Year: 2017
Type: article
Abstract: O NCE considered the "Nestor of research on fascism," Ernst Nolte was later labeledfollowing the infamous Historikerstreit of 1986-a "contemptuous figure of German contemporary history" by none other than Marcel Reich-Ranicki. 1 The disparity between these assessments throws a dim light on one of the most controversial German scholars active after World War II-a historian whose idea of a causal nexus between Soviet Communism and National Socialism cast a shadow on his more than sixty years of academic research and publishing. 2 Ernst Nolte was born in 1923 in the small town of Witten in the Ruhr region of Germany.Three striking developments in his youth shaped his early years.3 The first was his family: as the son of staunch Center Party voters, Nolte was a skeptical observer of the political changes of the 1930s.That his father chose to become a member of the NSDAP in 1937 in order to save the family from political isolation (as Nolte later claimed) disturbed the young man greatly.He stressed the fact that ambivalent behavior like that of his father evoked in him a resolute will to challenge political attitudes and actions.The second influential factor was his contact with the extreme political ideologies of the interwar period.Nolte initially experienced the emergence of radical antiparliamentarian movements such as Communism and National Socialism when he was only seven or eight years old.In Hattingen, a small town in a blue-collar area where his father taught at a Catholic primary school, young Nolte observed the dynamic presence of the KPD and NSDAP.This was his first contact with the extreme excesses of modern politics-a powerful encounter that made him feel a mixture of rejection and fascination at the same time.The third influential development was Nolte's affinity for philosophy.Born with a deformation of his left hand
Source: Central European History
Author: Gerrit Dworok
Institution: University of Würzburg
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2726213440