Transcript History can be written by the losers

History
can be
written
by the
losers…
Fritz Fischer 1908 - 1999
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Son of a railroad inspector
Educated at grammar schools and University of
Berlin
Member of Nazi Party 1939 – 1942
Served in Wermacht in World War Two
Released from prisoner of war camp 1947
Professor of History at University of Hamburg
1947 - 1978
Consensus on causes of World War
One before Fischer
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‘The nations slithered over the brink into the boiling
cauldron of war’ (Lloyd George in his War
Memoirs 1934)
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Hitler and the Nazis were a betriebsunfall
(industrial accident): Gerhard Ritter et al.
The Fischer Thesis
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Griff nach der
Weltmacht: Die
Kriegzielpolitiik des
kaiserlichen Deutschland
1914 – 1918 (loosely
translated as Germany’s
aims in the First World
War) 1961
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Krieg der Illusionen (War
of Illusions) 1969
The Fischer Thesis
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‘There can be no talk of any accidental stumbling into
war….(Germany’s) actions were not ruled by.…fateful
tragedy, but were a conscious political decision’.
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Hitler and the Nazis were a natural product of
German history whose roots can be traced back
to 1870, if not earlier (a negative interpretation
of Germany’s sonderweg)
Fischer, an ex-Nazi, German, member of the
establishment which had always claimed that
WWI was a terrible accident, broke rank and
claimed that in fact there was an unbroken
line of continuity between WWI and WWII.
His argues that Germans were far more to
blame than was generally accepted.
He was subject to intimidation and vitriolic
abuse.
But crucially, his once-revisionist claims
have now become the mainstream
orthodoxy.
What does this tell us about the
 value of historical inquiry?
 nature of historical truth?