 German Historians
To understand German historical thinking there are two substantially
important pieces of ideology buried within all German historians.
Fundamentally, German nationalism, since it's earliest beginnings, has
fostered ideas of a higher German fraternity and superiority.
Secondly, the idea that the individual's greatest purpose in life is to
give himself up to the will and control of the community. The latter can be traced back to
Wilhelm von Humboldt, German scholar, philosopher and diplomat. The spiritual German
state known as Machtstaat is said to be "history's driving force" within Germany. Since the
state is infallible and to a point god-like in the eyes of Germans, all Imperialist and military
actions by the government is justified. Many of the prominent and highly talented German
historians such as Leopold von Ranke and Freidrich Meinecke have been noted as seeing
German History and what drives in this kind of ideology.
During the Third Reich the liquidation of any historian who opposed the regime was
assured. For example, in 1935 the disintegration of the prestigious Historische
Reichskmmission, which opposed the Nazi's, was accomplished by the young historian
Walter Frank, a hard-line anti-Semitic and socialist. Frank, with the help from the Nazi's,
created the Reichinstitut fur Geshichte des neuen Deutshland. This was to be the center
for the historical data produced by the Third Reich. Frank set up his Institute into three
departments " The Jewish Question", "Political leadership in the World War", and "Post-
war History." All three departments were headed by committed Nazi historians Karl
Alexander von Muller, Erich Marks and Heinrich Ritter von Srbik. The opening of the
institute in 1935 was a State affair with both the SA and SD. Included was Nazi rank and
file such as Rudolf Hess, Hitler's Deputy, and Alfred Rosenberg. Between 1937 and
1944 the Institute published 9 volumes on the Judenfrage alone, not including the annual
conferences held to further discuss the matter. It is undoubted that the main focus of
Frank's Institute was on anti-Semitism. Soon Frank, an eccentric man, had estranged his
assistant Wilhelm Grau. Grau was autonomous and surpassed Frank's reputation by his
initiative, which got him fired. Grau found a job working for the city of Frankfort. The
mayor of Frankfort wanted to expand the cities reputation for anti-Semitic passion. Grau
soon set up his own institute, Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage. Both this institute
and Frank's continued to work until the end of the war.
Photograph of the defendent's box at the Nuremberg Trial. Göring and
Hess are in the front row, extreme left. Photo from the National Archives.
The post war period is marked with shame and guilt, most German citizens chose to deny
all that had happened. However, German historians had a "professional obligation" to
fulfill. Meinecke in 1946 published his book The German Catastrophe in which he argued
that German National Socialism was not part of the pattern demonstrated in the past by
Germany politically. He viewed it mostly as an anomaly which had occurred in Europe. In
addition according to Meinecke history is made by key events or luck. As an example of
this he mentions Hitler's appointment as Chancellor by Hindenburg. In addition he also
attributes Hitler's rise to power to luck: it was all luck that Hitler managed to convince the
German public to kill millions. How else would you explain it? Meunike fails completely in
properly addressing the rise of National Socialism in Germany.
Gerherd Ritter, a contemporary of Meinecke, published a similar thesis. He, like
Meinecke, saw it mainly a European problem with dictatorships that had been started by
Napoleon. Ritter also failed to sufficiently cover the death of 6 million Jews within Europe
under the Third Reich. In 1961, Fritz Fischer published the first definitive book dealing
with World War II and the Holocaust. Fischer concluded that the German government
had full cooperation and support from all classes of society to the colonization and
extermination of Europe. To attain their objectives Germany prepared and launched a
war. Fischer proved that both Meinecke and Ritter had based their respective thesis on
fallacies. Fischer stated that National Socialism was just an extension from German
hegemony in the past and that is was innate in all of Germany to be militaristic ,superior
and imperialist. Fischer was the first in a new generation of German historians to
acknowledge what happened in the war. His affect on modern German historians is
substantial.
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