German academics outraged by award for 'Hitler apologist'

BY ROGER BOYES

GERMAN historians are outraged after a top literary prize was awarded to a controversial academic who has sought to justify Hitler's anti-Semitism and play down the monstrosity of Nazi war crimes.

Ernst Nolte was awarded the Konrad Adenauer prize, normally given for works that "contribute to a better future", this month, provoking a dispute over revisionism in modern German history.

The academics' anger was heightened when Horst Moeller, the director of the highly respected Institute for Contemporary History, scandalised colleagues by praising Professor Nolte for his "life's work of high rank" and opening up the debate on wartime Germany.

Professor Nolte became an academic pariah in the 1980s when he suggested that Hitler and national socialism presented a distorted mirror image of Stalin and Bolshevism and to merge unacceptably his anti-Semitism with his anti-communism. Professor Nolte has not wavered from his views despite a barrage of criticism. "The Holocaust is indissolubly linked not only to Hitler's hostility to Bolshevism but also to the war against the Soviet Union in general," he said.

Professor Nolte, who also emphasised that Hitler was not "absolutely evil", is not a revisionist in the manner of David Irving (right) -- he does not deny the scope of the Holocaust. He is, however, by most definitions, an apologist for Hitler. To the surprise of politicians as well as historians, Professor Nolte was awarded the Konrad Adenauer prize by the conservative Germany Foundation. The speech was delivered by Horst Moeller, director of the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich.

Professor Moeller wanted to spice his praise of Professor Nolte with criticism, but somehow only the praise seemed to trickle through. As a result it appears to many historians that the Institute has given its seal of approval to Professor Nolte's views.

This is more than an innocent slip-up. Throughout German history departments there are already arguments about repositioning the importance of Hitler. Some reduce the significance of national socialism by comparing it with supposedly totalitarian regimes such as that of the East German Communists. One Dresden historian questioned the morality of trying to kill Hitler in a crowded beer cellar in 1938. The would-be assassin, he said, had no right to risk the lives of innocent people.

The Institute of Contemporary History had to fight for funding after the war when there was no political interest in raking over the ashes of national socialism. Since then however, it has grown into a major influential institute employing 80 academics. Its studies of the social hierarchy in Auschwitz changed the way that people looked at victimhood in concentration camps.

Most controversially, however, it supervised and edited the publication of 20 volumes of diaries written by Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister. This provided an essential source for scholars of national socialism - but also made the institute a magnet for revisionists such as Mr Irving who were keen to adjust the public picture of Hitler.

In his speech, Professor Moeller emphasised that he did not share Professor's Nolte's basic thesis that the Nazis were an understandable reaction to Bolshevism. However, he did call for academic tolerance and a serious discussion rather than demonisation of Ernst Nolte's works.

Unfortunately the only discussion that has ensued is about the integrity of the historical profession in Germany. How far can German historians discuss Hitler in a normal way - advancing positive as well as negative elements - without seeming to be Nazi sympathisers?

Hitler, it seems, cannot be buried in academe.

 [pictures added by this website]

Related files:

Katyn Forest Massacre. Polish deaths at Soviet hands

Räuber Hotzenplotz und Petrosilius Zwackelmann

Press-Spiegel I

Press-Spiegel II

Press-Spiegel III

 

Related links: Institut für Zeitgeschichte