Hans Rothfels

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Hans Rothfels
Born(1891-04-12)12 April 1891
Kassel, German Empire
Died22 June 1976(1976-06-22) (aged 85)
Tübingen, West Germany
NationalityGerman
Scientific career
FieldsHistory
InstitutionsUniversity of Königsberg
Doctoral studentsKarl Heinz Bremer (1934)
Gerhard Weinberg (1951) Hans Mommsen (1959)
Heinrich August Winkler (1963)

Hans Rothfels (12 April 1891 – 22 June 1976) was a German

Second World War, after which he became opposed to the Nazi regime. Rothfels returned to West Germany
after 1945 where he continued to influence history teaching and became an influential figure among West German scholars.

Biography

Rothfels was born to a wealthy

German Army as a reserve officer and was badly wounded near Soissons. He lost one of his legs and was in a hospital until 1917.[2] In 1918, Rothfels's dissertation on Carl von Clausewitz, "Carl von Clausewitz: Politik und Krieg", led to Heidelberg granting him a degree in history. In 1920, Rothfels's dissertation was published as a book. In 1922, he edited and published a collection of Clausewitz's private letters. In addition, Rothfels published several collections of Otto von Bismarck's letters, and was the first historian to be authorized by the Bismarck family to publish the Iron Chancellor's correspondence. Rothfels was noted for his claim that Bismarck was neither the "iron chancellor" of "banal legend" nor an "opportunist", but rather a profoundly religious man struggling to deal with a reality whose full complexity was only understandable to God.[2] He defended Bismarck's Germanization policies against Poles claiming they were "defensive".[3]

Between 1924 and 1926, Rothfels taught at the

indentured workers, based on racist criteria[4] Those living outside the "German sphere" were to be classified by hierarchy based on their "cultural heritage" and ruled under direction of Germans and a vassal class that would collaborate with them.[4]

Although supportive of right-wing politics (according to some, he might have voted for

Theodor Oberlander, director of League of German East (Bund der Deutschen Osten) and NSDAP's East Prussian intelligence agency,[4] and was forbidden to teach a year later. While Rothfels tried to get an honorary Aryan status with support by Joachim von Ribbentrop, his efforts were fruitless.[8] Subject to increasing persecution and discrimination by the State, he reluctantly left Germany in 1938 for the United Kingdom. What decided the issue for him was his experience during the Kristallnacht pogrom when his house was looted and trashed by the SA and he himself was arrested and held by the Gestapo for several hours, during which he was deprived of his crutches and beaten up. Together with his wife and their three children, Rothfels left for the United Kingdom, where he hastily began to learn English
, a language that he subsequently mastered.

Exile

After teaching at

Baltics. Rothfels defended German hegemony over this "outpost of Western Europe and Western civilization" and complained about resettlement of Germans there due to Soviet-Nazi treaties.[4] Rothfels left for the United States, where he stayed until 1951, and took U.S. citizenship. He taught at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and at the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois where he became a professor. Considering his views at that time, a Jewish-German student was surprised that Rothfels was forced to leave Germany in the first place.[4] During his time in the United States, he befriended the American publisher Henry Regnery and became actively involved in the Republican Party
.

In an essay published in 1943, in the book The Makers of Modern Strategy on Clausewitz, has been praised by

Vom Krieg were outdated due to advances in military technology and tactics, nonetheless, Rothfels felt that Clausewitz was the most important military philosopher of all time. The U.S. military historian Peter Paret
has differed with some of Rothfels's interpretation of Clausewitz, but acknowledged Rothfels as a major influence on his work on Clausewitz.

In 1948, Rothfels published his most famous book, The German Opposition To Hitler, which celebrated those conservatives who attempted the

National Socialist regime as representative of all that was best about German life and argued that the actions of the conspirators had restored Germany's honour from the disgrace the Nazis had brought upon it. Rothfels accepted Edmund Burke's idea that the best defenders of liberty come from the upper crust of society and cast the men and women of 20 July as a perfect example of Burke's theory. Rothfels claimed that the German opposition was motivated by the highest possible ethical and moral considerations, and asserted that there were no self-interested motives whatsoever amongst the men and women of the 20 July. Rothfels argued that the actions of the 20 July conspirators were motivated a sense of noblesse oblige, devotion to the principles of Christianity and the highest form of patriotism
. Rothfels was fond of pointing out the difficulties involved in attempting to overthrow one's government in war-time, which in Rothfels view, was a sign of the true patriotism of the 20 July conspirators.

Rothfels saw Nazism as a type of

A.J.P. Taylor and Sir John Wheeler-Bennett. Moreover, far from Nazism being rooted in German traditions, Rothfels claimed that the strongest opposition to Nazism came from those grounded in traditional values. In Rothfels's opinion, "the traditions of a genuine 'Prussian militarism'" provided the principle "bulwark against nationalistic and demagogic excesses".[11]
The German Opposition to Hitler ended with a call for people all over the West to embrace what Rothfels regarded as the noble ideas of the conservative opponents of Nazism, which Rothfels saw as leading to back to the higher values of the West.

The German Opposition To Hitler was a controversial book because Rothfels focused his attention largely on anti-Nazis on the Right and for the most part ignored anti-Nazis on the Left.[11] In addition, many felt that the book was a hagiographical treatment of anti-Nazi conservatives. His motive in writing the book was in part to prevent the emergence of a new stab-in-the-back legend that might once again undermine democracy in Germany. He was dismayed by public opinion polls taken immediately after World War II in the American zone of occupation that showed the majority of Germans had a low opinion of the men and women involved in the 20 July plot. Rothfels was determined that Germans should see them as heroes, not villains.

Return to Germany

In 1951, Rothfels returned to

Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Institute for Contemporary History), an historical study center devoted to the Nazi period. The institute's journal, the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (Journal for Contemporary History) has become one of the world's leading periodicals for the study of Nazi Germany. Within a few years, the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte had the highest circulation of any historical journal in West Germany. During the 1950s, Rothfels was one of the few German historians who attempted a serious examination of the Holocaust, which was a subject that most German historians preferred to ignore during that decade. In particular, he broke new ground by publishing Kurt Gerstein
's reports relating to the Final Solution in the first edition of the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte in 1953 and another article in 1959 that examined the plight of Polish Jewry under Nazi rule. In his works Rothfels aimed at minimising the German hostility to Jews, while highlighting any attempts to save them by German individuals. Crimes and support for anti-semitism were downplayed, and opposition to racial discrimination portrayed by Rothfels as dominant. As such his text produced a vision of history in which for example the 1930s were virtually absent from anti-semitism, and non-Jewish Germans were completely willing to help Jews.[13]

After his return to Germany, Rothfels was a pioneer of contemporary history, the study of the "epoch of those who lived at the time" to use Rothfels's words. In Rothfels's view, contemporary history was the study of the recent past, where despite or rather because the lack of documentation caused by studying events so close to the past and the challenge of writing about events that one experienced oneself, required special patience, skill and ability of the part of the historian. In particular, Rothfels called for historians working in the field of contemporary history to approach matters in an objective and neutral matter while keeping in mind the moral questions. In practice, contemporary history came to refer history from 1914 on.

After his return to Germany, Rothfels took a strong stand against those whose work he felt could exonerate the Nazis. In 1954, he and one of his star pupils from the University of Chicago,

Zweites Buch
which Weinberg had discovered in 1958, and for which Rothfels wrote the introduction.

Another area of interest for Rothfels was the

expulsion of the ethnic German population from Eastern Europe after World War II. In the 1950s, Rothfels worked with Theodor Schieder, Werner Conze and other historians to produce the multi-volume Documentation of the Expulsion of Germans from East Central Europe. Many later prominent historians such as Martin Broszat, Hans-Ulrich Wehler and Hans Mommsen were involved in this project.[citation needed
]

Controversy

In his lifetime and since his death, Rothfels has been a very controversial figure. Many see him as apologist for the anti-democratic German Right, and in particular, his attitude towards the Weimar Republic has recently been the subject of controversy in Germany. The historian

Nazi sympathizer. The historian Heinrich August Winkler has strongly criticized Haar,[14] who had erroneously used a radio address Rothfels gave in 1930 praising Friedrich Ebert, Gustav Stresemann, and Paul von Hindenburg as great German leaders as a proof for Rothfels' support of Hitler. While Haar had implied the speech dates from 1933 and was addressed to Hitler after he took over power in Germany, Winkler verified the actual circumstances of the speech, which Rothfels repeated several times prior to 1933. Rothfels's critics contend that his planned 1933 radio address was too little, too late.[citation needed
]

Rothfels and his inner circle at Königsberg in the early 1930s are often referred to as the Königsberg circle (

expulsion of Germans after World War II
. In 1998 the 42nd Deutscher Historikertag marked the beginning of a public debate among German historians about the "brown history" of their field.[15]

Works

  • Carl von Clausewitz: Politik und Krieg, Dümmlers Verlag, Berlin, 1920.
  • Bismarck Und Der Staat; Ausgewählte Dokumente. Eingeleitet Von Hans Rothfels, Stuttgart, Kohlhammer Verlag, 1925.
  • "Clausewitz" pages 93–113 from The Makers of Modern Strategy edited by Edward Mead Earle, Gordon A. Craig & Felix Gilbert, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1943.
  • "The Baltic Provinces: Some Historic Aspects and Perspectives." Pages 117–146, Journal of Central European Affairs, Vol. IV, July 1944.
  • "1848 – One Hundred Years After," Journal of Modern History, Vol. 20, No. 4 (December 1948)
  • The German Opposition to Hitler, An Appraisal Henry Regnery Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1948; published in Germany as Die deutsche Opposition gegen Hitler Scherpe, Krefeld, 1949, revised editions 1961 & 1963.
  • Review of Die Entscheidung des Abendlandes by Rudolf Rocker" pages 839–841 from American Historical Review, Volume 56, Issue #4, July 1951.
  • "Zeitgeschichte als Aufgabe" pages 1–8 from Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Volume 1, 1953.
  • Bismarck-Briefe. Ausgewählt Und Eingeleitet Von Hans Rothfels, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1955.
  • Das politische Vermächtnis des deutschen Widerstandes, Bonn: Bundeszentrale für Heimatdienst, 1956.
  • "Die Roten Kämpfer Zur Geschichte einer linken Widerstandsgruppe" pages 438–460 from Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Volume 7, 1959.
  • "Zur „Umsiedlung" der Juden im Generalgouvernment", pages 333–336 from Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Volume 7, 1959.
  • Bismarck, der Osten und das Reich, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1960.
  • Bismarck; Vorträge und Abhandlungen, Stuttgart, W. Kohlhammer 1970.

References

  1. ^ War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany Robert G. Moeller, page 57,University of California Press 2003
  2. ^ a b Klemperer, Klemens von "Hans Rothfels, 1891–1976" pages 381–383 from Central European History, Volume IX, Issue # 4, December 1976 page 381
  3. ^ Dzieje Wielkopolski Volume 2, page 888, Czesław Łuczak, Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 1973 -
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k German scholars and ethnic cleansing, 1919-1945Michael Fahlbusch, page 6,7,236–260 Berghahn Books, 2006
  5. ISBN 978-1-57181-435-7
    .
  6. ^ Klemperer, Klemens von "Hans Rothfels, 1891–1976" pages 381–383 from Central European History, Volume IX, Issue # 4, December 1976 page 382
  7. ^ Steinweis, Alan E. Review of Jan Eckel: Hans Rothfels
  8. ^ Ingo Haar, Michael Fahlbusch, "German scholars and ethnic cleansing, 1919–1945", Berghahn Books, page 8 2005,
  9. ^ a b Iggers, Georg The German Conception of History, Middletown: Connecticut; Wesleyan University Press, 1968 page 257.
  10. ^ Iggers, Georg The German Conception of History, Middletown: Connecticut; Wesleyan University Press, 1968 pages 257–258.
  11. ^ a b Iggers, Georg The German Conception of History, Middletown: Connecticut; Wesleyan University Press, 1968 page 258.
  12. ^ Klemperer, Klemens von "Hans Rothfels, 1891–1976" pages 381–383 from Central European History, Volume IX, Issue # 4, December 1976 page 383
  13. ^ Biography between Structure and Agency: Central European Lives in International Historiography (Studies in German History) by Volker R. Berghahn and Simone Lassig (1 August 2008), page 95-96
  14. ^ Winkler, Heinrich August (2001). Hans Rothfels – Ein Lobredner Hitlers ? (PDF) (in German). Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. p. 643.
  15. ^ Beredtes Schweigen, Die Zeit 2000.

Sources

External links
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