Andreas Hillgruber | |
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Born | Andreas Fritz Hillgruber 18 January 1925 |
Died | 8 May 1989 | (aged 64)
Alma mater | University of Göttingen |
Occupation | Historian |
Employers |
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Known for | His studies in modern German diplomatic and military history, and his involvement in the Historikerstreit |
Political party | Christian Democratic Union |
Awards | Order of Merit |
Military career | |
Service | German Army |
Years of service | 1943–1945 |
Battles / wars | World War II (POW) |
Andreas Fritz Hillgruber (18 January 1925 – 8 May 1989) was a conservative German historian who was influential as a military and diplomatic historian who played a leading role in the Historikerstreit of the 1980s. In his controversial book Zweierlei Untergang, he wrote that historians should "identify" with the Wehrmacht fighting on the Eastern Front and asserted that there was no moral difference between Allied policies towards Germany in 1944 and 1945 and the genocide waged against the Jews.[1] The British historian Richard J. Evans wrote that Hillgruber was a great historian whose once-sterling reputation was in ruins as a result of the Historikerstreit.[2]