Google notes: “The “German Historians’ Dispute” (German: Historikerstreit) was a highly publicized and controversial debate among German historians in the late 1980s and early 1990s, primarily sparked by the publication of a controversial article in 1986 that downplayed the severity of the Holocaust.”
Grok says:
The “German Historians’ Dispute” (Historikerstreit) was a significant intellectual and political controversy in West Germany during the late 1980s and early 1990s, centered on how the Nazi past, particularly the Holocaust, should be interpreted and integrated into German historiography and national identity. The debate, while sprawling and multifaceted, was ignited by a specific article published in 1986 that challenged the prevailing understanding of the Holocaust’s uniqueness, prompting a fierce clash between conservative and left-leaning historians. Below, I’ll analyze the origins, key arguments, participants, and implications of the Historikerstreit, with a focus on the 1986 article and its role in downplaying the Holocaust’s severity.
Origins and the 1986 Article
The Historikerstreit erupted on June 6, 1986, with the publication of Ernst Nolte’s article “Vergangenheit, die nicht vergehen will” (“The Past That Will Not Pass”) in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Nolte, a prominent conservative historian, argued that the Holocaust should not be treated as a singular, unparalleled event in history. He suggested that Nazi crimes, including the extermination of Jews, were a reactive response to the Bolshevik threat, particularly the Soviet Gulags under Stalin, which he claimed preceded and inspired Nazi atrocities. Nolte’s thesis implied a causal link—positing that the Nazis’ actions were a defensive imitation of Soviet terror rather than an ideologically driven genocide rooted in anti-Semitism. This framing effectively downplayed the Holocaust’s severity by relativizing it as one among many 20th-century atrocities, rather than an event of unique moral and historical weight.
Nolte’s article was not an isolated provocation but built on ideas he had floated earlier, such as in his 1980 essay “Between Myth and Revisionism.” However, its publication in 1986, amid a conservative political climate under Chancellor Helmut Kohl, amplified its impact. Kohl’s administration sought to “normalize” Germany’s Nazi past, as seen in events like the 1985 Bitburg ceremony, where President Ronald Reagan honored German war dead, including Waffen-SS members, alongside Kohl. Nolte’s piece aligned with this broader push to lighten the burden of German guilt, making it a lightning rod for controversy.
Key Arguments and Participants
The Historikerstreit pitted two broad camps against each other: conservative historians, who favored a comparative approach to totalitarian regimes, and left-leaning intellectuals, who insisted on the Holocaust’s singularity and Germany’s unique responsibility.
Conservative Perspective: Nolte was joined by historians like Andreas Hillgruber, Michael Stürmer, and Joachim Fest. Hillgruber’s 1986 book Zweierlei Untergang (“Two Kinds of Downfall”) juxtaposed the destruction of the German Reich with the Holocaust, lamenting the expulsion of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe as a tragedy comparable to the Jewish genocide. Stürmer, a Kohl advisor, argued in his essay “Land without History” that Germany needed a positive historical narrative to foster national pride, implicitly downplaying the Nazi era’s centrality. These historians sought to contextualize the Holocaust within a broader history of 20th-century violence, often comparing it to Stalinist crimes to dilute its exceptional status. Critics accused them of revisionism and apologetics, claiming this approach minimized Nazi culpability.Left-Wing Response: The most prominent counterattack came from philosopher Jürgen Habermas, who, in a July 1986 Die Zeit article titled “Eine Art Schadensabwicklung” (“A Kind of Damage Control”), accused Nolte, Hillgruber, and Stürmer of whitewashing history to serve neoconservative ends. Habermas argued that their relativization of the Holocaust undermined Germany’s post-1945 moral reckoning and its integration into Western democratic values. Historians like Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Jürgen Kocka, and Hans Mommsen echoed Habermas, defending the Sonderweg thesis—that Germany’s historical path uniquely culminated in Nazism—and rejecting comparisons that diluted the Holocaust’s ideological specificity. They saw Nolte’s thesis as a dangerous step toward normalizing the Nazi past.
The debate was marked by vitriol, with ad hominem attacks and accusations of bad faith flying in newspapers like Die Zeit and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. It wasn’t just academic; it gripped public attention, reflecting broader anxieties about Germany’s identity in a Cold War context nearing its end.
Downplaying the Holocaust
Nolte’s 1986 article explicitly downplayed the Holocaust’s severity by framing it as a derivative act rather than a premeditated, ideologically driven genocide. His claim that the Gulags provided a “precedent” for Auschwitz shifted focus from Nazi anti-Semitism to a supposed existential threat from communism, implying that Hitler’s regime was reacting rather than initiating. This relativization reduced the Holocaust’s moral gravity, portraying it as a byproduct of wartime escalation rather than a deliberate extermination campaign. Hillgruber’s work complemented this by equating German suffering with Jewish victimhood, further blurring the lines between perpetrator and victim narratives. Such arguments challenged the post-war consensus that the Holocaust was a uniquely German crime requiring perpetual atonement.
Critics, however, saw this as a distortion. The Holocaust’s scale (six million Jews systematically murdered), its industrial efficiency (gas chambers, death camps), and its ideological core (racial anti-Semitism) set it apart from Soviet atrocities, which, while horrific, lacked the same genocidal intent toward a specific ethnic group. By suggesting equivalence, Nolte and his allies risked trivializing the Shoah’s distinctiveness.
Implications and Legacy
The Historikerstreit had lasting repercussions. It exposed deep divisions over Germany’s “usable past” at a time when reunification loomed on the horizon (achieved in 1990). Habermas and the left largely prevailed in shaping public memory, cementing the Holocaust’s centrality in German identity and reinforcing a culture of responsibility that became state policy in the 1990s—evident in landmarks like the 2005 Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Nolte’s ideas, while influential among some right-wing circles, were widely discredited in mainstream academia for their lack of empirical rigor and apparent apologetics.
Yet the debate also highlighted the tension between historical comparison and moral clarity. While comparative history is a valid tool, the Historikerstreit showed how it can slide into relativism when wielded to deflect responsibility. Nolte’s 1986 article, by downplaying the Holocaust’s severity, forced Germany to confront how it narrates its past—a question that remains relevant as new debates, like those over colonial legacies, emerge today.
Conclusion
The Historikerstreit, sparked by Nolte’s 1986 article, was a battle over memory as much as history. It revealed the stakes of interpreting the Holocaust: not just an academic exercise, but a moral and political act shaping Germany’s self-understanding. By attempting to downplay the Holocaust’s severity, Nolte and his allies triggered a backlash that reaffirmed its uniqueness, ensuring that Germany’s Nazi past would not be easily relativized or forgotten. The dispute’s intensity and public reach underscore its role as a defining moment in late 20th-century German intellectual life.
So who won and who lost in this controversy?
Determining “winners” and “losers” in the Historikerstreit depends on the lens—academic influence, public perception, or long-term impact on German memory culture. Here’s a breakdown based on these dimensions, rooted in the debate’s outcomes and legacy.
The “Winners”: Habermas and the Left-Leaning Historians
Jürgen Habermas and his allies—figures like Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Jürgen Kocka, and Hans Mommsen—emerged as the prevailing voices in the Historikerstreit, particularly in shaping mainstream discourse and policy.
Academic Triumph: Habermas’s critique, articulated in his 1986 Die Zeit article, framed Nolte’s relativization as a neoconservative attempt to sanitize Germany’s past. This resonated with the scholarly consensus, which upheld the Holocaust’s uniqueness and rejected Nolte’s causal link to Soviet atrocities as speculative and empirically weak. Left-leaning historians successfully defended the Sonderweg thesis and the idea of German historical responsibility, maintaining their dominance in universities and intellectual circles.Public Opinion: The debate, waged in widely read newspapers, galvanized public support for the left’s position. Nolte’s arguments were perceived as revisionist and apologetic, alienating many Germans who saw Holocaust remembrance as a moral cornerstone of post-war identity. Habermas’s call for a critical, self-reflective national memory aligned with the broader societal push to confront rather than downplay the Nazi era.
Long-Term Impact: The left’s victory is most evident in Germany’s memory culture post-reunification. The 1990s and 2000s saw institutional reinforcement of Holocaust centrality—e.g., the 1999 parliamentary resolution affirming German guilt and the 2005 opening of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. These developments reflect Habermas’s vision of a Germany integrated into Western values through accountability, not normalization of its past.
The “Losers”: Nolte and the Conservative Historians
Ernst Nolte, along with Andreas Hillgruber, Michael Stürmer, and their supporters, largely lost the debate in terms of credibility and influence.
Academic Marginalization: Nolte’s thesis—that the Holocaust was a reaction to Bolshevik terror—was widely discredited for lacking historical evidence and for its apparent exculpatory tone. His peers accused him of cherry-picking sources and ignoring the ideological roots of Nazi anti-Semitism. Hillgruber’s juxtaposition of German and Jewish suffering was similarly criticized as a false equivalence, while Stürmer’s plea for a positive national history was seen as politically motivated rather than scholarly. By the early 1990s, Nolte’s reputation in mainstream academia had plummeted, relegating his ideas to fringe right-wing circles.Public Backlash: The conservative camp underestimated the German public’s sensitivity to Holocaust minimization. Nolte’s 1986 article, intended to provoke, instead sparked outrage, with critics labeling it a step toward historical revisionism akin to Holocaust denial (though Nolte never denied the event itself). This backlash tarnished the conservatives’ moral standing, especially as their views were tied to Kohl’s controversial “normalization” efforts, like the Bitburg fiasco.
Policy Defeat: The conservative push to lighten the burden of Nazi guilt failed to reshape official memory. While Kohl’s government initially supported a less contrite narrative, the Historikerstreit’s fallout—coupled with reunification’s demands for a unified identity—solidified a state-backed commitment to Holocaust remembrance. Nolte’s ideas found little traction beyond intellectual debates, and the conservatives’ broader project of historical relativism stalled.
Nuances and Caveats
Partial Conservative Influence: While they lost the main battle, Nolte and his allies influenced niche discussions. Their comparative approach to totalitarianism gained some traction in conservative think tanks and among historians studying Soviet crimes, though it never overrode the Holocaust’s exceptional status in German discourse.Ongoing Tension: The Historikerstreit didn’t fully resolve the underlying question of how Germany balances its past with national pride. The conservatives’ defeat entrenched a guilt-focused narrative, but debates over “normalization” resurface periodically—e.g., in discussions about Germany’s colonial history or its role in modern Europe.
Conclusion
Habermas and the left-leaning historians “won” the Historikerstreit by securing the dominant narrative: the Holocaust as a singular, German responsibility that defines modern identity. Nolte and the conservatives “lost,” their reputations damaged and their relativizing arguments relegated to the margins. The victory wasn’t just intellectual—it shaped Germany’s cultural and political landscape for decades, ensuring that Nolte’s 1986 provocation, rather than normalizing the past, reinforced its inescapable weight.
