Karl Dietrich Bracher

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Karl Dietrich Bracher (born 13 March 1922) 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 between 1949-1950. During World War II, he served in the Wehrmacht and was captured by the Americans while serving in Tunisia in 1943. He was then held as a POW in Camp Concordia, Kansas. Bracher has often expressed much thanks for the "reeducation" he received during his time as a POW. He taught at the Free University of Berlin between 1950-1958 and at the University of Bonn from 1959. In 1951 Bracher married Dorothea Schleicher, the niece of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. They have two children[1].

Contents

[edit] Historical Views

Bracher is mainly concerned with the problems of preserving and developing democracy[2]. He sees democracy as a frail institution and has argued that only a concerned citizenry can guarantee it[3]. This theme began with Bracher's first book in 1948, Verfall und Fortschritt im Denken der frühen römischen Kaiserzeit which concerned the downfall of the Roman Republic and the rise of Augustus. His 1955 book Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik (The Disintegration of the Weimar Republic) is his best known book, in which he ascribed the collapse of German democracy not to the Sonderweg ("special path" of German historical development) or other impersonal forces but to human action that followed conscious choice[4]. In Bracher's opinion, through it was human choices that led to the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the National Socialist period, the roots of National Socialism can be traced back towards the völkisch ideology of 19th century Germany and Austria-Hungary, which found their fullest expression in the personality of Adolf Hitler[5]. Through Bracher is opposed to the Sonderweg interpretation of German history, he does believe in a special German mentality (Sonderbewusstsein)[6]. Bracher wrote that: "The German "Sonderweg" should be limited to the era of the Third Reich, but the strength of the particular German mentality [Sonderbewusstsein] that had arisen already with its opposition to the French Revolution and grew stronger after 1870 and 1918 must be emphasized. Out of its exaggerated perspectives (and, I would add, rhetoric] it become a power in politics, out a myth reality. The road from democracy to dictatorship was not a particular German case, but the radical nature of the National Socialist dictatorship corresponded to the power of the German ideology that in 1933-1945 became a political and totalitarian reality"[7].

Another well-known book associated with Bracher was the 1960 monograph co-written with Wolfgang Sauer and Gerhard Schulz Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung (The National Socialist Seizure of Power), which described in considerable detail the Gleichschaltung of German life in 1933-1934. Bracher advocates the view that Nazi Germany was a totalitarian regime, through Bracher maintained that the "totalitarian typology" as developed by Carl Joachim Friedrich was too rigid, and that totalitarian models needed to be based upon careful empirical research[8]. In Bracher's view, Friedrich's work failed to take into account the "revolutionary dynamic", which Bracher argued was the "core principle" of totalitarism[9]. For Bracher, the essence of totalitarism was the total claim to control and remake all aspects of society together with an all-embracing ideology, the value on authoritarian leadership, and the pretence of the common identity of state and society, which distinguished the totatitarian "closed" understanding of politics from the "open" democratic understanding[10]. In Bracher's view, "politics is the struggle for the power of the state", and in his opinion, the traditional methods of the historian have to be supplemented by the methods of political science to properly understand political history[11]. Speaking of historical work in his own area of speciality, namely the Weimar-Nazi periods, Bracher stated: "It was not with Himmler, Bormann, and Heydrich, also not with the National Socialist Party, but with Hitler that the German people identified itself enthusiastically. In this there exists an essential problem, especially for German historians...To identify the sources of this fateful mistake of the past and to research it without minimizing it remains a task of German historical scholarship. Ignoring it means the loss of its commitment to truth"[12].

Bracher has been highly critical of the Marxist view of the Third Reich, which sees the Nazi leadership as puppets of Big Business[13]. In Bracher's opinion, the exact opposite was the case with a "primacy of politics" being excerised rather than a "primacy of economics"[14]. Bracher has argued that Nazi actions were dicated by Nazi ideological theory, that business interests were just as much subordinate to the dictatorship as any other section of society, and that since Nazi actions were often irrational from an purely economic point of view, that a "primacy of politics" that prevailed[15].

Bracher has often criticized the functionist-structuralist interpretation of the Third Reich championed by such scholars such as Martin Broszat and Hans Mommsen, and decried their view of Hitler as a “weak dictator”. In Bracher’s view, Hitler was the “Master of the Third Reich”[16]. However, through Bracher argues that the Führer was the driving force behind the Third Reich, he was one of the first historians to argue that Nazi Germany was less well organized then the Nazis liked to pretend[17]. In a 1956 essay, Bracher noted "the antagonism between rival agencies was resolved solely in the omniptent key position of the Führer", which was the result of "...the complex coexistence and opposition of the power groups and from conflicting personal ties"[18]. Unlike the functionists, Bracher saw this disorganization as part of a conscious “divide and rule” strategy on the part of Hitler, and argued at no point was Hitler ever driven by pressure from below or had his power limited in any way[19]. In a essay published in 1976 entitled "The Role of Hitler", Bracher argued that Hitler was too often underated in his own time, and that those historians who rejected the totalitarian paradigm in favor of the fascist paradigm were in danger of making the same mistake[20].

In Bracher's opinion, Hitler was a "world-historical" figure who served as the embodiment of the most radical type of German nationalism and a revolutionary of the most destructive kind, and that such was the force of Hitler's personality that it is correct to speak of National Socialism as "Hitlerism"[21]. In his essay, Bracher maintained that Hitler himself was in many ways something of an "unperson" devoid of any real interest for the biographer, but argued that these pedestrian qualities of Hitler led to him being underestimated first by rivals and allies in the Weimar Republic, and then on the international stage in the 1930s[22]. At the same time, Bracher warned of the apologetic tendencies of the “demonizaton" of Hitler which he accused historians like Gerhard Ritter of engaging in, which Bracher maintained allowed too many Germans to place the blame for Nazi crimes solely on the "demon" Hitler[23]. Through Bracher criticized the Great man theory of history as an inadequate historical explanation, Bracher argued that social historians who claim that social developments were more important then the role of individuals were mistaken[24].

In Bracher’s view, Hitler’s rise was not inevitable, and the primary responsibility for the Chancellorship being given to Hitler on January 30, 1933 rested with the Kamarilla of President Paul von Hindenburg[25]. However, Bracher argued that once Hitler had obtained power, he used his authority to carry out a comprehensive revolution that politically destroyed both Hitler’s opponents and his allies who sought to “tame” the Nazi movement[26]. Bracher argued that because Hitler was so central to the Nazi movement that it led to the fate of National Socialism being so intertwined with Hitler's fate that it is right to speak of National Socialism as Hitlerism, and hence justifying Hitler's place in history as a person who by their actions decisively brought about events that otherwise would not have happened[27]. In addition, Bracher maintained that the importance of Hitler deprived from his being the most effective exponent of an extremely radical type of racist German nationalism, which allowed for ideas that otherwise would be ignored by historians coming to a terrible fruition[28]. Through Bracher argued that the work of Ralf Dahrendorf, David Schoenbaum, and Henry Ashby Turner about National Socialism in pursuit of anti-modern goals leading to an unintentional modernization of German society had merit, Bracher felt the question of modernization was too removed from the essence of National Socialism, which Bracher argued were the total revolutionary remodeling of the world along savagely racist and Social Darwinist lines[29]. In Bracher's opinion, the revolution Hitler sought to unleash was besides being one of racism gone mad, was also a moral revolution[30]. Bracher argued that the Nazi revolution sought to destroy traditional values that society had valued such as friendship, kindness, and so forth, and replace them with values such as cruelty, brutality, and destruction[31]. Bracher argued that because Anti-Semitism was so crucial to Hitler's weltanschauung (worldview) and its consequences in the form of genocide for the Jews of Europe were such that this disapproves any notion of generic fascism because Bracher believes that theories of fascism cannot account for the Shoah[32]. Bracher argued that generic fascism theorists were guilty of indiscriminately lumping in too many disparate phenomena for the concept of fascism to be of any intellectual use, and of using the term fascist as a catch-all insult for anyone the left disliked[33]. With respect to the genesis of The Holocaust, he is a confirmed Intentionalist. It is his position that the entire project of the genocide of European Jewry resulted from Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitic hatred[34].

[edit] Political Views

Bracher believes that totalitarianism, whether from the Left or Right, is the leading threat to democracy all over the world, and has argued that the differences between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were of degree, not kind[35]. Bracher is opposed to the notion of generic fascism and has often urged scholars to reject "totalitarian" fascism theory as championed by the "radical-left" in favour of "democratic" totalitarian theory as a means of explaining the Nazi dictatorship[36]. In particular, Bracher has argued that Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany possessed such fundamental differences that any theory of generic fascism is not supported by the historical evidence[37]. He is pro-American and was one of the few German professors to support fully the foreign policy of the United States during the Cold War. In the 1960s and 1970s, he often attacked left-wing and New Left intellectuals in particular for comparing the actions of the United States in the Vietnam War and the West German state to Nazi Germany[38]. For Bracher, these attacks were both an absurd trivialization of Nazi crimes and a sinister attempt to advance the cause of Communism. In their turn, the West German Left attacked Bracher as a neo-Nazi and branded him an "American stooge". In his 1977 essay entitled "Zeitgeschichte im Wandel der Interpretationen" published in the Historische Zeitschrift journal, Bracher argued that the student protests of the late 1960s had resulted in a "Marxist renaisssance" with the "New Left" exercising increasing control over the university curriculums[39]. Through Bracher felt that some of the resulting work was of value, too much of the resulting publications were in his opinion executed with "crude weapons" in which "the ideological struggle was carried out on the back and in the name of scholarship" with a corrosive effect on academic standards[40]. In particular, Bracher warned of the "tendency, through theorizing and ideologizing alienation from the history of persons and events, to show and put into effect as the dominant leading theme the contemporary criticism of capitalism and democracy".[41]. Along the same lines, Bracher criticized the return to what he regarded as the crude Comintern theories of the 1920-1930s which labeled democracy as a form of "late capitalist" and "late bourgeois" rule, and of the New Left practice of refering to the Federal Republic as "restorative" Nazi state.[42]. In his 1976 book Zeitgeschichtliche Kontroversen, Bracher criticized the Marxist-New Left interpretation of the Nazi period under the grounds that in such in an interpretation "the ideological and totalitarian dimension of National Socialism shrinks to such an extent that the barbarism of 1933-45 disappears as a moral phenomenon", which Bracher felt meant that "...a new wave of trivialization or even apologetics was beginning".[43]. In his 1978 book Schlüsselwörter in der Geschichte Bracher warned the "totalitarian temptation" which he associated with the New Left, above all with the Red Army Faction terrorist group was a serious threat to West German democracy, and called upon scholars to do their part to combat such trends before it was too late[44].

[edit] Honors

[edit] Work

  • Verfall und Fortschritt im Denken der frühen römischen Kaiserzeit: Studien zum Zeitgeühl und Geschichtsbewusstein des Jahrhunderts nach Augustus, 1948.
  • Die Aufösung der Weimarer Republik: eine Studie zum Problem des Machtverfalls in der Demokratie 1955.
  • "Stufen totalitärer Gleichsaltung: Die Befestigung der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft 1933/34" pages 30-42 from Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Volume 4, Issue # 1, January 1956, translated into English as "Stages of Totalitarian "Integration" (Gleichschaltung): The Consolidation of National Socialist Rule in 1933 and 1934" pages 109-128 from Republic To Reich The Making of the Nazi Revolution Ten Essays edited by Hajo Holborn, New York: Pantheon Books 1972, ISBN 0394471229.
  • co-edited with Annedore Leber & Willy Brandt Das Gewissen steht auf : 64 Lebensbilder aus dem deutschen Widerstand 1933-1945, 1956, translated into English as The Conscience in Revolt : Portraits of the German Resistance 1933-1945, Mainz : Hase & Koehler, 1994 ISBN 3-7758-1314-4.
  • co-written with Wolfgang Sauer and Gerhard Schulz Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung: Studien zur Errichtung des totalitären Herrschaftssystems in Deutschland 1933-34, 1960.
  • Deutschland zwischen Demokratie und Diktatur: Beiträge zur neueren Politik und Geschichte , 1964.
  • Adolf Hitler, 1964.
  • Die deutsche Diktatur: Entstehung, Struktur, Folgen des Nationalsozialismus, 1969, translated into English by Jean Steinberg as The German Dictatorship; The Origins, Structure, and Effects of National Socialism; New York, Praeger 1970, with an Introduction by Peter Gay.
  • Das deutsche Dilemma: Leidenswege der politischen Emanzipation, 1971, translated into English as The German Dilemma: The Throes of Political Emancipation, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975 ISBN 0297767909.
  • Die Krise Europas, 1917-1975, 1976.
  • Zeitgeschichtiche Kontroversen: Um Faschismus, Totalitarismus, Demokratie, 1976.
  • "The Role of Hitler: Perspectives of Interpretation" pages 211-225 from Fascism: A Reader's Guide, edited by Walter Laqueur, Harmondsworth, 1976, ISBN 0520030338.
  • Europa in der Krise: Innengeschichte u. Weltpolitik seit 1917, 1979.
  • (editor) Quellen zur Geschichte des Paramentarimus und er politischen Partein, Bd 4/1 Politik und Wirtschaft in der Krise 1930-1932 Quellen Ära Brüning Tel I, Bonn, 1980.
  • Geschichte und Gewalt: Zur Politik im 20. Jahrhundert, 1981.
  • “The Disputed Concept of Totalitarianism,” pages 11-33 from Totalitarianism Reconsidered edited by Ernest A. Menze Port Washington, N.Y. / London: Kennikat Press, 1981, ISBN 0804692688.
  • Zeit der Ideologien: Eine Geschichte politischen Denkens im 20. Jahrhundert, 1982, translated into English as The Age Of Ideologies : A History of Political Thought in the Twentieth Century, New York : St. Martin’s Press, 1984, ISBN 0312012292.
  • co-edited with Hermann Graml Widerstand im Dritten Reich : Probleme, Ereignisse, Gestalten, 1984.
  • Die Totalitäre Erfahrung, 1987.
  • Wendezeiten der Geschichte: Historisch-politische Essays, 1987-1992, 1992, translated into English Turning Points In Modern Times : Essays On German and European History, translated by Thomas Dunlap ; with a foreword by Abbott Gleason, Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1995, ISBN 067491354X.
  • co-written with Manfred Funke & Hans-Adolf Jacobsen Deutschland 1933 - 1945. Neue Studien zur nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft, 1992.
  • co-written with Eberhard Jäckel; Johannes Gross;, Theodor Eschenburg & Joachim Fest Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1994.
  • Geschichte als Erfahrung. Betrachtungen zum 20. Jahrhundert, 2001.
  • co-edited with P. M. Brilman & H. M. Von Der DunkJustiz und NS-Verbrechen, 2008.

[edit] Endnotes

  1. ^ Dijk, Ruud van "Bracher, Karl Dietrich" pages 111-112 from The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, Volume 1, edited by Kelly Boyd, London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishing, 1999 page 112
  2. ^ Dijk, Ruud van "Bracher, Karl Dietrich" pages 111-112 from The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, Volume 1, edited by Kelly Boyd, London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishing, 1999 page 111
  3. ^ Dijk, Ruud van "Bracher, Karl Dietrich" pages 111-112 from The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, Volume 1, edited by Kelly Boyd, London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishing, 1999 page 111
  4. ^ Dijk, Ruud van "Bracher, Karl Dietrich" pages 111-112 from The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, Volume 1, edited by Kelly Boyd, London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishing, 1999 page 111
  5. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York page 44.
  6. ^ Lukacs, John The Hitler of History, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997 page 201.
  7. ^ Lukacs, John The Hitler of History, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997 page 201.
  8. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York page 25.
  9. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York page 25.
  10. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York page 25.
  11. ^ Iggers, Georg The German Conception of History, Middletown: Connecticut; Wesleyan University Press, 1968 page 266.
  12. ^ Lukacs, John The Hitler of History, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997 pages 202-203.
  13. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York page 51.
  14. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York page 51.
  15. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York page 51.
  16. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York page 73.
  17. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York page 73.
  18. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York page 73.
  19. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York page 73.
  20. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York page 73.
  21. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York page 73.
  22. ^ Bracher, Karl Dietrich "The Role of Hitler" pages 211-225 from Fascism: A Reader's Guide, Harmondsworth, 1976 page 212.
  23. ^ Bracher, Karl Dietrich "The Role of Hitler" pages 211-225 from Fascism: A Reader's Guide, Harmondsworth, 1976 page 213.
  24. ^ Bracher, Karl Dietrich "The Role of Hitler" pages 211-225 from Fascism: A Reader's Guide Harmondsworth, 1976 page 214.
  25. ^ Bracher, Karl Dietrich "The Role of Hitler" pages 211-225 from Fascism: A Reader's Guide Harmondsworth, 1976 page 217.
  26. ^ Bracher, Karl Dietrich "The Role of Hitler" pages 211-225 from Fascism: A Reader's Guide Harmondsworth, 1976 page 217.
  27. ^ Bracher, Karl Dietrich "The Role of Hitler" pages 211-225 from Fascism: A Reader's Guide Harmondsworth, 1976 page 215.
  28. ^ Bracher, Karl Dietrich "The Role of Hitler" pages 211-225 from Fascism: A Reader's Guide Harmondsworth, 1976 page 215.
  29. ^ Bracher, Karl Dietrich "The Role of Hitler" pages 211-225 from Fascism: A Reader's Guide Harmondsworth, 1976 pages 220-221.
  30. ^ Bracher, Karl Dietrich "The Role of Hitler" pages 211-225 from Fascism: A Reader's Guide Harmondsworth, 1976 page 222.
  31. ^ Bracher, Karl Dietrich "The Role of Hitler" pages 211-225 from Fascism: A Reader's Guide Harmondsworth, 1976 pages 222-223.
  32. ^ Bracher, Karl Dietrich "The Role of Hitler" pages 211-225 from Fascism: A Reader's Guide Harmondsworth, 1976 pages 217-218.
  33. ^ Bracher, Karl Dietrich "The Role of Hitler" pages 211-225 from Fascism: A Reader's Guide Harmondsworth, 1976 pages 217-218.
  34. ^ Bracher, Karl Dietrich "The Role of Hitler" pages 211-225 from Fascism: A Reader's Guide Harmondsworth, 1976 pages 217-218.
  35. ^ , Ruud van "Bracher, Karl Dietrich" pages 111-112 from The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, Volume 1, edited by Kelly Boyd, London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishing, 1999 page 111.
  36. ^ Burleigh, Michael & Wippermann, Wolfgang The Racial State : Germany 1933-1945, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1991 page 20.
  37. ^ Burleigh, Michael & Wippermann, Wolfgang The Racial State : Germany 1933-1945, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1991 page 20.
  38. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York page 15; Bracher, Karl Dietrich "The Role of Hitler" pages 211-225 from Fascism: A Reader's Guide, edited by Walter Laqueur, Harmondsworth, 1976 pages 212-213 & 218.
  39. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York page 15.
  40. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York page 15.
  41. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold page 16.
  42. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold page 15.
  43. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York page 18.
  44. ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York page 25.

[edit] References

  • Dijk, Ruud van "Bracher, Karl Dietrich" pages 111-112 from The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, Volume 1, edited by Kelly Boyd, London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishing, 1999.
  • Funke, Manfred (editor) Demokratie und Diktatur: Geist und Gestalt politischer Herrschaft in Deutschland und Europa, Festschrift für Karl Dietrich Bracher (Democracy and Dictatorship: The Spirit and Form of Political Power in Germany and Europe) Düsseldorf: Droste, 1987.
  • Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship : Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London : Arnold ; New York : Copublished in the USA by Oxford University Press, 2000
  • Marrus, Michael The Holocaust in History, Toronto : Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1987

[edit] See also

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