Dietrich Eichholtz

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Dietrich Eichholtz (born August 22, 1930 in Danzig ; † June 21, 2016 ) was a German historian . He was one of the first students of the economic historian Jürgen Kuczynski and made a name for himself with his work on the German war economy in World War II . His History of the German War Economy 1939–1945 appeared in three volumes in 1969, 1985 and 1996. If the first volume in particular is criticized as dogmatic Marxist-Leninist and because of its state-monopoly interpretation, the work found overall recognition among Western historians.

Life

Eichholtz came from a middle-class family. Born in Danzig, he graduated from high school in the GDR . Before his studies, he worked in uranium mining at Wismut AG . Eichholtz studied economics and economic history at East Berlin's Humboldt University from 1950 to 1954 . He studied labor economics with Ravensbrück survivor Rita Sprengel and was one of Jürgen Kuczynski's first students .

From 1955 to 1962 Eichholtz worked as a research assistant at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR . In 1959 he received his doctorate with a thesis on Junkers and the bourgeoisie in Prussian railway history before 1848 , followed by his habilitation in 1968 . From 1962 to 1966 and from 1984 to 1988 Eichholtz was a lecturer and honorary professor at the Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald . In 1985 he received the National Prize of the GDR, 2nd class for science and technology. From 1966 to 1991 he worked again as a research assistant at the Academy of Sciences, from 1975 as a research group leader. After the academy was closed, he was employed in research and teaching at the Technical University of Berlin from 1994 until his retirement in 1995 as part of the scientist integration program. After 1990 Eichholtz was also appointed to the advisory board of the private foundation Social History of the 20th Century , whose director is Karl Heinz Roth .

From 1961 to the 1980s and again from 1986 onwards, Eichholtz, who as a travel cadre enjoyed the privilege of being able to travel to western countries, worked closely with the Ministry for State Security (MfS) as a contact person . Using the code names "KP 'Eiche'", "Doktor", "Paul Funck" and "AIM" Buche ", he informed the Enlightenment Headquarters and Department XX - State Apparatus, Culture, Church, Underground about his contacts with non-socialist people Abroad . His attempts to win Western (historian) colleagues to inform the MfS "mostly failed because of the lack of willingness to cooperate on the part of the West German recruitment victims". In 1968 Eichholtz was with Kurt Gossweiler to the left-wing student movement recognized in the Federal Republic and in June 1968, for example, by Bonn sent to SDS -members to "train" the development and local to observe. In 2010, Jürgen Evers, Professor of Chemistry at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich , reported on such a recruitment attempt by Eichholtz. This was not an unofficial employee , but according to the historian Christina Morina , he acted like one.

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In 1968, Eichholtz, together with Kurt Gossweiler, dealt with the theses of the British historian Timothy Mason in the journal Das Argument , who, in line with the Bonapartism theory, assumed that the National Socialists were increasingly autonomous from the interests of large-scale industry . In opposition to this thesis of the primacy of politics over economy , Eichholtz and Gossweiler insisted on the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of state monopoly capitalism: Mason's thesis could not be correct, because it “runs counter to all of the 'natural laws' of society discovered by Marxism and would become due to its very existence represent a complete refutation of the Marxist analysis of society ”.

In 1969, 1985 and 1996, Eichholtz's main work, the history of the German war economy 1939–1945 , appeared in three volumes . Eichholtz completed his habilitation with the first volume (1939–1941). The third volume appeared after the end of the GDR and was co-authored by the authors Hagen Fleischer , Manfred Oertel , Berthold Puchert and Karl Heinz Roth. In 1999 and in several subsequent editions, a reprint of the three-volume work in five volumes was published by KG Saur Verlag . The work is still controversial today. The economic historian Wilhelm Treue criticized the first volume in 1970 as an outflow of communist ideology and the construction of history and pointed out numerous errors and omissions: the German-Soviet nonaggression pact , the name Josef Stalin and the economic cooperation between the Soviet Union and National Socialist Germany that was additionally agreed after the pact are not mentioned at all. According to Treue, they would have made the first German victories possible in the first place. Eichholtz, on the other hand, portrayed economic cooperation as if the Soviet Union had thereby inflicted damage to Germany and restricted the speed at which the armed forces could arm themselves. In view of the amount of material that was spread out, Treue warned that Eichholtz should respond as soon as possible with a work from a Western perspective if one did not want his “thesis of the identity of the Third Reich and the Federal Republic , which […] carries this up-to-date political book and permeates “, just accept. In contrast, Andreas Hillgruber , at that time chief historian of the Military History Research Office (MGFA) of the Bundeswehr, judged Eichholtz to show with this work, despite the requirement to present “Hitler as the executive […] organ of 'monopoly capital'”, “what differentiating results a clever historian also has can reach under such conditions. It is then even possible for him to tackle certain taboos, such as the economic deliveries of the Soviet Union to Germany under the sign of the Hitler-Stalin Pact (p. 209), and to arrive at acceptable theses about them ”. Overall, Eichholtz presented an important study based on a “broad source of sources” “despite all the inevitable embedding in prescribed guidelines”. It is a "valuable in many details, useful on the whole" contribution.

In 1986, MGFA historian Rolf-Dieter Müller saw Eichholtz's account "less concerned with ideology and propaganda than with the practical war economy". While the first volume was still “strongly imbued with political-ideological premises” “which were not conducive to the historical process of knowledge”, Eichholtz with his second volume, covering the years 1941 to 1943, made “an effort that is hardly found in older Marxist representations Differentiation and careful source criticism ”. According to Müller, what applies to this volume is that it “overshadows everything that has appeared on this topic in terms of quality and quantity”. Eichholtz's work is based on a "comprehensive systematic analysis of the war economy, a careful and thorough investigation of all important aspects". According to Müller, his work represents "a top position in GDR historiography that can facilitate a dialogue with the often ostracized bourgeois historiography". According to the 1986 review, Eichholtz is supposed to make his “kind of a systematic presentation” “usable for the first phase of the war”, which was already dealt with in Volume 1, and also “for the last phase of the war”, which was not yet published 3 should be dealt with. In 2007, Müller no longer judged Eichholtz so positively. In a review of Adam Tooze's book on the Nazi economy, Müller talks about the history of the German war economy , Volume 3 of which: From 1943 to 1945, was only published in 1996 with the collaboration of Hagen Fleischer, Manfred Oertel, Berthold Puchert and Karl Heinz Roth was. In his review, Müller also counts Eichholtz among the GDR historiography, who tried to prove in “an ideological debate” with the West during the Cold War that “capitalism was actually the driving force behind fascism and war”, according to Müller the "GDR economic historian Eichholtz" produced the "most comprehensive history of the German war economy" until 1996, but it was "technically and scientifically theoretically outdated."

The social historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler described the entire work in 2003 as “dogmatic” because the Nazi regime was portrayed as an agent of capital interests : Eichholtz did not recognize the central role that racial politics and the Holocaust played in the history of National Socialism. Heinrich August Winkler cites the first volume of Eichholtz's History of the German War Economy 1939–1945 “as an example of the failure to mention the Jewish victims of the National Socialist extermination policy”. Stefanie Kerkhof proposes that the work investigate the " state monopoly war economy" with the terminology and theoretical instruments of Marxism-Leninism. After the end of the GDR, "linguistic adjustments" were made in the third volume, and "greater emphasis was placed on state actions". What is missing is a “theoretical reorientation”. At the same time, it is recognized by several historians as a standard work . In a tribute to his seventieth birthday in 2000, the historian Wolfgang Benz called the self-confidence with which Eichholtz describes his volumes as a “scientific pioneering achievement [...] at the forefront of international research” in the foreword of the new edition: the work was “in all Share retains its validity and unfolds further effects ”. For the economic historian Michael von Prollius it is "the most important work of GDR historiography". The historian Christina Morina highlights the numerous sources that Eichholtz presents. This strong empirical orientation contributed to the fact that he also enjoyed a good reputation in the West. In the volume published in 1985 in particular, he was able to conclusively demonstrate the “close interdependence and extensive congruence of interests between large-scale industry and the Nazi regime”, which was then also included in the state of knowledge of West German historiography. The theses that Eichholtz worked on, namely that capitalist “ monopolies ” had entrusted the “fascists” with the war, but had insufficient resources for a victory, especially since even the most profitable war caused material damage, recalled “in their argumentative structure to a commercial cost-benefit analysis. "

Eichholtz and the historian Kurt Gossweiler formulated in the introduction to a collection of essays published by both the claim and the concern of their research for the present with the words, “They wanted scientific material on the way to a comprehensive investigation of the historical and current political problems of fascism for today's fight against fascism and imperialism ”.

Eichholtz published articles in the Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft , in the Jahrbuch für Geschichte and in the Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte , after German reunification in the young world and at the Berlin Society for Research on Fascism and World War II . He published on fascism with European and regional references, the General Plan Ost (1939–43) and the history of the Baghdad Railway . For the Encyclopedia of National Socialism he wrote the lexical article on the war economy .

Fonts

  • Junkers and bourgeoisie before 1848 in Prussian railway history - theoretical and historical problems from the early railway era. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1962. (Dissertation in economics, Humboldt University Berlin 1959.)
  • History of the German War Economy 1939–1945 . 3 volumes.
Volume 1: From 1939 to 1941. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin (East) 1969. (Habilitation thesis 1968) (Several reprints, most recently Akademie 1984)
Volume 2: From 1941 to 1943. With a chapter by Joachim Lehmann. Akademie Verlag, Berlin (East) 1985.
Volume 3: From 1943 to 1945. With the collaboration of Hagen Fleischer, Manfred Oertel, Berthold Puchert and Karl-Heinz Roth. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1996.
Unchanged text as a complete edition in 5 volumes: Reprint of the edition Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1969–1996, supplemented by a foreword by Gustavo Corni, critical marginal notes and a complete index: Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11428-1 . (Including several subsequent editions)
  • with Wolfgang Schumann (ed. and preface): Anatomie des Krieges. New documents on the role of German monopoly capital in the implementation of the Second World War. VEB German publishing house of the sciences. Berlin (East) 1969.
  • with Kurt Gossweiler : Fascism Research: Positions, Problems, Polemics . Akademie Verlag, Berlin (East) 1980.
  • with Kurt Pätzold (ed.): The path to war. Studies on the history of the prewar years (1935/36 to 1939) . Akademie Verlag, Berlin (East) 1989.
  • German Politics and Romanian Oil (1938–1941). A study of petroleum imperialism . Leipzig University Press, Leipzig 2005.
  • War for oil. An oil empire as a German war target 1938–1943 . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2006.
  • The Baghdad Railway. Mesopotamia and the German oil policy until 1918. Slow transition into the oil age . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2007.

literature

  • Rüdiger Hachtmann : Dietrich Eichholtz. In: Ossietzky . No. 16, 2010.
  • Lothar Mertens : Lexicon of the GDR historians. Biographies and bibliographies on the historians from the German Democratic Republic . KG Saur, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-598-11673-X .
  • Christina Morina : Triumph and Humiliation. The Second World War in double German contemporary history. In: Franka Maulbach, Christina Morina (ed.): Telling the 20th century: time experience and time research in divided Germany. Wallstein, Göttingen 2016, pp. 191–244, section: Predatory War Capitalism: Eichholtz and the “History of the German War Economy I” (1969). Pp. 212-220. (Preview)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Vademecum of the historical sciences. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2002/2003, p. 334.
  2. ↑ a b Susanne Willems : Enlightened Confidence. The historian Dietrich Eichholtz was a curious man with a vision. In: young world . July 4, 2016, p. 11.
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Benz : Dietrich Eichholtz on his 70th birthday . In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 48 (2000), p. 773 f.
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Benz: Dietrich Eichholtz on his 70th birthday . In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 48 (2000), p. 774.
  5. ↑ Henning Borggräfe: Embedded Historians? Compensation for Nazi slave laborers and historical research after the end of the Cold War. In: José Brunner, Constantin Goschler , Norbert Frei (eds.): The globalization of reparation: politics, morality, moral politics . Wallstein, Göttingen 2013, p. 77 ( available from Google.books).
  6. ↑ Jürgen Evers: Facts that don't fit into the picture. On the appreciation of the GDR historian Dietrich Eichholtz by Wolfgang Benz, in: Zeitschrift des Forschungsverbundes SED-Staat 27 (2010), pp. 183-185.
  7. ↑ Christina Morina: Triumph and Humiliation. The Second World War in double German contemporary history. In: Christina Morina, Franka Maubach (Hrsg.): Tell the 20th century. Time experience and time research in divided Germany. Wallstein, Göttingen 2016, p. 214 f.
  8. ↑ Sebastian Brünger: History and Profit. How German corporations deal with their Nazi past . Wallstein, Göttingen 2017, p. 161.
  9. ^ Heinrich August Winkler : Revolution, State, Fascism. On the revision of historical materialism . Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1978, p. 85; Ian Kershaw : The Nazi State. An overview of historical interpretations and controversies. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1988, pp. 92-95.
  10. ↑ Wilhelm Treue: Stalin's help for Hitler's armaments is kept secret: GDR attack against the “monopolies” . In: The time . January 6, 1970, accessed September 10, 2017.
  11. ^ Andreas Hillgruber: Dietrich Eichholtz, History of the German War Economy 1939-1945 . Vol. 1: 1939–1941 Berlin (East), Akademie-Verlag 1969. In: Historische Zeitschrift . 211/2 (1970), pp. 443-445.
  12. ^ Rolf-Dieter Müller, collective review of: Richard J. Overy: Göring. The "Iron Man" . London, Boston, Melbourne Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1984; Ludolf Herbst: The total war and the order of the economy. The war economy in the field of tension between politics, ideology and propaganda 1939–1945 . Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 1982; Dietrich Eichholtz, History of the German War Economy, Part 2: 1941-43 , Berlin: Akademie Verlag 1985. In: Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 2 (1986), pp. 181–186, here pp. 185f.
  13. ↑ Book review Rolf-Dieter Müller, “Adam Tooze, Economy of Destruction. The history of the economy under National Socialism. Munich: Siedler 2007, ISBN 978-3-88680-857-1 “in Military History Journal 67 2008, Volume 1, pp. 267-270.
  14. ^ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: German history of society . Volume 4: From the beginning of the First World War to the founding of the two German states 1914–1949 . CH Beck, Munich 2003, p. 1137.
  15. ^ Heinrich August Winkler: The long way to the west. German History, Vol. II: From the “Third Reich” to reunification. Beck, Munich 2000, p. 707.
  16. ^ Stefanie van de Kerkhof: Arms industry and war economy. On the benefits and disadvantages of economic historical methods in military history. In: Thomas Kühne (Ed.): What is military history? Schöningh, Paderborn 2000, p. 190.
  17. ↑ Martin Moll: Introduction. In: the same (ed.): “Führer-Erasse” 1939–1945. Edition of all surviving directives in the fields of state, party, economy, occupation policy and military administration issued by Hitler in writing during the Second World War, not printed in the Reichsgesetzblatt . Steiner, Stuttgart 1997, p. 15; Gustavo Corni : Critical marginal notes. In: Dietrich Eichholtz: History of the German War Economy 1939-1945. KG Saur, Munich 2003, p. XVIII; Arne Radtke-Delacor: The “managed” economy in France. Attempt to compare the technocratic structures of the Nazi ventilation power and the Vichy regime (1940–1944) . In: Alain Chatriot and Dieter Gosewinkel (eds.): Figurations of the State in Germany and France 1870-1945. Les figures de l'État en Allemagne et en France. Oldenbourg, Munich 2006, p. 235.
  18. ↑ Wolfgang Benz: Dietrich Eichholtz on his 70th birthday . In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 48 (2000), p. 774.
  19. ^ Michael von Prollius: The economic system of the National Socialists 1933-1939. Control through emergent organization and political processes . Schöningh, Paderborn 2003, p. 16.
  20. ↑ Christina Morina: Triumph and Humiliation. The Second World War in double German contemporary history. In: Christina Morina, Franka Maubach (Hrsg.): Tell the 20th century. Time experience and time research in divided Germany. Wallstein, Göttingen 2016, pp. 213 and 218 f.
  21. ^ Ian Kershaw: The Nazi State. An overview of historical interpretations and controversies. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1988, p. 30 f.
personal data
SURNAME Eichholtz, Dietrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH 22nd August 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Danzig
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 2016