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 ”.

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.

* 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.

During his work, Broszat encouraged Kershaw to examine how ordinary people viewed Hitler.

At the same time, Kershaw sees considerable merit in the work of such historians as Timothy Mason, Hans Mommsen, Martin Broszat and Wolfgang Schieder, who argue that Hitler had no “ programme ” in foreign policy, and instead contend that his foreign policy was simply a kneejerk reaction to domestic pressures in the economy and his need to maintain his popularity.

Like Broszat, Kershaw sees the structures of the Nazi state as far more important than the personality of Hitler ( or any other individual for that matter ) as an explanation for the way Nazi Germany developed.

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.

And in his seminal essay on the " genesis of the Final Solution ", published in 1977, Broszat specifically deployed a structuralist approach to widen responsibility beyond Hitler and the narrow Nazi leadership ".

Throughout his academic career, a recurring interest for Broszat, like many German historians of the " Hitler Youth generation ", was the question of why and how National Socialism occurred in Germany Broszat wrote his dissertation on anti-Semitism in Germany during the Second Reich.

In 1983, Broszat together with the other experts from Institute for Contemporary History played a prominent role in debunking the Hitler Diaries.

Broszat saw Nazi Germany as a welter of competing institutions, putting forth the thesis that this internal rivalry, not Adolf Hitler, provided the driving force behind Nazi Germany.

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 Hitler allowed the Nazi state to become a collection of rival power blocs, which allowed for the release of extremely destructive forces into German society.

The second element, that Hitler was a " weak dictator " is less influential on the grounds that although Hitler did not involve himself much in daily administration, this apparent neglect stemmed not from an inability to do so ( as Broszat suggested ) but a lack of interest in the quotidian.

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 ’ 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.

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.

Against the intentionalist interpretation, functionalist historians like Martin Broszat argued that the lower officials of the Nazi state had started exterminating people on their own initiative.

Broszat argued that in the fall of 1941 German officials had began " improvised " killing schemes as the " simplest " solution to the " Jewish Question ".

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.

In support of Broszat, Kershaw wrote that an Alltagsgeschichte approach to German history, provided that it did not lose sight of Nazi crimes, had much to offer as a way of understanding how those crimes occurred.

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.

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 suggested that this was Hildebrand's way of trying to separate himself from Nolte, whose work Hildebrand had praised so strongly in a review the Historische Zeitschrift in April 1986.

Broszat argued that the radical anti-Semitism of the Nazis had led them to embark on increasingly extreme attempts to expel the Jews of Europe, and after the failure of successive deportation schemes, the lower officials of the Nazi state had started exterminating people on their own initiative.

Broszat argued that the Holocaust began “ bit by bit ” as German officials stumbled into genocide Broszat argued that Hitler provided the goal to the functionaries of the German state “ to get rid of the Jews and above all to make the territory of the Reich judenfrei, i. e. clear of the Jews ” without providing any guidelines as to how this was to be done German officials began a massive program of ethnic cleansing and mass expulsions in Poland and elsewhere without “ clear aims … with respect to the subsequent fate of the deportees ” Following the abandonment of the Madagascar Plan, after June 1941 German officials hoped that “… the spaces to be occupied in the Soviet Union would … offer a possibility for getting rid of the Jews of Germany and of the allied and occupied countries ” Broszat maintained that when faced with the stalemate on the Eastern Front, the overwhelming of the European rail system by successive deportations and the self-imposed " problem " of three million Polish Jews the Germans had forced into ghettoes between 1939 and 1941, local German officials in Poland started in the fall of 1941 " improvised " killing schemes as the " simplest " solution to the " Jewish Question ".

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 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.

Broszat argued that this was not proof that Hitler had given an order to Himmler to stop the killings of Jews but rather that the comment " No liquidation " referred to that train and was likely to relate to concerns about questions American reporters were asking about the fate of German Jews being sent to Eastern Europe.

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.

Hofer maintained that it was intent not effect that should provide the basis of judging resistance and opposition in Nazi Germany, that the things Broszat included under Resistenz were relatively unimportant and had no effect in the broader scheme of things on the Nazi regime's ability to achieve its goals.

Broszat used as an example of his approach, the " Ley Plan " as the wide-ranging reform of the German social insurance system proposed in 1940 by the DAF was known, which Broszat noted borne many striking similarities to the British Beveridge Plan of 1943 ( through the German plan applied only to those classified as " Aryans ") Broszat argued that such a comparative approach would place the Nazi era in a better broader European and German context, especially since Broszat argued that the German plan of 1940 was in many ways the forerunner of the West German social insurance plan of 1957 with such features as pensions guaranteed by the state indexed to the level of GNP ( which was not surprising given that many of the same people worked on both plans ) Broszat called for the " normalization " of the historical understanding of the Nazi era with detailed scholarship employing " mid-range " concepts based upon empirical research and rejecting the moralistic condemnation of the period.

Broszat criticized Irving's claim that because of one telephone note written by Himmler stating " No liquidation " in regards to a train convoy of German Jews passing through Berlin to Riga ( whom the SS intended to have all shot upon arrival ) on 30 November 1941 that this proved that Hitler did not want to see the Holocaust happen.

Regarding the debate in the late 1980s between Martin Broszat and Saul Friedländer over Broszat's call for the " historicization " of National Socialism, Kershaw wrote that he agreed with Friedländer that the Nazi period could not be treated as a " normal " period of history, but he felt that historians should approach the Nazi period as they would any other period of history.

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.

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.

His call for " historicization " of the treatment of Nazi Germany was controversial, as Broszat called for historians to cease judging the period in overtly moralistic tones and to embark instead upon scientific, dispassionate analysis as they would for any other time.

Broszat ended his essay with the remark that such " perversions " of German history must be resisted in order to ensure the German people a better future.

Broszat noted the differences between concentration camps, which were places where the inmates were consistently mistreated but were not the subject of annihilation and death camps, which existed to exterminate people.

Based upon his work in Alltagsgeschichte, Broszat felt that particular attention should be paid to the " normality " for most people of everyday life in Nazi Germany and how this " normality " co-existed with the " barbarity " of the Nazi regime.

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.