Hans Mommsen
| Hans Mommsen | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
5 November 1930 Marburg, Weimar Germany |
| Died | 5 November 2015 (aged 85) Tutzing, Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Occupation | Historian |
| Known for | Studies in German social history |
Hans Mommsen (5 November 1930 – 5 November 2015) was a German historian, known for his studies in German social history, and for his functionalist interpretation of the Third Reich, especially for arguing that Hitler was a weak dictator.
Mommsen was born in Marburg, the child of the historian Wilhelm Mommsen and great-grandson of the historian of Rome Theodor Mommsen. He was the twin brother of historian Wolfgang Mommsen. He studied German, history and philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, the University of Tübingen and the University of Marburg. Mommsen served as professor at Tübingen (1960–1961), Heidelberg (1963–1968) and at the University of Bochum (since 1968). He married Margaretha Reindel in 1966. He was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany from 1960 until his death. He died on 5 November 2015.
Much of Mommsen's early work concerned the history of the German working class, both as an object of study itself and as a factor in the larger German society. Mommsen's 1979 book, Arbeiterbewegung und nationale Frage (The Labour Movement and the National Question), a collection of his essays written in the 1960s–70s was the conclusion of his studies in German working class history. Mommsen much prefers writing essays to books.
Mommsen was a leading expert on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. He was a functionalist in regard to the origins of the Holocaust, seeing the Final Solution as a result of the "cumulative radicalization" of the German state as opposed to a long-term plan on the part of Adolf Hitler. In Mommsen's view, Hitler was an intense anti-semite but lacked a real idea of what he wanted to do with Jews. The picture Mommsen consistently drew of the Final Solution was of an aloof Hitler largely unwilling and incapable of active involvement in administration who presided over an incredibly disorganized regime. Mommsen forcefully contended that the Holocaust cannot be explained as a result of Hitler alone, but was instead the product of a fractured decision-making process in Nazi Germany which caused the "cumulative radicalization" which led to the Holocaust. Furthermore, for Mommsen, Hitler played little or no real role in the development of the Holocaust, instead preferring to let his subordinates take the initiative. Instead, the "Final Solution" was caused primarily by the German bureaucracy who as the result of bureaucratic turf wars, started to compete with one another for the favor of a distant and lazy leader by engaging in ever more radical anti-semitic measures between 1933 and 1941.
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