Broszat argued against characterizing Nazi Germany as a totalitarian regime and criticized Karl Dietrich Bracher and Ernst Nolte for advancing such a notion.

In an article first published in the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte journal in 1977, later translated into English as " Hitler and the Genesis of the ‘ Final Solution ’: An Assessment of David Irving ’ s Theses ", Broszat criticized David Irving's argument in his book Hitler's War that Hitler was unaware of the Holocaust but did accept Irving's argument that there was no written order from Hitler for the " Final Solution to the Jewish Question ".

Broszat criticized Irving for accepting the " fantastic " claims of the SS Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff, that he did not know about the Holocaust ( Irving's argument was that if Wolff did not know about the Holocaust, how could Hitler?

During the Historikerstreit of 1986 – 1988, Broszat again strongly criticized Nolte's views and work.

Broszat saw his work as kritische Aufklärungsarbeit (" critical enlightenment work ") and criticized his colleagues for adopting what he perceived as an ahistorical, moralistic approach to history.

In the same essay, Broszat was extremely critical of Irving's handling of sources, accusing him of repeatedly seeking to distort the historical record in Hitler's favor.

Broszat complained that Irving was focused too much on military events at the expense of the broader political context of the war and that he had offered false interpretations such as accepting at face value the Nazi claim that the Action T4 " euthanasia " program began in September 1939 to make hospital spaces for wounded German soldiers, when it began in January 1939.

For Broszat, the concept of Resistenz was meant to explain how much of the German population was able to evade the Nazi " claim to total power " without seeking to fundamentally challenge the regime.

Regarding Nolte's claim that Chaim Weizmann on behalf of world Jewry had declared war on Germany in 1939, Broszat wrote Weizmann's letter to Neville Chamberlain promising the support of the Jewish Agency in World War II was not a " declaration of war " nor did Weizmann have the legal power to declare war on anyone Broszat commented " These facts may be overlooked by a right-wing publicist with a dubious educational background but not by the college professor Ernst Nolte " Broszat accused Michael Stürmer of attempting to create an " ersatz religion " in German history that Broszat argued was more appropriate for the pre-modern era then 1986 Broszat wrote that " Here the roads part " and argued that no self-respecting historian could associate himself with the effort to " drive the shame out of the Germans ".

These historians point to the more clandestine mass murder of Jews ( principally in the East ) and, as stated by notable functionalist, Martin Broszat, because " no general all encompassing directive for the extermination had existed.

Hildebrand is pleased that Nolte denies the singularity of the Nazi atrocities ” Hans Mommsen defended Habermas against Hildebrand by writing :“ Hildebrand ’ s partisan shots can be easily deflected ; that Habermas is accused of a “ loss of reality and Manichaeanism ”, and that his honesty is denied is witness to the self-consciousness of a self-nominated historian elite, which has set itself the task of tracing the outlines of the seeming badly needed image of history ” Writing of Hildebrand's support for Nolte, Mommsen declared that: “ Hildebrand ’ s polemic clearly suggests that he barely considered the consequences of making Nolte ’ s constructs the centrepiece of a modern German conservatism that is very anxious to relativize the National Socialist experience and to find the way back to a putative historically “ normal situation ” In another essay, Mommsen wrote that Hildebrand was gulity of hypocrisy because Hildebrand had until 1986 always claimed that generic fascism was invalid concept because of the " singularity " of the Holocaust Mommsen wrote that " Klaus Hildebrand explicitly took sides with Nolte's view when he gave his previously stubbornly claimed singularity of National Socialism ( failing to appreciate that was, as is well known, the standard criticism of the comparative fascism theory )" Martin Broszat observed that when Hildebrand organized a conference of right-wing German historians under the auspices of the Schleyer Foundation in West Berlin in September 1986, he did not invite Nolte, whom Broszat observed lived in Berlin.

Broszat argued that the Nazis wanted to have " revolution in society " but because they needed the co-operation of the traditional elites in business, the military and the civil service, they turned their energy and hatred on those groups such as Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and the mentally ill that the traditional elites did not care about.

The criticism by Broszat was considered to be especially damaging to Irving because Broszat had based his critique largely on the examination of the primary sources Irving had used for Hitler's War.

For Broszat, because historians did not treat the Nazi period the same way other periods were treated, this distance between the historian and his / her subject in regards to the Nazi era led to the Nazi period being treated as " island " of " abnormality ".

In a letter of September 28, 1987, Broszat conceded to Friedländer that the " historicization " concept was open to abuse but argued that the concept was needed as the Nazi period had to be subject to rational historical analysis and was needed to provide a sensible way of understanding the Nazi era In response, Friedländer wrote that he did not feel that there was a " blockade " severing the Nazi period from the rest of German history, used Hillgruber's essay in his 1986 book Zweierlei Untergang calling for historians to sympathize with German troops fighting on the Eastern Front in 1944 – 45 as an example of the abuse of " historicization " and described Broszat's condemnation on a " moralistic " history written that assigned a leading role to the " victims " of National Socialism as a very troubling In a letter of October 26, 1987, Broszat wrote he was concerned that because of the iconic status of Auschwitz too much history was being written backwards with historians starting with Auschwitz and treating everything in the Third Reich as a long countdown to genocide

An even more harsher assessement of Broszat ’ s " historicization " concept than Friedländer's came from the Israeli historian Omer Bartov, who accused Broszat of being a German apologist and of seeking to diminish Jewish suffering in the Holocaust, indeed the Holocaust as a study in history because as a German historian he was not comfortable with dealing with Germans as perpetrators of genocide and Jews as victims of German genocide.

On one side of the argument were the philosopher Jürgen Habermas, and the historians Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Jürgen Kocka, Hans Mommsen, Martin Broszat, Heinrich August Winkler, Eberhard Jäckel, and Wolfgang Mommsen.

In another feuilleton, Hildebrand argued in defense of Nolte that the Holocaust was one of out a long sequence of genocides in the 20th century, and asserted that Nolte was only attempting the " historicization " of National Socialism that Martin Broszat had called for During the Historikerstreit, Hildebrand often used the press as way of attacking Jürgen Habermas over what Hildebrand regarded as Habermas ’ s unfair criticism of Nolte and Hillgruber.

From the mid-1950s, Broszat served as one of the co-editors of the DTV Weltgeschichte journal.

Broszat denied there was a functioning gas chamber at the Dachau concentration camp ( though he noted that one was built shortly before the end of the war as part of the effort to convert Dachau into a death camp but was never used ).

Though Broszat took considerable pains to emphasize what he considered the unpleasant aspects of Hitler ’ s character, writing at one point of Hitler ’ s “ totally irresponsible, self-deceiving, destructive and evilly misanthropic egocentricity and his lunatic fanaticism ”, in Broszat ’ s opinion the Holocaust could not be explained solely with reference to Hitler or his ideas.

Broszat argued during the Historikerstreit that Andreas Hillgruber had come close to being a Nazi apologist and that Nolte was one.

Broszat argued that the Nazi period was a chapter of German history and historians needed to stop treating the Nazi times as one of utter evil with no connection to what came before and after in German history.

Broszat called for a history that could allow one take in account nuances and degrees of agreement between German anti-Nazis and Nazis, thus allowing historians to write a history that could allow one to accept the fact that one could be both an anti-Nazi and an anti-Semite.

Jäckel is one of the leading intentionalists in regard to the functionalism versus intentionalism debate, arguing from the 1960s on that there was a long range plan on the part of Hitler to exterminate the Jewish people from about 1924 on, views that led to intense debates with functionalist historians such as Hans Mommsen and Martin Broszat.

Since most of the early functionalist historians were West German, it was often enough for intentionalist historians, especially for those outside Germany, to note that men such as Broszat and Hans Mommsen had spent their adolescence in the Hitler Youth and then to say that their work was an apologia for National Socialism.

In this way, Broszat argued that the Shoah was not begun in response to an order, written or unwritten, from Hitler but was rather “ a way out of the blind alley into which the Nazis had manoeuvred themselves ”.

Broszat only accepted Wulf's version after Wulf produced a war-time memo written by Hagen urging that sick Jews " wandering around " be shot down, which led Broszt to concede that perhaps Hagen was not the friend of the Ghetto he claimed to have been.

In this way, Broszat argued that the Shoah was not begun in response to an order, written or unwritten from Hitler but was rather “ a way out of the blind alley into which the Nazis had manoeuvred themselves ”.

" The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas wrote that Broszat had written " convincingly " on the need for " historicization " Hans Mommsen praised Broszat's call for " historicization " as a way to avoid "... this ubiquitous tendency to " shake off the mortgages of a past now happily made morally neutral "".

# Der kroatische Ustascha-Staat 1941-1945, by Ladislaus Hory and Martin Broszat, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1964.

Many statements in favor of the pluralistic character of scholarship and in favor of an ethos representing a republic of learned men reveal themselves as merely empty phrases to the person who has an overview of these things " Fest argued that Nolte was motivated by purely scholarly concerns, and was only attempting the " historicization " of National Socialism that Martin Broszat called for Fest argued that :" Strictly speaking, Nolte did nothing but take up the suggestion by Broszat and others that National Socialism be historicized.

Broszat argued that the Holocaust began “ bit by bit ” as German officials stumbled into genocide.

* Jacobesn, Hans-Adolf " The Kommisssarbefehl and Mass Executions of Soviet Russian Prisoners of War " pages 505-536 from Anatomy of the SS State, Walter and Company: New York, 1968, 1972 ISBN 0-586-08028-7 ; first publisehd as " Kommissarbefehl und Massenexekutionen sowjetischer Kriegsgefangener " pages 163 – 283 by Hans – Adolf Jacobsen in: Anatomie des SS – Staates, by Hans Buchheim, Martin Broszat, Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, and H. Krausnick, Bd.

* Broszat, Martin " Hitler and the Genesis of the ‘ Final Solution ’: An Assessment of David Irving ’ s Theses "" pages 73-125 from Yad Vashem Studies, Volume 13, 1979 ; reprinted pages 390-429 in Aspects of the Third Reich edited by H. W.

In particular, Kershaw subscribes to the view argued by Broszat and the German historian Hans Mommsen that Nazi Germany was a chaotic collection of rival bureaucracies in perpetual power struggles with each other.

However, Hildebrand believes in contrast to the work of Martin Broszat and Hans Mommsen that the “ authoritarian anarchy ” caused by numerous competing bureaucracies strengthened, not weakened Hitler ’ s power.

" As part of his attack on Habermas and his supporters, Hildebrand assailed the functionalist interpretations of the Holocaust advanced by Hans Mommsen and Martin Broszat as little better than Holocaust denial, and commented sarcastically that in the Historikerstreit that the “ revisionists ” Mommsen and Broszat were supporting Habermas in his attacks on the “ revisionists ” Nolte and Hillgruber Hildebrand wrote as part of his attack on the “ singularity ” of the Holocaust that:

Martin Broszat ( August 14, 1926 – October 14, 1989 ) was a German historian specializing in modern German social history whose work has been described by The Encyclopedia of Historians as indispensable for any serious study of the Third Reich.

As a historian, Broszat was most interested in exploring historical occurrences and the actions of individuals by scrutinizing the broader social structure that underlay the events of the past.

In his 1969 book Der Staat Hitlers ( The Hitler State ), Broszat argued that Nazi Germany was dominated by a power struggle by various institutions and that these power struggles explained the course that the Third Reich took.

Broszat rejected the view that Hitler was following a " divide and rule " strategy as argued by Bracher and instead argued that Hitler was unwilling and unable to provide for orderly government.

Broszat argued that aggression abroad was part of the same process of lashing out against Volksfeinde and Volksfremde caused by the Nazi failure to achieve the sort of comprehensive revolution they sought in German society.

Broszat argued that Hitler's foreign policy was motivated his need to maintain his image, which led to efforts to negate any form of restraint imposed by treaties or alliances.

Broszat ’ s essay was notable as the first account of the origins of the Holocaust by a respected historian in which responsibility for the genocide was not assigned entirely to Hitler.