Robert Lewis Koehl

Robert Lewis Koehl (March 4, 1922 - July 6, 2015 in Madison , Wisconsin ) was an American historian . He made a name for himself primarily with his work on the history of National Socialism . His study of Heinrich Himmler as Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Volkstum was a pioneering work on German Volkstumsppolitik in occupied Poland . Koehl coined the term “neo-feudalism” to characterize National Socialist rule and in 1983 presented an overall account of the history of the SS .

Life

Koehl studied at Harvard . During the Second World War he interrupted his studies for military service. He worked for the US Army Intelligence as an interrogator and interpreter in German-occupied Europe.

Back at Harvard, he earned his Master of Arts in 1947 with a thesis entitled "A Prelude to the Third Reich". In 1950 he received his doctorate on Heinrich Himmler as Reich Commissioner for the consolidation of German nationality . He taught at MIT , from 1955 at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and from 1964 until his retirement in 1997 in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin – Madison in Madison .

From 1943 until her divorce in 1976, Koehl was married to Lieselotte Franziska Eisenhardt, who had emigrated from Nazi Germany in 1939.

plant

Koehl's field of work was European history, especially the history of National Socialism . His doctoral thesis, published in a revised form in 1957, was based primarily on materials from the eighth Nuremberg follow-up process and for a long time was one of the few papers on National Socialist settlement and population policy in occupied Poland .

Oriented on the feudalism concept, Koehl coined the term "neo-feudalism" to describe National Socialism. In particular, he wanted to capture the power relations in the German-occupied East, where German rule was personalized and local commanders held absolute power. This was an early attempt to understand the irrational aspects of National Socialism. By pointing out the similarities between the charismatic elements of medieval and National Socialist rule, Koehl anticipated later attempts to understand National Socialism as charismatic rule in the sense of Max Weber . The more recent research does not follow Koehl's assumption that the feudalistic power relations arose from the atavistic ideology of National Socialism.

Further, the term "Konzentrationslager- goes Koehl SS " ( concentration camp SS ) back. He used it to refer to a group of SS members in the concentration camps who were not sent to combat missions by the Waffen SS . According to Karin Orth , Koehl's concept corresponds to historical reality and describes a National Socialist functional elite. For Koehl, SS perpetrators were “social engineers”. In 1983 he presented an overview of the SS.

Fonts

• The politics of resettlement. Univ. of Utah Press, Salt Lake City 1953.
• The Deutsche Volksliste in Poland, 1939–1945. In: Journal of Central European affairs. 15, No. 4 (1956), pp. 354-366.
• RKFDV: German resettlement and population policy, 1939-1945 ;. A history of the Reich Commission for the Strengthening of Germandom. Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1957, ISBN 978-0-674-77326-4 .
• Toward to SS Typology: Social Engineers. In: The American Journal of Economics and Sociology 18.2 (1959): pp. 113-126.
• Contemporary history and the new German conservatism. In: Journal of Central European affairs. 20, No. 2 (1960), pp. 131-157.
• Feudal Aspects of National Socialism. In: The American Political Science Review 54.4 (1960): 921-933.
• The Character of the Nazi SS. In: The Journal of Modern History 34.3 (1962): pp. 275-283.
• The uses of the university. Past and present in Nigerian educational culture. Part 1. In: Comparative education review. The official organ of the Comparative Education Society. 15.2 (1971), pp. 116-131; Part 2 , In: Comparative Education Review 15.3 (1971), pp. 367-377.
• The comparative study of education. Prescription and practice. In: Comparative education review. The official organ of the Comparative Education Society. 21, No. 2/3 (1977), pp. 177-194.
• The Black Corps. The structure and power struggles of the Nazi SS. Univ. of Wisconsin Press, Madison Wis. u. a. 1983, ISBN 0-299-09190-2 .
  • The SS. A History, 1919-45. Tempus, Stroud 2000, ISBN 978-0-7524-1782-0 .

Web links

• Obituary Robert Lewis Koehl .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Obituary: Lilo Koehl . In: Daily Courier , September 6, 2015.
2. ↑ Isabel Heinemann: Race, settlement, German blood. The Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS and the racial reorganization of Europe. 2nd Edition. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-8353-2049-9 , p. 36.
3. ^ Hans Mommsen : Cumulative radicalization and progressive self-destruction as structural determinants of the Nazi dictatorship . In: Ian Kershaw et al. Moshe Lewin (ed.): Stalinism and Nazism. Dictatorship in Comparison . Cambridge UP, Cambridge 1997, p. 83.
4. ^ Robert Koehl: Feudal Aspects of National Socialism (1960). In: Neil Gregor (ed.): Nazism . Oxford UP, Oxford 2000, p. 183.
5. ↑ Karin Orth: SS perpetrators in court. The criminal prosecution of the concentration camp SS after the end of the war In: Irmtrud Wojak (ed.): "Hold a court day over ourselves ...": History and impact of the first Frankfurt Auschwitz trial = 2001 yearbook on the history and impact of the Holocaust . Campus, Frankfurt / M. 2001, p. 44 f.