’s words. In Rothfels’s view, contemporary history was the study of the recent past, where despite or rather because the lack of documentation caused by studying events so close to the past and the challenge of writing about events that one experienced oneself, required special patience, skill and ability of the part of the historian. In particular, Rothfels called for historians working in the field of contemporary history to approach matters in an objective and neutral matter while keeping in mind the moral questions. In practice, contemporary history came to refer history from 1914 on.
After his return to Germany, Rothfels took a strong stand against those whose work he felt could exonerate the Nazis. In 1954, he and one of his star pupils from the University of Chicago, Gerhard Weinberg
had a renowned debate on the pages of Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte with Andreas Hillgruber
and Hans-Günther Seraphim over the issue of whether the German invasion of the Soviet Union
in 1941 had been a “preventive war” forced on Adolf Hitler
by the possibility of Soviet attack on Germany. Hillgruber and Seraphim argued for the "preventive war" thesis while Rothfels and Weinberg opposed it, arguing that it was Nazi racial theories that were the origins of the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The majority opinion was that Rothfels and Weinberg destroyed Seraphim's and Hillgruber's arguments. Indeed, Hillgruber himself did a volte-face and renounced his former thesis as mistaken. Later, in 1961, Rothfels took a strong stand against the American neo-Nazi historian David Hoggan
who claimed that the outbreak of war in 1939 had been due to an Anglo
-Polish
conspiracy against Germany. Also in 1961, Rothfels assisted Weinberg with the publication of Adolf Hitler
's Zweites Buch
which Weinberg had discovered in 1958, and for which Rothfels wrote the introduction.
Another area of interest for Rothfels was the expulsion
of the ethnic German population from Eastern Europe
after World War II
. In the 1950s, Rothfels worked with Theodor Schieder
, Werner Conze
and other historians to produce the multi-volume Documentation of the Expulsion of Germans from East Central Europe. Many later prominent historians such as Martin Broszat
, Hans-Ulrich Wehler
and Hans Mommsen
were involved in this project.
in his 2000 book Historiker im Nationalsozialismus called Rothfels an enemy of the Weimar Republic
and a Nazi sympathizer. The historian Heinrich August Winkler
has strongly criticized Haar, who had erroneously used a radio
address Rothfels gave in 1930 praising Friedrich Ebert
, Gustav Stresemann
, and Paul von Hindenburg
as great German leaders as a proof for Rothfels' support of Hitler. While Haar had implied the speech dates from 1933 and was addressed to Hitler after he took over power in Germany, Winkler verified the actual circumstances of the speech, which Rothfels repeated several times prior to 1933. Rothfels's critics contend that his planned 1933 radio address was too little, too late.
Rothfels and his inner circle at Königsberg in the early 1930s are often referred to as the Königsberg circle . Its most prominent members, apart from Rothfels himself, were his students Theodor Schieder
and Werner Conze
. Whereas Rothfels had to emigrate, Schieder and Conze joined the NSdAP. They were active in the field of Ostforschung
, where they supported ideas such as 'dejewification' . After Rothfels' return the three became leading figures among the historians of the newly founded West Germany
. They soon found themselves together in a commission led by Schieder
that was set up by the government for documenting the expulsion of Germans after World War II
.
In 1998 the 42nd Deutscher Historikertag marked the beginning of a public debate among German historians about the "brown history" of their field.
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
. He supported an idea of authoritarian German state, dominance of Germany over Europe and was hostile to Germany's eastern neighbours. After his applications for honorary Aryan status were rejected, due to his Jewish ancestry and increased persecution of Jewish people by Nazis, he was forced to emigrate to Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
and later to United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
during Second World War, after which he became opposed to Nazi regime. Rothfels returned to West Germany after 1945 where he continued to influence history teaching and became an influential figure among West German scholars.
Biography
Rothfels was born to a wealthy Jewish family in KasselKassel
Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...
, Hesse-Nassau. In 1910, he converted to Lutheranism
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
. He converted to Protestantism before First World War broke out He was studying history and philosophy at Heidelberg University when World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
broke out in 1914. As a student, Rothfels had been a leading pupil of Friedrich Meinecke
Friedrich Meinecke
Friedrich Meinecke was a liberal German historian, probably the most famous German historian of his generation. As a representative of an older tradition still writing after World War II, he was an important figure to the end of his life.-Life:Meinecke was born in Salzwedel in the Province of Saxony...
. Rothfels served in the German Army
German Army (German Empire)
The German Army was the name given the combined land forces of the German Empire, also known as the National Army , Imperial Army or Imperial German Army. The term "Deutsches Heer" is also used for the modern German Army, the land component of the German Bundeswehr...
as a reserve officer and was badly wounded near Soissons
Soissons
Soissons is a commune in the Aisne department in Picardy in northern France, located on the Aisne River, about northeast of Paris. It is one of the most ancient towns of France, and is probably the ancient capital of the Suessiones...
. He lost one of his legs and was in a hospital until 1917. He was awarded the Iron Cross
Iron Cross
The Iron Cross is a cross symbol typically in black with a white or silver outline that originated after 1219 when the Kingdom of Jerusalem granted the Teutonic Order the right to combine the Teutonic Black Cross placed above a silver Cross of Jerusalem....
, Second Class. In 1918, Rothfels's dissertation on Carl von Clausewitz
Carl von Clausewitz
Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz was a Prussian soldier and German military theorist who stressed the moral and political aspects of war...
, "Carl von Clausewitz: Politik und Krieg", led to Heidelberg granting him a degree in History. In 1920, Rothfels's dissertation was published as a book. In 1922, he edited and published a collection of Clausewitz's private letters. In addition, Rothfels published several collections of Otto von Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
's letters, and was the first historian to be authorized by the Bismarck family to publish the Iron Chancellor's correspondence. Rothfels was noted for his claim that Bismarck was neither the "iron chancellor" of "banal legend" nor an "opportunist", but rather a profoundly religious man struggling to deal with a reality that whose full complexity was only understandable to God. He defended Bismarck's Germanization policies against Poles claiming they were "defensive".
Between 1924-1926, Rothfels taught at the University of Berlin. From 1926 to 1934, he worked as a professor, holding the Chair of History at the University of Königsberg
University of Königsberg
The University of Königsberg was the university of Königsberg in East Prussia. It was founded in 1544 as second Protestant academy by Duke Albert of Prussia, and was commonly known as the Albertina....
. During his time in Königsberg
Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...
, he was well known for his highly nationalistic interpretation of German history. A reactionary
Reactionary
The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...
in his politics, Rothfels was hostile towards the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
, through combination of authoritarianism and mass national movement, he hoped, it would be destroyed, and connections with Western democracies broken, and envisioned that on ruins of this state a new Reich would emerged formed out of East Prussian Baltic Northeast and Southeastern outposts of former Habsburg Empire. In foreign affairs, he often denounced the Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
and the eastern borders it had imposed on Germany. Rothfels advocated German domination of Eastern Europe and making its population into serfs. As a historian, his major interests were Otto von Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
, Clausewitz, and later on, the conservative German opposition to Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
. A major interest of Rothfels in the 1920s was his belief in the obsolescence of the nation-state, and the need for a "loosening up" of the Versailles borders through increased protection of minorities. Rothfels promoted an idea of race classification based on readiness of non-German ethnic groups in Eastern Europe to submit themselves to rule of German Third Reich The Eastern and Southeastern nationalities were to be "restructured" and integrated with German "master race
Master race
Master race was a phrase and concept originating in the slave-holding Southern US. The later phrase Herrenvolk , interpreted as 'master race', was a concept in Nazi ideology in which the Nordic peoples, one of the branches of what in the late-19th and early-20th century was called the Aryan race,...
". Non-Germans would have been subject to hierarchical employment conditions and essentially have status of indentured workers, based on racist criteria Those living outside the "German sphere" were to be classified by hierarchy based on their "cultural heritage" and ruled under direction of Germans and a vassal class that would collaborated with them.
Although supportive of right wing politics (according to some, he might have voted for Hitler in 1932), he was subject to increasing persecution, being Jewish by birth. Eventually, Rothfels was forced to leave his s university position due to his Jewish ancestry, despite intervention by Hermann Rauschning
Hermann Rauschning
Hermann Rauschning was a GermanConservative Revolutionary who briefly joined the Nazis before breaking with them. In 1934 he renounced Nazi party membership and defected to the United States where he denounced Nazism...
the Nazi president of Danzig Senate and Theodor Oberlander
Theodor Oberländer
Theodor Oberländer was an Ostforschung scientist, Nazi officer and German politician. Before Second World War he devised plans aimed against Jewish and Polish population in territories that were to be conquered by Nazi Germany...
, director of League of German East(Bund der Deutschen Osten) and NSDAP's East Prussian intelligence agency and forbidden to teach a year later. While Rothfels tried to get a honorary Aryan status with support by Joachim von Ribbentrop
Joachim von Ribbentrop
Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.-Early life:...
, his efforts were fruitless. Subject to increasing persecution and discrimination by the State, he reluctantly left Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
in 1938 for Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. What decided the issue for him was his experience during the Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...
pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
when his house was looted and trashed by the SA
Sturmabteilung
The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...
and he himself was arrested and held by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
for several hours, during which he was deprived of his crutches and beaten up. Together with his wife and their three children, Rothfels left for the United Kingdom, where he hastily began to learn English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, a language that he subsequently mastered.
Exile
After teaching at St. John's CollegeSt John's College, Oxford
__FORCETOC__St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, one of the larger Oxford colleges with approximately 390 undergraduates, 200 postgraduates and over 100 academic staff. It was founded by Sir Thomas White, a merchant, in 1555, whose heart is buried in the chapel of...
, Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
from 1938 to 1940, Rothfels was interned on Isle of Man
Isle of Man
The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
. In this period his only known publication is an essay from 1940 where he discusses Soviet and German interaction in the Baltics, in which he defended German hegemony over this "outpost of Western Europe and Western civilization" and complained about resettlement of Germans there due to Soviet-Nazi treaties Rothfels left for the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, where he stayed until 1951, and took U.S. citizenship. He taught in the Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
in Providence
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
, Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
and at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
where he became professor. Considering his views at that time, a Jewish-German student was surprised that Rothfels was forced to leave Germany in the first place During his time in the United States, he befriended the American publisher Henry Regnery
Henry Regnery
-Biography:Regnery was born to a textile manufacturer on January 12, 1912 in Hinsdale, Illinois. He obtained a degree in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1934, and an M.A. from Harvard University, where he worked with Joseph Schumpeter. He also studied at Armour Institute of Technology, and from...
and became active in the Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
.
In an essay published in 1943, in the book The Makers of Modern Strategy on Clausewitz, has been praised by Michael Howard
Michael Howard (historian)
Sir Michael Eliot Howard, OM, CH, CBE, MC, FBA is a British military historian, formerly Chichele Professor of the History of War and Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford University, and Robert A...
as the first serious essay ever published on Clausewitz in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. In his essay, Rothfels argued that Clausewitz's military theories were more sophisticated than the "Mahdi of Mass" interpretation of Clausewitz that had been popularized by such historians as Sir Basil Liddell Hart
Basil Liddell Hart
Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart , usually known before his knighthood as Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, was an English soldier, military historian and leading inter-war theorist.-Life and career:...
. Rothfels argued that it was inappropriate to view Clausewitz in the context of later events; instead Rothfels insisted on understanding Clausewitz and his theory of war in the context of the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
and on understanding the Clausewitz the man as the key to understanding Clausewitz the military thinker. Rothfels maintained Clausewitz's personality, social background, war experience, and his schooling all needed to be understood to properly appreciate his theories about war. Most notably, Rothfels portrayed Clausewitz as a man under considerable psychological strain caused by his commoner background in the largely aristorcratic Prussian Army. Through Rothfels contended that aspects of Vom Krieg were outdated due to advances in military techonology and tactics, nonetheless, Rothfels felt that Clausewitz was the most important military philiosopher of all time. The U.S. military historian Peter Paret
Peter Paret
Peter Paret is American military, cultural & art historian with a particular interest in German history. Paret was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Dr. Hans Paret and Suzanne Aimée Cassirer, who divorced in 1932...
has differed with some of Rothfels's interpretation of Clausewitz, but acknowledged Rothfels as a major influence on his work on Clausewitz.
In 1948, Rothfels published his most famous book, The German Opposition To Hitler, which celebrated those conservatives who attempted the July 20 Plot
July 20 Plot
On 20 July 1944, an attempt was made to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of the Third Reich, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia. The plot was the culmination of the efforts of several groups in the German Resistance to overthrow the Nazi-led German government...
of 1944, which was based upon a lecture given at the University of Chicago in 1947. Rothfels, who remained a steadfast German nationalist all his life, saw the conspirators against the National Socialist
National Socialist German Workers Party
The National Socialist German Workers' Party , commonly known in English as the Nazi Party, was a political party in Germany between 1920 and 1945. Its predecessor, the German Workers' Party , existed from 1919 to 1920...
regime as representative of all that was best about German life and argued that the actions of the conspirators had restored Germany's honour from the disgrace the Nazis had brought upon it. Rothfels accepted Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
's idea that the best defenders of liberty come from the upper crust of society and cast the men and women of July 20 as a perfect example of Burke's theory. Rothfels claimed that the German opposition was motivated by the highest possible ethical and moral considerations, and asserted that there were no self-interested motives whatsoever amongst the men and women of the July 20. Rothfels argued that the actions of the July 20 conspirators were motivated a sense of noblesse oblige, devotion to the principles of Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
and the highest form of patriotism
Patriotism
Patriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...
. Rothfels was fond of pointing out the difficulties involved in attempting to overthrow one’s government in war-time, which in Rothfels view, was a sign of the true patriotism of the July 20 conspirators.
Rothfels saw Nazism as a type of totalitarianism
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
, and often argued that there was no moral difference between Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
; in his view, the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
was merely a continuation of the struggle between what he called the “conservative freedom movement” and totalitarian forces. In particular, Rothfels was opposed to any sort of Sonderweg
Sonderweg
Sonderweg is a controversial theory in German historiography that considers the German-speaking lands, or the country Germany, to have followed a unique course from aristocracy into democracy, distinct from other European countries...
interpretation of German history
History of Germany
The concept of Germany as a distinct region in central Europe can be traced to Roman commander Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania, thus distinguishing it from Gaul , which he had conquered. The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the...
, and argued that Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
was the result of the general problems of modern civilization, which Rothfels saw as based on a set of values that were overtly materialistic, secular, and dehumanizing, and which had reduced most people to a mindless mass. Rothfels wrote "In many respects, Nationals can be considered as the final summit of an extreme consequence of the secularization movmement of the nineteenth century". In Rothfels’s view, the values of modern mass civilization had led most people to forget the fundamental values of the West
Western culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
, which in his opinion were based on respect for God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
and the individual. Rothfels argued that "Modern mass civilization generates a reservoir of evil forces whose release spells barbarism...What triumphed after the pseudo-legal revolution of 1933 was in fact and to a great extent the dark forces forming the sedimment of every modern society". Rothfels argued that the Nazis came to power as a result of a series of unfortunate developments that had occurred in Germany after World War I such as the Great Inflation of 1923 and the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, and often criticized those in his view promoted the view that sought to equate Deutschum with Nazism such as Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier
Lewis Bernstein Namier
Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier was an English historian. He was born Ludwik Niemirowski in Wola Okrzejska in what was then part of the Russian Empire and is today in Poland.-Life:...
, William L. Shirer
William L. Shirer
William Lawrence Shirer was an American journalist, war correspondent, and historian, who wrote The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, a history of Nazi Germany read and cited in scholarly works for more than 50 years...
, A.J.P. Taylor and Sir John Wheeler-Bennett
John Wheeler-Bennett
Sir John Wheeler Wheeler-Bennett , GCVO, CMG, OBE, FBA, FRSL was a conservative English historian of German and diplomatic history, and the official biographer of King George VI.-Early career:...
. Moreover, far from Nazism being rooted in German traditions, Rothfels claimed that the strongest opposition to Nazism came from those grounded in traditional values. In Rothfels's opinion, "the traditions of a genuine 'Prussian militarism'" provived the principle "bulwark against nationalistic and demagogic excesses". The German Opposition to Hitler ended with a call for people all over the West to embrace what Rothfels regarded as the noble ideas of the conservative opponents of Nazism, which Rothfels saw as leading to back to the higher values of the West.
The German Opposition To Hitler was a controversial book because Rothfels focused his attention largely on anti-Nazis on the Right and for the most part ignored anti-Nazis on the Left. In addition, many felt that the book was a hagiographical treatment of anti-Nazi conservatives. His motive in writing the book was in part to prevent the emergence of a new stab-in-the-back legend that might once again undermine democracy in Germany. He was dismayed by public opinion polls taken immediately after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in the American zone of occupation that showed the majority of Germans had a low opinion of the men and women involved in the July 20 plot. Rothfels was determined that Germans should see them as heroes, not villains.
Return to Germany
In 1951, Rothfels returned to West GermanyWest Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
, where he taught at the University of Tübingen. He worked hard for the rest of his life to exonerate German nationalism from the taint of Nazism. Upon his return to Germany, Rothfels founded the Institut für Zeitgeschichte
Institut für Zeitgeschichte
The Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich was conceived in 1947 under the name Deutsches Institut für Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Zeit...
(Institute for Contemporary History), an historical study center devoted to the Nazi period. The institute's journal, the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (Journal for Contemporary History) has become one of the world's leading periodicals for the study of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. Within a few years, the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte had the highest circulation of any historical journal in West Germany. During the 1950s, Rothfels was one of the few German historians who attempted a serious examination of the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
, which was a subject that most German historians preferred to ignore during that decade. In particular, he broke new ground by publishing Kurt Gerstein
Kurt Gerstein
Kurt Gerstein was a German SS officer and member of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS. He witnessed mass murders in the Nazi extermination camps Belzec and Treblinka...
's reports relating to the Final Solution in the first edition of the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte in 1953 and another article in 1959 that examined the plight of Polish Jewry under Nazi rule.
In his works Rothfels aimed at minimising the German hostility to Jews, while highlighting any attempts to save them by German individuals. Crimes and support for anti-semitism were downplayed, and opposition to racial discrimination portrayed by Rothfels as dominant. As such his text produced a vision of history in which for example the 1930s were virtually absent from anti-semitism, and non-Jewish Germans were completely willing to help Jews.
After his return to Germany, Rothfels was a pioneer of contemporary history, the study of the “epoch of those who lived at the time” to use Rothfels’s words. In Rothfels’s view, contemporary history was the study of the recent past, where despite or rather because the lack of documentation caused by studying events so close to the past and the challenge of writing about events that one experienced oneself, required special patience, skill and ability of the part of the historian. In particular, Rothfels called for historians working in the field of contemporary history to approach matters in an objective and neutral matter while keeping in mind the moral questions. In practice, contemporary history came to refer history from 1914 on.
After his return to Germany, Rothfels took a strong stand against those whose work he felt could exonerate the Nazis. In 1954, he and one of his star pupils from the University of Chicago, Gerhard Weinberg
Gerhard Weinberg
Gerhard Ludwig Weinberg is a German-born American diplomatic and military historian noted for his studies in the history of World War II. Weinberg currently is the William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has been a member of the...
had a renowned debate on the pages of Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte with Andreas Hillgruber
Andreas Hillgruber
Andreas Fritz Hillgruber was a conservative German historian. Hillgruber was influential as a military and diplomatic historian.At his death in 1989, the American historian Francis L...
and Hans-Günther Seraphim over the issue of whether the German invasion of the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
in 1941 had been a “preventive war” forced on Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
by the possibility of Soviet attack on Germany. Hillgruber and Seraphim argued for the "preventive war" thesis while Rothfels and Weinberg opposed it, arguing that it was Nazi racial theories that were the origins of the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The majority opinion was that Rothfels and Weinberg destroyed Seraphim's and Hillgruber's arguments. Indeed, Hillgruber himself did a volte-face and renounced his former thesis as mistaken. Later, in 1961, Rothfels took a strong stand against the American neo-Nazi historian David Hoggan
David Hoggan
David Leslie Hoggan was an American historical writer, author of The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed and other works in the German and English languages.-Early life:...
who claimed that the outbreak of war in 1939 had been due to an Anglo
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
-Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
conspiracy against Germany. Also in 1961, Rothfels assisted Weinberg with the publication of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's Zweites Buch
Zweites Buch
The Zweites Buch is an unedited transcript of Adolf Hitler's thoughts on foreign policy written in 1928; it was written after Mein Kampf and was never published in his lifetime.-Composition:...
which Weinberg had discovered in 1958, and for which Rothfels wrote the introduction.
Another area of interest for Rothfels was the expulsion
Expulsion of Germans after World War II
The later stages of World War II, and the period after the end of that war, saw the forced migration of millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans from various European states and territories, mostly into the areas which would become post-war Germany and post-war Austria...
of the ethnic German population from Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. In the 1950s, Rothfels worked with Theodor Schieder
Theodor Schieder
Theodor Schieder was one of the most influential German historians of the 20th century.Schieder was born in Oettingen and lived in Königsberg in East Prussia since 1934. In the interwar period Schieder became a part of a group of German conservative historians antagonistic towards the Weimar...
, Werner Conze
Werner Conze
Werner Conze was a German historian in Nazi Germany and in post-World War II Germany. He was one of the notable members of the Schieder commission. He came from a family of academics and lawyers...
and other historians to produce the multi-volume Documentation of the Expulsion of Germans from East Central Europe. Many later prominent historians such as Martin Broszat
Martin Broszat
Martin Broszat was a German historian specializing in modern German social history whose work has been described by The Encyclopedia of Historians as indispensable for any serious study of the Third Reich. Broszat was born in Leipzig, Germany and studied history at the University of Leipzig and...
, Hans-Ulrich Wehler
Hans-Ulrich Wehler
Hans-Ulrich Wehler is a German historian known for his role in promoting social history through the "Bielefeld School", and for his critical studies of 19th century Germany.-Career:...
and Hans Mommsen
Hans Mommsen
Hans Mommsen is a left-wing German historian. He is the twin brother of the late Wolfgang Mommsen.-Biography:He was born in Marburg, the son of the historian Wilhelm Mommsen and great-grandson of the Roman historian Theodor Mommsen. He studied German, history and philosophy at the University of...
were involved in this project.
Controversy
In his lifetime and since his death, Rothfels has been a very controversial figure. Many see him as apologist for the anti-democratic German Right, and in particular, his attitude towards the Weimar Republic has recently been the subject of controversy in Germany. The historian Ingo HaarIngo Haar
Ingo Haar is a German historian. He received his Master of Arts from the University of Hamburg in 1993 and his PhD in History in 1998 at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg...
in his 2000 book Historiker im Nationalsozialismus called Rothfels an enemy of the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
and a Nazi sympathizer. The historian Heinrich August Winkler
Heinrich August Winkler
Heinrich August Winkler is a German historian.After attending a Gymnasium in Ulm, he studied history, political science, philosophy and public law at Münster, Heidelberg and Tübingen. In 1970 he became professor at the Free University of Berlin. From 1972 to 1991 he was professor at the University...
has strongly criticized Haar, who had erroneously used a radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
address Rothfels gave in 1930 praising Friedrich Ebert
Friedrich Ebert
Friedrich Ebert was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany .When Ebert was elected as the leader of the SPD after the death of August Bebel, the party members of the SPD were deeply divided because of the party's support for World War I. Ebert supported the Burgfrieden and...
, Gustav Stresemann
Gustav Stresemann
was a German politician and statesman who served as Chancellor and Foreign Minister during the Weimar Republic. He was co-laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926.Stresemann's politics defy easy categorization...
, and Paul von Hindenburg
Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg , known universally as Paul von Hindenburg was a Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and politician, and served as the second President of Germany from 1925 to 1934....
as great German leaders as a proof for Rothfels' support of Hitler. While Haar had implied the speech dates from 1933 and was addressed to Hitler after he took over power in Germany, Winkler verified the actual circumstances of the speech, which Rothfels repeated several times prior to 1933. Rothfels's critics contend that his planned 1933 radio address was too little, too late.
Rothfels and his inner circle at Königsberg in the early 1930s are often referred to as the Königsberg circle . Its most prominent members, apart from Rothfels himself, were his students Theodor Schieder
Theodor Schieder
Theodor Schieder was one of the most influential German historians of the 20th century.Schieder was born in Oettingen and lived in Königsberg in East Prussia since 1934. In the interwar period Schieder became a part of a group of German conservative historians antagonistic towards the Weimar...
and Werner Conze
Werner Conze
Werner Conze was a German historian in Nazi Germany and in post-World War II Germany. He was one of the notable members of the Schieder commission. He came from a family of academics and lawyers...
. Whereas Rothfels had to emigrate, Schieder and Conze joined the NSdAP. They were active in the field of Ostforschung
Ostforschung
Ostforschung in general describes since the 18th century any German research of areas to the East of Germany. Since the 1990s, the Ostforschung itself is a subject of historic research, while the names of institutes etc. were changed to more specific ones. For example, the journal „Zeitschrift für...
, where they supported ideas such as 'dejewification' . After Rothfels' return the three became leading figures among the historians of the newly founded West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
. They soon found themselves together in a commission led by Schieder
Schieder commission
Documents on the Expulsion of the Germans from Eastern-Central Europe is the abridged English translation of a multi-volume publication that was created by a commission of West German historians between 1951 and 1961...
that was set up by the government for documenting the expulsion of Germans after World War II
Expulsion of Germans after World War II
The later stages of World War II, and the period after the end of that war, saw the forced migration of millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans from various European states and territories, mostly into the areas which would become post-war Germany and post-war Austria...
.
In 1998 the 42nd Deutscher Historikertag marked the beginning of a public debate among German historians about the "brown history" of their field.
Work
- Carl von Clausewitz: Politik und Krieg, Dümmlers Verlag, Berlin, 1920.
- Bismarck Und Der Staat; Ausgewählte Dokumente, Eingeleitet Von Hans Rothfels, Stuttgart, Kohlhammer, 1925.
- “Clausewitz” pages 93–113 from The Makers of Modern Strategy edited by Edward Mead Earle, Gordon A. CraigGordon A. CraigGordon Alexander Craig was a Scottish-American historian of German history and of diplomatic history.-Early life:...
& Felix GilbertFelix GilbertFelix Gilbert was a German-born American historian of early modern and modern Europe. Gilbert was born in Baden-Baden, Germany to a middle-class Jewish family, and part of the Mendelssohn Bartholdy clan. In the latter half of the 1920s, Gilbert studied under Friedrich Meinecke at the University of...
, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1943. - "The Baltic Provinces: Some Historic Aspects and Perspectives" pages 117-146 from Journal of Central European Affairs, Volume IV, July, 1944.
- The German Opposition to Hitler, An Appraisal Henry Regnery Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1948; published in Germany as Die deutsche Opposition gegen Hitler Scherpe, Krefeld, 1949, revised editions 1961 & 1963.
- Review of Die Entscheidung des Abendlandes by Rudolf Rocker" pages 839-841 from American Historical Review, Volume 56, Issue #4, July 1951.
- "Zeitgeschichte als Aufgabe" pages 1–8 from Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Volume 1, 1953.
- Bismarck-Briefe. Ausgewählt Und Eingeleitet Von Hans Rothfels, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1955.
- Das politische Vermächtnis des deutschen Widerstandes, Bonn : Bundeszentrale für Heimatdienst, 1956.
- "Die Roten Kämpfer Zur Geschichte einer linken Widerstandsgruppe" pages 438-460 from Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Volume 7, 1959.
- "Zur „Umsiedlung“ der Juden im Generalgouvernment", pages 333-336 from Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Volume 7, 1959.
- Bismarck, der Osten und das Reich, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1960.
- Bismarck; Vorträge und Abhandlungen, Stuttgart, W. Kohlhammer 1970.
External links
- Were Chicago and Providence really so far from Königsberg and Tübingen? The Rothfelsstreit in an American Key
- Forum: Gerhard L. Weinberg: Nicolas Berg, The Holocaust and West German Historians. Comments by Gerhard WeinbergGerhard WeinbergGerhard Ludwig Weinberg is a German-born American diplomatic and military historian noted for his studies in the history of World War II. Weinberg currently is the William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has been a member of the...
. - 20 Juli: The Politics of a Coup
- Hans Rothfels and the Intersection between Radical Conservatism and Nazism