David Schoenbaum

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David Schoenbaum (born 1935, Milwaukee, Wisconsin) is an American social scientist and historian.

He is teaching as a professor of History at the University of Iowa.

Schoenbaum is best known for his 1966 book, Hitler’s Social Revolution, where Schoenbaum challenged the then prevailing notion that National Socialist regime was a backwards looking, reactionary anti-modernizng dictatorship, and instead argued that in effect at least, the Nazi regime was a modernzing dictatorship[1]. Schoenbaum argued that the Nazi revolution was a "double revolution...of means and ends""[2]. In order to accomplish its foreign policy goals, namely war, the Nazi regime was forced to encourge modernization and industrization, despite the anti-modernist nature of Nazi ideology[3]. Schoenbaum wrote that "The revolution of ends was ideological-war against bourgeois and industrial society. The revolution of means was its reciprocal. It was bourgeois and industrial since in a industrial age, even a war against industrial society must be fought with industrial means and bourgeois are necessary to fight the bourgeoise"[4].

In Schoenbaum's view, there were two sorts of social realities, namely "objective" and interpreted social reality"[5]. By "objective social reality", Schoenbaum argued the Nazi regime had achieved greater degree of industrialization and urbanization, while by "interpreted social reality", the Nazi regime was able to break down the traditional lines of class, religion and regional loyalties to achieve an unparalleled degree of unity amongst the German people[6]. In particular, Schoenbaum argued that the Nazi regime was able to destroy the traditonal class barriers that had divided German society, and for most Germans, the increased social mobility offered by the Nazi regime was sufficient compensation for the destruction of democracy[7]. Schoenbaum's book proved to be highly influential, and set off an important debate both the intentions and the effects of Nazi social policies, and the nature of social change during the Nazi period[8]. Some historians such as Ian Kershaw have criticized Schoenbaum's work for placing too much reliance on what Kershaw considers to be subjective and impressionistic evidence[9].

Contents

[edit] Work

  • The German Question and Other German Questions, New York : St. Martin’s Press ; Oxford : In association with St. Antony’s College, 1996, ISBN 0312160488.
  • The United States And The State of Israel, New York : Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0195045777
  • Zabern 1913 : Consensus Politics In Imperial Germany, London : George Allen & Unwin, 1982, ISBN 0049430254.
  • Hitler’s Social Revolution; Class and Status in Nazi Germany, 1933-1939, Garden City, N.Y. Doubleday, 1966

[edit] Reference

  • Kerhsaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York : Copublished in the USA by Oxford University Press, 2000.

[edit] Endnotes

  1. ^ Kerhsaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold, 2000 pages 166-167.
  2. ^ Kerhsaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold, 2000 pages 166-167.
  3. ^ Kerhsaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold, 2000 pages 166-167.
  4. ^ Kerhsaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold, 2000 page 166.
  5. ^ Kerhsaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold, 2000 page 167.
  6. ^ Kerhsaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold, 2000 page 167.
  7. ^ Kerhsaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold, 2000 page 167.
  8. ^ Kerhsaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold, 2000 pages 168-169.
  9. ^ Kerhsaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold, 2000 page 177.

[edit] External links


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