Ethnocrats and the Ethics of Historiographic Practice

Ingo Haar, Michael Fahlbusch, eds.. German Scholars and Ethnic Cleansing, 1920-1945. New York: Berghahn Books, 2005. xxii + 298 pp. $25.00, paper, ISBN 978-1-84545-048-9. Reviewed by Eric J. Engstrom Published on H-German (May, 2006) The philosopher Odo Marquard once own profession; they have found it decidedly provocatively defined history as a "Dauerflucht wanting. aus dem Gewissenhaben in das Gewissensein."[1] Georg Iggers has written a foreword for the Arguably, Marquard's observation was never collection, briefly sketching the historiographic truer than in the 1970s and 1980s. Among seg‐ terrain out of which this volume emerged. He, like ments of the historical profession at that time many others, is right in emphasizing the embar‐ (and not only in Germany), there was no shortage rassing failure of professional historians up until of practitioners who, by exposing the crimes of the early 1990s to examine critically the history of the National Socialist regime and documenting its their discipline during the Third Reich. This fail‐ murderous work, were inclined to cast them‐ ure is the more glaring for implicating those histo‐ selves as the conscience of the nation. Of course, rians who, in the wake of 1968, defined them‐ there can be no doubt that (especially in Ger‐ selves as standard bearers of a critical historio‐ many) there was a pressing need to research graphic tradition. those crimes and the events that precipitated Although the editors do not explicitly adver‐ them. Perhaps not surprisingly, however, histori‐ tise it as such, this is a collection of studies on the ans turned their critical gaze more easily toward ethics of historiographic practice. Ingo Haar and other professions (especially doctors, but also civil Michael Fahlbusch have set themselves the task of servants, lawyers and politicians) than they did demonstrating that historians and other scholars toward their own disciplinary ancestors. Research in the humanities stood "prominently in the fore‐ over the past decade--thanks in part to a ground" (p. xix) when it came to drafting and im‐ boomerang effect generated by the searing criti‐ plementing Nazi policies of ethnic cleansing and cism aimed at East German historians post-1989-- genocide. The emphasis is on felds such Volks‐ has begun to change this. The essays published in geschichte, Ostforschung, Westforschung, Heimat‐ this volume represent the efforts of a generation forschung and Migrationsforschung. The editors of young scholars to question the past of their H-Net Reviews stress that researchers in these felds hailed from linked with state policy, be it the revision of the widely varying disciplines, ranging from statistics Versailles Treaty in the Weimar Republic, the re‐ and geography to linguistics and cartography. His‐ settlement and extermination policies in the torians, however, also played a prominent role in Third Reich or postwar repatriation policies and these policy-oriented research endeavors. At the Western reorientation during the Cold War. Be‐ time, various generic terms were used to describe yond this, however, Haar stresses that völkisch these practitioners, such as Volkstumspolitische historians tended to share the antisemitic visions Berater, Volkstumsspezialisten or Ethnopolitiker of the National Socialist regime and its ideology of (p. 59). Some of the authors in this volume follow Lebensraum. Focusing mainly on the Nord- und Michael Burleigh in describing them as "eth‐ Ostdeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, he empha‐ nocrats." sizes the overlapping "racist and conservative na‐ About half of the contributions have an ex‐ tionalist dispositions" (p. 11) within the organiza‐ plicitly biographic focus. One of the great advan‐ tion. At the same time, however, he argues that tages of this approach is that it calls into question (like the regime itself) ethnocratic scholars be‐ the historical ruptures of 1933 and 1945. Almost came progressively more radical in their policy all of the chapters highlight the biographic perme‐ proposals. In Haar's account, therefore, an implic‐ ability of these dates. Furthermore, this approach it tension exists between political dynamics on the turns a spotlight on the history of scholars who one hand, and the claim that many practitioners whitewashed their biographies and massaged of Volksgeschichte were inherently antisemitic on their curricula vitae. Indeed, many of the eth‐ the other. More traditional histories would have nocrats depicted in this book went on to pursue resolved this tension along a bipolar functionalist/ well-respected, lucrative and even highly decorat‐ intentionalist spectrum. But Haar avoids deploy‐ ed careers in the Federal Republic. This is one of ing this weary model to organize his material, the more important aspects of the book. It sug‐ largely eschewing analytic frameworks in favor of gests that if historians are in search of lines of descriptive narrative. continuity within their own profession, it may not Michael Fahlbusch's account of ethnopolitical be racism, but careerist opportunism that is likely experts in the Reichssicherheitshauptamt is more to be the strongest bridge spanning the caesurae rigorously structured than Haar's chapter. of 1933, 1945 and indeed 1989-90. Watching con‐ Fahlbusch sketches the highly organized and con‐ temporary historians scramble to secure funding voluted network of ethnocrats and research insti‐ from federal or EU-sponsored projects today can tutions put in place to serve the aims of the SS. De‐ be a disturbing reminder of not-so-bygone prac‐ scribing the Volksdeutsche Forschungsgemein‐ tices. schaften as a "brain trust" (p. 31), he outlines the Two introductory articles by the editors pro‐ extensive fnancial and administrative resources vide important context for the book as a whole. that the regime devoted to ethnic German re‐ Ingo Haar's chapter on "German Ostforschung search societies. He also uses a cohort structure to and Anti-Semitism" argues that, in order to under‐ analyze three distinct groups of elite functionar‐ stand the role Ostforschung played in Nazi Ger‐ ies within the Volksdeutsche Forschungsgemein‐ many, historians must study it not just as an iso‐ schaften. On the whole, he makes a strong case lated academic discipline, but also in the context for Volkstumsforschung being big, heavily state- of a "dynamic political situation" (p. 1). Ost‐ sponsored science. He then rounds out his ac‐ forschung was not simply an innocuous scholarly count with a case study of one influential ethno‐ exercise, but a research agenda inextricably crat, Wilfried Krallert, a geographer and historian who headed the Kuratorium für Volks- und Lan‐ 2 H-Net Reviews desforschung and participated in ethnic cleansing phasis on Eastern Europe in most of the early operations in the Balkans. Fahlbusch's contribu‐ chapters. He draws on the case of Franz Petri, a tion is especially important for surveying the larg‐ historian and National Socialist whose research er administrative apparatus in which the events concerned the language boundary dividing me‐ described in the ensuing chapters transpired. dieval Germanic and Frankish peoples. After the Several of those chapters are especially note‐ invasion of Belgium in 1940, Petri became a so- worthy. Eric J. Schmaltz and Samuel D. Sinner as‐ called Kulturpapst in Brussels, responsible for sess the work of Georg Leibbrandt and Karl many of the Nazis' cultural and ethnic policies. Stumpp, two ethnopolitical advisors on the Translated into policy terms, Petri's West‐ Ukraine. Drawing on personal diaries and official forschung was designed to "abolish the 'Western reports, the authors paint a vivid picture of the orientation' of the Flemish and Walloon people; to mundane, but murderous enthusiasm of these 'germanize' science and its institutions.... [and] to "liberators" of German ex-patriots in the Ukraine. transform into practice the demands formulated Furthermore, in a section entitled "From Geno‐ in his Habilitationsschrift concerning the Sprach‐ cide to Genealogy," they demonstrate how the grenze such as, for instance, support for the eth‐ legacy of Leibbrandt and Stumpp lived on in post‐ nic Germans in Arel and Luxemburg" (pp. war repatriation policies and in the genealogical 186-187). In the person of Franz Petri, personal in‐ interests of Russian-German heritage societies. terests, the ideals of Westforschung and Nazi ide‐ ology coalesced into one. Michael Wedekind's chapter "The Sword of Science" investigates the role of German scholars Karl-Heinz Roth's contribution on Hans Roth‐ in National Socialist annexation policies in Slove‐ fels aims to sidestep recent disputes that zero in nia and northern Italy. With the more or less ex‐ on Rothfels's work in the late 1920s and early plicit annexation of the provinces bordering Yu‐ 1930s. Roth takes a wider biographic perspective, goslavia and Italy in 1941, the Third Reich ex‐ analyzing three periods in Rothfels's life. First, he panded into regions renowned for intractable eth‐ considers the radicalization of Rothfels's politics nic conflict. The ensuing deportation, resettle‐ in the early 1930s. On the one hand, he disputes ment and germanization policies were undertak‐ the basis of Eckart Kehr's claim that Rothfels had en with the aid of various institutions within the fascist leanings, but on the other hand he con‐ Südostdeutsche and Alpenländische Forschungs‐ firms Rothfels's status as a spokesman for a group gemeinschaften, especially the Institut für Kärnt‐ of young neo-conservatives inspired by the

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