The German Reich and the Second World War

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The book series The German Empire and the Second World War (DRZW) is a thirteen-volume historical and scientific complete work on National Socialist Germany during the Second World War . It was published between 1979 and 2008 by the Military History Research Office of the Bundeswehr . The work, which completely dispenses with photographic illustration on over 12,000 total pages and is the result of 30 years of research, is considered to be one of the largest projects in German historical studies.

history

Already when the Bundeswehr was being established in 1952, the Blank Office (predecessor of the Federal Ministry of Defense ) was considering setting up a military-historical research center within the armed forces. This was finally created on January 1, 1957 with the Military History Research Office (MGFA) in Freiburg im Breisgau . Although the agency initially published individual studies and monographs , it was already clear in the 1950s that a central task of the institution should be the research and presentation of the Second World War, "to give posterity, of history in general, the most objective possible picture of the processes and connections to give this time. "

After the end of the war, most of the German files were taken to Great Britain and the United States . It was not until the beginning of the 1960s that these were gradually brought back. This finally made it possible to use them to develop a complete German work. In addition, a presentation was expected from the German Democratic Republic , which brought the West German side “under pressure”. Under the leadership of the first head of office, Colonel Hans Meier-Welcker (1906–1983), initial considerations began in 1962 on a conception of the work in a "Working Committee on the History of the Second World War".

Official military histories already existed, such as the series published by the Reichsarchiv on the battles of the First World War . But this only looked at purely military questions and left out political, economic, social and ideological perspectives. Since this no longer corresponded to the ideas of modern military history, one could not orientate oneself on it.

The British or American General Staff Works, on the other hand, were unsuitable models in terms of their systematics and an ideological orientation, as in the Soviet work, forbade itself. As early as 1963, the committee came to the conclusion that it was about "the military in all its To consider and describe relationships in war. ” The development of a holistic concept then dragged on for a few years before the actual research work finally began at the beginning of the 1970s.

In his summary report on the realization of this series work, the military historian Rolf-Dieter Müller , who contributed to several volumes as an author and who was responsible for the scientific management of the series from 2004 to 2008, emphasizes the formative influence of the senior historian at the MGFA from 1970 to 1988 Jurist and historian Manfred Messerschmidt , who “survived” several military heads of office and held a politically wanted, very strong position, which “gave the civilian side greater weight and scientific research greater freedom”. Again and again there were disputes about the contents of the volumes. For example, the then head of the office, Othmar Hackl , delayed the publication of the first volume, which was finally published in 1979, because it would rewrite the history of the World War as "socialist". The greatest controversy occurred with the realization of the fourth volume, The Attack on the Soviet Union , published in 1983 . The bitterly fought "dispute over the preventive war thesis" at the time hit "the war generation in the MGFA to the core". It went u. a. also about the legend of the " clean Wehrmacht ".

Overview of the individual volumes

  • Volume 1: Wilhelm Deist , Manfred Messerschmidt , Hans-Erich Volkmann , Wolfram Wette : Causes and Requirements of German War Policy , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt , Stuttgart 1979 (reprint 1991), 764 pages, ISBN 978-3-421-01934-9 . Contents: ideologies, propaganda and domestic politics as prerequisites. The Nazi economy in preparation for war. The armament of the Wehrmacht. Foreign policy and preparation for war.
  • Volume 2: Klaus A. Maier , Horst Rohde, Bernd Stegemann , Hans Umbreit: The establishment of hegemony on the European continent , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1979 (reprint 1991), 439 pages, ISBN 978-3-421-01935 -6 .
  • Volume 3: Gerhard Schreiber , Bernd Stegemann, Detlef Vogel: The Mediterranean and Southeastern Europe - From the "non belligeranza" of Italy to the entry into the war of the United States , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1984 (reprinted 1994 and 1996), XII, 735 pp. , ISBN 978-3-421-06097-6 . (Table of contents online on the homepage of the headquarters of the joint library network.) [1]
  • Volume 4: Horst Boog , Jürgen Förster , Joachim Hoffmann , Ernst Klink , Rolf-Dieter Müller , Gerd R. Ueberschär : The attack on the Soviet Union , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1983 (reprint 1987 and 1993), XX, 1172 pp. , ISBN 978-3-421-06098-3 .
  • Volume 5/1: Bernhard R. Kroener , Rolf-Dieter Müller , Hans Umbreit: Organization and mobilization of the German sphere of influence - Volume 1: War administration, economy and human resources 1939 to 1941 , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1988 (reprint 1992), XVIII, 1062 pp., ISBN 978-3-421-06232-1 .
  • Volume 5/2: Bernhard R. Kroener, Rolf-Dieter Müller, Hans Umbreit: Organization and mobilization of the German sphere of influence - Part 2: War administration, economy and human resources 1942 to 1944/45 , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1999, XIII, 1082 pp., ISBN 978-3-421-06499-8 .
  • Volume 6: Horst Boog, Werner Rahn , Reinhard Stumpf , Bernd Wegner : The global war - the expansion to the world war and the change of the initiative 1941 to 1943 , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1990 (reprint 1993), XX, 1184 p., ISBN 978-3-421-06233-8 .
  • Volume 7: Horst Boog, Gerhard Krebs , Detlef Vogel: The German Reich on the Defensive - Strategic Air War in Europe, War in the West and in East Asia 1943 to 1944/45 , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 2001, XVI, 831 pp., ISBN 978-3-421-05507-1 . Contents: Horst Boog on the history of the German and Allied air warfare. Detlef Vogel on German and Allied warfare in Western Europe from the summer of 1944. Gerhard Krebs on the war in the Pacific.
  • Volume 8: Karl-Heinz Frieser , Klaus Schmider , Klaus Schönherr , Gerhard Schreiber , Krisztián Ungváry , Bernd Wegner: The Eastern Front 1943/44 - The War in the East and on the Secondary Fronts . On behalf of the MGFA ed. by Karl-Heinz Frieser, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 2007, XVI, 1320 S., ISBN 978-3-421-06235-2 .
  • Volume 9/1: Ralf Blank and others: The German War Society 1939 to 1945 - First half volume: Politicization, Destruction, Survival . On behalf of the MGFA ed. by Jörg Echternkamp , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 2004, XIV, 993 pp., ISBN 978-3-421-06236-9 .
  • Volume 9/2: Bernhard Chiari among others: The German War Society 1939 to 1945 - Second half volume: Exploitation, interpretations, exclusion . On behalf of the MGFA ed. by Jörg Echternkamp , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 2005, XIV, 1112 pp., ISBN 978-3-421-06528-5 .
  • Volume 10/1: The collapse of the German Empire in 1945 and the consequences of the Second World War - Teilbd. 1: The military overthrow of the Wehrmacht . On behalf of the MGFA ed. by Rolf-Dieter Müller , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 2008, 947 pages, ISBN 3-421-06237-4 .
  • Volume 10/2: The collapse of the German Empire in 1945 and the consequences of the Second World War - Teilbd. 2: The dissolution of the Wehrmacht and the effects of the war . On behalf of the MGFA ed. by Rolf-Dieter Müller , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 2008, 797 pages, ISBN 3-421-04338-8 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Georg Bönisch, Klaus Wiegrefe : Schandfleck der Geschichte . In: Der Spiegel . No. 15 , 2008, p. 50-53 ( Online - Apr. 7, 2004 ).
  2. ↑ Johannes Hürter : Choreography of the downfall. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , No. 117, page 11. May 22, 2007, accessed on October 12, 2019 : "Review of volume 8:" one of the largest companies in modern history ""
  3. ↑ Klaus-Dietmar Henke : The final phase of all or nothing. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , No. 208, page 8. September 5, 2008, accessed on October 12, 2019 : "Review of Volume 10:" One of the great achievements in the history of our time ""
  4. ↑ Internal letter of July 20, 1959, quoted in after: Friedhelm Klein: Military history in the Federal Republic of Germany. in: Military history in Germany and Austria from the 18th century to the present. Herford , Berlin , p. 190
  5. ↑ Bernd Wegner : Written victories. Franz Halder , the " Historical Division " and the reconstruction of the Second World War in the spirit of the German General Staff . in: Gerhard Schreiber, Bernd Wegner (eds.): Political change, organized violence and national security. Munich 1995, p. 299.
  6. ↑ See also: Markus Pöhlmann : War history and history policy: The First World War. Official German military historiography, 1914–1956 . Paderborn . 2002. ISBN 978-3-506-74481-4 .
  7. ^ Friedhelm Klein: Military history in the Federal Republic of Germany. Pp. 191-193.
  8. ↑ Rolf-Dieter Müller: "The German Reich and the Second World War". Conception and experience of a major scientific project . In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 56 (2008), no. 4, pp. 301–326, here p. 309.
  9. ↑ Rolf-Dieter Müller: "The German Reich and the Second World War". Conception and experience of a major scientific project . In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 56 (2008), no. 4, pp. 301–326, here p. 313.
  10. ↑ Rolf-Dieter Müller: "The German Reich and the Second World War". Conception and experience of a major scientific project . In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 56 (2008), no. 4, pp. 301–326, here p. 317.