The leading figure of this committee was Theodor Mommsen ( who wrote several of the volumes covering Italy ).

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.

" It is high time for such a work ", Mommsen wrote to an associate in Roman studies, " it is more than ever necessary to present to a wider audience the results of our researches.

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.

Mommsen wrote about Andreas Hillgruber's demands that historians identified with the “ justified ” German defence of the Eastern Front that :“ Andreas Hillgruber recently attempted to accord a relative historical justification to the Wehrmacht campaign in the East and the desperate resistance of the army in the East after the summer of 1944.

Mommsen wrote that Hitler was the " ideological and political originator " of the Holocaust, a " utopian objective " that came to life " only in the uncertain light of the Dictator's fanatical propaganda utterances, eagerly seized upon as orders for action by men wishing to prove their diligence, the efficiency of their machinery and their political indispensability ".

Mommsen was the first to call Hitler a " weak dictator " when he wrote in a 1966 essay that Hitler was " in all questions which needed the adoption of a fundamental and definitive position, a weak dictator ".

Mommsen wrote: " Hitler's role as a driving force, which with the same inner compulsion drove on to self-destruction, should not be underestimated.

Mommsen wrote: "... it is questionable, too, whether National Socialist foreign policy can be considered as an unchanging pursuit of established priorities.

In a Primat der Innenpolitik (" primacy of domestic politics ") argument, Mommsen wrote that the foreign policy of the Third Reich " was its form domestic policy projected outwards, which was able to conceal the increasing loss of reality only by maintaining political dynamism through incessant action.

The Swiss historian Walter Hofer accused Mommsen of " not seeing because he does not want to see " what Hofer saw as the obvious connection between what Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf and his later actions.

The Israeli historian Omer Bartov wrote in 2003 about Mommsen ’ s functionalist understanding of the Third Reich that :" In this reading, ideology is recognized and then dismissed as irrelevant ; the suffering of the victims is readily acknowledged and then omitted as having nothing to tell us about the mechanics of genocide ; and individual perpetrators from Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heyrdrich to the lowliest SS man are shoved out of the historical picture as contemptible, but ultimately unimportant pawns in the larger scheme of a “ polycratic state ” whose predilection for “ cumulative radicalization ” was a function of its structure rather the product of intentional planning or self-proclaimed will ”

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 ”.

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 wrote about Nolte's claims of a " causal nexus " between the Gulag Archipelago and the Nazi death camps :" In light of these questions, which thinking people encountered repeatedly, it seems superficial and insincere to narrow the discussion to the question brought up by Ernst Nolte about the extent of the similarities between the National-Socialist mass murder and the Gulag Archipelago ”.

Mommsen wrote that Joachim Fest was trying to advance the agenda of the German right through his attacks on Habermas for his criticism of Nolte.

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.

In another essay entitled " Reappraisal and Repression The Third Reich In West German Historical Consciousness ", Mommsen wrote :" Nolte's superficial approach which associates things that do not belong together, substitutes analogies for casual arguments, and-thanks to his taste for exaggeration-produces a long outdated interpretation of the Third Reich as the result of a single factor.

Mommsen's friend, the British historian Sir Ian Kershaw wrote he thought that Mommsen had " destroyed " Goldhagen during their debates over Goldhagen's book Hitler's Willing Executioners.

Hans Mommsen wrote that the " ground-laying works of Andreas Hillgruber ... suggested the view for the continuities of German policy from the late Wilhelminian period up to the capitulation ".

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.

Mommsen declared that because Germany was an advanced nation, the Holocaust was “ singular ”, and that :" To accept with resignation the acts of screaming injustice and to psychologically repress their social prerequisites by calling attention to similar events elsewhere and putting the blame on the Bolshevist world threat recalls the thought patterns that made it possible to implement genocide ”.

In a 1997 interview, Mommsen was quoted as saying about Goldhagen that :" Goldhagen does not understand much about the antisemitic

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.

It falls before the simple fact that the first part of the Liber Pontificalis was compiled long before these dissensions, most probably ( Duchesne ) by a Roman cleric in the reign of Pope Boniface II ( 530 – 532 ), or ( Waitz and Mommsen ) early in the 7th century.

Theodore Mommsen, editor of the critical text, divided the work into these parts:

Particularly its early reports and serials in regards to the Reichstag fire authored by former SS officers Paul Carell ( who had also served as chief press spokesman for Nazi Germany's Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop ) and Fritz Tobias have since about the year 2000 been considered influential in historiography due to the fact that since the 1960s the Spiegel reports written by these two authors had made accredited historian Hans Mommsen a lifelong champion for the guilt blame of Marinus van der Lubbe, the man the Nazis themselves had presented as perpetrator of the Reichstag fire in 1933.

( The biography of Marcus Aurelius's colleague Lucius Verus, which Mommsen thought ' secondary ', is however rich in apparently reliable information and has been vindicated by Syme as belonging to the ' primary ' series ) The ' secondary ' lives allowed the author to exercise free invention untrammelled by mere facts, and as the work proceeds these flights of fancy become ever more elaborate, climaxing in such virtuoso feats as the account of the ' Thirty Tyrants ' said to have risen as usurpers under Gallienus.

In Mommsen's view, it was these power struggles that provided the dynamism that drove the German state into increasingly radical measures, leading to what Mommsen has often called the " realization of the unthinkable.

* Along the same lines, these historians have criticized Mommsen for focusing too much on initiatives coming from below in the ranks of the German bureaucracy and not enough on initiatives coming from above in the leadership in Berlin.

Mommsen has argued that historians should not reduce the study of the Nazi period to " the Hitler phenomenon ", but must take a broader look at the factors in German society which allow the Holocaust to occur.

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.

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 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 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.

Mommsen argued that attempts by Nolte to “ relativize ” Nazi crimes had been going on for a long time, and had only now attracted attention with Jürgen Habermas's attack on Nolte.

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 ”.

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 …”

Though Kershaw does not deny the radical anti-Semitism of the Nazis, he favors Mommsen ’ s view of the Holocaust being caused by the “ culminative radicalization ” of the Third Reich caused by the endless bureaucratic power struggles and a turn towards increasingly radical anti-Semitism within the Nazi elite.

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.

Writing of Klaus Hildebrand's attack on Habermas, Mommsen declared :“ 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 ”.

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.