nacism

The Flaw of History

The study of history has always been contentious. The truth regarding events and happenings is sometimes skewed, making it difficult for anyone interested in the topic to check the facts from numerous sources of information. Since time immemorial, humanity have been skeptical of history and its veracity. This is due to a permanent flaw that, sadly, cannot be closed. It is difficult to fully ensure the existence of an event, whether past or future. The way information is passed down from generation to generation is inefficient for uncovering the truth. It is hard to completely establish the authenticity of the entire narrative or deny it, and this makes it susceptible to historical manipulation. An example of an event in history that has been distorted through revisionism is the era of Nazism in Germany.

The Distortion of Nazism

In many modern sources of information like Wikipedia, the general view is that Nazism “was less central in the modern history of both Germany and the world, than the apocalyptic sense of its attending generation assume” However Krieger states that for those who experienced National Socialism, Nazism was in a class of its own, compared to those other versions of autocracy. He argues that historical reconsideration has led to great distortion of Nazism, both in its internal and external relations. Externally, this can be seen in how Wikipedia tries to place it within the political spectrum by comparing it to other forms of authoritarianism like fascism in Italy and communism in Russia. Internally, historians have tries to dissect the Nazism episode into a number of overlapping jurisdictions, divided commitments, and personal ambitions. The Wikipedia entry on Nazism tries to explain the Nazi ideologies by showing how different figures within the party and the government bureaucracy had different conceptions and assumption on Nazism.

Reconstructing Nazism

Historical reconstruction of Nazism presents the seeming chaos of the Nazi government, and especially the impact of Hitler’s poor leadership, as planned chaos or even “permanent improvisation within the framework of a principled divide and rule tactic.” For instance, what Krieger defines as Hitler’s split political personality is referred as taking a “pragmatic position between the conservative and radical factions of the Nazi party” Historical reconstruction presents Hitler as the unifying factor for the Nazi regime while historians believe that the Nazi party was united because of the application of Gleichschaltung, a process of establishing totalitarian control over all political, economic, and social aspects of the society. Another attribute of revisionism regarding Nazism is how various authors ignore the heterogeneous nature of history. Historically reintegrated Nazism does not present the phases of the movement before the Nazi party was in charge and when it gained power. Furthermore, there is no distinction between the regime during wartime and in peaceful times as well as the phases of radical violence from those of conservative legality.

The Fragmentation of Nazism

The Wikipedia entry on Nazism presents the movement under microscopic auspices and also with homogeneity through time. It is fragmented into a welter of competing jurisdictions, competing personal interests, and toxic rivalries. At the same time, there is little distinction between the various phases of the movement. However, Krieger’s article shows that these are attributes of historical revisionism in which there is misrepresentation, either by narrative and cognitive fallacy or by negotionism, of historical events.

Bibliography

Divine, Robert A., Guenter Lewy, and Allan R. Millett. “Revisionism In Reverse”. Reviews in American History 7, no. 3 (1979): 433.

Echternkamp, Jörg, and Stefan Martens. Experience And Memory. New York: Berghahn, 2013.

Kelly, Stewart E. Truth Considered And Applied. Nashville, Tenn.: B & H Academic, 2011.

Krieger, Leonard. “Nazism: Highway Or Byway?”. Central European History 11, no. 01 (1978): 3.

“Nazism”. En.Wikipedia.Org. Last modified 2017. Accessed October 16, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism#Ideology.