Timothy Mason

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Timothy Wright Mason (March 2, 1940–March 5, 1990) was a British Marxist historian of Nazi Germany. He was born in Birkenhead, the child of school-teachers and was educated at Birkenhead School and Oxford University. He taught at Oxford from 1971–1985 and was twice married. He helped to found the left-wing journal History Workshop Journal. Mason specialized in the social history of the Third Reich, especially that of the working-class. Mason's most famous book was his 1975 work Arbeiterklasse und Volksgemeinschaft (The Working Class and the National Community), a study of working-class life under the Nazis and his 1977 book, Sozialpolitik im Dritten Reich (Social Policy in the Third Reich). Unusually for a British historian, most of his books were originally published in German first.

Besides for his studies in working-class in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, Mason was noted for his break with previous Marxist interpretations of fascism that saw fascist regimes as the servant of capitalist interests. Mason argued instead for the “primacy of politics” by which he meant that although fascist regimes were still capitalist regimes in his opinion, they possessed “autonomy” in the political sphere and were not dictated to by capitalist interests. Mason was a leading advocate of comparative studies in fascism and in the 1980s strongly criticized the German philosopher Ernst Nolte for comparing the Holocaust to events that Mason regarded as totally unrelated to Nazi Germany such as the Armenian genocide and the Khmer Rouge genocides. By contrast, Mason argued that there was much to learn by comparing Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in order to produce a theory of generic fascism. In Mason’s view, Nazism was only part of a wider fascist phenomenon.

Mason's most notable arguments were that the German working-class was always opposed to the Nazi dictatorship; that in the over-heated German economy of the late 1930s, German workers could force employers to grant higher wages by leaving for another firm that would grant the desired wage increases; that this was a form of political resistance and this resistance forced Adolf Hitler to go to war in 1939. Thus, the outbreak of the Second World War was caused by structural economic problems. Mason's theory of an "Flight into war" being imposed on Hitler generated much controversy, and in the 1980s he conducted a series of debates with economic historian Richard Overy over this matter. Overy maintained the decision to attack Poland was not caused by structural economic problems, but rather was the result of Hitler wanting a war at that particular time in history.

In a 1981 essay 'Intention and explanation: A current controversy about the interpretation of National Socialism' from the book The "Fuehrer State" : Myth and reality, Mason coined the terms Intentionist and Functionlist as terms for historical schools regarding Nazi Germany. Mason criticized Klaus Hildebrand and Karl Dietrich Bracher for focusing too much on Hitler on as an explanation for the Holocaust. In 1985, Mason decided the government of Margaret Thatcher was the harbinger of fascism, advised trade union leaders to start making preparations to go underground, and moved to Italy. After battling severe depression for many years, he committed suicide in Rome in 1990.

[edit] Work

  • "Some Origins of the Second World War" pages 67-87 from Past and Present, Volume 29, 1964.
  • "Labour in the Third Reich" pages 187-191 from Past and Present, Volume 33, 1966.
  • "Nineteenth Century Cromwell" pages 187-191 from Past and Present, Volume 49, 1968.
  • "Primacy of Politics: Politics and Economics in National Socialist Germany" from The Nature of Fascism edited by Stuart J. Woolf, 1968.
  • Arbeiterklasse und Volksgemeinschaft: Dokumente und Materialien zur deutschen Arbeiterpolitik, 1936–39, 1975.
  • Sozialpolitik im Dritten Reich: Arbeiterklasse und Volksgemeinschaft, 1977.
  • "Women in Germany, 1925-40: Family, Welfare, and Work" pages 74-113 from History Workshop Journal, Issue 1, 1976 and pages 5-32 from History Workshop Journal, Issue 2, 1976.
  • "National Socialism and the German Working Class, 1925-May 1933" pages 49-93 from New German Critique Volume 11, 1977.
  • "Worker's Opposition in Nazi Germany" pages 120-137 from History Workshop Journal, Issue II, 1981
  • "Injustice and Resistance: Barrington Moore and the Reaction of the German Workers to Nazism" from Ideas into Politics: Aspects of European History, 1880-1950 edited by R.J. Bullen, Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann and A.B. Polonsky, 1984.
  • "Massenwiderstand ohne Organisation: Streiks im faschistischen Italien und NS-Deutschland" pages 1997-212 from Gewerkschaflice Monatschelfte, Volume 32, 1984.
  • "Arbeiter ohne Gewerkschaften: Massenwiderstand im NS-Deutschland und im faschistischen Italien" pages 28-35 from Journal für Geschichte, 1985.
  • "History Workshop" pages 175-1986 from Passato e Presente, Volume 8, 1985.
  • "Il nazismo come professione" pages 18-19 from Rinascita, Volume 18, May 18, 1985.
  • "The Great Economic History Show" pages 129-154 from History Workshop Journal, Volume 21, 1986.
  • "Italy and Modernisation" pages 127-147 from History Workshop Journal, Volume 25, 1988.
  • "Gli scioperi di Torino del Marzo' 43" from L'Italia nella seconda guerra mondiale e nella resistenza, edited by Francesca Ferratini Tosi, Gatano Grasso, and Massimo Legnain, 1988.
  • "Debate: Germany, `Domestic Crisis and War in 1939': Comment 2" pages 205-221 from Past and Present, Volume 122, 1989.
  • "Whatever Happened to `Fascism'?" pages 89-98 from Radical History Review, Volume 49, 1991.
  • "The Domestic Dynamics of Nazi Conquests: A Response to Critics" from Reevaluating the Third Reich edited by Thomas Childers and Jane Caplan, 1993.
  • Nazism, Fascism, and the Working Class: Essays by Tim Mason, edited by Jane Caplan, 1995.

[edit] References

  • Perry, Matt "Mason, Timothy" pages 780-781 from The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing edited by Kelly Boyd, Volume 2, London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishing, 1999.
  • DiCori, Paola, Samuel, Raphael and Galleranto, Nicola "Tim Mason: l'uomo, lo studioso" pages 267-286 from Movimento Operaio e Socialista, Volume 13, 1990.
  • Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London: Arnold, 1993.
  • Peukert, Detlev Volksgenossen und Gemeinschaftsfremden: Anpassung, Ausmerze und Aufbegehren unter dem Nationalsozialismus, Cologne: Bund Verlag, 1982.
  • Samuel, Raphael "Tim Mason: A memorial" pages 129-188 from History Workshop Journal, Volume 39, 1990.
  • Schoenbaum, David "Book Review: Timothy W. Mason" Contemporary European History, July 1996.

[edit] External links

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