¹ Mommsen, Hans, Die verspielte Freiheit. Der Weg der Republik von Weimar in den Untergang 1918-1933 (Berlin: Propyläen Verlag, 1989)Google Scholar [in English translation as The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy, trans. Forster, Elborg and Jones, Larry Eugene (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996)Google Scholar].

² On problems that his father faced after World War II, as well as the hardships that this created for his family, see Mommsen, Hans, “Daraus erklärt sich, daß es niemals zuvor eine derartige Vorherrschaft alter Männer gegeben hat wie in der Zeit von 1945 bis in die 60er Jahre,” in Versäumte Fragen. Deutsche Historiker im Schatten des Nationalsozialismus, ed. Hohls, Rüdiger and Jarausch, Konrad H. (Munich: DVA, 2000), 163-67Google Scholar. On the postwar difficulties of Mommsen's father, see Nagel, Anne Christine, “Von der Schwierigkeit, in Krisenzeiten liberal zu sein. Der Fall Wilhelm Mommsen,” in Liberalismus als Feindbild, ed. Grothe, Ewald and Sieg, Ulrich (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2014), 229-51Google Scholar.

³ In conversation with the author in the mid-1970s.  See also Mommsen's reflection on this in Köpf, Peter, Die Mommsens. Von 1848 bis heute—die Geschichte einer Familie ist die Geschichte der Deutschen (Hamburg: Europa Verlag, 2004), 297Google Scholar.

⁴ See the useful overviews of Mommsen's career in Weisbrod, Bernd, “Hans Mommsen (1930-2015),” Historische Zeitschrift 303, no. 3 (2016): 748-59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Frei, Norbert, “Sensibler Skeptiker und streitbarer Geist. Hans Mommsen 1930-2015,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft (GG) 42, no. 3 (2016): 535-47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zimmerman, Moshe, “Hans Mommsen (1930-2015): A History of Cumulative Radicalization,” Yad Vashem Studies 44, no. 1 (2016): 35-52Google Scholar. See also the contributions of Caplan, Jane, Gregor, Neil, Stargardt, Nicolas, and Weisbrod, Bernd in the forum “Hans Mommsen (1930-2015),” German History 35, no. 2 (2017): 272-89Google Scholar.

⁵ Mommsen, Hans, “Zum Verhältnis von politischer Wissenschaft und Geschichtswissenschaft in Deutschland,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (VfZ) 10, no. 4 (1962): 341-72Google Scholar. In a similar though less pointed vein, see idem, “Historical Scholarship in Transition: The Situation in the Federal Republic of Germany,” Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 100, no. 2 (1971): 485-504Google Scholar. On Ranke, see Iggers, Georg G., The German Conception of History: The National Tradition of Historical Thought from Herder to the Present (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1968), 63-89Google Scholar.

⁶ Bracher, Karl Dietrich, Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik. Eine Studie des Machtverfalls in der Demokratie, 3rd ed. (Villingen/Schwarzwald: Ring-Verlag, 1960), esp. 686-732Google Scholar. Although only eight years separated Bracher and Mommsen, the two clearly belonged to two different generations. Bracher served in World War II, was taken prisoner in North Africa, and spent the remainder of the war in Kansas, whereas Mommsen was fourteen when the war ended. There was, then, a definite difference of perspective here that could also be seen in the fact that, despite their scholarly differences (discussed later), Mommsen always treated Bracher with deference and even hoped to share with him editorship of the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte after Hans Rothfels's death in 1976.

⁷ Mommsen, Hans, Beamtentum im Dritten Reich. Mit ausgewählten Quellen zur nationalsozialistischen Beamtenpolitik (Stuttgart: DVA, 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸ Functional elites is a term that Mommsen used in his English-language publications. In the narrowest sense of the phrase, it refers to the professional elites in the civil service, diplomatic corps, and legal system, less directly to the economic elites in business, commerce, and industry, and only loosely to the nobility and large land owners.

⁹ The outlines of this argument are developed in Bracher, Karl Dietrich, Die deutsche Diktatur. Entstehung, Struktur, Folgen des Nationalsozialismus (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1969), esp. 270-84Google Scholar, 381-93.

¹⁰ For the most concise statement of what he meant by “cumulative radicalization,” see Mommsen, Hans, “Der Nationalsozialismus. Kumulative Radikalisierung und Selbstzerstörung des Regimes,” in Meyers Enzyklopädisches Lexikon (Stuttgart: Lexikon Verlag, 1975), 16:785-90Google Scholar. See also the informative essay by Kershaw, Ian, “‘Cumulative Radicalization’ and the Uniqueness of National Socialism,” in Von der Aufgabe der Freiheit. Politische Verantwortung und bürgerliche Gesellschaft im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Festschrift für Hans Mommsen zum 5. November 1995, ed. Jansen, Christian, Niethammer, Lutz, and Weisbrod, Bernd (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995), 323-36Google Scholar.

¹¹ The moral dimension of Mommsen's critique of Hitler-centric approaches to the history of the Third Reich has not received the attention it deserves in recent discussions of his contributions to German historical scholarship (see note 4), but it was appropriately recognized in Evans, Richard, West German Historians and the Attempt to Escape from the Nazi Past (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), 75Google Scholar.

¹² Bracher, Karl Dietrich, Zeitgeschichtliche Kontroversen. Um Faschismus, Totalitarismus, Demokratie (Munich: Piper, 1984), 63-79Google Scholar.

¹³ For an excellent overview and analysis of the dispute at the time, see Mason, Tim, “Intention and Explanation: A Current Controversy about the Interpretation of National Socialism,” in Der “Führerstaat”: Mythos und Realität. Studien zur Struktur und Politik des Dritten Reiches/The “Führer State”: Myth and Reality. Studies on the Structure of Politics of the Third Reich, ed. Hirschfeld, Gerhard and Kettenacker, Lothar (Stuttgart: Allen and Unwin, 1981), 23-42Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Hildebrand, Klaus, Vom Reich zum Weltreich. Hitler, NSDAP und koloniale Frage 1919-1945 (Munich: W. Fink, 1969)Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Klaus Hildebrand, “Monokratie oder Polykratie? Hitlers Herrschaft und das Dritte Reich,” in Hirschfeld and Kettenacker, “Führerstaat,” esp. 77-79, 96-97.

¹⁶ Hans Mommsen, “Hitlers Stellung im nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftssystem,” in Hirschfeld and Kettenacker, “Führerstaat,” 45-46, 55-56, 70-72.

¹⁷ Hans Mommsen in an interview with Sabine Möller in 1998; see “Es geht darum, einen Prozess zu erklären und nicht in moralischer Empörung steckenzublieben,” in Auf den Trümmern der Geschichte. Gespräche mit Raul Hilberg, Hans Mommsen und Zygmunt Bauman, ed. Welzer, Harald (Tübingen: Edition diskord, 1999), 69Google Scholar.

¹⁸ On the importance that Mommsen attached to his contacts with American scholars, see his conversation with Stambolis, Barbara, “Die Aufgabe meiner Generation war naheliegend,” Neue Politische Literatur 55, no. 2 (2010): esp. 187Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Mommsen's introductory remarks in Industrielles System und politische Entwicklung in der Weimarer Republik. Verhandlungen des Internationalen Symposiums in Bochum vom.12.-17. Juni 1973, ed. Mommsen, Hans, Petzina, Dietmar, and Weisbrod, Bernd (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1974), 21-22Google Scholar.

²⁰ Mommsen, Hans, “Staat und Bürokratie in der Ära Brüning,” in Tradition und Reform in der deutschen Politik. Gedenkschrift für Waldemar Besson, ed. Jasper, Gotthard (Frankfurt/Main: Propyläen Ullstein Verlag, 1976), 81-137Google Scholar [in English translation as “State and Bureaucracy in the Brüning Era,” in Mommsen, Hans, From Weimar to Auschwitz, trans. O'Connor, Philip (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 79-118]Google Scholar; idem, “Heinrich Brünings Politik als Reichskanzler: Das Scheitern eines Alleinganges,” in Wirtschaftskrise und liberale Demokratie. Das Ende der Weimarer Republik und die gegenwärtige Situation, ed. Holl, Karl (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978), 16-45Google Scholar [in English translation as “Heinrich Brüning as Chancellor: The Failure of a Politically Isolated Strategy,” in Mommsen, From Weimar to Auschwitz, 119-40].

²¹ Mommsen, “Stellung der Beamtenschaft,” 165.

²² Mommsen, Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy, viii.

²³ This seems clear from the argument Mommsen makes in “Staat und Bürokratie,” 102-3, 110-12.

²⁴ For the closest that Mommsen comes to articulating this position, see ibid., 88-89.

²⁵ Mommsen, Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy, viii.

²⁶ Ibid., 62-67.

²⁷ Ibid., 67-69, 253-59, 402-4, 408.

²⁸ Mommsen, Hans, “Die deutschen Eliten und der Mythos des nationalen Aufbruchs von 1933,” Merkur 38, no. 1 (1984): 97-102Google Scholar.

²⁹ Mommsen, Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy, 512-34.  See also idem, “Die nationalsozialistische Machteroberung. Revolution oder Gegenrevolution?,” in Europäische Sozialgeschichte. Festschrift für Wolfgang Schieder, ed. Dipper, Christof, Klinkhammer, Lutz, and Nützenadel, Alexander (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2000), 41-56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁰ Mommsen, Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy, 490-544. See the perceptive comment by Fritz Stern in his review of Die verspielte Freiheit, in VfZ 38, no. 3 (1990): 496.

³¹ Frei, “Sensibler Skeptiker,” 541.

³² See the interview with Sabine Möller cited in note 17.

³³ Frei, “Sensibler Skeptiker,” 539-40.

³⁴ See, e.g., Mommsen, Hans, Die Sozialdemokratie und die Nationalitätenfrage im habsburgischen Vielvölkerstaat (Vienna: Europa-Verlag, 1963)Google Scholar; idem, Arbeiterbewegung und nationale Frage. Ausgewählte Aufsätze (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979)Google Scholar; idem, Arbeiterbewegung und industrieller Wandel. Studien zu gewerkschaftlichen Organisationsproblemen im Reich und an der Ruhr (Wuppertal: Hammer Verlag, 1980)Google Scholar.

³⁵ Mommsen, Hans and Grieger, Manfred, Das Volkswagenwerk und seine Arbeiter im Dritten Reich (Düsseldorf: ECON-Verlag, 1966), 51-91Google Scholar.

³⁶ Ibid., 713-800, 859-75.

³⁷ On Mommsen's relationship with Rothfels, see pp. 167-76 of the interview (“Daraus erklärt sich”) cited in note 2. See also Mommsen, Hans, “Hans Rothfels: Historiker zwischen den Epochen,” in Zur Geschichte Deutschlands im 20. Jahrhundert. Demokratie, Diktatur, Widerstand (Stuttgart: DVA, 2010), 333-48Google Scholar.

³⁸ Rothfels, Hans, Die deutsche Opposition gegen Hitler. Eine Würdigung (Krefeld: Scherpe Verlag, 1949)Google Scholar. On Rothfels, see Eckel, Jan, “Hans Rothfels—An Intellectual Biography in the Age of Extremes,” Journal of Contemporary History 42, no. 3 (2007): 421-46Google Scholar.

³⁹ Mommsen, Hans, “Gesellschaftsbild und Verfassungspläne des deutschen Widerstandes,” in Der deutsche Widerstand gegen Hitler. Vier historisch-kritische Studien, ed. Buchheim, Hans (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1965), 73-167Google Scholar [in English translation as “Social Views and Constitutional Plans of the Resistance,” in Graml, Hermann, Mommsen, Hans, Reinhardt, Hans-Joachim, and Wolf, Ernst, The German Resistance to Hitler, with an introduction by Carsten, F. L. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 55-147]Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ See his essays on Leber, Leuschner, and Reichwein in Mommsen, Hans, Alternatives to Hitler: German Resistance under the Third Reich, trans. McGeoch, Angus (Princeton, NJ: I. B. Tauris, 2003), 194-217, 227-37Google Scholar; also see idem, Der 20. Juli und die deutsche Arbeiterbewegung (Berlin: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand, 1985)Google Scholar [in English translation as “20 July 1944 and the German Labor Movement,” in Mommsen, From Weimar to Auschwitz, 189-207].

⁴¹ Jeremy Noakes, “Introduction,” in Mommsen, Alternatives to Hitler, 2.

⁴² Mommsen, “Anti-Hitler resistance and the Nazi persecution of the Jews,” in Mommsen, Alternatives to Hitler, 253-76.

⁴³ The war and other factors that inhibited the resistance in its efforts to overthrow the regime are explored in Mommsen, “German society and resistance to Hitler,” in Mommsen, Alternatives to Hitler, 23-41.

⁴⁴ Mommsen, Hans, “Die Realisierung des Utopischen. Die ‘Endlösung der Judenfrage’ im Dritten Reich,” GG 9, no. 3 (1983): 381-420Google Scholar [in English translation as “The Realization of the Unthinkable: The ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Question’ in the Third Reich,” in The Policies of Genocide: Jews and Soviet Prisoners of War in Nazi Germany, ed. Hirschfeld, Gerhard (London: Allen and Unwin, 1986), 93-144Google Scholar].

⁴⁵ Mommsen, Hans, “Hannah Arendt und der Prozeß gegen Eichmann,” in Arendt, Hannah, Eichmann in Jerusalem. Ein Bericht von der Banalität des Bösens (Munich: Piper, 1986), 9-48Google Scholar [in English translation as “Hannah Arendt and the Eichmann Trial,” in Mommsen, From Weimar to Auschwitz, 254-78]. I am grateful to Bernd Weisbrod for having alerted me to the importance of this text in his letter of April 8, 2018.

⁴⁶ Mommsen, “Arendt and the Eichmann Trial,” 255.

⁴⁷ Ibid., 271.

⁴⁸ Ibid., 275.

⁴⁹ Ibid., 278.

⁵⁰ On the Goldhagen phenomenon, see in particular the remarks by Mary Fulbrook and Jeffrey K. Olick in the forum “Holocaust Scholarship and Politics in the Public Sphere: Reexamining the Causes, Consequences, and Controversy of the Historikerstreit and the Goldhagen Debate,” Central European History (CEH) 50, no. 3 (2017): 384-86Google Scholar, 388-91.

⁵¹ Goldhagen, Daniel J., Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1996)Google Scholar, esp. 27-128.

⁵² For Mommsen's criticism of Goldhagen, see Mommsen, Hans, “Conditions for Carrying Out the Holocaust: Comments on Daniel Goldhagen's Book,” in Hyping the Holocaust: Scholars Answer Goldhagen, ed. Littell, Franklin (East Rockaway, NY: Cummings and Hatthaway, 1997), 31-43Google Scholar; also see his interview with Adi Gordon, Amos Morris Reich, and Amos Goldberg of the Shoah Research Center at Yad Vashem, Dec. 12, 1997 (http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20%203850.pdf).

⁵³ On Conze's activities during the Third Reich, see Haar, Ingo, “German Ostforschung und Antisemitism,” in German Scholars and Ethnic Cleansing, 1920-1945, ed. Haar, Ingo and Fahlbusch, Michael (New York: Berghahn, 2005), esp. 11-14Google Scholar. For Mommsen's own reflections on Conze and his activities in the Third Reich, see pp. 176-80 of the interview (“Daraus erklärt sich”) cited in note 2.

⁵⁴ This was a concern that Mommsen expressed on a number of occasions; see, e.g., Mommsen, Hans, “Die Last der Vergangenheit,” in Stichworte zur ‘Geistigen Situation der Zeit,’ ed. Habermas, Jürgen (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1979), 1:164-84Google Scholar; also see his more recent statements on the matter in “Neues Geschichtsbewußtsein und Relativierung des Nationalsozialismus,” in “Historikerstreit.” Die Dokumentation der Kontroverse um die Einzigartigkeit der nationalsozialistischen Judenvernichtung, ed. Augstein, Rudolf (Munich: Piper, 1987), 174-88Google Scholar; “Aufarbeitung und Verdrängung. Das Dritte Reich im westdeutschen Geschichtsbewußtsein,” in Ist der Nationalsozialismus Geschichte? Zu Historisierung und Historikerstreit, ed. Diner, Dan (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1987), 74-88Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ Deak, Istvan, “Holocaust Views: The Goldhagen Controversy in Retrospect,” CEH 30, no. 2 (1997): 295-307Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ Berg, Nicolas, Der Holocaust und die westdeutschen Historiker. Erforschung und Erinnerung (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), 270-322Google Scholar. For Mommsen's reaction, see his essay “Changing Historical Perspectives on the Nazi Dictatorship,” European Review 17, no. 1 (2009): 73-80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁷ See the 1997 interview with Mommsen cited in note 52. In a similar vein, see Bessel, Richard, “Functionalists vs. Intentionalists: The Debate Twenty Years on or Whatever Happened to Functionalism and Intentionalism,” German Studies Review 26, no. 1 (2003): 15-20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁸ Mommsen, Hans, Auschwitz, 17. Juli 1942. Der Weg zur europäischen “Endlösung der Judenfrage” (Munich: DTV, 2002), 7Google Scholar. This book was republished twelve years later as Mommsen, Hans, Das NS-Regime und die Auslöschung des Judentums in Europa (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁹ In this respect, see Schleunes, Karl, The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy toward  German Jews, 1933-1939 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970)Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ Mommsen, Auschwitz, 38.

⁶¹ Ibid., 90-91. For a fuller statement of this argument, see Mommsen, Hans, “Hitler's Reichstag Speech of 30 January 1939,” History and Theory 9, no. 1-2 (1997): 147-61Google Scholar.

⁶² Mommsen, Auschwitz, 90-91.

⁶³ Ibid., 113-17. In this respect, see Christopher Browning, R., “Beyond Intentionalism and Functionalism: The Decision for the Final Solution Reconsidered,” in The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 86-121Google Scholar.

⁶⁴ Gerlach, Christian, “The Wannsee Conference, the Fate of German Jews, and Hitler's Decision in Principle to Eliminate All European Jews,” Journal of Modern History 70, no. 4 (1998): 759-812CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁵ Mommsen, Auschwitz, 159-63.

⁶⁶ Ibid., 163-64.

⁶⁷ Ibid., 177-89.

⁶⁸ Mommsen's sense of generational responsibility is clearly stated in the interview with Stambolis cited in note 18, as well as in his retrospective on the life and career of Broszat, Martin: “Zeitgeschichte als ‘kritische Aufklärungsarbeit’. Zur Erinnerung an Martin Broszat (1926-1989),” GG 17, no. 2 (1991): 141-57Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ Volkov, Shulamit, German, Jews, and Antisemites: Trials in Emancipation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 65-90Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ In this respect, see Peter Gay's review of Mommsen, Hans, The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy, in The Historian 60, no. 1 (1997): 178-79Google Scholar.