Götz Aly
Encyclopedia
Götz Aly is a German journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
and social scientist
Social Scientist
Social Scientist is a New Delhi based journal in social sciences and humanities published since 1972....
.
Biography
After attending the German School of Journalists, Aly studied historyHistory
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
and political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. As a journalist, he worked for the taz
Die tageszeitung
die tageszeitung , was founded in 1978 in Berlin. It is a cooperative-owned German daily newspaper which is administrated by a workers' self-management...
, the Berliner Zeitung
Berliner Zeitung
The Berliner Zeitung, founded in 1945, is a German center-left daily newspaper based in Berlin, published by Berliner Verlag. It is the only East German paper to achieve national prominence since unification. In 2003, the Berliner was Berlin's largest subscription newspaper—the weekend...
and the FAZ
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , short F.A.Z., also known as the FAZ, is a national German newspaper, founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt am Main. The Sunday edition is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung .F.A.Z...
.
Presently, from 2004 to 2005, he is a visiting professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
for interdisciplinary Holocaust research at the Fritz Bauer Institut in Frankfurt am Main.
Work
Aly researches the history of the Holocaust and the participation of social elites in NaziNazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
destruction policies. In 2005 he gained public attention in Germany for the popular success of his book Hitlers Volksstaat (Hitler's People's State). In it, Aly characterises Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
as a "convenience dictatorship" that until late in the war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
retained broad public support, in particular by making possible an unprecedented social mobility
Social mobility
Social mobility refers to the movement of people in a population from one social class or economic level to another. It typically refers to vertical mobility -- movement of individuals or groups up from one socio-economic level to another, often by changing jobs or marrying; but can also refer to...
for the lower classes, by introducing redistributive fiscal policies and by greatly extending the German welfare state
Welfare state
A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...
. Aly also recounts how all this was paid for in large part by confiscation of Jewish property in Germany and later the plunder of the conquered countries, and especially their Jewish populations. He maintains that the reason for the massive support the Nazi regime enjoyed among the German population was not so much a consequence of their violent anti-Semitism as their enjoying the fruits of the loot acquired by the Nazis in the occupied territories. He also shows how the Wehrmacht was directly involved in this mass plunder of the conquered populations and how in many cases it was the initiator of policies which led to confiscation and eventual extermination.
His other point is that the conservative, non-Nazi financial state bureaucracy and the leading banks were crucial in formulating this policy of mass plunder and murder.
Aly's views have not remained without criticism from the mainstream of historical research. In the German print media, particularly Adam Tooze
Adam Tooze
Adam Tooze is a British historian and was Reader in Modern European Economic History at the University of Cambridge. In 2002, he was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize for Modern History. As of Summer 2010, he is a professor of history at Yale University.He is currently best known for his economic...
rejected Aly's argumentation in detailed analyses. Aly's work was rewarded by the Heinrich-Mann-Preis in 2002 and the Marion-Samuel-Preis one year later.
Götz Aly drew heavy criticism from the Daily Telegraph because of his claims during a press conference that black soldiers were rapists during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and that Mahatma Gandhi was a friend of Hitler
Publications
For an extensive list of Aly's publications and related web links in German, please refer to the German version of this article.In English:
- co-written with Peter Chroust & Christian Pross: Cleansing the Fatherland: Nazi medicine and racial hygiene, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
- Final Solution' Nazi population policy and the murder of the European Jews, London: Arnold; New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
- co-written with Susanne Heim: Architects of Annihilation: Auschwitz and the logic of destruction, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002
- co-written with Karl Heinz Roth: The Nazi Census: identification and control in the Third Reich Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004.
- translated by Jefferson Chase from the German Hitlers Volksstaat (see above): Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2005.
- Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State Metropolitan Books. January, 2007 ISBN 0-8050-7926-2, ISBN 978-0-8050-7926-5
External links
- How Germans Fell for the 'Feel-Good' Fuehrer, book review by Jody K. Biehl in Spiegel OnlineDer SpiegelDer Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
of March 22, 2005 - The logic of horror, an article by Götz Aly on the German "Historikerstreit" or historians' dispute
- Gandhi was one of Nazis greatest friends claims Goetz Aly
- http://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/academic_staff/further_details/wages-of-destruction.htmlMaterial in English on Adam ToozeAdam ToozeAdam Tooze is a British historian and was Reader in Modern European Economic History at the University of Cambridge. In 2002, he was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize for Modern History. As of Summer 2010, he is a professor of history at Yale University.He is currently best known for his economic...
debate in 2005 with Goetz Aly over his book Hitlers Volksstaat (Frankfurt 2005). ] at the University of CambridgeUniversity of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
.