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.

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.

In a debate with Klaus Hildebrand in 1976, Mommsen argued against " personalistic " theories of the Third Reich as explaining little and providing an attempt to retroactively provide Hitler with a sense of vision that he did not possess.

Highly influential German classicist historians were Barthold Georg Niebuhr ( 1776-1831 ) and Theodor Mommsen ( 1817-1903 ) Historians of Germany included Johann Gustav Droysen ( 1808-84 ), Heinrich von Sybel ( 1817-95 ), and Heinrich von Treitschke ( 1834-96 ).

Livy states distinctly that they were of Etruscan origin ( a belief that is favored by Niebuhr and Mommsen ).

The German historian Hans Mommsen wrote that Goerdeler's anti-Semitism was typical of the German right, where Jews were widely considered to be part of an alien body living in Germany.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

9, 4 ), since at all periods in the Roman chariot-race only as many chariots competed as there were so-called factions, which were originally only two, the white and the red ( Mommsen, R. H. i. 236, note ).

Mommsen argued that Hitler did not have a set of rational political beliefs to operate from, and instead held a very few strongly held, but vague ideas that were not capable of providing a basis for rational thinking.

Mommsen has argued that both domestic and foreign policy in the Third Reich were merely a long series of incoherent drift as the Nazi regime reacted in an ad hoc fashion to crisis after crisis, leading to the " cumulative radicalization ".

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

Mommsen declared that the Holocaust like all historical events were “ singular ”, and that :“ It is therefore equally justified to interpret National Socialism as a specific form of fascism as it is to compare it with Communist regimes.

Mommsen ended his essay that the historians like Nolte, Fest, Hildebrand, and Stürmer were tying to “ repress ” the memory of Nazi crimes.

In the debate about what to define as resistance, Mommsen, has cautioned against the use of overtly rigid terminology, and spoke of a wide type of " resistance practice " ( Widerstandspraxis ), by which he meant that there were different types and forms of resistance, and that resistance should be considered a " process ", in which individuals came to increasing reject the Nazi system in its entirety.

Both phenomena could, horribile dictu, even relativize the concept of the German Sonderweg between 1933 and 1945 " In response, Heinrich August Winkler argued that there was a Sonderweg before 1933, and that Germany as a country deeply influenced by the Enlightenment meant there was no point of comparison between Hitler on one hand, and Pol Pot and Stalin on the other In Germany, Hildebrand is well known for his disputes with the Mommsen brothers, Hans and Wolfgang over how best to understand Nazi Germany, especially evident at a conference held at the German Historical Institute in London in 1979 which resulted in numerous hostile exchanges.

Of him, Theodor Mommsen said " It seemed as if, in that thoroughly prosaic age, one of the Homeric heroes had reappeared.

The case of Goerdeler has been used by the historian Hans Mommsen to support his view of " resistance as a process ", with Goerdeler going from an ally of the regime to increasing disillusionment by Nazi economic policies in the mid-1930s, and finally becoming committed to the regime's overthrow by 1937.

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 ”.

Mommsen described national-conservative resistance as " a resistance of servants of the state ", who over a period of time came to gradually abandoned their former support of the regime, and instead steadily came to accept that the only way of bringing about fundamental change was to seek the regime ’ s destruction.

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.

This argument places Mommsen in the Primat der Innenpolitik ( primacy of domestic politics ) school against the traditional Primat der Aussenpolitik ( primacy of foreign politics ) school as an explanation for foreign policy.

Moreover, Mommsen has maintained that because the role of Hitler has been inflated by historians, the role of traditional German elites in supporting the Nazi " restoration of social order " has been accordingly overlooked.

* Mommsen's friend Yehuda Bauer has criticized Mommsen for stressing too much the similarities in values between the traditional German state bureaucracy and the Nazi Party's bureaucracy, while paying insufficient attention to the differences.

For example, according to Israeli journalist Yair Sheleg, in August 2000, German historian Hans Mommsen called it " a most trivial book, which appeals to easily aroused anti-Semitic prejudices.

* November 1 – Theodor Mommsen, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate ( b. 1817 )

* November 30 – Theodor Mommsen, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate ( d. 1903 )

The German historian Hans Mommsen in a 1997 interview claimed that a major motive for the pogrom was the desire of the Gauleiters of the NSDAP to seize Jewish property and businesses.

Other subjects which he studied in Berlin included Roman Law, taught by Bruns and Mommsen, medieval and 16th century German Literature, and Socialism.

* November 1-Theodor Mommsen, German classical scholar and historian

The classic edition is that of 19th-century German classical scholar Theodor Mommsen ( in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, auctores antiqui, v.

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.

* Mommsen, Hans " German Society And The Resistance Against Hitler, 1933-1945 " pages 255-276 from The Third Reich The Essential Readings edited by Christian Leitz, London: Blackwell, ISBN 0-631-20700-7.

* Mommsen, Hans Alternatives to Hitler German Resistance Under the Third Reich, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-691-11693-8.

However functionalist historians such as Timothy Mason, Hans Mommsen, and Ian Kershaw argue that the document shows no such plans, and instead contend that the Hossbach Memorandum was an improvised ad hoc response by Hitler to the growing crisis in the German economy in the late 1930s.

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.

According to German historian Theodor Mommsen:

** The West German historians Klaus Hildebrand, Gerhard Ritter, and Andreas Hillgruber rejected the Sonderweg view, while the British historian A. J. P. Taylor and the West German historians Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Wolfgang Mommsen, Hans Mommsen and Fritz Fischer supported it.

Professor Wolfgang Mommsen ( 1930-2004 ) was a German historian of Britain and Germany during the 19th / 20th centuries.