Karl Dietrich Bracher

Karl Dietrich Bracher (March 13, 1922-) is a German historian of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. Born in Stuttgart, Bracher was awarded a Ph.D. in Classics by the University of Tübingen in 1948 and subsequently studied at Harvard University between 1949-1950. During World War Two, Bracher served in the Wehrmacht and was captured by the Americans in 1943. Bracher married Dorothee Schleicher in 1951 and taught at the Free University of Berlin between 1950-1958 and at the University of Bonn from 1959 onwards.

Related Topics:
March 13 - 1922 - Weimar Republic - Nazi Germany - Stuttgart - University of Tübingen - 1948 - Harvard University - 1949 - 1950 - World War Two - Wehrmacht - 1943 - 1951 - Free University of Berlin - 1958 - University of Bonn - 1959

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Bracher is mainly concerned with the problems of preserving and developing democracy. Bracher sees democracy as a frail institution that no one can take for granted, and has argued that only a concerned citizenry committed to protecting democracy can really guarantee it. Bracher is best known for his 1955 book Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik (The Disintergration of the Weimar Republic), in which he ascribed the collapse of German democracy not to the Sonderweg ("special path" of German historical development) or other impersonal forces, but rather to specific human action that followed conscious choice. Bracher is one of the leading advocates of the view that Nazi Germany was a totalitarian regime.

Related Topics:
Democracy - 1955 - Sonderweg - Totalitarian

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Bracher has often criticized the functionist-structuralist interpretation of the Third Reich championed by such scholars such as Martin Broszat and Hans Mommsen. In particular, Bracher has vehemently decried their view of Hitler as a ?weak dictator?. In Bracher?s view, Hitler was the ?Master of the Third Reich?. With respect to the genesis of the Holocaust, Bracher is a confirmedIntentionist. It is his position that the entire project of the genocide of European Jewry resulted from Adolf Hitler?s obsessive anti-Semitic hatred.

Related Topics:
Martin Broszat - Hans Mommsen - Holocaust - Intentionist - Anti-Semitic

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In Bracher's view, Totalitarianism, whether stemming from the left or right, is the leading threat to democracy all over the world. Bracher has argued that the differences between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were ones of degree, not kind. Bracher is strongly pro-American and was one of the few German professors to fully support the foreign policy of the United States during the Cold War. In the 1960s and 1970s, Bracher often attacked left-wing and New Left intellectuals in particular for comparing the actions of the United States in the Vietnam War and the West German state to Nazi Germany. For Bracher, these attacks were both a absurd trivialization of Nazi crimes and a sinister attempt to advance the caues of Communism. In their turn, the West German left attacked Bracher as a neo-Nazi and branded him an "American stooge".

Related Topics:
Totalitarianism - Soviet Union - Pro-American - United States - Cold War - Left-wing - New Left - Vietnam War - West German state - Communism - Neo-Nazi

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