1. Hans Mommsen was a German historian, known for his studies in German social history, for his functionalist interpretation of the Third Reich, and especially for arguing that Adolf Hitler was a weak dictator.
15 Facts About Hans Mommsen
1. 2.
Hans Mommsen was the twin brother of historian Wolfgang Mommsen.
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Hans Mommsen studied German, history and philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, the University of Tubingen and the University of Marburg.
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Hans Mommsen served as professor at Tubingen, Heidelberg and at the University of Bochum.
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Hans Mommsen was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany from 1960 until his death.
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Hans Mommsen died on 5 November 2015, his 85th birthday.
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Hans Mommsen was a leading expert on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.
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Hans Mommsen was a functionalist in regard to the origins of the Holocaust, seeing the Final Solution as a result of the "cumulative radicalization" of the German state as opposed to a long-term plan on the part of Adolf Hitler.
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Hans Mommsen is best known for arguing that Hitler was a "weak dictator" who rather than acting decisively, reacted to various social pressures.
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Hans Mommsen believed that the model of a totalitarian state used to characterize Nazism contradicted historical evidence and rejected totalitarianism as a concept of historiography and political science in general.
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Together with his friend Martin Broszat, Hans Mommsen developed the structuralist interpretation of the Third Reich, that saw the Nazi state as a chaotic collection of rival bureaucracies engaged in endless power struggles.
12.
In regards to the debate about foreign policy, Hans Mommsen argued that German foreign policy did not follow a "programme" during the Nazi era, but was instead "expansion without object" as the foreign policy of the Reich driven by powerful internal forces sought expansion in all directions.
13.
Hans Mommsen argued that the growth in pacifist feeling in the Federal Republic as reflected in widespread public opposition to the American raid on Libya in April 1986 made it imperative for the Americans and the West German government to promote a more nationalistic version of German history, and that was what was behind the Historikerstreit.
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In two articles published in 1966, Hans Mommsen proved as false 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.
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Hans Mommsen saw it as the duty of the historian to constantly critique contemporary society.