Page "Hans Mommsen" Paragraph 15

In the Historikerstreit debate, Mommsen argued that the Holocaust was a uniquely evil event which should not be compared with the other horrors of the 20th century.

In an essay entitled " The Search for the ‘ Lost History ” Observations on the Historical Self-Evidence of the Federal Republic ” first published in the September / October 1986 edition of Merkur magazine, Mommsen began his article by arguing that the Historikerstreit was the result of the desire of the German Right to have a history that they could approve of.

Mommsen accused Ernst Nolte of attempting to " relativize " Nazi crimes within the broader framework of the 20th century.

Mommsen argued that by describing Lenin's Red Terror in Russia as an " Asiatic deed " threatening Germany that Nolte was claiming that all actions directed against Communism, no matter how morally repugnant were justified by necessity.

Mommsen argued that all theories of totalitarianism were meant by the right for the “ bracketing out ” of Nazi Germany from German history, and to put down the left.

Mommsen argued that totalitarianism theories were meant to minimize, if not outright ignore the support of traditional German elites for the Nazi dictatorship and to allow everything that happened under the Third Reich to be blamed on Hitler.

Mommsen claimed that the German right was floundering due to contradictory pressures of being opposed to East Germany while seeking to champion German reunification.

In Mommsen ’ s view, conservative historians worked to write: “… the history of the Third Reich was stylized as a fated doom from which there was no escape and from which no concrete political impulses could reach the present.

Similarly the conservative historians reacted to the persecution of the Jews and to the Holocaust primarily with moral shock, leaving the events, only inadequately reconstructed by the West German research community, on the level of a purely traumatic experience ”.

Mommsen argued that the Historikerstreit was caused because German rightists could no longer “ bracket out ” National Socialism and the Holocaust from German history, thus leading to attempts by Ernst Nolte to “ relativize ” Nazi crimes.

In addition, Mommsen charged that the American Ambassador, Richard R. Burt with promoting efforts to white-wash the German past in order that West Germany could play a more effective role in the Cold War.

Mommsen argued that the growth in pacifist feeling in the Federal Republic as reflected in widespread public opposition to the American raid on Libya in April 1986 made it imperative for the Americans and the West German government to promote a more nationalistic version of German history, and that was what was behind the Historikerstreit.

Mommsen wrote that the two museums in Berlin and Bonn proposed by the government of Helmut Kohl were meant to revival traditional German authoritarianism.

Mommsen wrote :“ The extensive repression of nationalistic resentment, which has led to a normalization of the relationship with the neighboring peoples and even has reduced xenophobia, is being described from the conservative side as a potential danger to political stability and as a putative “ loss of identity ”.

However, it is not primarily national feelings, but rather examples of a politics of self-interest that give neoconservatives like Michael Stürmer reason to ponder that the loss of religious bonds, only “ nation and patriotism ” are able to provide a consensus that transcends social classes ”.

Mommsen wrote that Michael Stürmer's attempts to create a national consensus on a version of German history that all Germans could take pride in was a reflection that the German rightists could not stomach modern German history, and was now looking to create a version of the German past that German rightists could enjoy.

Mommsen charged that to find the " lost history ", Stürmer was working towards " relativizing " Nazi crimes to give Germans a history they could be proud of.

However, Mommsen argued that even modern right-wing German historians might have difficulty with Stürmer's " technocratic instrumentalization " of German history, which Mommsen claimed was Stürmer's way of " relativizing " Nazi crimes.