Language:
English
Year of publication:
1988
Titel der Quelle:
Radical History Review
Angaben zur Quelle:
40 (1988) 50-63
Keywords:
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Historiography
;
Jews History
Abstract:
Recounts the "historians' debate", linking it to an attempt by the Christian Democratic Party to create a new conservative historical consciousness. Discusses the works of Stürmer, Hillgruber, Fest, and Nolte as a revisionist offensive, like the ceremony at Bitburg, intended to normalize the German past. Argues that although there is no validity in Nolte's comparison of the Soviet Gulag with the Holocaust, a causal connection between anti-communism and antisemitism does exist. Nolte and Hillgruber, however, focus too narrowly on Hitler's anti-communism, giving his personal ideology and goals a decisive role in the dynamic which led to the Holocaust and detracting attention from the complicity of other sectors of the German population. Suggests that liberal historians reject the interpretation linking the Holocaust to anti-communism and warns of the dangers of "official" history.
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
