Christopher Browning

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Christopher Browning 2019 in the Friedenssaal of the historic town hall of Münster.

Christopher Browning ( Christopher Robert Browning ; born May 22, 1944 in Durham (North Carolina) ) is an American historian . He is Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina .

Life

Browning studied history at the University of Wisconsin – Madison . In 1999 he was appointed professor of history at the University of North Carolina (until 2014). In 2006 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . On October 30, 2019, he was presented with a commemorative publication for his 75th birthday in Münster in the presence of his wife Jenny, the laudation was given by Norbert Frei .

Research on the Nazi era

Significant reception received his book Ordinary Men (German Ordinary Men ) that Daniel Jonah Goldhagen as a starting point for his controversial book Hitler's Willing Executioners served.

Browning is considered an internationally renowned Holocaust researcher whose position in the area of ​​tension between intentional and functionalist research can best be described as that of a moderate functionalist. In his work The Origins of the Final Solution 2004 he sees the decision-making process for the final solution to the Jewish question in the mutual interpenetration of several factors. In addition to Hitler's obsessive anti-Semitism, the constant radicalization of the extermination system, as described by the German historian Hans Mommsen , plays an important role. Finally, according to Browning, the sometimes arbitrary implementation of anti-Jewish measures from below accelerated the extermination dynamic. In contrast to Martin Broszat's dating of the Holocaust to the spring of 1942, Browning justified the thesis in June 1941, with the expansion of the mass shootings, that Hitler agreed in the summer of 1941 to the concrete preparation of the Holocaust by Himmler and Heydrich and the resulting implementation plans in October and November Approved in 1941.

Works (selection)

  • The final solution and the German Foreign Office. A study of referat D III of Department Germany 1940–1943. Holmes & Meier, New York / London 1978 [actually published 1979] ISBN 0-8419-0403-0 (Study on the involvement of the Foreign Office .)
German: The " Final Solution " and the Foreign Office. Section D III of the Germany Department 1940–1943. From the American by Claudia Kotte. Foreword by Jürgen Matthäus . WBG , Darmstadt 2010. ISBN 3-534-22870-7 (see review in the FAZ of July 7, 2010)
  • Ordinary Men. Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland , New York, HarperCollins 1993 (1992), ISBN 0-06-099506-8
    • German edition: Just normal men. The Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the “Final Solution” in Poland. Translated by Jürgen Peter Krause, Rowohlt, Reinbek 1993, ISBN 3-498-00569-3

In Just Ordinary Men , he describes the deeds of Reserve Police Battalion 101 during the Holocaust. This unit was responsible for shooting or capturing Jews in order to transport them to the extermination camps. This unit was used in occupied Poland. The author of the book, which incorporates the results of Stanley Milgram's experiment , comes to the conclusion that the members of the unit were not demons or fanatical Nazis, but normal middle-aged men who came from the working class of Hamburg. The men were occasionally given the choice of not killing the Jews if they were uncomfortable. Out of 500 men only 15 chose this option. Browning concludes that the men of the unit did not kill out of lust for murder, but out of a sense of peer pressure and obedience. As the Milgram experiment shows, most average people are capable of such deeds. Only one authority has to give the orders. Ordinary Men received widespread recognition but was heavily criticized by Daniel Goldhagen . Browning disregarded the strong influence of German culture on the Holocaust. In a slated 1992 edition of The New Republic , Goldhagen called Ordinary Men an unscientific and worthless book. Browning had prepared his own evidence. Goldhagen's book Hitler's willing executors (1996) was also to be understood as an answer to Ordinary Men.

filming

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Westfälische Nachrichten, October 31, 2019, RMS04.
  2. ^ Christopher Browning: The Origins of the Final Solution. The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy , September 1939 - March 1942, pp. 309-373, pp. 424 ff.
  3. ^ The careerists from Wilhelmstrasse. July 7, 2010, accessed on February 3, 2019 (Rezensikon in the FAZ).
  4. ↑ to Moshe Zimmermann in an interview with the SZ of 25 October 2010: Question: Suddenly emerges a ghostly document, a travel expense report in which Franz Rademacher as the reason for a trip to Belgrade openly the " liquidation of Jews is leading." Zimmermann: Sorry, but this document, which was used in the trial against Rademacher, is not new. Christopher Browning quoted it as early as 1978 in his book on the involvement of the Federal Foreign Office in the “Final Solution”. It is significant that Browning's book has only now been translated into German after thirty years. Rademacher was the main suspect in court after the war. What he did was undeniable and cruel enough, but he was still considered a marginal figure. The main perpetrators had been convicted in the first Nuremberg trial, and Rademacher was considered a member of the functional elite who had not been guilty of any major crimes.
  5. ↑ Filming (adaptation) see below
  6. ↑ Browning, Chris. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, New York: HarperCollins, 1992 - page 57
  7. ↑ Shatz, Adam. (April 8, 1998) Goldhagen's willing executioners: the attack on a scholarly superstar, and how he fights back Slate.
personal data
SURNAME Browning, Christopher
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Browning, Christopher Robert; Browning, Christopher R.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American historian
DATE OF BIRTH May 22, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Durham, North Carolina