Martin Broszat
Encyclopedia
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
(1944–1949) and at the University of Cologne
(1949–1952). He married Alice Welter in 1953 and had three children. He served as a professor at the University of Cologne (1954–1955), at the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich
(1955–1989) and was a Professor Emeritus
at the University of Konstanz
(1969–1980). He was head of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte
(Institute of Contemporary History) between 1972 and 1989.
wrote about the relationship between Broszat's party membership and his later historical work:
, anti-Semitism
and the perceived need for Lebensraum
. In Broszat's view, these were a cloak for the essence of National Socialism
, irrational emotions: an intense desire to realize the "rebirth" of "the German nation"; the need to "act" and irrational hatred directed against those considered Volksfeinde (enemies of the German People) and Volksfremde (those foreign to the German "race"). Broszat saw the primary supporters of the Nazis being the middle classes, who turned to Nazism to alleviate their anxieties about impoverishment and "proletarianization" in the wake of hyperinflation
in the early 1920s and the mass unemployment that began with the Great Depression at the end of the decade.
From the mid-1950s, Broszat served as one of the co-editors of the DTV Weltgeschichte journal. Initially, Broszat's work focused on German Ostpolitik (Eastern Policy) in the 19th and 20th centuries and of the muddled socialism of the Nazis. Broszat's work on German-Polish relations in the 19th–20th centuries was to ultimately win him accolades in Poland as one of the first German historians to offer an honest account of German–Polish relations.
In 1962, Broszat wrote a letter to the Die Zeit
newspaper to "hammer home, once more, the persistently ignored or denied difference between concentration and extermination camps". In his letter, Broszat claimed this was not an "admission" that there was no Holocaust but rather an attempt to "set the record straight" about the differences between concentration and death camps. Broszat noted the differences between concentration camps
, which were places where the inmates were consistently mistreated but were not the subject of annihilation and death camps, which existed to exterminate people. Broszat denied there was a functioning gas chamber at the Dachau concentration camp (though he noted that one was built shortly before the end of the war as part of the effort to convert Dachau into a death camp but was never used). Broszat commented that though there were many concentration camps in Germany, all of the German death camps for the genocide of the European Jews were in Poland. Broszat argued that this confusion in the public's mind between concentration and death camps and the tendency to erroneously describe Dachau as a death camp was aiding the early Holocaust deniers like Paul Rassinier
, Harry Elmer Barnes
and David Hoggan
, who were making much of the fact that there was no functioning gas chamber at Dachau.
In 1961, when the Polish-Jewish historian Joseph Wulf
accused the prominent German doctor Dr Wilhelm Hagen, who served in the health department of the General Government
during the war, of helping to liquidate Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto
, Broszat together with other experts from the Institute of Contemporary History were involved in the effort to silence Wulf during an exchange of letters in 1963. Hagen, who was a senior official in the West German Ministry of Health falsely claimed to have been opposed to the Holocaust and to have done everything in his power to save the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto and asked the Institute to support his version of events. Broszat wrote a letter to Wulf demanding that he retract his allegations against Hagen “in the interest of the tidiness of the historical document” The British historian Ian Kershaw
wrote that the Broszat-Wulf letters did not present Broszat in the best light, especially that Broszat seemed to have abandonded his support for Dr. Hagen very reluctantly and to have accepted Wulf's version only half-heartedly. Broszat only accepted Wulf's version after Wulf produced a war-time memo written by Hagen urging that sick Jews "wandering around" be shot down, which led Broszt to concede that perhaps Hagen was not the friend of the Ghetto he claimed to have been.
At the 1963–1965 Auschwitz Trial
in Frankfurt
, Broszat together with other experts from the Institute of Contemporary History such as Helmut Krausnick, Hans-Adolf Jacobsen and Hans Buchheim served as expert witnesses for the prosecution. The report that they complied for the prosecution served as the basis for their 1968 book Anatomy of the SS State, the first comprehensive study of the SS
based on SS records. In 1983, Broszat together with the other experts from Institute for Contemporary History played a prominent role in debunking the Hitler Diaries.
as a totalitarian
regime and criticized Karl Dietrich Bracher
and Ernst Nolte
for advancing such a notion. With Hans Mommsen
, Broszat developed a "structuralist" interpretation of Nazi Germany. Broszat saw Nazi Germany as a welter of competing institutions, putting forth the thesis that this internal rivalry, not Adolf Hitler
, provided the driving force behind Nazi Germany. Hitler in Broszat's controversial view, was (to use Mommsen's phrase), a "weak dictator"; as such the Third Reich was not a monocracy (rule by one man), rather a polycracy (rule by many).
In his 1969 book Der Staat Hitlers (The Hitler State), Broszat argued that Nazi Germany was dominated by a power struggle by various institutions and that these power struggles explained the course that the Third Reich took. Broszat pointed out that the Nazi State was dualistic; the normal institutions of the German state, (theoretically Nazified) operating in parallel to institutions of the Nazi Party, a rival power structure. Broszat was able to prove that beneath the public veneer of Nazi unity, there were endless power struggles between the revolutionary institutions of the Nazi Party and the organs of the traditional German state. In Broszat's view, these power struggles formed the dynamics and structures of the Nazi state, which were the driving forces behind Nazism. Broszat argued these power struggles were a Darwinian competition in which the "fittest" were the most radical elements of the Nazi movement, leading to "cumulative radicalization", to use another of Mommsen's phrases describing the Nazi state. Broszat rejected the view that Hitler was following a "divide and rule" strategy as argued by Bracher and instead argued that Hitler was unwilling and unable to provide for orderly government. Broszat argued that Hitler allowed the Nazi state to become a collection of rival power blocs, which allowed for the release of extremely destructive forces into German society.
That the Nazi state was a jumble of competing bureaucracies in perpetual power struggles, has been widely accepted by historians. The second element, that Hitler was a "weak dictator" is less influential on the grounds that although Hitler did not involve himself much in daily administration, this apparent neglect stemmed not from an inability to do so (as Broszat suggested) but a lack of interest in the quotidian.
Broszat was a Functionalist
on the origins of the Holocaust. Broszat argued that the Nazis wanted to have "revolution in society" but because they needed the co-operation of the traditional elites in business, the military and the civil service, they turned their energy and hatred on those groups such as Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and the mentally ill that the traditional elites did not care about. These groups were subjected to increasing persecution in the 1930s, beginning with internment in concentration camps (which were not initially death camps) and the "euthanasia" program (murder) of people with learning difficulties, escalating into the genocide of Jews in 1941–1942. Broszat argued that aggression abroad was part of the same process of lashing out against Volksfeinde and Volksfremde caused by the Nazi failure to achieve the sort of comprehensive revolution they sought in German society. After all, Hitler had frequently spoken of nationalizing not industry (as conventional socialists wanted) but the people.
In Broszat's view, the evidence was lacking for the thesis that Hitler was executing a "Programme" in foreign policy
. Broszat argued that Hitler's foreign policy was motivated his need to maintain his image, which led to efforts to negate any form of restraint imposed by treaties or alliances. For Broszat, the idea of Lebensraum
was more of a vague utopian "metaphor" which served to provide a vision for the Nazi movement and was not a coherent foreign policy. Broszat contended that prior to 1939, Hitler's lack of clear policy towards Poland
proved that there could have no "Programme" in foreign policy, since Poland's geographical status as the land between Germany and the Soviet Union should have provided for a clear-cut Polish policy. In a 1970 article, Broszat wrote that Operation Barbarossa
was not “a calculated plan to realize his [Hitler's] Lebensraum ideas but that he felt compelled to get out from waiting in the summer of 1940 and proceed to a decisive ending of the war”.
's argument in his book Hitler's War
that Hitler was unaware of the Holocaust but did accept Irving's argument that there was no written order from Hitler for the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". Broszat’s essay was notable as the first account of the origins of the Holocaust by a respected historian in which responsibility for the genocide was not assigned entirely to Hitler. Through Broszat took considerable pains to emphasize what he considered the unpleasant aspects of Hitler’s character, writing at one point of Hitler’s “totally irresponsible, self-deceiving, destructive and evilly misanthropic egocentricity and his lunatic fanaticism”, in Broszat’s opinion the Holocaust could not be explained solely with reference to Hitler or his ideas.
Broszat argued that the radical anti-Semitism
of the Nazis had led them to embark on increasingly extreme attempts to expel the Jews of Europe, and after the failure of successive deportation schemes, the lower officials of the Nazi state had started exterminating people on their own initiative. Broszat argued that the Holocaust began “bit by bit” as German officials stumbled into genocide Broszat argued that Hitler provided the goal to the functionaries of the German state “to get rid of the Jews and above all to make the territory of the Reich judenfrei, i.e. clear of the Jews” without providing any guidelines as to how this was to be done German officials began a massive program of ethnic cleansing
and mass expulsions in Poland and elsewhere without “clear aims…with respect to the subsequent fate of the deportees” Following the abandonment of the Madagascar Plan
, after June 1941 German officials hoped that “…the spaces to be occupied in the Soviet Union would…offer a possibility for getting rid of the Jews of Germany and of the allied and occupied countries” Broszat maintained that when faced with the stalemate on the Eastern Front
, the overwhelming of the European rail system by successive deportations and the self-imposed "problem" of three million Polish Jews the Germans had forced into ghettoes between 1939 and 1941, local German officials in Poland started in the fall of 1941 "improvised" killing schemes as the "simplest" solution to the "Jewish Question". In Broszat's opinion, Hitler subsequently approved of the measures initiated by the lower officials and allowed the expansion of the Holocaust from Eastern Europe to all of Europe. In this way, Broszat argued that the Shoah was not begun in response to an order, written or unwritten from Hitler but was rather “a way out of the blind alley into which the Nazis had manoeuvred themselves”. Broszat argued that the Holocaust was not the result of a master-plan of Hitler’s going back to when he wrote Mein Kampf
in 1924 but rather was the work of hundreds of thousands of German officials, many of whom were non-Nazis and most of whom were quite ordinary.
In the same essay, Broszat was extremely critical of Irving's handling of sources, accusing him of repeatedly seeking to distort the historical record in Hitler's favor. Broszat wrote with regards to Hitler's War that:
"euthanasia" program began in September 1939 to make hospital spaces for wounded German soldiers, when it began in January 1939. Broszat criticized Irving's claim that because of one telephone note written by Himmler stating "No liquidation" in regards to a train convoy of German Jews passing through Berlin
to Riga
(whom the SS intended to have all shot upon arrival) on 30 November 1941 that this proved that Hitler did not want to see the Holocaust happen. Broszat argued that this was not proof that Hitler had given an order to Himmler to stop the killings of Jews but rather that the comment "No liquidation" referred to that train and was likely to relate to concerns about questions American reporters were asking about the fate of German Jews being sent to Eastern Europe. Broszat questioned whether Hitler had given Himmler any order to save the lives of the people abroad the train, given that the phone call Himmler made from the Wolfsschanze
to Heydrich in Prague took place at about 11:30 A.M. and the records show that Hitler did not get up until about 2:00 P.M on November 30, 1941. Broszat criticized Irving for accepting the "fantastic" claims of the SS Obergruppenführer
Karl Wolff
, that he did not know about the Holocaust (Irving's argument was that if Wolff did not know about the Holocaust, how could Hitler?), despite the fact that Wolff was convicted of war crimes in 1963 on the basis of documentary evidence implicating him in the Holocaust. Broszat accused Irving of seeking to generate a highly misleading impression of a conference between Hitler and the Hungarian Regent, Admiral Miklós Horthy
, in April 1943 by re-arranging the words to make Hitler appear less brutally anti-Semitic than the original notes showed. Broszat maintained that the picture of World War II drawn by Irving was done in a such way to engage in moral equivalence between the actions of the Axis and Allied states, leading to Hitler's "fanatical, destructive will to annihilate" being downgraded to being "...no longer an exceptional phenomenon". The criticism by Broszat was considered to be especially damaging to Irving because Broszat had based his critique largely on the examination of the primary sources Irving had used for Hitler's War.
(history of everyday life). To pursue this aim better he led the "Bavaria Project" between 1977 and 1983, which was intended be a comprehensive look at Alltagsgeschichte in Bavaria
between 1933 and 1945. In Bayern in der NS-Zeit ("Bavaria in the National Socialist Era") as the six volumes which were comprised by the "Bavaria Project" edited by Broszat were entitled, he depicted actions such as refusal to give the Nazi salute or regularly attending church as a type of resistance
. The emphasis upon resistance in "everyday life" in the "Bavaria Project" portrayed Widerstand (resistance) not as a contrast between black and white but rather shades of grey, noting that people who often refused to behave as the Nazi regime wanted in one area often conformed in others; as an example the Bavarian peasants who did business with Jewish cattle dealers in the 1930s despite the efforts of the Nazi regime to stop these transactions otherwise often expressed approval of the anti-Semitic laws.
Through his work on the "Bavaria Project", Broszat formed the concept of Resistenz (immunity), which is not to be confused with resistance (in German
Widerstand). Resistenz referred to the ability of institutions such as the Wehrmacht
, the Roman Catholic Church
and the bureaucracy to enjoy "immunity" from the Nazi claims to total power and to function according to their traditional values, without seeking to challenge the Nazi regime's political monopoly. Broszat used the Resistenz concept to advance the view that at the local level, there was much continuity in Germany between the Weimar Era
and the Nazi era
. Broszat argued that there were two approaches to the Widerstand question, namely the "behavioral" approach that focused on intent and the "functional" approach that focused on the effect (Wirkung) on one's actions. For Broszat, the concept of Resistenz was meant to explain how much of the German population was able to evade the Nazi "claim to total power" without seeking to fundamentally challenge the regime. The Resistenz concept proved to be controversial, with Swiss historian Walter Hofer stating:
music should be considered as a form of Widerstand.
of 1986–1988, Broszat again strongly criticized Nolte's views and work. In a 1986 essay entitled "Where the Roads Part" in Die Zeit
on October 3, 1986, Broszat called Nolte an obnoxious crank and attacked him for his "offensive" claims that the Holocaust had in someway been forced on the Nazi regime by fear of the Soviet Union As a socialist, Broszat argued against attempts to promote a "less extreme" view of the Nazi period. Broszat argued during the Historikerstreit that Andreas Hillgruber
had come close to being a Nazi apologist and that Nolte was one. Regarding Nolte's claim that Chaim Weizmann
on behalf of world Jewry had declared war on Germany in 1939, Broszat wrote Weizmann's letter to Neville Chamberlain
promising the support of the Jewish Agency in World War II was not a "declaration of war" nor did Weizmann have the legal power to declare war on anyone Broszat commented "These facts may be overlooked by a right-wing publicist with a dubious educational background but not by the college professor Ernst Nolte" Broszat accused Michael Stürmer
of attempting to create an "ersatz religion" in German history that Broszat argued was more appropriate for the pre-modern era then 1986 Broszat wrote that "Here the roads part" and argued that no self-respecting historian could associate himself with the effort to "drive the shame out of the Germans". Broszat ended his essay with the remark that such "perversions" of German history must be resisted in order to ensure the German people a better future.
Broszat called the "normalization" of the Nazi era by focusing on Alltagsgeschichte
approach that allow shades of gray by examining both the "normality" of "everyday life" and the "barbarity" of the regime. As part of this "normalization", Broszat called for the end of the teleological approach that saw Auschwitz
as the culmination of the Nazi regime and instead paid heed to the fact that for most Germans the Holocaust was of marginal concern during the Nazi era and that Auschwitz did not obtain its iconic status as the supreme symbol of evil and inhumanity until after 1945. Broszat urged that historians stop the black and white treatment between "evil" Nazis and "good" anti-Nazis in German society and instead used the more "realistic" approach of noting the shades of grey within German society. As an example of “shades of grey”, Broszat noted that the man designated to serve as Germany’s new chancellor if the July 20 Plot
had succeeded, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler
was an anti-Semite. Broszat noted that the simplistic contrast between totally “good” anti-Nazis vs. completely “evil” Nazis led to historians ignoring Goerdeler’s anti-Semitism to keep the camps of good and evil pure. Broszat called for a history that could allow one take in account nuances and degrees of agreement between German anti-Nazis and Nazis, thus allowing historians to write a history that could allow one to accept the fact that one could be both an anti-Nazi and an anti-Semite.
Broszat called for the Third Reich to be integrated into the broad stream of German history and called for a long-range view of the German past with the Nazi era seen as a stage of the broader story of German history rather than being treated as an abnormal period that was not connected to what came before or after. Broszat wrote that "not all those historically significant developments which occurred in Germany during the Nazi period merely served the regime's goals of inhuman and dictatorial domination" and called for a broader look at the Nazi era. Broszat used as an example of his approach, the "Ley Plan" as the wide-ranging reform of the German social insurance
system proposed in 1940 by the DAF
was known, which Broszat noted borne many striking similarities to the British Beveridge Plan
of 1943 (through the German plan applied only to those classified as "Aryans") Broszat argued that such a comparative approach would place the Nazi era in a better broader European and German context, especially since Broszat argued that the German plan of 1940 was in many ways the forerunner of the West German social insurance plan of 1957 with such features as pensions guaranteed by the state indexed to the level of GNP (which was not surprising given that many of the same people worked on both plans) Broszat called for the "normalization" of the historical understanding of the Nazi era with detailed scholarship employing "mid-range" concepts based upon empirical research and rejecting the moralistic condemnation of the period. Based upon his work in Alltagsgeschichte, Broszat felt that particular attention should be paid to the "normality" for most people of everyday life in Nazi Germany and how this "normality" co-existed with the "barbarity" of the Nazi regime. Broszat' call for "historicization" was much influenced by his work in the field of Alltagsgeschichte and by his functionlist understanding of the Nazi period In response to Broszat’s call for the "historization" of National Socialism, the historian Rainer Zitelmann
suggested that Broszat’s "historization" approach was a fruitful arguing that just as not everything was evil in the Soviet Union, not everything was evil about Nazi Germany and that the Nazi regime accomplished many successful social reforms
The American historian Gavriel D. Rosenfeld
wrote about Broszat's call for "historization" that:
Broszat's call for the "historicization" of the Third Reich as opposed to the “demonization” of the period, involved him in a vigorous debate with three Israeli historians in the latter half of the 1980s
. The three historians Broszat debated were Otto Dov Kulka, Dan Diner and above all with the Franco-Israeli historian Saul Friedländer
. During an exchange of letters with Broszat during the late 1980s
, Friedländer argued that there were three dilemmas and three problems involved in the "historicization" of the Third Reich. The first dilemma was that of historical periodization and how long-term social changes could be related to an understanding of the Nazi period. Friedländer argued that focusing on long-term social changes such as the growth of the welfare state from the Imperial to Weimar to the Nazi periods to the present as Broszat suggested changed the focus on historical research from the particular of the Nazi era to the general longue durée
(long duration) of 20th century German history. Friedländer felt that "relative relevance" of the growth of the welfare state under the Third Reich and its relationship to post-war developments would cause historians to lose attention of the genocidal politics of the Nazi state. The second dilemma Friedländer felt that by treating the Nazi period as a "normal" period of history and by examining the aspects of "normality" might run the danger of causing historians to lose interest in the "criminality" of the Nazi era. This was a concern for Friedländer because he contended that aspects of "normality" and "criminality" very much overlapped in the everyday life of Nazi Germany. The third dilemma involved was Friedländer considered the vague definition of "historicization" entailed and might allow historians to advance apologetic arguments about National Socialism such as those Friedländer accused Ernst Nolte
and Andreas Hillgruber
of making. Friedländer conceded that Broszat was not an apologist for Nazi Germany like Nolte and Hillgruber. Friedländer noted that through the concept of "historicization" was highly awkward one because it opened the door to the type of arguments that Nolte and Hillgruber advanced during the Historikerstreit, Broszat's motives in calling for the "historicization" were honourable.
The first problem for Friedländer was that the Nazi era was too recent in popular memory for historians to deal with it as a "normal" period as for example 16th century France. The second problem was "differential relevance" of "historicization". Friedländer argued that the study of the Nazi period was "global", that it belongs to everyone and that by focusing on everyday life was a particular interest for German historians. Friedländer asserted that for non-Germans, the history of Nazi ideology in practice especially in regards to war and genocide were vastly more important then Alltagsgeschichte. The third problem for Friedländer was that the Nazi period was unique so that it could not easily fit into the long-range view of German history as advocated by Broszat. Friedländer maintained that the essence of National Socialism was that it "tried to determine who should and should not inhabit the world" and the genocidal politics of the Nazi regime resisted any attempt to integrate it as part of the "normal" development of the modern world. The debate between Broszat and Friedländer were conducted through a series of letters between 1987 until Broszat's death in 1989. In 1990, the Broszat-Friedländer correspondence were translated into English and published in Reworking the Past Hitler, The Holocaust and the Historians' Debate edited by Peter Baldwin
.
In a letter of September 28, 1987, Broszat conceded to Friedländer that the "historicization" concept was open to abuse but argued that the concept was needed as the Nazi period had to be subject to rational historical analysis and was needed to provide a sensible way of understanding the Nazi era In response, Friedländer wrote that he did not feel that there was a "blockade" severing the Nazi period from the rest of German history, used Hillgruber's essay in his 1986 book Zweierlei Untergang calling for historians to sympathize with German troops fighting on the Eastern Front in 1944–45 as an example of the abuse of "historicization" and described Broszat's condemnation on a "moralistic" history written that assigned a leading role to the "victims" of National Socialism as a very troubling In a letter of October 26, 1987, Broszat wrote he was concerned that because of the iconic status of Auschwitz too much history was being written backwards with historians starting with Auschwitz and treating everything in the Third Reich as an long countdown to genocide
An even more harsher assessement of Broszat’s "historicization" concept than Friedländer's came from the Israeli historian Omer Bartov
, who accused Broszat of being a German apologist and of seeking to diminish Jewish suffering in the Holocaust, indeed the Holocaust as a study in history because as a German historian he was not comfortable with dealing with Germans as perpetrators of genocide and Jews as victims of German genocide. By contrast, the American historian John Lukacs
approved of Broszat's call for "historicization," but also suggested "that the 'historicization' of the Third Reich had begun more than thirty years before Professor Broszat pronounced its desirability." The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas
wrote that Broszat had written "convincingly" on the need for "historicization" Hans Mommsen
praised Broszat's call for "historicization" as a way to avoid "...this ubiquitous tendency to "shake off the mortgages of a past now happily made morally neutral"". The British historian Richard J. Evans
praised Broszat's “historicization” concept as offering a “rational” way of understanding the German past and as a “gain” to history
, Andreas Hillgruber
and Eberhard Jäckel
for concentrating upon Hitler and his beliefs as explanations for Nazi actions. Broszat saw professional history as a social science that should examine society and culture rather than an individual in explaining the past. Though in disagreement with some of Broszat's conclusions, the British historian Sir Ian Kershaw
is Broszat's leading disciple. In 2002, the American historian Nicholas Berg revealed that Brosazt had joined the N.S.D.A.P, and then had hidden his party membership after the war, which Berg used to suggest that Broszat's work was an apologia for National Socialism. Berg's attack generated much controversy about the legacy of Broszat.
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...
specializing in modern German social history
Social history
Social history, often called the new social history, is a branch of History that includes history of ordinary people and their strategies of coping with life. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in history departments...
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
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, Germany
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...
and studied history at the University of Leipzig
University of Leipzig
The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...
(1944–1949) and at the University of Cologne
University of Cologne
The University of Cologne is one of the oldest universities in Europe and, with over 44,000 students, one of the largest universities in Germany. The university is part of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, an association of Germany's leading research universities...
(1949–1952). He married Alice Welter in 1953 and had three children. He served as a professor at the University of Cologne (1954–1955), at the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
(1955–1989) and was a Professor Emeritus
Emeritus
Emeritus is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita is also sometimes used.-History:...
at the University of Konstanz
University of Konstanz
The University of Konstanz is a university in the city of Konstanz in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was founded in 1966, and the main campus on the Gießberg was opened in 1972. As one of nine German Excellence Universities today University of Konstanz is counted among Germany's most prestigious...
(1969–1980). He was head of 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 of Contemporary History) between 1972 and 1989.
Early Work
In 1944, as a university student, Broszat joined the N.S.D.A.P. Broszat's protégé Ian KershawIan Kershaw
Sir Ian Kershaw is a British historian of 20th-century Germany whose work has chiefly focused on the period of the Third Reich...
wrote about the relationship between Broszat's party membership and his later historical work:
"Broszat's driving incentive was to help an understanding of how Germany could sink into barbarity. That he himself had succumbed to the elan of the Nazi Movement was central to his motivation to elucidate for later generations how it could have happened. And that the later murder of the Jews arose from Nazism's anti Jewish policies, but that these played so little part in the idealism of millions who had been drawn into support for the Nazi Movement (or in his own enthusiasm for the Hitler Youth), posed questions he always sought to answer. It amounted to a search for the pathological causes of the collapse of civilization in German society. But the attempt to find general causes in individual ideological intention and personal culpability seemed misplaced. This perspective pushed him, like Buchheim and others at the Institut, into looking to the structures of Nazi rule that implicated countless functionaries (and ordinary citizens) in the regime's inhumanity and criminality, even though they were far from sharing the ideological obsessions of the regime's leadership. And in his seminal essay on the "genesis of the Final Solution", published in 1977, Broszat specifically deployed a structuralist approach to widen responsibility beyond Hitler and the narrow Nazi leadership".Throughout his academic career, a recurring interest for Broszat, like many German historians of the "Hitler Youth generation", was the question of why and how National Socialism occurred in Germany Broszat wrote his dissertation on anti-Semitism in Germany during the Second Reich. As a historian, Broszat was most interested in exploring historical occurrences and the actions of individuals by scrutinizing the broader social structure that underlay the events of the past. In his 1960 book Der Nationalsozialismus (translated into English in 1966 as German National Socialism 1919–1945), Broszat examined Nazi ideology, which he regarded as incoherent. For Broszat, the constants were anti-communism
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
, anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
and the perceived need for Lebensraum
Lebensraum
was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...
. In Broszat's view, these were a cloak for the essence of National Socialism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
, irrational emotions: an intense desire to realize the "rebirth" of "the German nation"; the need to "act" and irrational hatred directed against those considered Volksfeinde (enemies of the German People) and Volksfremde (those foreign to the German "race"). Broszat saw the primary supporters of the Nazis being the middle classes, who turned to Nazism to alleviate their anxieties about impoverishment and "proletarianization" in the wake of hyperinflation
Hyperinflation
In economics, hyperinflation is inflation that is very high or out of control. While the real values of the specific economic items generally stay the same in terms of relatively stable foreign currencies, in hyperinflationary conditions the general price level within a specific economy increases...
in the early 1920s and the mass unemployment that began with the Great Depression at the end of the decade.
From the mid-1950s, Broszat served as one of the co-editors of the DTV Weltgeschichte journal. Initially, Broszat's work focused on German Ostpolitik (Eastern Policy) in the 19th and 20th centuries and of the muddled socialism of the Nazis. Broszat's work on German-Polish relations in the 19th–20th centuries was to ultimately win him accolades in Poland as one of the first German historians to offer an honest account of German–Polish relations.
In 1962, Broszat wrote a letter to the Die Zeit
Die Zeit
Die Zeit is a German nationwide weekly newspaper that is highly respected for its quality journalism.With a circulation of 488,036 and an estimated readership of slightly above 2 million, it is the most widely read German weekly newspaper...
newspaper to "hammer home, once more, the persistently ignored or denied difference between concentration and extermination camps". In his letter, Broszat claimed this was not an "admission" that there was no Holocaust but rather an attempt to "set the record straight" about the differences between concentration and death camps. Broszat noted the differences between concentration camps
Nazi concentration camps
Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...
, which were places where the inmates were consistently mistreated but were not the subject of annihilation and death camps, which existed to exterminate people. Broszat denied there was a functioning gas chamber at the Dachau concentration camp (though he noted that one was built shortly before the end of the war as part of the effort to convert Dachau into a death camp but was never used). Broszat commented that though there were many concentration camps in Germany, all of the German death camps for the genocide of the European Jews were in Poland. Broszat argued that this confusion in the public's mind between concentration and death camps and the tendency to erroneously describe Dachau as a death camp was aiding the early Holocaust deniers like Paul Rassinier
Paul Rassinier
Paul Rassinier was a French pacifist, political activist, and author. He was also an anti-Nazi French Resistance fighter, and a prisoner of the German concentration camps at Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora. A journalist and editor, he wrote hundreds of articles on political and economic subjects...
, Harry Elmer Barnes
Harry Elmer Barnes
Harry Elmer Barnes was a prominent American historian in the 20th century. A "progressive who had some classical liberal impulses," he was associated for virtually his entire career with Columbia University.-Early career:...
and 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 were making much of the fact that there was no functioning gas chamber at Dachau.
In 1961, when the Polish-Jewish historian Joseph Wulf
Joseph Wulf
Joseph Wulf was a German-Polish-Jewish historian and Holocaust survivor.-Early life:...
accused the prominent German doctor Dr Wilhelm Hagen, who served in the health department of the General Government
General Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
during the war, of helping to liquidate Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of all Jewish Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. It was established in the Polish capital between October and November 15, 1940, in the territory of General Government of the German-occupied Poland, with over 400,000 Jews from the vicinity...
, Broszat together with other experts from the Institute of Contemporary History were involved in the effort to silence Wulf during an exchange of letters in 1963. Hagen, who was a senior official in the West German Ministry of Health falsely claimed to have been opposed to the Holocaust and to have done everything in his power to save the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto and asked the Institute to support his version of events. Broszat wrote a letter to Wulf demanding that he retract his allegations against Hagen “in the interest of the tidiness of the historical document” The British historian Ian Kershaw
Ian Kershaw
Sir Ian Kershaw is a British historian of 20th-century Germany whose work has chiefly focused on the period of the Third Reich...
wrote that the Broszat-Wulf letters did not present Broszat in the best light, especially that Broszat seemed to have abandonded his support for Dr. Hagen very reluctantly and to have accepted Wulf's version only half-heartedly. Broszat only accepted Wulf's version after Wulf produced a war-time memo written by Hagen urging that sick Jews "wandering around" be shot down, which led Broszt to concede that perhaps Hagen was not the friend of the Ghetto he claimed to have been.
At the 1963–1965 Auschwitz Trial
Frankfurt Auschwitz trials
The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials, known in German as der Auschwitz-Prozess or der zweite Auschwitz-Prozess, was a series of trials running from December 20, 1963 to August 10, 1965, charging 22 defendants under German penal law for their roles in the Holocaust as mid- to lower-level officials in the...
in Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
, Broszat together with other experts from the Institute of Contemporary History such as Helmut Krausnick, Hans-Adolf Jacobsen and Hans Buchheim served as expert witnesses for the prosecution. The report that they complied for the prosecution served as the basis for their 1968 book Anatomy of the SS State, the first comprehensive study of the SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
based on SS records. In 1983, Broszat together with the other experts from Institute for Contemporary History played a prominent role in debunking the Hitler Diaries.
Functionalism
Broszat argued against characterizing Nazi GermanyNazi 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...
as a totalitarian
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...
regime and criticized Karl Dietrich Bracher
Karl Dietrich Bracher
Karl Dietrich Bracher is a German political scientist and historian of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. Born in Stuttgart, Bracher was awarded a Ph.D. in the Classics by the University of Tübingen in 1948 and subsequently studied at Harvard University from 1949 to 1950...
and Ernst Nolte
Ernst Nolte
Ernst Nolte is a German historian and philosopher. Nolte’s major interest is the comparative studies of Fascism and Communism. He is Professor Emeritus of Modern History at the Free University of Berlin, where he taught from 1973 to 1991. He was previously a Professor at the University of Marburg...
for advancing such a notion. With 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...
, Broszat developed a "structuralist" interpretation of Nazi Germany. Broszat saw Nazi Germany as a welter of competing institutions, putting forth the thesis that this internal rivalry, not 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...
, provided the driving force behind Nazi Germany. Hitler in Broszat's controversial view, was (to use Mommsen's phrase), a "weak dictator"; as such the Third Reich was not a monocracy (rule by one man), rather a polycracy (rule by many).
In his 1969 book Der Staat Hitlers (The Hitler State), Broszat argued that Nazi Germany was dominated by a power struggle by various institutions and that these power struggles explained the course that the Third Reich took. Broszat pointed out that the Nazi State was dualistic; the normal institutions of the German state, (theoretically Nazified) operating in parallel to institutions of the Nazi Party, a rival power structure. Broszat was able to prove that beneath the public veneer of Nazi unity, there were endless power struggles between the revolutionary institutions of the Nazi Party and the organs of the traditional German state. In Broszat's view, these power struggles formed the dynamics and structures of the Nazi state, which were the driving forces behind Nazism. Broszat argued these power struggles were a Darwinian competition in which the "fittest" were the most radical elements of the Nazi movement, leading to "cumulative radicalization", to use another of Mommsen's phrases describing the Nazi state. Broszat rejected the view that Hitler was following a "divide and rule" strategy as argued by Bracher and instead argued that Hitler was unwilling and unable to provide for orderly government. Broszat argued that Hitler allowed the Nazi state to become a collection of rival power blocs, which allowed for the release of extremely destructive forces into German society.
That the Nazi state was a jumble of competing bureaucracies in perpetual power struggles, has been widely accepted by historians. The second element, that Hitler was a "weak dictator" is less influential on the grounds that although Hitler did not involve himself much in daily administration, this apparent neglect stemmed not from an inability to do so (as Broszat suggested) but a lack of interest in the quotidian.
Broszat was a Functionalist
Functionalism versus intentionalism
Functionalism versus intentionalism is a historiographical debate about the origins of the Holocaust as well as most aspects of the Third Reich, such as foreign policy...
on the origins of the Holocaust. Broszat argued that the Nazis wanted to have "revolution in society" but because they needed the co-operation of the traditional elites in business, the military and the civil service, they turned their energy and hatred on those groups such as Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and the mentally ill that the traditional elites did not care about. These groups were subjected to increasing persecution in the 1930s, beginning with internment in concentration camps (which were not initially death camps) and the "euthanasia" program (murder) of people with learning difficulties, escalating into the genocide of Jews in 1941–1942. Broszat argued that aggression abroad was part of the same process of lashing out against Volksfeinde and Volksfremde caused by the Nazi failure to achieve the sort of comprehensive revolution they sought in German society. After all, Hitler had frequently spoken of nationalizing not industry (as conventional socialists wanted) but the people.
In Broszat's view, the evidence was lacking for the thesis that Hitler was executing a "Programme" in foreign policy
Nazi Foreign Policy (debate)
This article refers to the historical argument over the Nazi Foreign Policy in terms of territorial expansion. The National Socialists governed Germany between 1933 and 1945...
. Broszat argued that Hitler's foreign policy was motivated his need to maintain his image, which led to efforts to negate any form of restraint imposed by treaties or alliances. For Broszat, the idea of Lebensraum
Lebensraum
was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...
was more of a vague utopian "metaphor" which served to provide a vision for the Nazi movement and was not a coherent foreign policy. Broszat contended that prior to 1939, Hitler's lack of clear policy towards Poland
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...
proved that there could have no "Programme" in foreign policy, since Poland's geographical status as the land between Germany and the Soviet Union should have provided for a clear-cut Polish policy. In a 1970 article, Broszat wrote that Operation Barbarossa
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...
was not “a calculated plan to realize his [Hitler's] Lebensraum ideas but that he felt compelled to get out from waiting in the summer of 1940 and proceed to a decisive ending of the war”.
The Critique of David Irving: "Hitler and the Genesis of the 'Final Solution'
In an article first published in the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte journal in 1977, later translated into English as "Hitler and the Genesis of the ‘Final Solution’: An Assessment of David Irving’s Theses", Broszat criticized David IrvingDavid Irving
David John Cawdell Irving is an English writer,best known for his denial of the Holocaust, who specialises in the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany...
's argument in his book Hitler's War
Hitler's War
Hitler's War is a history book by David Irving. It describes the Second World War from the point of view of Adolf Hitler.It was first published in April 1977 by Hodder & Stoughton and Viking Press . Avon Books reissued it in 1990...
that Hitler was unaware of the Holocaust but did accept Irving's argument that there was no written order from Hitler for the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". Broszat’s essay was notable as the first account of the origins of the Holocaust by a respected historian in which responsibility for the genocide was not assigned entirely to Hitler. Through Broszat took considerable pains to emphasize what he considered the unpleasant aspects of Hitler’s character, writing at one point of Hitler’s “totally irresponsible, self-deceiving, destructive and evilly misanthropic egocentricity and his lunatic fanaticism”, in Broszat’s opinion the Holocaust could not be explained solely with reference to Hitler or his ideas.
Broszat argued that the radical anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
of the Nazis had led them to embark on increasingly extreme attempts to expel the Jews of Europe, and after the failure of successive deportation schemes, the lower officials of the Nazi state had started exterminating people on their own initiative. Broszat argued that the Holocaust began “bit by bit” as German officials stumbled into genocide Broszat argued that Hitler provided the goal to the functionaries of the German state “to get rid of the Jews and above all to make the territory of the Reich judenfrei, i.e. clear of the Jews” without providing any guidelines as to how this was to be done German officials began a massive program of ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
and mass expulsions in Poland and elsewhere without “clear aims…with respect to the subsequent fate of the deportees” Following the abandonment of the Madagascar Plan
Madagascar Plan
The Madagascar Plan was a suggested policy of the Nazi government of Germany to relocate the Jewish population of Europe to the island of Madagascar.-Origins:The evacuation of European Jews to the island of Madagascar was not a new concept...
, after June 1941 German officials hoped that “…the spaces to be occupied in the Soviet Union would…offer a possibility for getting rid of the Jews of Germany and of the allied and occupied countries” Broszat maintained that when faced with the stalemate on the Eastern Front
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
, the overwhelming of the European rail system by successive deportations and the self-imposed "problem" of three million Polish Jews the Germans had forced into ghettoes between 1939 and 1941, local German officials in Poland started in the fall of 1941 "improvised" killing schemes as the "simplest" solution to the "Jewish Question". In Broszat's opinion, Hitler subsequently approved of the measures initiated by the lower officials and allowed the expansion of the Holocaust from Eastern Europe to all of Europe. In this way, Broszat argued that the Shoah was not begun in response to an order, written or unwritten from Hitler but was rather “a way out of the blind alley into which the Nazis had manoeuvred themselves”. Broszat argued that the Holocaust was not the result of a master-plan of Hitler’s going back to when he wrote Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
in 1924 but rather was the work of hundreds of thousands of German officials, many of whom were non-Nazis and most of whom were quite ordinary.
In the same essay, Broszat was extremely critical of Irving's handling of sources, accusing him of repeatedly seeking to distort the historical record in Hitler's favor. Broszat wrote with regards to Hitler's War that:
"He [Irving] is too eager to accept authenticity for objectivity, is overly hasty in interpreting superficial diagnoses and often seems insufficiently interested in complex historical interconnections and in structural problems that transcend the mere recording of historical facts, but are essential for their evaluation".Broszat argued that in writing Hitler's War, Irving was too concerned with the "antechamber aspects" of Hitler's headquarters and accused Irving of distorting facts in Hitler's favor. Broszat complained that Irving was focused too much on military events at the expense of the broader political context of the war and that he had offered false interpretations such as accepting at face value the Nazi claim that the Action T4
Action T4
Action T4 was the name used after World War II for Nazi Germany's eugenics-based "euthanasia" program during which physicians killed thousands of people who were "judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination"...
"euthanasia" program began in September 1939 to make hospital spaces for wounded German soldiers, when it began in January 1939. Broszat criticized Irving's claim that because of one telephone note written by Himmler stating "No liquidation" in regards to a train convoy of German Jews passing through Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
to Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
(whom the SS intended to have all shot upon arrival) on 30 November 1941 that this proved that Hitler did not want to see the Holocaust happen. Broszat argued that this was not proof that Hitler had given an order to Himmler to stop the killings of Jews but rather that the comment "No liquidation" referred to that train and was likely to relate to concerns about questions American reporters were asking about the fate of German Jews being sent to Eastern Europe. Broszat questioned whether Hitler had given Himmler any order to save the lives of the people abroad the train, given that the phone call Himmler made from the Wolfsschanze
Wolfsschanze
Wolf's Lair is the standard English name for Wolfsschanze, Adolf Hitler's first World War II Eastern Front military headquarters, one of several Führerhauptquartier or FHQs located in various parts of Europe...
to Heydrich in Prague took place at about 11:30 A.M. and the records show that Hitler did not get up until about 2:00 P.M on November 30, 1941. Broszat criticized Irving for accepting the "fantastic" claims of the SS Obergruppenführer
Obergruppenführer
Obergruppenführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was first created in 1932 as a rank of the SA and until 1942 it was the highest SS rank inferior only to Reichsführer-SS...
Karl Wolff
Karl Wolff
Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff was a high-ranking member of the Nazi Schutzstaffel , ultimately holding the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS. He became Chief of Personal Staff to the Reichsführer and SS Liaison Officer to Hitler until his replacement in 1943...
, that he did not know about the Holocaust (Irving's argument was that if Wolff did not know about the Holocaust, how could Hitler?), despite the fact that Wolff was convicted of war crimes in 1963 on the basis of documentary evidence implicating him in the Holocaust. Broszat accused Irving of seeking to generate a highly misleading impression of a conference between Hitler and the Hungarian Regent, Admiral Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya was the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar years and throughout most of World War II, serving from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944. Horthy was styled "His Serene Highness the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary" .Admiral Horthy was an officer of the...
, in April 1943 by re-arranging the words to make Hitler appear less brutally anti-Semitic than the original notes showed. Broszat maintained that the picture of World War II drawn by Irving was done in a such way to engage in moral equivalence between the actions of the Axis and Allied states, leading to Hitler's "fanatical, destructive will to annihilate" being downgraded to being "...no longer an exceptional phenomenon". The criticism by Broszat was considered to be especially damaging to Irving because Broszat had based his critique largely on the examination of the primary sources Irving had used for Hitler's War.
Alltagsgeschichte and the Bavaria Project
Broszat was a pioneer of AlltagsgeschichteAlltagsgeschichte
Alltagsgeschichte is a form of microhistory that was particularly prevalent amongst German historians during the 1980s. It was founded by historians Alf Luedtke and Hans Medick....
(history of everyday life). To pursue this aim better he led the "Bavaria Project" between 1977 and 1983, which was intended be a comprehensive look at Alltagsgeschichte in Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
between 1933 and 1945. In Bayern in der NS-Zeit ("Bavaria in the National Socialist Era") as the six volumes which were comprised by the "Bavaria Project" edited by Broszat were entitled, he depicted actions such as refusal to give the Nazi salute or regularly attending church as a type of resistance
German Resistance
The German resistance was the opposition by individuals and groups in Germany to Adolf Hitler or the National Socialist regime between 1933 and 1945. Some of these engaged in active plans to remove Adolf Hitler from power and overthrow his regime...
. The emphasis upon resistance in "everyday life" in the "Bavaria Project" portrayed Widerstand (resistance) not as a contrast between black and white but rather shades of grey, noting that people who often refused to behave as the Nazi regime wanted in one area often conformed in others; as an example the Bavarian peasants who did business with Jewish cattle dealers in the 1930s despite the efforts of the Nazi regime to stop these transactions otherwise often expressed approval of the anti-Semitic laws.
Through his work on the "Bavaria Project", Broszat formed the concept of Resistenz (immunity), which is not to be confused with resistance (in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
Widerstand). Resistenz referred to the ability of institutions such as the Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
, the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
and the bureaucracy to enjoy "immunity" from the Nazi claims to total power and to function according to their traditional values, without seeking to challenge the Nazi regime's political monopoly. Broszat used the Resistenz concept to advance the view that at the local level, there was much continuity in Germany between the Weimar Era
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 the Nazi era
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...
. Broszat argued that there were two approaches to the Widerstand question, namely the "behavioral" approach that focused on intent and the "functional" approach that focused on the effect (Wirkung) on one's actions. For Broszat, the concept of Resistenz was meant to explain how much of the German population was able to evade the Nazi "claim to total power" without seeking to fundamentally challenge the regime. The Resistenz concept proved to be controversial, with Swiss historian Walter Hofer stating:
"The concept of Resistenz leads to a levelling down of fundamental resistance against the system on one hand and actions criticizing more or less accidental, superficial manifestations on the other: the tyrannicide appears on the same plane as the illegal cattle-slaughterer".Hofer maintained that it was intent not effect that should provide the basis of judging resistance and opposition in Nazi Germany, that the things Broszat included under Resistenz were relatively unimportant and had no effect in the broader scheme of things on the Nazi regime's ability to achieve its goals. Klaus-Jürgen Müller argued that the term Widerstand should apply only to those having a "will to overcome the system" and that Broszat's Resistenz concept did too much to muddy the waters between by speaking of societal "immunity" to the regime. A more sympathetic appraisal of the Resistenz concept came from Manfred Messerschmidt and Heinz Boberach who argued that Widerstand should be defined from the viewpoint of the Nazi state and any activity that was contrary to the regime's wishes such as listening to jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
music should be considered as a form of Widerstand.
The Historikerstreit
During the HistorikerstreitHistorikerstreit
The Historikerstreit was an intellectual and political controversy in late 20th-century West Germany about the historical interpretation of the Holocaust. The German word Streit translates variously as "quarrel", "dispute", or "conflict"...
of 1986–1988, Broszat again strongly criticized Nolte's views and work. In a 1986 essay entitled "Where the Roads Part" in Die Zeit
Die Zeit
Die Zeit is a German nationwide weekly newspaper that is highly respected for its quality journalism.With a circulation of 488,036 and an estimated readership of slightly above 2 million, it is the most widely read German weekly newspaper...
on October 3, 1986, Broszat called Nolte an obnoxious crank and attacked him for his "offensive" claims that the Holocaust had in someway been forced on the Nazi regime by fear of the Soviet Union As a socialist, Broszat argued against attempts to promote a "less extreme" view of the Nazi period. Broszat argued during the Historikerstreit that 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...
had come close to being a Nazi apologist and that Nolte was one. Regarding Nolte's claim that Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann, , was a Zionist leader, President of the Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel. He was elected on 1 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952....
on behalf of world Jewry had declared war on Germany in 1939, Broszat wrote Weizmann's letter to Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
promising the support of the Jewish Agency in World War II was not a "declaration of war" nor did Weizmann have the legal power to declare war on anyone Broszat commented "These facts may be overlooked by a right-wing publicist with a dubious educational background but not by the college professor Ernst Nolte" Broszat accused Michael Stürmer
Michael Stürmer
Michael Stürmer is a right-wing German historian best known for his role in the Historikerstreit of the 1980s, for his geographical interpretation of German history and for an admiring 2008 biography of the Russian leader Vladimir Putin .Born in Kassel, Germany, Stürmer received his education in...
of attempting to create an "ersatz religion" in German history that Broszat argued was more appropriate for the pre-modern era then 1986 Broszat wrote that "Here the roads part" and argued that no self-respecting historian could associate himself with the effort to "drive the shame out of the Germans". Broszat ended his essay with the remark that such "perversions" of German history must be resisted in order to ensure the German people a better future.
The "Historicization" of National Socialism and the Debate with Saul Friedländer
He was best known for arguing in a 1985 essay "A Plea For the Historicization of National Socialism" that Nazi Germany should be treated as a "normal" period of history. His call for "historicization" of the treatment of Nazi Germany was controversial, as Broszat called for historians to cease judging the period in overtly moralistic tones and to embark instead upon scientific, dispassionate analysis as they would for any other time. For Broszat, because historians did not treat the Nazi period the same way other periods were treated, this distance between the historian and his/her subject in regards to the Nazi era led to the Nazi period being treated as "island" of "abnormality". Broszat argued that the Nazi period was a chapter of German history and historians needed to stop treating the Nazi times as one of utter evil with no connection to what came before and after in German history. In Broszat's opinion, the "insulation" that severed the Nazi period from the rest of German history had to be endedBroszat called the "normalization" of the Nazi era by focusing on Alltagsgeschichte
Alltagsgeschichte
Alltagsgeschichte is a form of microhistory that was particularly prevalent amongst German historians during the 1980s. It was founded by historians Alf Luedtke and Hans Medick....
approach that allow shades of gray by examining both the "normality" of "everyday life" and the "barbarity" of the regime. As part of this "normalization", Broszat called for the end of the teleological approach that saw Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
as the culmination of the Nazi regime and instead paid heed to the fact that for most Germans the Holocaust was of marginal concern during the Nazi era and that Auschwitz did not obtain its iconic status as the supreme symbol of evil and inhumanity until after 1945. Broszat urged that historians stop the black and white treatment between "evil" Nazis and "good" anti-Nazis in German society and instead used the more "realistic" approach of noting the shades of grey within German society. As an example of “shades of grey”, Broszat noted that the man designated to serve as Germany’s new chancellor if 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...
had succeeded, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler
Carl Friedrich Goerdeler
Carl Friedrich Goerdeler was a monarchist conservative German politician, executive, economist, civil servant and opponent of the Nazi regime...
was an anti-Semite. Broszat noted that the simplistic contrast between totally “good” anti-Nazis vs. completely “evil” Nazis led to historians ignoring Goerdeler’s anti-Semitism to keep the camps of good and evil pure. Broszat called for a history that could allow one take in account nuances and degrees of agreement between German anti-Nazis and Nazis, thus allowing historians to write a history that could allow one to accept the fact that one could be both an anti-Nazi and an anti-Semite.
Broszat called for the Third Reich to be integrated into the broad stream of German history and called for a long-range view of the German past with the Nazi era seen as a stage of the broader story of German history rather than being treated as an abnormal period that was not connected to what came before or after. Broszat wrote that "not all those historically significant developments which occurred in Germany during the Nazi period merely served the regime's goals of inhuman and dictatorial domination" and called for a broader look at the Nazi era. Broszat used as an example of his approach, the "Ley Plan" as the wide-ranging reform of the German social insurance
Social insurance
Social insurance is any government-sponsored program with the following four characteristics:* the benefits, eligibility requirements and other aspects of the program are defined by statute;...
system proposed in 1940 by the DAF
German Labour Front
The German Labour Front was the National Socialist trade union organisation which replaced the various trade unions of the Weimar Republic after Adolf Hitler's rise to power....
was known, which Broszat noted borne many striking similarities to the British Beveridge Plan
Beveridge Report
The Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Social Insurance and Allied Services, known commonly as the Beveridge Report was an influential document in the founding of the Welfare State in the United Kingdom...
of 1943 (through the German plan applied only to those classified as "Aryans") Broszat argued that such a comparative approach would place the Nazi era in a better broader European and German context, especially since Broszat argued that the German plan of 1940 was in many ways the forerunner of the West German social insurance plan of 1957 with such features as pensions guaranteed by the state indexed to the level of GNP (which was not surprising given that many of the same people worked on both plans) Broszat called for the "normalization" of the historical understanding of the Nazi era with detailed scholarship employing "mid-range" concepts based upon empirical research and rejecting the moralistic condemnation of the period. Based upon his work in Alltagsgeschichte, Broszat felt that particular attention should be paid to the "normality" for most people of everyday life in Nazi Germany and how this "normality" co-existed with the "barbarity" of the Nazi regime. Broszat' call for "historicization" was much influenced by his work in the field of Alltagsgeschichte and by his functionlist understanding of the Nazi period In response to Broszat’s call for the "historization" of National Socialism, the historian Rainer Zitelmann
Rainer Zitelmann
Rainer Zitelmann is a German historian, journalist and management consultant.- Life :Zitelmann studied history and political sciences at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences and completed his doctorate in 1986 under Prof. Dr...
suggested that Broszat’s "historization" approach was a fruitful arguing that just as not everything was evil in the Soviet Union, not everything was evil about Nazi Germany and that the Nazi regime accomplished many successful social reforms
The American historian Gavriel D. Rosenfeld
Gavriel David Rosenfeld
Gavriel D. Rosenfeld is Associate Professor of History at Fairfield University. His area of specialization is the history and memory of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.-Education:...
wrote about Broszat's call for "historization" that:
"In the 1980s, the German historian Martin Broszat famously argued that overtly moral analyses of the Third Reich suffered from their embrace of a "black-and-white" perspective that drew too rigid a dichotomy between perpetrators and victims, obscured the era's gray complexity, bracketed off the Third Reich from "normal" modes of historical analysis (such as an empathetic perspective towards the historical actors themselves) and prevented it from being integrated into the large sweep of German history... At the same time, an overly moralistic view runs the risk of mythologizing history and transforming it into a collection of moral ethical lessons that, over time, can easily become stale and cease to resonate within society at large. It was for this reason that German historian Martin Broszat in the 1980s called on German to "historicize" the Nazi era by abandoning their simplistic black-and-white image of the Third Reich as a story of demonic villains and virtuous heroes and replacing it with a grayer perspective that recognized the period's immense complexity."
Broszat's call for the "historicization" of the Third Reich as opposed to the “demonization” of the period, involved him in a vigorous debate with three Israeli historians in the latter half of the 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
. The three historians Broszat debated were Otto Dov Kulka, Dan Diner and above all with the Franco-Israeli historian Saul Friedländer
Saul Friedländer
Saul Friedländer is an award-winning Israeli historian and currently a professor of history at UCLA.-Biography:...
. During an exchange of letters with Broszat during the late 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
, Friedländer argued that there were three dilemmas and three problems involved in the "historicization" of the Third Reich. The first dilemma was that of historical periodization and how long-term social changes could be related to an understanding of the Nazi period. Friedländer argued that focusing on long-term social changes such as the growth of the welfare state from the Imperial to Weimar to the Nazi periods to the present as Broszat suggested changed the focus on historical research from the particular of the Nazi era to the general longue durée
Longue durée
The longue durée , is an expression used by the French Annales School of historical writing to designate their approach to the study of history, which gives priority to long-term historical structures over events— what François Simiand called histoire événementielle, "eventual history"— the short...
(long duration) of 20th century German history. Friedländer felt that "relative relevance" of the growth of the welfare state under the Third Reich and its relationship to post-war developments would cause historians to lose attention of the genocidal politics of the Nazi state. The second dilemma Friedländer felt that by treating the Nazi period as a "normal" period of history and by examining the aspects of "normality" might run the danger of causing historians to lose interest in the "criminality" of the Nazi era. This was a concern for Friedländer because he contended that aspects of "normality" and "criminality" very much overlapped in the everyday life of Nazi Germany. The third dilemma involved was Friedländer considered the vague definition of "historicization" entailed and might allow historians to advance apologetic arguments about National Socialism such as those Friedländer accused Ernst Nolte
Ernst Nolte
Ernst Nolte is a German historian and philosopher. Nolte’s major interest is the comparative studies of Fascism and Communism. He is Professor Emeritus of Modern History at the Free University of Berlin, where he taught from 1973 to 1991. He was previously a Professor at the University of Marburg...
and 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...
of making. Friedländer conceded that Broszat was not an apologist for Nazi Germany like Nolte and Hillgruber. Friedländer noted that through the concept of "historicization" was highly awkward one because it opened the door to the type of arguments that Nolte and Hillgruber advanced during the Historikerstreit, Broszat's motives in calling for the "historicization" were honourable.
The first problem for Friedländer was that the Nazi era was too recent in popular memory for historians to deal with it as a "normal" period as for example 16th century France. The second problem was "differential relevance" of "historicization". Friedländer argued that the study of the Nazi period was "global", that it belongs to everyone and that by focusing on everyday life was a particular interest for German historians. Friedländer asserted that for non-Germans, the history of Nazi ideology in practice especially in regards to war and genocide were vastly more important then Alltagsgeschichte. The third problem for Friedländer was that the Nazi period was unique so that it could not easily fit into the long-range view of German history as advocated by Broszat. Friedländer maintained that the essence of National Socialism was that it "tried to determine who should and should not inhabit the world" and the genocidal politics of the Nazi regime resisted any attempt to integrate it as part of the "normal" development of the modern world. The debate between Broszat and Friedländer were conducted through a series of letters between 1987 until Broszat's death in 1989. In 1990, the Broszat-Friedländer correspondence were translated into English and published in Reworking the Past Hitler, The Holocaust and the Historians' Debate edited by Peter Baldwin
Peter Baldwin (professor)
Peter Baldwin is a professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He was educated at Yale and Harvard and has written several books on Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries: The Politics of Social Solidarity: Class Bases of the European Welfare State, 1875-1975; Contagion and...
.
In a letter of September 28, 1987, Broszat conceded to Friedländer that the "historicization" concept was open to abuse but argued that the concept was needed as the Nazi period had to be subject to rational historical analysis and was needed to provide a sensible way of understanding the Nazi era In response, Friedländer wrote that he did not feel that there was a "blockade" severing the Nazi period from the rest of German history, used Hillgruber's essay in his 1986 book Zweierlei Untergang calling for historians to sympathize with German troops fighting on the Eastern Front in 1944–45 as an example of the abuse of "historicization" and described Broszat's condemnation on a "moralistic" history written that assigned a leading role to the "victims" of National Socialism as a very troubling In a letter of October 26, 1987, Broszat wrote he was concerned that because of the iconic status of Auschwitz too much history was being written backwards with historians starting with Auschwitz and treating everything in the Third Reich as an long countdown to genocide
An even more harsher assessement of Broszat’s "historicization" concept than Friedländer's came from the Israeli historian Omer Bartov
Omer Bartov
Omer Bartov is the John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History and Professor of History and Professor of German Studies at Brown University....
, who accused Broszat of being a German apologist and of seeking to diminish Jewish suffering in the Holocaust, indeed the Holocaust as a study in history because as a German historian he was not comfortable with dealing with Germans as perpetrators of genocide and Jews as victims of German genocide. By contrast, the American historian John Lukacs
John Lukacs
John Adalbert Lukacs is a Hungarian-born American historian who has written more than thirty books, including Five Days in London, May 1940 and A New Republic...
approved of Broszat's call for "historicization," but also suggested "that the 'historicization' of the Third Reich had begun more than thirty years before Professor Broszat pronounced its desirability." The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...
wrote that Broszat had written "convincingly" on the need for "historicization" 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...
praised Broszat's call for "historicization" as a way to avoid "...this ubiquitous tendency to "shake off the mortgages of a past now happily made morally neutral"". The British historian Richard J. Evans
Richard J. Evans
Richard John Evans is a British academic and historian, prominently known for his history of Germany.-Life:Evans was born in London, of Welsh parentage, and is now Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge and President of Wolfson College...
praised Broszat's “historicization” concept as offering a “rational” way of understanding the German past and as a “gain” to history
Legacy
Broszat saw his work as kritische Aufklärungsarbeit ("critical enlightenment work") and criticized his colleagues for adopting what he perceived as an ahistorical, moralistic approach to history. Broszat's motto was "Geschichte ist nicht Wissen, sondern Leben" (History is not knowledge, but experience"). Broszat often attacked historians such as Klaus HildebrandKlaus Hildebrand
Klaus Hildebrand is a German conservative historian whose area of expertise is 19th-20th century German political and military history.- Biography :...
, 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 Eberhard Jäckel
Eberhard Jäckel
Eberhard Jäckel is a Social Democratic German historian, noted for his studies of Adolf Hitler's role in German history. Jäckel sees Hitler as being the historical equivalent to the Chernobyl disaster.-Career:...
for concentrating upon Hitler and his beliefs as explanations for Nazi actions. Broszat saw professional history as a social science that should examine society and culture rather than an individual in explaining the past. Though in disagreement with some of Broszat's conclusions, the British historian Sir Ian Kershaw
Ian Kershaw
Sir Ian Kershaw is a British historian of 20th-century Germany whose work has chiefly focused on the period of the Third Reich...
is Broszat's leading disciple. In 2002, the American historian Nicholas Berg revealed that Brosazt had joined the N.S.D.A.P, and then had hidden his party membership after the war, which Berg used to suggest that Broszat's work was an apologia for National Socialism. Berg's attack generated much controversy about the legacy of Broszat.
Publications
- "Die Memeldeutschen Organisationen und der Nationalsozialismus" pages 273–278 from Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Volume 5, Issue #3, July 1957.
- "Die Anfänge der Berliner NSDAP, 1926/27" pages 85–118 from Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Volume 8, 1960.
- Der Nationalsozialismus: Weltanschauung, Programm und Wirklichkeit ("German National Socialism, 1919–1945"), 1960. ASINAsínAsín is a municipality located in the Cinco Villas comarca of the province of Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain, located a few kilometers west of Orés. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 106 inhabitants....
B0006BOO64 - Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik, 1939–1945 (National Socialist Polish Politics), 1961.
- "Betrachtungen zu "Hitlers Zweitem Buch" pages 417–430 from Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Volume 9, 1961.
- co-written with Ladislaus Hory, Der kroatische Ustascha-Staat (The Croatian Ustascha state), 1941–1945, 1966.
- "Faschismus und Kollaboration in Ostmitteleuropa zwischen dem Weltkriegn" pages 225–251 from Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Volume 14, Issue 3, July 1966.
- "Deutschland-Ungarn-Rumänien, Entwicklung und Grundfaktoren nationalsozialistischer hegemonial-Bündnispolitik 1938–41" pages 45–96 from Historische Zeitschrift, Volume 206, Issue 1, February 1968.
- "The Concentration Camps 1933–45" pages 397–504 from The Anatomy of The SS State co-written with Helmut Krausnick, Hans Buchheim and Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Collins: London, 1968.
- Der Staat Hitlers: Grundlegung und Entwicklung seiner inneren Verfassung ("The Hitler State: The Foundation and Development of the Internal Structure of the Third Reich"), 1969. ISBN 0-582-48997-0, translated into English as The Hitler State : The Foundation And Development Of The Internal Structure Of The Third Reich, London : Longman, 1981, ISBN 0-582-49200-9.
- "Soziale Motivation und Führer-Bindung im Nationalsozialismus" pages 392–409 from Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Volume 18, 1970.
- Bayern in der NS-Zeit ("Bavaria in the National Socialist Era") (editor), 4 volumes, 1977–1983.
- "Hitler und die Genesis der "Endlösung". Aus Anlaß der Thesen von David Irving", pages 739–775 from Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Volume 25, 1977, translated into English as "Hitler and the Genesis of the ‘Final Solution’: An Assessment of David Irving’s Theses"" pages 73–125 from Yad Vashem Studies, Volume 13,1979; reprinted pages 390–429 in Aspects of the Third Reich edited by H.W. Koch, London: Macmillan, 1985, ISBN 0-333-35272-6.
- "Zur Struktur der NS-Massenbewegung" pages 52–76 from Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Volume 31, 1983.
- Die Machtergreifung: der Aufstieg der NSDAP und die Zerstörung der Weimarer Republik ("Hitler and the Collapse of Weimar Germany "), 1984 ISBN 0-85496-517-3, translated into English as Hitler And The Collapse of Weimar Germany, Leamington Spa : Berg, 1987, ISBN 0-85496-509-2.
- Nach Hitler: der schwierige Umgang mit unserer Geschichte ("After Hitler: difficult handling our history"), 1987.
- (co-edited with Norbert Frei) Das Dritte Reich im Überblick Chronik, Eregnisse, Zusammenhänge, 1989.
- "Where the Roads Part: History Is Not A Suitable Substitute For A Religion Of Nationalism" pages 125–129 from Forever In The Shadow of Hitler? edited by Ernst Piper, Humanities Press, Atlantic Highlands, 1993, ISBN 0-391-03784-6.
External links
- Beware the moral high ground by Sir Ian KershawIan KershawSir Ian Kershaw is a British historian of 20th-century Germany whose work has chiefly focused on the period of the Third Reich...
. - Martin Broszat, German Historian And War Crimes Expert, 63, Dies