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- Bortz, Olof
(författare)
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Artur Szulc, I skuggan av Auschwitz
- 2017
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Ingår i: Historisk Tidskrift. - 0345-469X .- 2002-4827. ; 137:3, s. 334-336
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Recension (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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- Bortz, Olof
(författare)
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Early Reactions to Raul Hilberg's History of the Holocaust, 1961-7
- 2021
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Ingår i: Journal of contemporary history. - : SAGE Publications. - 0022-0094 .- 1461-7250. ; 56:3, s. 745-765
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Raul Hilberg's landmark study of the Holocaust, The Destruction of the European Jews, was published in 1961. This article tells the story of the early response to Hilberg's book. For the first time, journalists, scholars, intellectuals and representatives of Jewish communities engaged in a debate about the history and political significance of the Holocaust. This debate preceded the controversy surrounding Hannah Arendt's articles on the trial of Adolf Eichmann and had more far-reaching consequences. Countless reviewers in the American press praised Hilberg's analysis of the bureaucratic administration of genocide. They noted his conclusion that all of German society was involved in the 'destruction process' and its implications for the contemporary West German leadership. Scholars also lauded Hilberg's book, although some of them criticized his inclusive perpetrator category and argued that he overlooked the importance of Nazi ideology and dictatorship. Hilberg's claim that Jewish victims abetted their persecutors gave rise to a debate in Jewish journals and newspapers. Writers and historians objected to Hilberg's purported ignorance of their experiences and of Jewish history. As this article shows, the reception of Hilberg's work marks a crucial step in the formation of the Holocaust as part of historical consciousness.
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- Bortz, Olof
(författare)
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Fascismens aktualitet : Historia som analogi och kontrast
- 2021
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Ingår i: Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift. - Lund. - 0039-0747. ; 123:3, s. 543-559
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Relevance of Fascism: History as analogy and contrastPoliticians, intellectuals, journalists, and scholars in several different countries have used the concept of fascism to describe political developments during recent years. Right-wing populist parties and extremist movements have gained ground in national elections, while political leaders worldwide have challenged democratic norms and institutions. Is the concept and history of fascism useful as a tool for understanding this situation? Or does it obscure the novelty and specificity of what is going on? This article analyzes various answers to this question, gathered from proponents and critics of the utility of the concept of fascism for understanding contemporary politics in Sweden, the USA, France, Spain, and Germany, during the past ten years. In countries where fascism has played a central role in national history, a nostalgic embrace of the memory and history of fascism, although not its political program, has accompanied the ascent of right-wing populist and extremist parties. In other countries, such as Sweden and the USA, historians and intellectuals have dismissed using the concept of fascism as a label for the Sweden Democrats or Donald Trump as historically incorrect. Although such critique can indeed adduce a long list of differences between historical fascism and contemporary politics, it also contributes to making the history of fascism into a politically useful past in the present.
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- Bortz, Olof
(författare)
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Forskarna, nazismen och den vetenskapliga objektiviteten : USA, Storbritannien och Frankrike, 1935–1939
- 2023
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Ingår i: Historisk Tidsskrift. - 0018-263X .- 1504-2944. ; 143:2, s. 169-196
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Focusing on different interpretations of the ideal of scholarly objectivity, this article examines books and reviews dealing with Nazism written by American, British, and French scholars between 1935 and 1939. After the rise of the Nazi regime in 1933, scholars in three of the Western democracies that later faced Germany in the Second World War sought to explain the character and goals of Nazi ideology and the Nazi state. Some already specialised in German history, others gravitated towards the topic because of political developments. Often, their research and reviews led them to reflect on scholarly objectivity, impartiality, and neutrality.One notable example was the American political scientist Frederick Schuman who visited Nazi Germany in 1933. Schuman argued, while claiming to strive for an honest, undistorted depiction, that Nazi ideology, since it demanded either rejection or acceptance, rendered impartiality and neutrality impossible. His American colleagues, mainly political scientists and historians, took him to task for being overly critical of a regime which in their view had positive aspects. Émigré scholars in the US and France such as Fritz Ermarth, Fritz Morstein Marx, and Harald Mankiewicz, who had been forced to flee the Third Reich, were expected to set their experiences aside, allowing Nazi authors to speak unchallenged. While Schuman was criticised for his approach, Ermarth, Morstein Marx, and Mankiewicz were lauded for a form of objectivity which implied refraining from critical comment.The reception of Henri Lichtenberger’s L’Allemagne nouvelle, first published in French in 1936 and in English translation the following year, is another case in point. Lichtenberger was one of the founding fathers of German studies in France and worked for French–German understanding during the 1930s. In his book, he went to great lengths not to criticize the Third Reich and its leadership. Although several scholars, especially in the US, praised Lichtenberger’s impartial approach there were also dissenting voices who took exception to his reticence. In 1938 and 1939, ever more scholars argued for the importance of taking sides in response to a state which in their view posed problems greater than the question of scholarly objectivity. In this context, the sociologist Aurel Kolnai’s indictment of Nazism, despite making no pretence to being dispassionate, seemed more attuned to the situation. The ideal of scholarly objectivity and impartiality proved not only its persistence in the scholarly encounter with Nazism, but also its inadequacy as a response to the challenge posed by the Third Reich. It was only when that regime appeared as an immediate threat to other countries that scholarly discourses changed.
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- Bortz, Olof
(författare)
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Hugo Valentin's scholarly campaign against antisemitism : 1920s to the early 1950s
- 2023
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Ingår i: Nordisk judaistik - Scandinavian Jewish Studies. - : Nordisk judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies. - 0348-1646. ; 34:1, s. 52-65
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Swedish Jewish historian Hugo Valentin (1888-1963) founded the field of Swedish Jewish history in the 1920s. Valentin was also a prominent and public figure in Swedish Jewish affairs, as a writer, Zionist and refugee activist. This article focuses on Valentin's analysis of antisemitism, from the 1920s to the early 1950s. It pays equal attention to the continuity and change of his writings on the topic, analysed in relation to such political contexts as the Jewish question', Zionism and anti-Nazi responses, and advances within scholarly research on antisemitism. It shows that Valentin staked out a new approach to the topic of antisemitism, in which Jewish characteristics and the so-called Jewish question, while not completely absent, were placed within parentheses. Instead, he presented antisemitism and individual antisemites as problems in their own right, which, given Nazi German expansionism and the outbreak of the Second World War, seemed to be a greater and more urgent issue than whatever questions might have pertained to Jews and their place in modern society.
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- Bortz, Olof, 1984-
(författare)
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"I wanted to know how this deed was done" : Raul Hilberg, the Holocaust and History
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Raul Hilberg was a pioneer of Holocaust studies and for many decades the Holocaust scholar par excellence. He embarked upon the study of the Nazi genocide after the war, and established the understanding of the Holocaust as a bureaucratically administered “destruction process,” carried out by men who were not different from the German population in general. The present study analyzes and contextualizes his understanding of the Nazi genocide and the Jewish victims’ response to it, as well as the reception of Hilberg’s magnum opus, The Destruction of the European Jews, in relation to scholarly, political and personal contexts. It shows that Hilberg’s major work was far more favorably received than previously believed and that the negative reactions to his thesis on Jewish reactions was a response to the positive reception of his book, as well as an expression of a wider shift in scholarly and popular perceptions of the behavior of Jewish victims during the Holocaust.Hilberg’s interest in bureaucracy allowed him to depart from the focus on the Nazi leadership and the interpretation of the Holocaust as a premeditated and centrally organized genocide. The connection to modernity made him interpret it as a form of ominous progress, carrying implications for modern societies in general, as opposed to the interpretation of Nazism and the Holocaust as a form of atavistic aberration. However, Hilberg’s emphasis on the modern character of the genocide also led to a form of veneration of its efficiency.Hilberg has been much criticized for his argument that the Jewish victims contributed to their own demise by repeating an outdated and historically conditioned reaction to persecution, which assisted the perpetrators. This study explores his thesis regarding the “Jewish reaction pattern,” as an integral part of his work, which he used as a contrast to what he regarded as the successful and future oriented destruction process. It moreover advances a novel interpretation of this controversial part of Hilberg’s research, seeing it as a call for political action emptied of its positive dimension, and a form of negative historiographical empowerment of the victims.
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- Bortz, Olof
(författare)
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Swedish Diplomats and Holocaust Knowledge
- 2023
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Ingår i: Holocaust and Genocide Studies. - 8756-6583 .- 1476-7937.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- How did Swedish diplomats report the persecution and killing of European Jewry by Nazi Germany in the 1930s and during the Second World War? What did the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs do with reports on the Holocaust during the war, and to what extent did such reports affect policy? This article shows that Swedish diplomats provided their superiors with reliable, if at times unverifiable, information about the different phases of the Holocaust from 1933 until the end of 1942, and argues that awareness of the transition from persecution to mass murder did not alter Swedish refugee policies. The author thus details the process whereby knowledge of the annihilation of the European Jews seeped out from eastern Europe by examining Swedish diplomatic reports on the Holocaust. Furthermore, he sheds new light on the history of Swedish refugee policies and Swedish German relations during the Nazi period.
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