Helmut Krausnick

Helmut Krausnick (1905–1990) was a German historian and author. From 1959 to 1972, he was the head of the Institute of Contemporary History, a leading German research institute on the history of National Socialism.

Krausnick co-authored Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges, the 1981 work on the mass murder of Jews in the occupied Soviet Union by the Einsatzgruppen, which was considered a milestone in Holocaust studies. It was also one of the first publications to challenge the myth of the "clean" Wehrmacht.

Education and career
Helmut Krausnick was born in Wenden, today a district of Brunswick in 1905, and grew up in Bad Harzburg in a middle-class family. He studied history and political science at the University of Breslau. In 1932, Krausnick joined the Nazi Party. Krausnick continued his academic studies at the University of Heidelberg and the Humboldt University of Berlin. There Krausnick received his doctorate in 1938. Subsequently, Krausnick worked at the National Archives; in 1940 he moved to the Archive Commission of the Foreign Office. From September 1944 to May 1945, he served in the Wehrmacht.

In 1951, Krausnick worked at the Institute of Contemporary History, headed by. When the latter died in 1952, Krausnick completed Mau's work, German History, 1933-45: An Assessment by German Historians, which appeared in 1956 and was translated into multiple languages. In 1959, Krausnick was appointed the director of the institute, which he led until his retirement in 1972. In 1968, he was appointed an honorary professor of contemporary history at the University of Munich. Krausnick also appeared as a court expert in Nazi trials. In 1980, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Krausnick died in 1990 in Stuttgart.

Historian of Nazi Germany
Krausnick conducted research on the Commissar order and other criminal orders and their implementation by the German armed forces. Krausnick co-authored Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges, the 1981 work on the mass murder of Jews in the occupied Soviet Union by the Einsatzgruppen units, which was considered a milestone in Holocaust studies. It was one of the first publications to challenge the myth of the "clean" Wehrmacht, which had depicted the German armed forces as innocent of the crimes of the Nazi regime. The book depicted what the authors described as the "terrifying integration of the army into Hitler's extermination program and extermination policy".

Their research refuted the notions that the Wehrmacht generals did not know about the activities of the Einsatzgruppen death squads and that had they known, they would have opposed them. The book provides an example of the November 1941 Orsha Conference organised by Franz Halder, chief of the German General Staff, to discuss the course of the Battle of Moscow. At the conference, the generals said unanimously that the activities of the Einsatzgruppen were "worth their price in gold" for the fighting troops, because they ensured security in the rear of their armies. German historian notes:

"On the basis of a thorough analysis of the cooperation between the Wehrmacht and the Einsatzgruppen, Krausnick asserts 'a far-reaching integration—appalling in its extent—of the Army into the program of destruction and into Hitler’s policy of annihilation'. Not surprisingly, this pioneering work became the object of ugly and ignorant criticism, even from within the Bundeswehr."

In English

 * German History, 1933-45: An Assessment by German Historians, with
 * Anatomy of the SS State, New York, Walker, 1968, with Martin Broszat, and

In German

 * Hermann Mau, Helmut Krausnick: Deutsche Geschichte der jüngsten Vergangenheit 1933–45. Wunderlich, Tübingen 1956.
 * Helmut Krausnick: Judenverfolgung. In: Anatomie des SS-Staates, Band 2. Olten, Freiburg i.Br. 1965.
 * Helmut Krausnick, (Eds.): Helmuth Groscurth. Tagebücher eines Abwehroffiziers. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1970.
 * Helmut Krausnick, Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm: Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges. Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD 1938–1942. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 3-421-01987-8. Reissued in 1985 as Hitlers Einsatzgruppen. Die Truppen des Weltanschauungskrieges, Fischer Verlag.