The Third Reich in German History Textbooks since 1945

Bibliographic Data

ID10072656
AuthorsBodo Von Borries (Universität Hamburg, corresponding author)
Year2003
Volume38
Issue1
Pages45-62
Publication date2003-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Contemporary History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-0094 • E-ISSN: 1461-7250
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0022009403038001963
OpenAlexW2120331677
LanguageEN
Citations received9

Scholarly research on the Third Reich has benefited from the fact that the regime's archives became open and available to historians almost from the moment of its collapse. Since 1946, nearly all the major crimes of the regime have been documented in outline, beginning with the Nuremberg war crimes trials which included important supplementary criminal proceedings.1 These trials presented massive documentary evidence for the nazi extermination of the Jews and for the regime's war of aggression and extermination in eastern Europe.2 In addition, the participation of German companies in the nazi system was described in detail by the reports of the Office of the Military Government of the US (OMGUS) in postwar western Germany.3 The system of concentration camps as the real nucleus of the nazi state had already been analysed by Eugen Kogon; but his report was thought to be unsuitable reading for young Germans up until 1960.4 On the other hand, case studies and regional monographs remained few up until the 1970s, or even later.5 The relative absence of detailed scholarly research gave the authors of textbooks a free hand in many respects. Nevertheless, at least six principal crimes of the nazis could have been mentioned in any textbook written after 1946

Archaeology · German · Nazi Germany · Nazism · Political science · Principal (computer security · State (computer science · European history and politics · German History and Society · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law

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