24 Facts About Timothy Mason

Timothy Wright Mason was an English Marxist historian of Nazi Germany.

Timothy Mason was one of the founders of the History Workshop Journal and specialised in the social history of the Third Reich.

Timothy Mason taught at Oxford from 1971 to 1984 and was twice married.

Timothy Mason helped to found the left-wing journal History Workshop Journal.

Timothy Mason saw his role as developing history that was flexible, humane and analytical.

Timothy Mason wrote about historians' role in 1986: "If historians do have a public responsibility, if hating is part of their method and warning part of their task, it is necessary that they should hate precisely".

Timothy Mason argued that the Nazi leadership was haunted by memories of the November Revolution of 1918 and so the dictatorship was prepared to make no small material allowances in the form of social policy, its reluctance to impose material shortages, and its hesitation to bring in a total-war economy.

Besides his studies on the working class of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, Timothy Mason was noted for his break with previous Marxist interpretations of fascism that saw fascist regimes as the servant of capitalist interests.

Timothy Mason argued instead for the "primacy of politics" by which he meant that although he thought that fascist regimes were still capitalist regimes, they retained "autonomy" in the political sphere and were not dictated to by capitalist interests.

The last two historians wrote if Timothy Mason was correct, it would amount to "a complete refutation of Marxist social analysis".

In that way, Timothy Mason articulated a Primat der Innenpolitik view of the war's origins through the concept of social imperialism.

Timothy Mason believed German foreign policy was driven by domestic political considerations and that the start of the war in 1939 was best understood as a "barbaric variant of social imperialism".

Timothy Mason argued, "Nazi Germany was always bent at some time upon a major war of expansion".

However, Timothy Mason argued that the timing of such a war was determined by domestic political pressures, especially those relating to a failing economy, and it had nothing to do with what Hitler wanted.

Timothy Mason argued that the Nazi leaders were deeply haunted by the 1918 German Revolution and so were greatly opposed to any drop in the living standards of the working-class since they feared provoking a repetition of that revolution.

Timothy Mason considered that by 1939, the "overheating" of the German economy, which had been caused by rearmament; the failure of various rearmament plans because of the shortages of skilled workers; industrial unrest caused by the breakdown of German social policies and the sharp drop in living standards of the German working class forced Hitler into going to war at a time and place that were not of his choosing.

Timothy Mason contended that when faced with the deep socioeconomic crisis, the Nazi leadership had decided to embark upon a ruthless 'smash and grab' foreign policy of seizing territory in Eastern Europe that could be pitilessly plundered to support living standards in Germany.

Timothy Mason described German foreign policy as driven by an opportunistic "next victim" syndrome after the Anschluss in which the "promiscuity of aggressive intentions" was nurtured by every successful foreign policy move.

For Overy, a major problem with the Timothy Mason thesis was that it rested on the assumption that although unrecorded by the records, that information had been passed on to Hitler about Germany's economic problems.

Timothy Mason criticised Klaus Hildebrand and Karl Dietrich Bracher for focusing too much on Hitler as an explanation for the Holocaust.

Timothy Mason wrote that part of the explanation of National Socialism required a broader look at the period, rather than focusing entirely upon Hitler.

Timothy Mason wrote that as part of the investigation of the broader picture, historians should examine the economic situation of Germany in the late 1930s:.

Timothy Mason was a leading advocate of comparative studies in fascism and, in the 1980s, strongly criticised the German philosopher Ernst Nolte for comparing the Holocaust to events that Timothy Mason regarded as totally unrelated to Nazi Germany, such as the Armenian genocide and the Khmer Rouge genocide.

In 1985, Timothy Mason decided that the government of Margaret Thatcher was the harbinger of fascism, advised trade union leaders to start making preparations to go underground and moved to Italy.