Albert Brackmann

Albert Brackmann (24 June 1871, Hanover – 17 March 1952, Berlin-Dahlem) was a leading nationalist German historian associated with the Ostforschung, a multi-disciplined organisation set up to co-ordinate German propaganda on Eastern Europe. After Nazis were elected to power, he became one of the chief propagandists in service of the regime. In this position he supported Nazi genocidal policies, ethnic cleansing and anti-semitism.

At the conclusion of his university education in Tübingen, Leipzig, and Göttingen, Brackmann joined, at the age of twenty-seven, the staff of MGH (Monumenta Germaniae Historica), the leading German source publication for medieval documents. He was appointed professor of history at Königsberg in 1913, Marburg in 1920, and Berlin in 1922. In 1929 he became the director general of the Prussian Privy State Archives, in Berlin-Dahlem. In connection with accepting the position he advocated for the establishment of a special Institute for Archival Sciences and Historical Training (Preußisches Institut für Archivwissenschaft), to provide for the professional training of archivists; the institute, which came under the administration of the state archives, opened in Berlin-Dahlem in May 1930. Brackmann, in his capacity as director general of the archives, simultaneously served as the archival institute's first director, until his retirement in 1936. During his term at the archives he retained an honorary professorship at the University of Berlin.

Originally a specialist in relations between the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy, he turned towards the history of the Germans in Eastern Europe as a result of his experiences of the First World War. Politically right-wing, he was a member first of the DVP (German People's Party) and then of the DNVP (German National People's Party) during the Weimar Republic, and was joint editor of the prestigious and influential Historische Zeitschrift from 1928 to 1935.

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