Neil Gregor

A Schicksalsgemeinschaft? Allied bombing, civilian morale, and social dissolution in Nuremberg, 1942-1945

This article examines the impact on German urban society of the allied air raids during the Second World War. It rejects the oft-made assertion that the bombing strengthened the ‘community of fate’ on the German home front, arguing that this is an invention of Nazi propaganda which has been absorbed uncritically by subsequent scholars. Instead, it contends that the bombing brought to the surface many social and cultural tensions within German society and led to a widespread process of atomization and dissolution of community ties. The local authorities were quickly overwhelmed by the scale of the bombing and Nazi party propaganda singularly failed to have any impact on the population.

“The Illusion of Remembrance”: The Karl Diehl Affair and the Memory of National Socialism in Nuremberg, 1945–1999*

In a much discussed article on the presence of the Nazi past in the historical consciousness of postwar West Germany published in 1983, Hermann Lubbe opined that “far from fading in intensity as the period recedes into the past, critical engagement with National Socialism has actually increased as time has gone by.”1 Following a period of silence—the precondition, in Lubbe’s view, for the successful reintegration of former Nazis and the creation of a stable democratic political culture—West Germany experienced a growing preoccupation with the crimes of the past among academics and the general public alike. The symptoms of this were to be seen not only in the growing volume of books written on the subject but also in the greater interest in war crimes trials, in the increased focus in West Germany’s school system on the Nazi era, and in its greater presence in the mass media more generally. If Lubbe’s words were true in 1983, how much truer they were to become for the period thereafter. The processes he described have not, of course, been a one-way affair. Both before and after the events of 1989–90, attempts to place the National Socialist past at the center of the Federal Republic’s cultural consciousness have been both contested and resisted. Shortly after the appearance of Lubbe’s article, for example, West Germany witnessed the rancorous and often unedifying but at the same time highly revealing public dispute known as the Historikerstreit.2 As it transpired, this attempt by

Politics, Culture, Political Culture: Recent Work on the Third Reich and Its Aftermath*

The assertion that the events of 1989–90 have led to a radical reframing of the ways in which we imagine the Nazi past has quickly attained the status of a truism. As numerous commentators have pointed out, the ending of the cold war and the reunification of Germany have forced a reconsideration of the most appropriate ways to narrate both the history of the German nation-state in the modern era and the experience of the Third Reich within that broader story. What is most interesting about these shifts is that, in order to make new sense of the history of the “German catastrophe” in the post–cold war era, scholars have very consciously reverted to explanatory models that predate the cold war itself and, indeed, have very long intellectual pedigrees. Some were formulated before the Third Reich itself existed and formed the basis for much discussion in the immediate postwar years before fading into the background as theories more relevant to the concerns of later decades took their place.1

Selling Under the Swastika: advertising and commercial culture in Nazi Germany

As with many aspects of the study of the Third Reich, the subject of visual culture is one through which many of the old cliches that we imagine we have jettisoned still echo far more profoundly th...

Is there a British Approach to German History

More than ever before, the writing of German history has become an international affair. At the same time, most historians are still shaped by nationally specific environments – by the academic habitus and public spheres of the countries in which they were trained and work. To what extent does the national socialisation of historians engender peculiar readings in the historiography, and misunderstandings or disagreements in professional debates? At a time in which Britain appears to be moving away from Europe, we put this question to practitioners of German history working in Britain and North America. Our discussants are Geoff Eley (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), Neil Gregor (University of Southampton), Maiken Umbach (University of Nottingham) and Mary-Ann Middelkoop (University of Cambridge). Not coincidentally, they include historians of different ages and diverse academic trajectories whose careers straddle the UK, the US, Germany and the Netherlands. The questions were posed by Christina von Hodenberg (Queen Mary University of London).

Vergangenheitspolitik, CSU-style: the memory of forced labour in Nuremberg

This article focuses on the debates surrounding the industrialist Karl Diehl between 1997 and 1999. Elevated to the status of honorary citizen by the city council of Nuremberg, Diehl became the centre of a running scandal when it transpired that he had exploited concentration camp inmates in his factories during the Third Reich. This article surveys the outlines of the ensuing debate, placing it within the context of broader debates in the 1990s over big business and Nazism.