Explaining the German catastrophe: the use and abuse of historical explanations

This article examines the question as to whether National Socialism, Hitler and Auschwitz are part of German history. Reference is made to the writings of such historians as Jurgen Habermas, Meinecke, Freund and Ritter. Habermas argues Auschwitz for example is the key to the modern Federal Republic as a Western democratic constitutional state while historians such as Freund are of the view that Hitler's regime was a result of demonic forces and as a terrible deviation from the basically rational, progressive march of history