Henry Ashby Turner

Henry Ashby Turner Jr. ( born April 4, 1932 in Atlanta, Georgia, † December 17 2008 in New Haven, Connecticut) was an American historian. He taught for more than forty years of German history at Yale University. He is best known for his 1985 published also in German Book The big business and the rise of Hitler.

Life

After completing his BA degree in Lexington, Virginia, at Washington and Lee University Turner led a 1954-55 Fulbright scholarship to Munich and Berlin, and encouraged him to an in-depth study of the internal politics of Gustav Stresemann. In 1957, he earned a master's degree from Princeton University in 1960 with Gordon A. Craig Ph. D.. At Yale University in New Haven, where he had taught since 1958 German history, he became assistant professor in 1961, associate professor in 1964 and 1971 Full Professor. From 1976 to 1979 he was chairman of the history department there. After a number of endowed professorships, he joined as a silent Professor of History in 2002 to retire.

Research

The focus of his research was on the history of the Weimar Republic and National Socialism. In his comprehensive presentation on the role of big business showed Turner, that heavy industry during the ascent of the NSDAP Hitler's critical, with few exceptions faced and waved until after the failure of the favorite of her chancellorship Franz von Papen to the NSDAP.

Turner was among historians in Germany through his essays on fascism and capitalism in Germany, widely known, collected in 1972 appeared. In it, he rejected the Marxist thesis that the German big businessmen were important financial supporters of Hitler, what a controversy about David Abraham, who was assigned in his book, The Collapse of the Weimar Republic of big industry is the main culprit for the seizure of power by the National Socialists was kindled, . In Turner's book German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler ( German: The big business and the rise of Hitler ), he worked his results further and rejected all efforts to Nazism as exponents of the capitalist system to interpret. Turner had meticulously checked the documents of major German corporations and the Nazi Party. He has the merit of having opened up important sources for the Nazi seizure of power. He came to the conclusion that prior to 1933 the bulk of the money came from Nazi Party members and meeting revenue. In contrast, most of the money had flowed from business circles of the conservative political parties. The most favored party was, therefore, the German People's Party ( DVP ); Second was the German National People's Party ( DNVP ); then came the center and in fourth place, the NSDAP.

The only campaign in which big business supported the Nazis generous, took place in March 1933 (see Reichstag election in March 1933 ), after Hitler had been appointed Reich Chancellor. In his research, Turner discovered the brochure Hitler, The Way to a rebirth that Hitler had written for the leading German industrialists.

According to Turner, Hitler's acquisition of power a possible, but not inevitable result. He puts the thesis suggests the demise of the Weimar Republic was strongly influenced by contingencies and contingencies He raises against the Sonderweg thesis of German history. According to this theory of National Socialism was an inevitable result of the previous history of Germany. Turner believes, however, that Germany with the Nazi dictatorship, the communist dictatorship, the military dictatorship and democracy had four opportunities still early 30s.

In his 1963 published fundamental representation about Gustav Stresemann ( Stresemann and the Politics of the Weimar Republic), he opposed the adoption of a specific " German way". Turner describes Stresemann as tough and initially successful champion an understanding with France, who had not abandoned its long-term goal of the recovery of national sovereignty. In his 1999 published case study Hitler 's Thirty Days to Power: January 1933 ( German: Hitler's Path to Power: The January 1933 ) sets Turner thesis ago that the success of the Nazis only because of the failure of the responsible conservative set politicians around Paul of Hindenburg was made possible. Here, Oskar von Hindenburg, Alfred Hugenberg, Franz von Papen, Otto Meissner and Kurt von Schleicher played the lead roles.

Turner's last book, General Motors and the Nazis (2005; German: General Motors and the Nazis ) discusses the evolution of Opel's works, a subsidiary of the American auto manufacturer, at the time of the Nazi dictatorship. In this study, he made ​​it clear that the representatives of General Motors were made only very limited responsibility for the involvement of the plant in the production of armaments. But he does not hide that the parent company, which rose in 1951 to claim the previously withheld dividends, became the beneficiary of armor profits of the enterprise.

Writings

• Stresemann and the Politics of the Weimar Republic. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1963. Stresemann. Republican of reason. Liver, Berlin et al 1968.

• The big business and the rise of Hitler. Siedler, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-88680-143-8

• History of the two German states since 1945 ( = series Piper 883 ). Piper, Munich et al, 1989, ISBN 3-492-10883-0.

• Hitler's rise to power. The month of January 1933. Luchterhand, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-630-87988-8.

• General Motors and the Nazis. The struggle for Opel. Econ, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-430-19206-4.