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Publicly Available Published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg March 30, 2011

Das Auswärtige Amt, die NS-Diktatur und der Holocaust. Kritische Bemerkungen zu einem Kommissionsbericht

  • Johannes Hürter

Vorspann

„Das Amt und die Vergangenheit“ – ein Buch schlägt hohe Wellen. Kann man im Auswärtigen Amt des NS-Staats eine homogene „verbrecherische Organisation“ sehen? Waren die Diplomaten wirklich Hauptakteure der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltpolitik, besonders des Holocaust? Über diese Fragen wurde bisher aufgeregt und polemisch gestritten. Es ist an der Zeit, die Ergebnisse der Historikerkommission einer eingehenden wissenschaftlichen Prüfung zu unterziehen. Johannes Hürter, Historiker am Institut für Zeitgeschichte, der mit einer kritischen Studie über Hitlers Heerführer hervorgetreten ist, versucht die Debatte auf eine sachliche Ebene zu bringen und weitere Diskussionen anzustoßen.

Abstract

The Commission of Historians Dealing with the German Foreign Office´s Nazi Past has caused quite a stir with the book Das Amt und die Vergangenheit [The Foreign Office and the Past]. The substantive gain is however limited, for there has long been agreement among researchers that the Foreign Office was not alien to the Nazi system of government, instead contributing to the implementation of a racist policy of violence just like other state institutions. The supposed spectacular dimension of the book stems from the fact that it oversimplifies and exaggerates the role of the Foreign Service during the Nazi dictatorship, especially with regard to the persecution and extermination of the European Jews. The reduction in complexity mostly concerns three areas: 1. The diplomatic elite is described as an overwhelmingly homogeneous block of perpetrators without taking its transformation processes and inner differentiations into account (especially those after 1938). 2. The Foreign Office is ascribed with a major, sometimes even leading role in the Holocaust without consideration for the complex interrelationships and processes of the Final Solution as well as the responsibility of the main perpetrators. 3. Nazi persecution policy and the share of the Foreign Office in it is mostly limited to the Holocaust, while other mass crimes are neglected and actual foreign policy and its negative consequences remain excluded. On the whole the blanket and generalising interpretations of the commission report represent a clear setback for the efforts of research to accomplish a differentiated view of the National Socialist dictatorship and policy of violence. The fact that such simplifying accounts of Nazi history are so successful should not only worry researchers of contemporary history.

Published Online: 2011-03-30
Published in Print: 2011-04-15

© by Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, München, Germany

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