In Hitler's Shadow: West German Historians and the Attempt to Escape from the Nazi Past Paperback – August 12, 1989

The subtitle to In Hitler's Shadow tells it all: "West German Historians and the Attempt to Escape From the Nazi Past." Richard Evans, one of the foremost historians of Third Reich, and having written a monumental three volume history about the Reich (The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power and The Third Reich at War), brings vast knowledge and insight into the more-than cottage industry of holocaust denial by certain historians. The trilogy's first volume American edition was 2003.In this relatively short book published in 1989 (140 pages before notes), Mr. Evans details the varying explanations propounded by German historians as to the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany, and the causes of World War II. Evan's scholarship appears to be impeccable, and this book, together with his Lying About HItler (published in 2001) which details not only the British libel trial instituted by David Irving, one of the most prominent of holocaust deniers against Deborah Lipstadt whose book Denying The Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory accused Irving of shoddy scholarship and holocaust denial, explains the manner in which historians gather, sift and verify the validity of historic documents and secondary sources. Evans not only refutes the German historians' excuses and shifting blame, but also clearly shows how documents can be misused, mistranslated and edited in such ways as to bolster the false claims of holocaust deniers: Germany was defending itself against the West and the USSR; Germany had no systemized program of annihilation; that the crematoria at Auschwitz did not exist; that Hitler was innocent because he was unaware of the annihilation programs.Mr. Evans was the prime witness for the defense at the libel trial.The two books by Mr. Evans have apparently served as a way in which to specifically address certain aspects of Third Reich history prior to the publication of his huge Third Reich trilogy. Both In Hitler's Shadow which deals with the denial of Third Reich culpability, and Lying About Hitler which discusses the dangers posed by holocaust deniers, also deal with the psyches of historians and pseudo-historians who ascribe no guilt to the expansionist war started by Nazi Germany, but attempt to white-wash and deny the facts of annihilation, genocide and holocaust.In Hitler's Shadow is meant for the informed reader, versed in the history of World War II, and specifically that of the Third Reich. The writing is more academic than his trilogy, but the topic and ground covered are well-worth the careful reading, and supplement Evan's Third Reich trilogy by literally placing before the reader the facts behind holocaust deniers and the governmental effort (Germany's) in minimizing their historical past.

From 1986 to 1989, the German historical profession was rocked by the so-called Historikerstreit (Historians' Dispute), a lengthy and rather nasty battle about the place of the Shoah in German national memory. Evans's book, through hardly neutral is both an indispensable summing up of what the dispute was all about and a learned, highly informative and most crushing indictment of the appalling pseudo-historical nonsense peddled by Ernst Nolte, Andreas Hillgruber, Michael Stürmer and company.Because this book deals with a dispute about history, namely the place of the Holocaust in German memory as opposed to the actual workings of history, it has a very late 80s feel to it. Thus, in a book published in the summer of 1989, Evans dismisses out of hand the possibility of German reunification and comments upon the attachment of East Germans to their welfare state. Talk about bad timing or what! In a book published in August 1989, Evans's remarks about the utter impossiblity of German reunification tell one much about how people as the summer of 89 still viewed the question of German reunification, and why the fall of the Berlin Wall came as such a surprise. Perhaps historians are better about writing about the past than the future. There is a tendency at times to write of conservatives as being little more than bordeline fascists, which is probably the case with Nolte, but gets somewhat annoying when it gets applied in an Anglo-American context. The other flaw with this book is that through Evans does acquit Lenin and Stalin of their equally horrible crimes, at times his tendency to treat Communism as unfortunate aberration from socialism as opposed to the murderous madness that was weakens his case at times.Those caveat aside, Evans a superb job in demolishing the various perverse interpretations of German history put forward during the Historikerstreit. The central target was Nolte, a prominent historian and philosopher who tried hard to justify via all sorts of unscholarly methods the murder of six million Jews in the Shoah. Evans is very good at showing in this brief and highly readable book why Nolte has no business calling himself a historian. Nolte's claim that because of a letter written by the president of the Jewish Agency, Chaim Weizmann to the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain on September 3, 1939 (the day Britain declared war on Germany) promising the support of the Jewish Agency was a "Jewish declaration of war" on Germany that justified the German "interning" of the Jews of Europe is justly rebuked as the anti-Semitic justification of genocide that it is. Weizmann's letter was not a declaration of war, and it was written on behalf of the Jewish Agency, not of behalf of every single Jew in the world. It is interesting that Nolte presents this as otherwise, and reveals more about him than it does about the facts of the matter.In the same vein, Evans demonstrated why Hillgruber's call for the historians to take the side of German troops fighting on the Eastern Front, or to "idenfiy" to use Hillgruber's phrase is so flawed and problematic. As Evans concedes, Hillgruber was quite right about Soviet atrocities against German civilians, but he presented this out of context, ignoring both German atrocities against Soviet civilians and the reason why Soviet troops were in Germany was because of the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Of course, two wrongs don't make a right, and there is no defence for Soviet crimes against German civilians. But Hillgruber presented the Red Army killings, looting and gang-rapes as evidence of the basic barbarism of the Russian soldier as compared to his noble German soldier, and managed to make no mention of how the German troops had behaved in Russia. More importantly, the same German troops who were fighting to protect German civilians also fought to keep the Shoah going, which is the main reason why Hillgruber's call is so morally problematic.Finally, Evans deals with the apologist nature of the historical work of Stürmer, whose demand that essentially Germans have a history to be proud of, regardless of the facts and whose Orwellian view that he who controls the past also controls the future makes him more of a purveyor of right-wing, German nationalist agitprop than a historian. Stürmer's geographical theories about the Second Reich being forced into authoritarianism by being allegedly menanced by Russia and France are so much bunk, and what is more, are recycled bunk. The only novelty to Stürmer geographical theories are their timing, namely it amazing that in the 1980s a historian would be repeating what had been discredited only 20 years before. Stürmer's repeated statements that Germans need a positive past to have a positive future may or may not be true, but as a historian, this poses some problems as Evans rightly notes.In addition, Evans makes a brief, but impressive survey of the main issues confronting historians in German history at the end of 1980s, which help a new student to the field get some idea of the major issues. Beyond that, this book shows why history matters, and how the way that the past is remembered not only tells us much about the present, and how the manipulation of history can cause such ill. One may sympathize with Germans in that there is much in their recent history not to be proud of, but surely the correct response is to make a better future to give generations yet born a past to be proud rather than trying to confuse, distort, pervert and lie about the past. Only the truth can set one free, and in this case, it involves a hard and unsparing look at the past. Evans quite shows that Germany started the First World War with aggression in 1914 rather than being the victim of geography; the Treaty of Versailles did not cause National Socialism; it is objectionable to treat National Socialism as Hitlerism, thereby absolving everybody else; that however terrible Communist crimes were, Nazi crimes were not a reaction; the German Army was just as blood-strained and brutal as the SS; and that for too long, Germans had taken comfort in self-exculpating myths and legends. A most important must-read for anyone interested in National Socialism.

In this rather slim book Richard Evans tackles Historikerstreit that was not purely intellectual debate but , as Evans shows, has also quite political implication. The tone of the author is polemical and he largely succees to comment on and refute three main figures from conservative German historians. Among them, the most pummelled one is naturally Ernst Nolte as his claim on Holocaust, The War and over emphasis on Communism gave ample room to attack. The author's argument is lucid, cogent and trenchant .On the other hand , the author is more cautious to criticize Andreas Hilgruber , who as he mentioned unjustly maligned and targeted by Jurgen Habermas. In addition to that, author also give his share of criticism , which I think fair, on Michael Sturmer's view on the war and the purpose of rehabilitation(?) of the Modern German history.The author largely agree with the view that Historikerstreit tended to regress from intellectual debate to ad hominen attack and media frenzy and eventually did not contribute to the historigraphy of the Modern Germany.

Inevitably dated. A response to real concerns then caused by some rash thinking by German historians and some fumbles by Chancellor Kohl. Not in retrospect a major problem. Would Evans, a wonderful historian, have been quite to exercised if the intellectual errors he rightly critiques had been to his left, not his right?