Helmut Krausnick

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Helmut Krausnick (born February 19, 1905 in Wenden ; † January 22, 1990 in Stuttgart ) was a German historian . Krausnick headed the Munich Institute for Contemporary History from 1959 to 1972 , which during this time became the most renowned German research institute on the history of National Socialism . From 1953 to 1972 Krausnick was the chief editor of the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (VfZ), then co-editor. The work, which he co-authored, Die Truppe des Weltanschauung, about the murder of the Jews in the occupied Soviet Union by the Einsatzgruppen, is considered a milestone in Holocaust research .

life and work

Helmut Krausnick was born in Wenden , now part of Braunschweig , and grew up in Bad Harzburg . His father was a general practitioner there , his mother ran a household school for girls. He attended the Reform Realgymnasium in Bad Harzburg from 1914 until his Abitur in 1923 . He then studied history and political science at the University of Breslau , from where he moved to the University of Berlin in 1924 after a stopover at the University of Heidelberg . There he did his doctorate in 1938 under Fritz Hartung . Krausnick then worked for the Berlin Central Office for Post-War History at the Reich Archives , and in 1940 he switched to the Foreign Office's archives commission . From September 1944 to May 1945 he did military service during the Second World War. In 1932 Krausnick became a member of the NSDAP ( membership number 866.684), but was not active in his research as a Nazi propagandist.

Krausnick was employed at the International Textbook Institute in Braunschweig from 1947 to 1951 . In 1951 he began to work at the Institute for Contemporary History headed by Hermann Mau . When he had a fatal accident in 1952, he continued his German history of the recent past , which appeared in 1956 and was translated into various languages. In 1959 Krausnick was appointed general secretary of the institute as successor to Paul Kluke , which he headed until his retirement in 1972. In addition, Krausnick was VfZ editor-in-chief from 1953 to 1972 and was appointed honorary professor for contemporary history at the University of Munich in 1968 . He often appeared as a judicial expert in Nazi trials .

In addition to the monographs he wrote or edited, Krausnick published regularly in the VfZ and other periodicals. His initial area of ​​expertise was the Bismarckian era, especially Friedrich von Holstein's secret diplomacy . In his work for the IfZ he turned to the history of the resistance against Adolf Hitler and the persecution of the Jews . His work The Troops of Worldview War was an essential step towards the destruction of the legend of the " clean Wehrmacht ". In 1980 Krausnick was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class.

Works (selection)

  • (Ed.): New Bismarck Talks . Hanseatische Verlags-Anstalt, Hamburg 1940.
  • Holstein's secret policy in the Bismarck era, 1886–1890 . Hanseatische Verlags-Anstalt, Hamburg 1942 (dissertation).
  • with Hermann Mau: German history of the recent past 1933–45 . Wunderlich, Tübingen 1956.
  • Persecution of the Jews . In: Anatomie des SS-Staates , Volume 2. Olten, Freiburg i.Br. 1965.
  • with Harold C. Deutsch (Ed.): Helmuth Groscurth. Diaries of a defense officer . German publishing house, Stuttgart 1970.
  • with Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm: The troops of the Weltanschauung war. The Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and SD 1938–1942 . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 3-421-01987-8 (Under the title Hitler's Einsatzgruppen. The troops of the Weltanschauungskriege 1985 as a paperback at Fischer in Frankfurt. (First "the troops", the first reviewed as "the troops "). Many other editions, most recently unchanged in 2016 with ISBN 978-3-59630902-3 .)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Krausnick, Helmut . In: Munzinger. International Biographical Archive . No. 12/1990 of March 12, 1990.
  2. ^ Fritz Bauer Institute : Auschwitz. History, reception and impact . Campus, Frankfurt / Main 1996, p. 135, n. 26.
  3. ↑ Worth gold . In: Der Spiegel . No. 16/1981 of April 13, 1981.
  4. ↑ Helmut Krausnick in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
personal data
SURNAME Krausnick, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH February 19, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Turn
DATE OF DEATH January 22, 1990
Place of death Stuttgart