Talk:Andreas Hillgruber/Archive 1

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Thsi article is inappropriate as long as noone takes his book 'Zweierlei Untergang' and shows clearly what he did wrong. (Interestingly, the criticism towards him is kind of fabricated.

I agree. People are confusing his statements with those of Nolte. Since I am new here I'm not sure whether I should just go ahead and erase the nonsensical parts or ask for ciatations? It is clearly wrong. --HyperrealORnot 00:54, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, I started making this confusing article more readable, please (anyone) let me know if I should organize it differently. I also edited much of the information which was partly wrong,partly misrepresenting and partly redundant. I will continue soon improving it. --HyperrealORnot 01:19, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * With all due respect, I'm not at all certain what is meant here by "fabricated" criticism. Nor do I understand the claim that Hillgruber is being confused with Nolte. Zweierlei Untergang is a controversial book because of its demand that historians "empathize" with German troops fighting on the Eastern Front in 1944-45 and because of its efforts to imply a moral equivalence between the end of Germany as a great power and the Shoah. All of the criticism of Hillgruber is properly cited to the various sources. What is disconcerting here is the effort to defend the indefensible here. Hillgruber may have been one of the great historians of Germany, but he really want off the rails in  Zweierlei Untergang, and there is really no defense for someone who demands that historians take the sides of troops fighting to extend the Shoah--A.S. Brown (talk) 04:05, 29 October 2010 (UTC).

"Stalinist POV pushing"?
With regards to the extremely hostile and completely untrue statement by a Mr. Tadeusz Nowak that he had to remove "pro-stalinist POV pushing by A.S. Brown; the ones discredited in the Historikerstreit were the Soviet apologists according to most modern historians", I had couple of points to make. First thing, Mr. Nowak I keep my politics to myself, but my family did flee Russia to get away from the Communists, so accusing me of being a "Soviet apologist" is not only completely inappropriate and insulting, it is also dead wrong. Second, Richard J. Evans is one of the most respected and celebrated historians around today. He is in no way a "Soviet apologist" and nor is he "discredited". Third, your entire approach to the Historikerstreit of trying to claim that those historians who believed that the Shoah is an uniquely evil event are somehow apologists for Soviet mass murder shows that you know absolutely nothing about the Historikerstreit, and is downright dishonest on your part. It is quite possible to say that Stalin did was evil, but what Hitler did was worse-that is not the same thing as being an apologist for Soviet mass murder. You giving Evans views that he does not hold and has never held by trying that to claim that he is a "Soviet apologist". Fourth, if you really believe that your very silly statement that Evans is a "Soviet apologist" discredited by his role in the Historikerstreit, why don't you have the courage of your convictions and add that statement to the article on Richard J. Evans. I dare you to add this hitherto little known fact to the Evans article. Fifth, Hillgruber's reputation was indeed badly damaged by the Historikerstreit. Read any summary of German historiography written in the last 25 years or so. Hillgruber's demand that historians "identify" with German troops fighting on the Eastern Front in 1944-45 has been widely rejected by almost all historians. Yes, the Red Army did engage in mass gang rapes against German women (see what a "Stalinist" I am!), but the Wehrmacht was also fighting to extent the Shoah; essentially Hillgruber was saying here that German lives count far more than do Jewish lives. The fact that cannot be denied that everyday the Wehrmacht held out was more one day that the Shoah went on. For that, he was very widely condemned. Sixth, by deleting Evans's true statement that Hillgruber's reputation had very badly damaged by the Historikerstreit, one gets the rather misleading impression that Hillgruber is a widely respected historian, and that at very least most historians see some merit to his argument that historians should "identify" with German troops. I am no doubt wasting my time trying to reason with you, Mr. Nowak given your tendency to attack anyone whose edits you don't like as a "Stalinist", but at least I made the effort. --A.S. Brown (talk) 01:59, 13 April 2015 (UTC)