Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution (review)

Ian Kershaw will be familiar to nearly every reader of this review, both for his massive biography of Adolf Hitler, and for his central role over the last twenty years in the development of much of the discourse on National Socialism. The book under review here is a collection of fourteen articles, talks, or extracts from books written between 1981 and 2006, together with an introduction. The texts were selected by Otto Dov Kulka of Yad Vashem.

The value of this collection lies in assembling in one place key articles by one of the world's preeminent experts on Nazism. All of the works in this volume have been previously published, and all but two were available in English. Some notes have been updated to reflect recent scholarship, but this was not systematic. With more and more scholarly articles available on the Internet, one may ask whether there still is a need for this kind of collection. The answer lies in the new introduction, where Kershaw discusses his own evolution as a scholar of Nazi Germany (he was previously a student of medieval Britain). He speaks frankly about the questions that sparked his interest in Nazism, and explains the evolution of his work on the subject. He reflects on how some of his earlier ideas have aged. The volume offers an important teaching tool for graduate students, showing how quickly the debate has evolved: much of Kershaw's work that seemed path-breaking or controversial in its time is now widely accepted or even dated. This would be a problem with any retrospective collection, but it is also a tribute to Kershaw's contribution to moving our understanding of Nazism forward.

The chapters are grouped thematically into four sections roughly corresponding to the areas of Kershaw's scholarly interests. The first covers the role of Adolf Hitler and his place in the "Final Solution." The second looks at public opinion in Germany during the Nazi period, particularly relating to the Jews. These are the two areas in which Kershaw has made the most lasting contribution, and arguably contain the most important items in the anthology. The third section includes work on the historiography of the Nazi period and the Holocaust, while the articles in the fourth address the question of the uniqueness of National Socialism.

Kershaw's ideas on Hitler's role in the National Socialist system have perhaps held up best: his article "'Working towards the Führer': Reflections on the Nature of the Hitler Dictatorship" (orig. 1993) is perhaps the single most important in the book, and will be known to most readers of this review. Kershaw always has been uncomfortable with the stark distinction drawn between "functionalists" and "intentionalists," and while much more of a "functionalist" himself, has helped to show how the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. In explaining the progressive radicalization of the Nazi system, Kershaw employs Max Weber's concept of "charismatic leadership" and points to the fundamental contradiction between it and a rational-bureaucratic form of government. He presents a Hitler who was very much in charge, but who preferred to guide his subordinates with broad hints rather than clear guidelines, and who allowed them to compete at finding solutions by "working toward" what they felt were his wishes. This is the predominant view today, and while Kershaw has not been alone in developing it, he has provided key empirical and theoretical underpinnings. Two other essays in this section focus on Hitler, while the fourth looks at the emergence of the "Final Solution" in one region, the Warthegau.

It will come as no surprise that public opinion forms a major theme in this book, for Kershaw began his "second career" working under Martin Broszat on the Bavaria Project; Kershaw's first major contribution, Der Hitler Mythos (1980, later published in English as the Hitler Myth), grew out of participation in this project and was soon...