Ian Kershaw facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sir Ian Kershaw
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Kershaw at the 2012 Leipzig Book Fair
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| Born | 29 April 1943 Oldham, Lancashire, England
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| Alma mater | |
| Spouse(s) | Betty Kershaw |
| Children | 2 |
| Parent(s) | Joseph Kershaw, Alice (Robinson) Kershaw |
| Scientific career | |
| Thesis | Bolton Priory, 1286–1325: An Economic Study (1969) |
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Sir Ian Kershaw (born 29 April 1943) is an English historian. He is famous for his work on the social history of Germany in the 1900s. Many people see him as one of the top experts on Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. He is especially known for his books about Hitler's life.
Kershaw followed the ideas of German historian Martin Broszat. He was a professor at the University of Sheffield until he retired. Kershaw called Broszat an "inspirational mentor" who helped him understand Nazi Germany. Kershaw also helped with many BBC shows, like The Nazis: A Warning from History. He taught a class called "Germans against Hitler."
Contents
Early Life and Studies
Ian Kershaw was born on 29 April 1943 in Oldham, England. His father, Joseph Kershaw, was a musician. He went to University of Liverpool and Merton College, Oxford. He first studied history from the Middle Ages. But in the 1970s, he started studying modern German history.
He learned German to study German farmers from the Middle Ages. In 1972, he visited Bavaria in Germany. There, he met an old man who said, "You English were so foolish. If only you had sided with us. Together we could have defeated Bolshevism and ruled the earth!" The man also said, "The Jew is a louse!" This made Kershaw want to understand why ordinary Germans supported Nazism.
His wife, Dame Betty Kershaw, was a professor of nursing. She was also a dean at the University of Sheffield.
Understanding Nazi Germany
In 1975, Kershaw joined a project called the "Bavaria Project." This project was led by Martin Broszat. Broszat encouraged Kershaw to look at how everyday people saw Hitler. From this work, Kershaw wrote his first book about Nazi Germany. It was called The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich. It was first published in German in 1980.
The Hitler Myth
This book looked at the "Hitler cult" in Germany. It showed how Joseph Goebbels helped create it. It also explored which groups of people believed in the Hitler Myth. Kershaw explained how this myth grew and then fell apart.
Everyday Life Under the Nazis
Another book from the "Bavaria Project" was Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich. This book came out in 1983. It looked at the Nazi era from the point of view of ordinary people in Bavaria. Kershaw studied how people reacted to the Nazi government. He showed how people followed the rules and how much they dared to disagree.
Kershaw described the ordinary Bavarians as:
the muddled majority, neither full-hearted Nazis nor outright opponents, whose attitudes at one and the same time betray signs of Nazi ideological penetration and yet show the clear limits of propaganda manipulation.
He also wrote in his book's introduction:
I should like to think that had I been around at the time I would have been a convinced anti-Nazi engaged in the underground resistance fight. However, I know really that I would have been as confused and felt as helpless as most of the people I am writing about.
Kershaw believed that Goebbels failed to create a true "people's community" (Volksgemeinschaft). He found that most Bavarians cared more about their daily lives than about politics. Kershaw concluded that most Bavarians were either against Jewish people or simply didn't care what happened to them. He also noted a difference between common dislike of Jewish people and the extreme hatred of the Nazi Party.
Kershaw found that most Bavarians did not like the violence of Kristallnacht. This was a violent attack against Jewish people. He saw that many still had friends who were Jewish. Kershaw showed that most anti-Jewish actions were done by a small number of strong Nazi members. He said that most people were simply "indifferent" to the fate of Jewish people. During World War II, most Bavarians knew a little about the Holocaust. But they were much more worried about the war itself. Kershaw famously said, "the road to Auschwitz was built by hate, but paved with indifference."
Some historians, like Otto Dov Kulka and Michael Kater, disagreed with Kershaw. They felt he made popular anti-Jewish feelings seem less strong. Kulka thought "passive complicity" was a better word than "indifference."
Understanding the Nazi Government
In 1985, Kershaw wrote The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation. This book looked at how historians have understood Nazi Germany. Kershaw pointed out that there were many different ideas about the Nazi era. For example, some saw Nazism as a German problem. Others saw it as a problem that could happen anywhere capitalism was strong.
Kershaw said that historians studying this time face special challenges. They must think about history, politics, and moral issues. In his book, he looked at different historical ideas. He shared his own thoughts on their strengths and weaknesses.
In a 2008 interview, Kershaw named his main influences. These included Martin Broszat, Hans Mommsen, and Timothy Mason. He liked Mason's idea that German big businesses served the Nazi government. He thought this was true, not the other way around.
Kershaw also took part in the Historikerstreit (Historians' Dispute) from 1986–1989. He disagreed with historians like Ernst Nolte. Kershaw felt they were trying to make Germany's past seem better than it was. He argued that Nazism should be seen as a very extreme type of fascism.
Kershaw also criticized the idea that Hitler alone caused World War II. He said that blaming everything on one "madman" was wrong. He felt this idea tried to make Germany's past seem less bad.
Kershaw also looked at the debate about Nazi foreign policy. Some historians thought Germany wanted to conquer the world. Others thought it only wanted to conquer Europe. Kershaw leaned towards the idea that Germany mostly wanted to conquer Europe. He thought Hitler wanted an alliance with Britain to fight the Soviet Union. But Britain wasn't interested. This led Hitler to go to war with Britain, not the Soviet Union, in 1939.
German Resistance to Nazism
Kershaw also studied Widerstand (resistance) in Germany. He said there were different levels of resistance. Some people truly worked to overthrow the Nazi government. Others just disagreed with some rules in their daily lives. Kershaw believed there was much disagreement and opposition. But he found very little true resistance outside of the working class. He concluded that the Nazi government had a lot of support.
During the "Goldhagen Controversy" in 1996, Kershaw sided with his friend Hans Mommsen. Mommsen disagreed with Daniel Goldhagen's ideas. Goldhagen argued that Germans had a deep-seated hatred for Jewish people. Kershaw called Goldhagen's book "simply a bad book."
How Hitler's Power Worked
Kershaw believes that the way the Nazi government was set up was more important than Hitler's personality. He agrees with historians like Broszat and Hans Mommsen. They thought Nazi Germany was a messy mix of different government groups. These groups were always fighting for power. Kershaw saw the Nazi government not as one strong unit, but as a group of different powers. These included the NSDAP, big businesses, the German government, the Army, and the SS/police. Each of these groups had its own smaller groups.
For Kershaw, Hitler's importance came from how Germans saw him. In his books about Hitler, Kershaw described him as a rather ordinary person. He rejected the idea that one "great man" can explain all of history. Kershaw argued it's wrong to explain everything in Nazi Germany only through Hitler. Germany had 68 million people. It's too simple to explain their fate through just one person.
Kershaw wrote that even the best books about Hitler sometimes made his power seem too big. They made it seem like Germany's history from 1933 to 1945 was only about Hitler's wishes. Kershaw doesn't like theories that blame the Holocaust or World War II on Hitler's health problems. He agrees that such theories are hard to prove. Also, they make the huge events of Nazi Germany seem like they were caused by just one flawed person.
Kershaw's books about Hitler look at how Hitler got and kept his power. He uses Max Weber's idea of charismatic leadership. This means a leader gets power because people believe in their special qualities. Kershaw's 1991 book Hitler: A Profile in Power was his first book directly about Hitler. In his two-part biography of Hitler (1998 and 2000), Kershaw said he tried to place Hitler within the social and political world he had already studied.
The Holocaust: Plan or Process?
Kershaw has tried to combine two main ideas about the Holocaust. One idea is that it was a clear plan from the start (intentionalist view). The other is that it happened step-by-step as things got worse (functionalist view). Kershaw leans more towards the functionalist idea. He believes Hitler played a key role in the genocide. But he also thinks many officials below Hitler took steps that led to the Holocaust. They did this hoping to please Hitler, even without direct orders.
Kershaw agrees that the Nazis were very anti-Jewish. But he supports the idea that the Holocaust happened because of "cumulative radicalization." This means things got more and more extreme over time. It was caused by endless power struggles within the Nazi government.
In a 1992 essay, Kershaw looked at how ethnic cleansing in Poland turned into genocide by 1941. He called this an "improvised genocide." He sees the Holocaust as a process, not a master plan. He believes that from 1939 to 1941, the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" meant moving Jewish people to new territories. Plans like the Nisko Plan and Madagascar Plan were serious ideas. Only later in 1941 did "Final Solution" come to mean killing Jewish people. This idea is very different from those who say Hitler planned the genocide as early as 1918.
"Working Towards the Führer" Theory
Kershaw disagrees with the idea that Hitler was a "weak dictator." This idea says Hitler wasn't very important in daily Nazi Germany. Kershaw agrees that Hitler didn't do much of the day-to-day running of the government. His theory, "Working Towards the Führer," explains this. This phrase comes from a 1934 speech by a German official:
Everyone who has the opportunity to observe it knows that the Fuhrer can hardly dictate from above everything which he intends to realize sooner or later. On the contrary, up till now, everyone with a post in the new Germany has worked best when he has, so to speak, worked towards the Fuhrer. Very often and in many spheres, it has been the case—in previous years as well—that individuals have simply waited for orders and instructions. Unfortunately, the same will be true in the future; but in fact, it is the duty of everybody to try to work towards the Fuhrer along the lines he would wish. Anyone who makes mistakes will notice it soon enough. But anyone who really works towards the Fuhrer along his lines and towards his goal will certainly both now and in the future, one day have the finest reward in the form of the sudden legal confirmation of his work.
Kershaw argues that officials in Nazi Germany often took action on their own. They tried to guess what Hitler wanted. Or they tried to turn his unclear wishes into actual policies. Kershaw believes Hitler had great power. But he was a "lazy dictator." He wasn't interested in the daily running of Nazi Germany. The only exceptions were foreign policy and military decisions. He got more involved in these areas from the late 1930s.
In a 1993 essay, Kershaw compared the German and Soviet dictatorships. He said Hitler was not a fan of paperwork, unlike Joseph Stalin. Stalin was very involved in running the Soviet Union. Hitler's involvement in daily decisions was limited and random. Kershaw thought the Soviet government was more rational in its goal to modernize the country. It didn't have the "cumulative radicalization" that Nazi Germany did.
Kershaw believes that after 1933, Hitler's special "charismatic" power took over Germany. This led to a breakdown of normal authority. By 1938, the German government was a mess of rival groups. They all competed for Hitler's approval. This approval became the only source of power. Kershaw sees this rivalry as causing Germany to become more and more extreme. He argues that Hitler always preferred the most extreme solutions. But German officials, trying to please him, often took the initiative. They carried out increasingly "radical" solutions to problems like the "Jewish Question." They did this without direct orders from Hitler.
As an example, Kershaw used Hitler's order to two leaders, Albert Forster and Arthur Greiser. Hitler told them to make parts of Poland "German" within 10 years. He promised "no questions would be asked" about how they did it. Forster simply had Poles sign forms saying they had "German blood." Greiser carried out brutal ethnic cleansing of Poles. This showed how Hitler started events. It also showed how his leaders used different methods to achieve what they thought Hitler wanted. Kershaw believes Hitler's idea of a "racially pure" community pushed German officials. They took extreme measures to win his approval. This eventually led to the Holocaust.
The Israeli historian Otto Dov Kulka has praised the "working towards the Führer" idea. He thinks it's the best way to understand how the Holocaust happened. It combines the good parts of both the "functionalist" and "intentionalist" theories.
Kershaw believes Hitler had absolute power in Nazi Germany. This was because the government became less organized. But Hitler's focus on military matters made it harder for him to control domestic politics. The different parts of the Nazi state fought each other. They tried to carry out Hitler's unclear wishes by "Working Towards the Führer."
Later Career and Recognition
Kershaw retired from full-time teaching in 2008. In the 2010s, he wrote two books about the history of Europe. These were for The Penguin History of Europe series. They are called To Hell and Back: Europe, 1914–1949 and The Global Age: Europe, 1950–2017.
Awards and Memberships
- Fellow of the British Academy
- Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1994
- Winner of the Wolfson History Prize, 2000, for Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis (Allen Lane)
- Co-winner of the British Academy Book Prize, 2001
- Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
- Member of the Historical Association
- Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
- 2002, made a Knight Bachelor for his work in History
- 2004, a collection of scholarly essays was published in his honor.
- 2005, Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography for Making Friends with Hitler: Lord Londonderry, the Nazis and the Road to War
- 2012, Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding (with Timothy D. Snyder)
- 2018, Charlemagne Medal
Books by Ian Kershaw
- Bolton Priory. The Economy of a Northern Monastery (Oxford, 1973)
- Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich. Bavaria, 1933–45 (Oxford, 1983, rev. 2002), ISBN: 0-19-821922-9
- The Nazi Dictatorship. Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation (London, 1985, 4th ed., 2000), ISBN: 0-340-76028-1 online free to borrow
- The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich (Oxford, 1987, rev. 2001), ISBN: 0-19-280206-2 online
- Weimar. Why did German Democracy Fail? (ed.) (London, 1990), ISBN: 0-312-04470-4
- Hitler: A Profile in Power (London, 1991, rev. 2001)
- Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison (ed. with Moshe Lewin) (Cambridge, 1997), ISBN: 0-521-56521-9
- Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris (London, 1998), ISBN: 0-393-32035-9 online free to borrow
- Hitler 1936–1945: Nemesis (London, 2000), ISBN: 0-393-32252-1 online free to borrow
- Making Friends with Hitler: Lord Londonderry and the British Road to War (London, 2004), ISBN: 0-7139-9717-6
- Death in the Bunker (Penguin Books, 2005), ISBN: 978-0141022314
- Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940–1941 (London, 2007), ISBN: 1-59420-123-4 online free to borrow
- Hitler, the Germans and the Final Solution (Yale, 2008), ISBN: 0-300-12427-9
- Hitler (one-volume abridgment of Hitler 1889–1936 and Hitler 1936–1945; London, 2008), ISBN: 1-84614-069-2
- Luck of the Devil The Story of Operation Valkyrie (London: Penguin Books, 2009. Published for the first time as a separate book, Luck of the Devil is taken from Ian Kershaw's bestselling Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis), ISBN: 0-14-104006-8
- The End: Hitler's Germany 1944–45 (Allen Lane, 2011), ISBN: 0-7139-9716-8
- To Hell and Back: Europe, 1914–1949 (Allen Lane, 2015), ISBN: 978-0713990898
- Roller-Coaster: Europe, 1950–2017 (Allen Lane, 2018), ISBN: 978-0241187166; The American edition is titled The Global Age: Europe, 1950–2017, eBook ISBN: 9780735223998 online free to borrow
- Personality and Power: Builders and Destroyers of Modern Europe (Penguin Press, 2022)
See also
In Spanish: Ian Kershaw para niños
