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.

In an article entitled " Neither Denial nor Forgetfulness Will Free Us " first published in the Frankfurter Rundschau on December 1, 1986, Mommsen argued that Historikerstreit was a result of the failures of modern society Mommsen argued that in the prosperous 1950s-60s, most Germans were happy to forget about their recent past, and looked forward to a brighter future Starting with the oil shock of the early 1970s and the rise of fundamentalist Islam in the late 1970s, Mommsen argued that the idea of a progressively better future was discredited, leading to a pessimistic public mood, and the a renewed interest in history This had occurred in tandem in a period when German historians had started to make a more critical examination of their recent past As a result at the precise mood when public demanded a past that could make them feel good about being Germans, German historians came under attack for not writing the sort of history the public wanted Mommsen argued that the work of those like Ernst Nolte was intended to provide the sort of history that would allow Germans feel good about being Germans by engaging in “… an explanatory strategy that … will be seen as a justification of National Socialist crimes by all those who are still under the influence of the extreme anti-Soviet propaganda of National Socialism " Mommsen charged that Ernst Nolte was attempting to egregiously whitewash the German past.

Mommsen argued that Nolte was attempting a " justification " of Nazi crimes and making " inappropriate " comparisons of the Holocaust with other genocides.

Mommsen has argued that Hitler did give the order for the Kommissarbefehl ( Commissar Order ) of 1941, that helped lead to the Holocaust, but was not part of the Holocaust proper.

Starting with his 1966 book, Beamtentum im Dritten Reich ( Civil Servants in the Third Reich ), Mommsen has argued for the massive involvement of various elements in German society in the Third Reich, as against the traditional view in Germany that Nazi crimes were the work of a few criminals entirely unrepresentative of German society.

Mommsen has argued that the differences between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the National Socialist German Workers Party are such as to render any concept of totalitarianism moot.

We cannot escape this bitter truth by assigning partial responsibility to other partners who took part in the war ” Mommsen ended his essay by writing that the Federal Republic marked the end of the Sonderweg, and Germans should accept the “ burden ” of the past as way of inspiring them to do better in the future

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.

In two articles published in 1966, Mommsen proved the claim often advanced in the 1950s that the ideas behind " men of July 20 " were the inspiration for the 1949 Basic Law of the Federal Republic was false, Mommsen showed that the ideas of national-conservative opponents of the Nazis had their origins in the anti-Weimar right of the 1920s, that the system the national-conservatives wished to build in place of Nazism was not a democracy, and that national-conservatives wished to see a " Greater Germany " ruling over much of Central and Eastern Europe.

The 19th-century historian Theodor Mommsen compared the occult interests of the Late Republic to the “ spirit-rapping and tablemoving ” that fascinated “ men of the highest rank and greatest learning ” in the Victorian era.

Mommsen has written highly regarded books and essays on the fall of the Weimar Republic, blaming the downfall of the Republic on German conservatives.

Mommsen wrote in his opinion that Nolte's use of the Nazi era phrase " Asiatic hordes " to describe Red Army soldiers, and his use of the word " Asia " as a byword for all that is horrible and cruel in the world reflected anti-Asian racism.

The initial three volumes won widespread acclaim upon publication ; indeed, " The Roman History made Mommsen famous in a day.

According to Mommsen, they were persons who possessed the equestrian census, but no public horse.

Another area of interest for Mommsen is dissent, opposition and resistance in the Third Reich.

Mommsen has drawn unfavorable comparisons between what he sees as conservative opposition and Social Democratic and Communist resistance to the Nazis.

“ Orpheus Philologus: Bachofen versus Mommsen on the Study of Antiquity .” American Philosophical Society Transactions, 1983.

His cheek cupped in his hand, he reread the works he admired out of duty .” Hans Delbrück appears in the professor ’ s thoughts again while contemplating the meaning of the war as American soldiers overtake Berlin: “ The Second World War was already down as a great historical tragedy – a quasi-mythological one – which nether Mommsen, Hans Delbrück, Gobineau, Houston Stewart Chamberlin, Oswald Spengler, or Mein Kampf could elucidate entirely …”

“ Orpheus Philologus: Bachofen versus Mommsen on the Study of Antiquity .” American Philosophical Society, 1983.

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.

His papers on epigraphy ( collected in Commentationes epigraphicae, i vols., 1850-54 ) brought him into conflict with Theodor Mommsen in connexion with the preparation of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, a scheme for which, drawn up by Mommsen, was approved in 1847.

Theodor Mommsen, William W. Fowler and Georges Dumezil among others rejected the accountability of the tradition that ascribes a Sabine origin to the Roman cult of Semo Sancus Dius Fidius, partly on linguistic grounds as the theonym is Latin and no mention or evidence of a Sabine Semo is found near Rome, while the Semones are attested in Latin in the carmen Arvale.

He thus became the first English language historian and indeed the first historian after Hans Mommsen to accept the conclusions of the book, that the Nazis had not set the Reichstag on fire in 1933 and that Marinus van der Lubbe had acted alone.

The commentary by Saumaise in his Plinianae exercitationes ( 1689 ) is indispensable ; best edition by Mommsen ( 1895 ), with valuable introduction on the manuscripts, the authorities used by Solinus, and subsequent compilers.

Jäckel charged that Fest was guilty of diverting attention away from the issues by attacking Habermas's motives in criticizing Nolte, and not with concerning himself with what Habermas had to say Jäckel maintained that the Holocaust was indeed a " singular " historical event and criticized Fest for claiming otherwise Mommsen accused Fest of subordinating history to his right-wing politics in his defence of Nolte Mommsen went on to accuse Fest of simply ignoring the real issues such as the " psychological and institutional mechanisms " that explain why the German people accepted the Holocaust by accepting Nolte's claim of a " causal nexus " between Communism and fascism.

Mommsen went on to comment that given Goerdeler's background in the fiercely anti-Semitic German National People's Party, what is surprising was not his anti-Jewish prejudices, but rather that he was able to make any sort of moral objection to Nazi anti-Semitism.

Brunt, building on the view of Theodor Mommsen, assembled evidence of broader usage that suggests any curule office might grant the aura of nobilitas.

It is therefore safest to rely on the texts collected by Mommsen, cumbered though they are by the various readings given to him by various authorities.

During the " Goldhagen Controversy " of 1996, Kershaw took the view that his friend, Hans Mommsen, had " destroyed " Daniel Goldhagen's arguments about a culture of " eliminationist antisemitism " in Germany during their frequent debates on German TV.

Despite some disagreements, Kerhaw has called Mommsen a “ good personal friend ” and an “ important further vital stimulus to my own work on Nazism ".

A planned fourth volume covering Roman history under the Empire was delayed pending Mommsen's completion of a then 15-volume work on Roman inscriptions, which required his services as researcher, writer, and editor, occupying Mommsen for many years.

In 1885, however, Mommsen had ready another work on ancient Rome, later translated into English as The Provinces of the Roman Empire.

Its sources were lesson notes taken by two related students, Sebastian Hensel ( father ) and Paul Hensel ( son ), of lectures delivered by Prof. Mommsen during 1882-1886 regarding his courses on imperial Roman History, given at the University of Berlin.

A quarter of the way into his short " Introduction " to the Provinces Mommsen comments on the decline of Rome, the capital city: " The Roman state of this epoch resembles a mighty tree, the main stem of which, in the course of its decay, is surrounded by vigorous offshoots pushing their way upward.

According to Mommsen, Caepio was presumably motivated into action by the thought that Maximus might be successful in negotiations and claim all the credit for a successful outcome ; he launched a unilateral attack on the Cimbri camp on October 6.

Most probably, says Mommsen, on the occasion of the first appointment of the curule aediles in 367 BC, who were to be the curatores ludorum sollemnium ( Cic.

For Mommsen, the major responsibility for the outbreak of the First World War rests on Germany's shoulders.

Merchants and artisans from many parts of the Roman world established themselves in coastal Libya and the province was greatly " Romanized ", according to Theodore Mommsen.

Having taken part in 1849 with Otto Jahn and Theodor Mommsen in a political agitation for the maintenance of the imperial constitution, Haupt was deprived of his professorship by a decree of April 22, 1855.

In October 1986, Hans Mommsen wrote that Stürmer's assertion that he who controls the past also controls the future, his work as a co-editor with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper which had been publishing articles by Ernst Nolte and Joachim Fest denying the “ singularity ” of the Holocaust, and his work as an advisor to Chancellor Kohl should cause " concern " among historians.

In another essay entitled “ The New Historical Consciousness and the Relativizing of National Socialism ” first published in the October 1986 edition of the Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik magazine, Mommsen attacked conservative historians such as Klaus Hildebrand who argued that the “ singularity ” of the Holocaust disproved any theory of generic fascism, while at the same time comparing National Socialism to Communism.

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.