Ian Kershaw

For the British actor, please see Ian Kershaw (actor).

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Professor Sir Ian Kershaw (born April 29 1943 Oldham, England) is a British historian, noted for his biographies of Adolf Hitler. Originally trained as a medievalist, Kershaw turned to studying German history in the 1970s. He is the leading disciple of the late West German historian Martin Broszat, whose theories have had much influence on Kershaw. In the 1970s, Kershaw worked on Broszat's "Bavaria Project", which resulted in his book on the Third Reich, The 'Hitler Myth'. Image and Reality in the Third Reich which was first published in German in 1980 as Der Hitler-Mythos : Volksmeinung und Propaganda im Dritten Reich.

Related Topics:
April 29 - 1943 - Oldham - England - Biographies - Adolf Hitler - Martin Broszat - Third Reich - German - 1980

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Also resulting from the "Bavaria Project" was Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich. In this 1983 book, Kershaw examined the experience of the Third Reich at the grass-roots level in Bavaria. In this book, Kershaw scrutinized how ordinary people reacted to the Nazi dictatorship, looking at how people conformed to the regime and to the extent and limits of dissent. In this book, Kershaw concluded that the majority of Bavarians were anti-Semitic and had no sympathy for the Jews. However, Kershaw also concluded that there was a quantum difference between the Anti-Semitism of the majority of ordinary people, who merely disliked Jews and the radical Anti-Semitism of the Nazi Party, who hated Jews. Kershaw documented numerous campaigns on the part of the Nazi Party to increase the level of anti-semitic hatred. Overall, Kershaw noted that the general popular mood towards the Jews was one of indifference to their fate. Kershaw made the notable claim that the "...the road to Auschwitz was paved with indifference, not hatred".

Related Topics:
1983 - Third Reich - Bavaria - Anti-Semitism - Nazi Party

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Like Broszat, Kershaw is a structuralist and sees the structures of the Nazi state as being far more important than the personality of Hitler, or any other individual for that matter, as explanation for the way Nazi Germany developed. For Kershaw, the real significance of Hitler lies in not in himself, but rather in how the German people saw him. Kershaw has argued that Hitler's leadership is a model example of Max Weber's theory of Charismatic leadership.

Related Topics:
Nazi Germany - Model example - Max Weber - Charismatic leadership

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Kershaw has expressed disagreement with Broszat's idea that Hitler was a relatively unimportant player in the Third Reich, but agreed with his idea that Hitler did not play much of an role in the day-to-day adminstration of Nazi Germany. Kershaw's way of explaining this paradox is his theory of "Working Towards the Fuherer", the phase being taken from a 1934 speech by a Prussian civil servant. Kershaw has argued that in Nazi Germany, officials of both the German state and Nazi Party bureaucracy usually took the initiative in beginning policy to meet Hitler's perceived wishes.

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Kershaw is a professor at the University of Sheffield.

Related Topics:
Professor - University of Sheffield

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