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Fritz Fischer
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Fritz Fischer (March 5, 1908 – December 1, 1999) was a German historian best known for his analysis of the causes of World War I.
her was born in Ludwigsstadt in Bavaria. His father was a railroad inspector. Educated at grammar schools in Ansbach and Eichstätt, Fischer attended the University of Berlin and the University of Erlangen, where he studied history, pedagogy, philosophy and theology. Fischer was a member of the extreme right Bund Oberland, joined the Nazi SA in 1933 and the Nazi Party in 1937.
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Fritz Fischer (March 5, 1908 – December 1, 1999) was a German historian best known for his analysis of the causes of World War I.
Biography
Fischer was born in Ludwigsstadt in Bavaria. His father was a railroad inspector. Educated at grammar schools in Ansbach and Eichstätt, Fischer attended the University of Berlin and the University of Erlangen, where he studied history, pedagogy, philosophy and theology. Fischer was a member of the extreme right Bund Oberland, joined the Nazi SA in 1933 and the Nazi Party in 1937. Fischer's major early influences were the standard Hegelian-Rankean idea typical of pre-1945 German historical profession, and as such, Fischer's early writings bore a strong bent towards the right This influence was reflected in Fischer's first books, biographies of Ludwig Nicolovius, a leading Prussian educational reformer and of Moritz August von Bethmann Hollweg, the Prussian Minister of Education between 1858-1862.
In 1942, Fischer married Margarete Lauth-Volkmann, with whom he fathered two children. Fischer served in the Wehrmacht in World War II. After his release from a POW camp in 1947, Fischer became a professor at the University of Hamburg, where he stayed until his retirement in 1978. After World War II, Fischer re-evaluated his previous beliefs, and decided that the popular explanations of National Socialism offered by such historians as Friedrich Meinecke in which Adolf Hitler was just a betribsunfall (industrial accident) of history were unacceptable. In 1949, at the first post-war German Historians' Congress in Munich, Fischer strongly criticized the Lutheran tradition in German life, accusing the Lutheran church of glorifying the state at the expense of individual liberties and thus helping to bring about Nazi Germany. Fischer complained that the Lutheran church had for too long gloried the state as divinely sanctioned institution that could no wrong, and thus paved the way for National Socialism. Fischer rejected the then popular arguments in Germany that Nazi Germany had been the result of the Treaty of Versailles, and instead argued there were the origins of Nazi Germany predated 1914, and the were the result of long-standing ambitions of the German power elite.
By 1961, Fischer, who had risen to the rank of full professor at the University of Hamburg, rocked the history profession with his first postwar book, Griff nach der Weltmacht: Die Kriegzielpolitik des kaiserlichen Deutschland 1914–1918 (published in English as Germany's Aims in the First World War), in which he argued that Germany had deliberately instigated the First World War in an attempt to become a world power. In this book, which was primarily concerned with the role played in the formation of German foreign policy by domestic pressure groups, Fischer argued that various pressure groups within German society had ambitions for aggressive imperialist policy in Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. In Fischer's opinion, the "September Program" of September 1914 calling for the annexation of most of Europe and Africa was an attempt at compromise between the various demands of the lobbying groups within German society for wide-ranging territorial expansion..
For most Germans at this time, it was acceptable to believe that Germany had caused World War Two, but not World War One, which was still widely regarded as a war forced upon Germany. Fischer was the first German historian to publish documents showing that the German chancellor Dr. Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg had developed plans in 1914 to annex all of Belgium, part of France and part of European Russia. Furthermore, Fischer suggested that there was continuity in German foreign policy aims from 1900 to the Second World War, implying therefore that Germany was indeed responsible for both world wars. These ideas were expanded in his later books Krieg der Illusionen (War of Illusions), Bündnis der Eliten (From Kaiserreich to Third Reich) and Hitler war kein Betriebsunfall (Hitler Was No Chance Accident)..
In his 1969 book Krieg der Illusionen, Fischer offered a detailed study of German politics from 1911 to 1914, in which he offered a Primat der Innenpolitik (Primacy of Domestic Politics) approach to German foreign policy. In Fischer's view, the Imperial German state saw itself under siege by rising demands for democracy at home, and looked to distract democratic strivings through a policy of aggressive expansionism abroad..
Fischer was the first German historian to champion the negative version of the "Sonderweg" or "special path"' interpretation of German history, which holds that the way German culture and society developed from the Reformation onwards (or from a later time, such as the establishment of the German Reich of 1871) inexorably culminated in the Third Reich. In Fischer's view, while 19th century German society moved forwards economically and industrially, it did not do so politically. For Fischer, German foreign policy before 1914 was largely motivated by the efforts of the reactionary German elite to distract the public from casting their votes for the Social Democrats and to make Germany the world's greatest power at the expense of France, Britain, and Russia. Furthermore, the same German elite that caused World War One also caused the failure of the Weimar Republic and ushered in the Third Reich. This traditional German elite, in Fischer's analysis, was dominated by a racist, imperialist, and capitalist ideology that was no different from the beliefs of the Nazis. For this reason, Fischer called Bethmann-Hollweg the "Hitler of 1914." Fischer's claims set off the so-called "Fischer Controversy" of the early 1960s in various German historians led by Gerhard Ritter attempted to rebut Fischer, but as the American historian John Moses noted in 1999, the documentary evidence introduced by Fischer is extremely persuasive in arguing that Germany was responsible for World War I.
Criticisms
Fischer caused a deep controversy with his books, particularly in West Germany. His arguments sparked so much anger that his publisher's office in Hamburg was firebombed. His works inspired other historians, such as Gerhard Ritter, to write books and articles in direct response to his war-aims thesis.
Some critics contend that Fischer placed Germany outside the proper historical context. Germany was not uniquely aggressive amongst European nations of the early 20th century, a time when Darwinian ideals of struggle were popular throughout European governing circles. Fischer's timetable has also been criticized as inaccurate. Hollweg's outlining German war aims, was not produced until after the war had begun and was still going well for Germany. At the same time, other powers had been harboring similarly grandiose plans.
After Fischer's death in 1999 it was revealed that he had deceived the public about his affiliation with the Nazi regime, of which he had denied being a follower. After the First World War he had in fact been a member of a right-wing extremist paramilitary Freikorps for some years, the "Bund Oberland." In 1933 he joined the SA, in 1937 he joined the NSDAP.
Work
- Moritz August von Bethmann-Hollweg und der Protestantismus, 1938.
- Ludwig Nikolvius: Rokoko, Reform, Restauration, 1942.
- Griff nach der Weltmacht: die Kriegszielpolitik des Kaiserlichen Deutschland, 1914–18, 1961.
- Krieg der Illusionen: Die deutsche Politik von 1911 bis 1914, 1969.
- Bündnis der Eliten: Zur Kontinuität der Machstrukturen in Deutschland, 1871–1945, 1979.
- Hitler war kein Betriebsunfall: Aufsätze, 1992.
Endnotes
External links
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