Michael Wildt

Deutsche Geschichte 1918-1945

Geborstene Zeit

A collection of documents of the Jewish section of the SD, most of them newly accessible in the Moscow Special Archives, including memoranda and directives on policy, and evaluation of developments in the Jewish community and the effect of anti-Jewish measures. Many of these were written by Eichmann, Wisliceny, Dannecker, and others, who later became notorious for their roles in the Holocaust. The introduction (pp. 9-64) states that, from the beginning, the SD's Jewish policy was directed at emigration, with a single-mindedness that often put it at odds with other centers of power. This was to be achieved by laws and regulations making life in Germany impossible for Jews, and by encouraging Zionist and prohibiting assimilationist organizations. The Section established the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna, and later in Berlin and Prague. Its men became the acknowledged experts for the "Jewish question" and the perpetrators of its Final Solution.

eine Dokumentation

Die Judenpolitik des SD 1935 bis 1938

Stefan Rinke

1917 war ein bedeutendes Jahr des historischen Umbruchs im Weltmaßstab, in dem der Grundstein für prägende Strukturen des 20. Jahrhunderts gelegt wurde. Den Zeitgenossen waren diese globalen Zusammenhänge bewusst; doch in der auf nationale Belange beschränkten Geschichtswissenschaft spielten sie jahrzehntelang kaum eine Rolle. Dieser Band vereint neue Forschungen, die die transnationalen Verbindungen der unzähligen Aufstände, Rebellionen und Revolutionen sowie der gewaltsamen Reaktionen darauf in den Jahren zwischen 1917 und 1920 in allen Weltteilen aufzeigen.

1917 and its Aftermath from a Global Perspective

Revolutions and Counter-Revolutions

Susan Neiman

Der neue Historikerstreit über die Wurzeln des Holocaust und die Gewalt im 20. Jahrhundert Erneut steht die Frage im Raum: War der Holocaust ein singuläres Ereignis, und wie unterscheidet er sich von anderen Völkermorden? Heute geht es nicht mehr um den Vergleich mit den stalinschen Gräueln wie noch beim ersten Historikerstreit 1986/87. Das drängende Problem der Gegenwart ist: Wie kann eine Gedenkkultur aussehen, die auch die lange verdrängten deutschen Kolonialverbrechen einbezieht? Mit Beiträgen von Emily Dische-Becker, Omer Bartov, Yehuda Bauer, Sebastian Conrad, Mischa Gabowitsch, Mario Keßler, Sami Khatib, Volkhard Knigge, Per Leo, Eva Menasse, A. Dirk Moses, Jan Philipp Reemtsma, Ingo Schulze, Fabian Wolff und Benjamin Zachariah.

Gewalt und Holocaust – die Debatte | Mit Beiträgen von Omer Bartov, Ingo Schulze, Per Leo, Eva Menasse, A. Dirk Moses u.a.

Historiker streiten

Moshe Zimmermann

Christoph Kreutzmueller

This is a book about economics and racism: During World War I, the liberal global economic system, based on principles of free trade and most-favored nation treatment and negotiated in gold parities, collapsed for good. The disintegration and collapse of commerce eventually led to racist cleansing, expulsion and mass murder. Against this background, this book offers new perspectives on the racist fault-lines that appeared and deepened in European economies after the end of what was regarded as the Great War. At what point did people start to ostracize their neighbors economically because they thought they were of a different ethnic group? Who decided who was to be excluded? Where did the fault-lines open? Where did the boundaries lie? How were they defined – by law, or by common practice? How much extra time and money were people prepared to spend in order to do ostracize their neighbors? And what did that mean for the economy – and society – as such?

Volks-Wirtschaft, Racism and Economy in Europe between the Wars (1918-1939/45)

National Economies

Katrin Himmler

Um mergulho inédito na vida privada de uma das figuras mais importantes do Terceiro Reich. Durante muito tempo se pensou que as cartas de Heinrich Himmler para sua mulher, além de outros documentos pertencentes ao Reichsführer-SS, estavam perdidos. Várias décadas depois do suicídio de Himmler e do fim da Segunda Guerra Mundial, porém, as cartas foram encontradas em Tel Aviv, Israel. Organizadas por Michael Wildt e Katrin Himmler, sobrinha-neta do oficial, são correspondências de Heinrich Himmler e Marga Siegroth, excertos de diários do casal e de sua filha, e cartões-postais. Ao tratar da vida cotidiana de uma família aparentemente comum, esses escritos exibem o ferrenho racismo e antissemitismo dos nazistas, os privilégios que tinham durante a guerra e a terrível crença de que a Solução Final não era nada além da coisa correta a se fazer. Um importante registro histórico da brutalidade do regime nazista escondida por trás da fachada pequeno-burguesa.

Cartas de um assassino em massa

Heinrich Himmler

Geschichte wird heute anders geschrieben: vielfältiger, anschaulicher und spannender. Im Mittelpunkt stehen handelnde Menschen, ihre Alltagspraxis und Emotionen, die unterschiedlichen Erfahrungen von Männern und Frauen, die symbolischen Formen, mit denen sich Menschen untereinander austauschen. Politik wird zu einem Feld von Repräsentation und Macht, Ökonomie zu einem Markt von Chancen und Gesellschaft zu einem Versuch kultureller Ordnung. Der Band versammelt Beiträge renommierter Historikerinnen und Historiker der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, in denen sie zeigen, wie sie Geschichte denken und schreiben. Epochenübergreifend ergibt sich damit ein intellektuell anregender Blick auf die Vielfalt moderner Geschichtsschreibung auf der Höhe der Zeit.

Perspektiven auf die Geschichtsschreibung heute

Geschichte denken

Der Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers SS (SD) zählte zu den wichtigsten Institutionen des nationalsozialistischen Verfolgungs- und Vernichtungsapparates und blieb dennoch lange Zeit weitgehend unerforscht. Ein Grund dafür ist darin zu sehen, daß der SD im Laufe seiner Existenz von 1931 bis 1945 einem steten Funktionswandel unterlag, der sein Profil und seine Bedeutung nur schwer analytisch fassen läßt. 1931 als Nachrichtendienst geschaffen, um den politischen Gegner auszuspionieren, verwandelte sich der SD nach der Machtübernahme 1933 in eine Institution des Terrors. Zugleich bildete er den weltanschaulichen Kern, die politische Elite innerhalb des SS- und Polizeiapparates, um das Ziel, eine neue, allumfassende, auf "rassische Generalprävention" orientierte Sicherheitspolizei zu erreichen. Konsequent firmierten die Einsatzgruppen, die in den besetzten Ländern den rassistischen Generalplan durch Massenmord verwirklichten, als SD-Einheiten. Erstmals vereinigt dieser Band neue Studien zum SD von überwiegend jüngeren Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftlern, die die Rolle und Politik des SD im NS-Regime untersuchen: - George Browder: Die frühe Entwicklung des SD - Christian Ingrao: Kriegskultur, nazistische Bilder, genozidale Gewalt. Zum Weltbild der SD-Funktionäre - Carsten Schreiber: Eine verschworene Gemeinschaft. Regionale Verfolgungsnetzwerke des SD in Sachsen - Wolfgang Dierker: Die Religionspolitik des SD 1933-1941 - Joachim Lerchenmüller: Die 'SD-mäßige' Bearbeitung der Geschichtswissenschaft - Gerd Simon: Germanistik und Sicherheitsdienst - Jürgen Matthäus: Das Judenbild des SD 1934-1939 - Jörg Rudolph: Das Amt VII im RSHA - Katrin Paehler: Der SD-Ausland in Italien - Andrej Angrick: Otto Ohlendorf und die SD-Tätigkeit der Einsatzgruppe D - Ruth Bettina Birn: Kollaboration und Mittäterschaft - Klaus-Michael Mallmann: Das Unternehmen "Zeppelin" 1942-1945 - Lutz Hachmeister: Die Rolle des SD-Personals in der Nachkriegszeit.

Der Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers SS

Nachrichtendienst, politische Elite und Mordeinheit

Bernard W. Heise

In the spring of 1933, German society was deeply divided – in the Reichstag elections on 5 March, only a small percentage voted for Hitler. Yet, once he seized power, his creation of a socially inclusive Volksgemeinschaft, promising equality, economic prosperity and the restoration of honor and pride after the humiliating ending of World War I persuaded many Germans to support him and to shut their eyes to dictatorial coercion, concentration camps, secret state police, and the exclusion of large sections of the population. The author argues however, that the everyday practice of exclusion changed German society itself: bureaucratic discrimination and violent anti-Jewish actions destroyed the civil and constitutional order and transformed the German nation into an aggressive and racist society. Based on rich source material, this book offers one of the most comprehensive accounts of this transformation as it traces continuities and discontinuities and the replacement of a legal order with a violent one, the extent of which may not have been intended by those involved.

Violence Against Jews in Provincial Germany, 1919 1939

Hitler's Volksgemeinschaft and the Dynamics of Racial Exclusion

The Leadership Corps of the Reich Security Main Office

Generation of the Unbound

Unquestionably a watershed year in world history, 1917 not only saw the Russian Revolution and the US entry into World War I, it also marked a foundational moment in determining global political structures for the remaining twentieth century. Yet while contemporaries were cognizant of these global connections, historiography has been largely limited to analysis of the nation-state. A century later, this book discusses the transnational dimension of the numerous upheavals, rebellions, and violent reactions on a global level that began with 1917. Experts from different continents contribute findings that go beyond the well-known European and transatlantic narratives, making for a uniquely global study of this crucial period in history.

At the end of World War II, it was assumed that the letters of Heinrich Himmler were lost. Yet sixty years after Himmler's capture by British troops and subsequent suicide, the letters mysteriously turned up in Tel Aviv and, in early 2014, excerpts were published for the first time by the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot providing a rare, if jarring, glimpse into the family life of one of Hitler's top lieutenants while he was busy organizing the mass extermination of the Jews. It was generally held that Himmler, once appointed head of the SS, blended seamlessly into the Nazi hierarchy. The image that emerges, however, is more subtle. Himmler is seen here as a man whose observations can often be characterized by their unpleasant banality; a man whose obsession with family life ran alongside a brutal detachment from all things human, a serial killer who oversaw the persecution and extermination of all Jews and other non-Aryans, and those opposed to the regime. His letters remove any doubt that he was the architect of the Final Solution, and a man who was much closer to Hitler than many historians previously thought. The letters in this edition were arranged by Katrin Himmler, the great-niece of Heinrich and Marga Himmler while Michael Wildt, a renowned expert on the Nazi regime, provides historical context to the letters and their author. The entire work was translated by Thomas S. Hansen and Abby J. Hansen.

Michael Wildt

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