Hitler – New Research

Elizabeth Harvey, Johannes Hürter

• Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9783110553222
• eBook ISBN: 9783110553468
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

How should we understand Hitler as a factor in the history of the Third Reich? In recent years scholarly interest in the German dictator has once again intensified, as is evident from debates surrounding the publication of Mein Kampf, and from the publication of numerous new studies on Hitler's personality, ideology and politics. Edited by Elizabeth Harvey (University of Nottingham) and Johannes Hürter (Institute for Contemporary History Munich – Berlin), the third volume of the German Yearbook of Contemporary History presents the latest in German research on Hitler based on selected articles from the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. Additionally, it includes new commentaries by renowned experts from the English-speaking world on theories concerning Hitler's personality and authenticity, the sources of his radical racism, and the relationship between the dictator and German society.

List of Contributors

Martin Broszat (1926–1989)

Former Director, Institute for Contemporary History Munich (1972–1989); Honorary Professor, University of Konstanz.

Peter Fritzsche

Professor of History, University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign, IL.

[email protected]

Elizabeth Harvey

Professor of History, University of Nottingham; Associate Editor, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte.

[email protected]

Paul Hoser

Independent Scholar, Munich.

[email protected]

Johannes Hürter

Head of Research Department Munich, Institute for Contemporary History Munich – Berlin; Editorial Board Member, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte; Adjunct Professor of Modern History, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.

[email protected]

Eve Rosenhaft

Professor of German Historical Studies, University of Liverpool.

[email protected]

Roman Töppel

Historian, Munich.

[email protected]

Helmut Walser Smith

Martha Rivers Ingram Professor of History; Director, Center for Digital Humanities

Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.

[email protected]

Matthias Uhl

Staff historian, German Historical Institute

Moscow.

[email protected]

Andreas Wirsching

Director, Institute for Contemporary History Munich – Berlin; Editor, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte; Professor of Modern History, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich.

[email protected]

Endnotes

1 See Konrad Heiden, Adolf Hitler. Eine Biographie, vol. 1: Das Zeitalter der Verantwortungslosigkeit, Zurich 1936; vol. 2: Ein Mann gegen Europa, Zurich 1937; English edition: Konrad Heiden, The Fuehrer. Hitler’s Rise to Power, London 1944. Konrad Heiden and his books are now being rediscovered in Germany; see Stefan Aust, Hitlers erster Feind. Der Kampf des Konrad Heiden, Reinbek 2016; Konrad Heiden, Eine Nacht im November 1938. Ein zeitgenössischer Bericht, ed. by Markus Roth, Göttingen 2013; and the single-volume new edition of his two Hitler books, Berlin 2016.

2 See Alan Bullock, Hitler. A Study in Tyranny, London 1952; revised version, London 1962. Late in life, Bullock also published a twin biography of Hitler and Stalin; see Hitler and Stalin. Parallel Lives, London 1991. A few years ago, Robert Gellately also set out to compare Hitler with other dictators; see his Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler. The Age of Social Catastrophe, New York 2007.

3 See Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Last Days of Hitler, London 1947. On Bullock and Trevor-Roper and the biographical background to their respective engagement with the history of Nazi Germany, see Richard J. Evans, Cosmopolitan Islanders. British Historians and the European Continent, Cambridge 2009, pp. 25, 133–37. On the Bullock/Trevor-Roper controversy, see David Cesarani, From Bullock to Kershaw. Some Peculiarities of British Historical Writing about the Nazi Persecution and Mass Murder of the Jews, in: David Bankier/Dan Michman (eds.), Holocaust Historiography in Context, Jerusalem 2008, pp. 339–54.

4 See the full listing of VfZ contents on the home page of the Institute for Contemporary History Munich – Berlin: www.ifz-muenchen.de/vierteljahrshefte/vfz-archiv/gesamtinhaltsverzeichnis/ [accessed May 7, 2018].

5 See Erwin Faul, Hitlers Über-Machiavellismus, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 2 (1954), pp. 344–72; Helmut Krausnick, Legenden um Hitlers Außenpolitik, in: ibid., pp. 217–39; Hugh Trevor-Roper, Hitlers Kriegsziele, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 8 (1960), pp. 121–33.

6 Waldemar Besson, Neuere Literatur zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 9 (1961), pp. 314–30, here p. 329.

7 See Andreas Hillgruber, Hitlers Strategie. Politik und Kriegführung 1940–1941, Frankfurt a. M. 1965; Eberhard Jäckel, Hitlers Weltanschauung. Entwurf einer Herrschaft, Tübingen 1969.

8 Norman Rich, Hitler’s War Aims, 2 vols., New York 1973/74, here vol. 1, p. 11.

9 Hans Mommsen, Nationalsozialismus, in: Sowjetsystem und demokratische Gesellschaft. Eine vergleichende Enzyklopädie, Freiburg im Breisgau 1971, vol. 4, pp. 695–713, here p. 702.

10 See Martin Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, Munich 1969.

11 See Joachim C. Fest, Hitler. Eine Biographie, Berlin/Frankfurt a. M./Vienna 1973; English edition: Joachim C. Fest, Hitler, New York 1974. Between Heiden and Fest, German authors had produced only a handful of shorter, and not particularly compelling, attempts at a biography; see Helmut Heiber, Adolf Hitler. Eine Biographie, Berlin 1960; Ernst Deuerlein, Hitler. Eine politische Biographie, Munich 1969; Werner Maser, Adolf Hitler. Legende – Mythos – Wirklichkeit, Munich 1971.

12 See Eberhard Jäckel, Rückblick auf die sogenannte Hitler-Welle, in: Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 28 (1977), pp. 695–710.

13 See Hermann Graml, Probleme einer Hitler-Biographie. Kritische Bemerkungen zu Joachim C. Fest, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 22 (1974), pp. 76–92.

14 See Martin Broszat, Hitler und die Genesis der “Endlösung.” Aus Anlaß der Thesen von David Irving, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 25 (1977), pp. 739–75. With reference to: David Irving, Hitler’s War, London 1977. See also Christopher R. Browning, Zur Genesis der “Endlösung.” Eine Antwort an Martin Broszat, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 29 (1981), pp. 97–109.

15 See Sebastian Haffner, Anmerkungen zu Hitler, Munich 1978; English edition: Sebastian Haffner, The Meaning of Hitler, New York 1979.

16 See his remarks at the Cumberland Lodge Conference (UK) in May 1979, documented in: Tim Mason, Intention and Explanation. A Current Controversy about the Interpretation of National Socialism, in: Gerhard Hirschfeld/Lothar Kettenacker (eds.), Der “Führerstaat.” Mythos und Realität – Studien zur Struktur und Politik des Dritten Reiches, Stuttgart 1981, pp. 23–41.

17 See Richard J. Evans, Coercion and Consent in Nazi Germany, in: Proceedings of the British Academy 151 (2007), pp. 53–81.

18 Kershaw has commented on the experience of being a British historian having his work received in Germany: see Evans, Cosmopolitan Islanders, pp. 24–25.

19 See Ian Kershaw, Hitler. 1889–1936: Hubris, London 1998; idem, Hitler. 1936–1945: Nemesis, London 2000.

20 See idem, The Nazi Dictatorship. Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London 1985; idem, Hitler. A Profile in Power, London 1991.

21 See also Ian Kershaw, Soziale Motivation und Führerbindung im Staat Hitlers, in: Norbert Frei (ed.), Martin Broszat, der “Staat Hitlers” und die Historisierung des Nationalsozialismus, Göttingen 2007, pp. 76–84.

22 On the emergence and significance of this key idea, see Anthony McElligott/Tim Kirk, Editors’ Introduction, in: idem (eds.), Working Towards the Führer. Essays i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: Approaches to Adolf Hitler
• Hitler’s Authenticity
• When Was Adolf Hitler?
• “Volk und Rasse”
• Hitler’s Antisemitism and the Horizons of the Racial State
• Thierschstraße 41
• Hitler in Vinnytsia
• Social Motivation and Charismatic Leadership in National Socialism
• Social Mechanics and Ideological Motivation
• About the Contributions to this Yearbook
• List of Contributors