Debate on the German Sonderweg - Was Hitler the logical consequence of German history?

Adolf Hitler (far right, seated) with his army comrades of the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (circa 1914–18)

The historiographical theory of the German Sonderweg has received rich attention from academic thinkers and historians since the 1960s. According to J.N. Retallack, the theory considers Germany to have followed a course from aristocracy to democracy unlike any other within Europe.[1] Employing different historical perspectives, historians reached varying conclusions, specifically about the existence of a Sonderweg. As Heinrich Winkler describes, the main debate typically lies within the question of there being a Sonderweg. [2] Whilst the assumption was formerly positive, today the view of a negative Sonderweg is predominant. Modern interpretations raise the question of whether the Sonderweg thesis still has value and whether it is still relevant in German historiography, questions which will be addressed and concluded upon within this essay.

This essay will be presented in the form of multiple historical perspectives, placing the Sonderweg debate within multiple time points following 1945. It first asks why the notion of a ‘separate path’ has been so deeply ingrained in contemporary thought, as well as in what form the notion of the Sonderweg took hold in Germany, in order to understand why this thesis has endured such controversy and recent belligerence.[3] The earliest approach to plotting German history arises from A.J.P Taylor in 1945, who focused on the events pre-1870 which suggested the rise of Hitler as the logical consequence of German history. [4] Whilst providing brilliant observations, Taylor is driven by his view of the perennial German national character, one being driven by anti-democratic leaders, reflecting the writing period.

The largest number of documented writings on the German Sonderweg appeared in the 1960s by German historians such as Fritz Fischer and Hans-Ulrich Wehler. The main argument of these historians is that Germany experienced a unique course, inhering the problems of preceding times and giving distinct troubles to the next generation.[5] Wehler states this was due to a combination of massive economic development, no political change, and participation crises that led to a special path, with a susceptibility towards authoritarian policies.[6] This political predominance of the ruling elites over the middle class undermined attempts to achieve democracy, presenting the Sonderweg as a product of 1871-1918.

This essay will also look at critical responses that note the distinctive aspects of German history but reject them as being peculiar or unique. Thomas Nipperdey presents an early response to the Sonderweg theory, claiming it fails to explain the creation of the Weimar Republic and places too stark of a contrast between the forces of order and democracy.[7] Another significant approach from David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley presents an exciting perspective that acknowledges the existence of a Sonderweg but disputes that this was due to a failed bourgeois revolution, rather it is only seen as a failure in comparison to the British and French revolutions.[8] They also question the standards to which German History is compared, further arguing that the German bourgeois did not fail at all. This early scrutiny led to a decline in the ‘explanatory power’ of the Sonderweg debate.[9]

Finally, this essay will present modern attitudes that utilize and criticize former approaches to construct new arguments that look closer at the concept of Sonderweg itself. These approaches also look at the usefulness it provides to the history of Germany in coming to terms with Nazism and the extremities of the Holocaust. These approaches, specifically from Helmut Walser Smith,[10] take the Sonderweg to its natural conclusion and aid Germans in organizing its future, after the decline of the Sonderweg’s explanatory power in recent years.

Thus, this essay will focus on the changing nature of the Sonderweg historiography by examining the approaches used by different historians and to what extent the Sonderweg debate retains its value in German history. First, the work of Taylor must be discussed which presents the earliest notion of a positive ‘German Way’.[11] The course of the German Sonderweg will then be presented within the post-1945 historiography and will address how and why the Sonderweg thesis, specifically the versions of Fischer and Wehler, have been heavily criticized by scholars. These criticisms range from scrutiny over the notion of uniqueness to the rejecting of forces of democracy within the Sonderweg thesis. Finally, the modern approaches will aim to provide credible alternatives left by this questioned Sonderweg and discuss its relevance within modern German historiography.

Section 1: The Champions of the Sonderweg Thesis

The earliest approach to charting German History originates from A.J.P Taylor in 1945. The Course of German History focused on the events pre-1870 which presented the rise of Hitler as the logical consequence of German History, stating ‘it was no more a mistake for the German people to end up with Hitler than it is an accident when a river flows into the sea’.[12] Whilst written before the Sonderweg theory was popularised, this early perspective is useful as it allows us to understand the view of historians with a first-hand view of events preceding the rise of Hitler. According to Taylor, the spring of 1945 and the end of the German dictatorship was an inevitable outcome of Germany’s record of embracing authoritarian policies. However, this approach is problematic and applies some prejudice to the impact of any popular movements within Germany, due to the negative depiction of the German character. This is a natural consequence of writing in 1945, at the conclusion of the Second World War, and thus is described by Sigmund Neumann as suffering from a view that dismisses National Socialism and its characteristics simply as a ‘German malady’.[13]

In 1961, The first traditional approach to the Sonderweg debate from Fritz Fischer changed the historiography surrounding German history, placing responsibility for the start of the First World War on the Imperial German Government.[14] This was seen as the first attempt made to draw connections from 1871 to 1918 and 1945, to show Nazi policies were seen in widely held German aspirations that preceded long before Hitler. Fischer placed heavy blame on Germany for starting the First World War due to a uniquely aggressive foreign policy, which was motivated by a political elite that wanted to ensure Germany became the world’s greatest power. Described as the ‘Hitler of 1914’,[15] Fischer presented Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg as a premonition towards the rise of fascism, showing the traditional elite to be dominated by an imperial and racist ideology akin to Hitler. Multiple historians have notably refuted this early thesis and rejected the idea that Germany’s foreign policy was unique. The main critics convincingly state that other powers had similarly grand post-war territorial ambitions, such as Russia.[16]

However, the influence of Fischer must not be understated. Dubbed the ‘Fischer Controversy’, this has been historically regarded as the first piece of work criticizing Germany’s past.[17] The German Zunft was dominated by a generation of historians who agreed that Germany shared responsibility for the First World War and noted Hitler as a Betriebsunfall.[18] Thus, its position of Fischer was seen as one of betrayal and went against the patriotism of Germany. However, due to the circumstances surrounding the Auschwitz trials, Fritz’s negative Sonderweg seized national attention, leading to his version influencing the arguments of younger historians and shaping the future generations of scholarly work. His works were the ‘declaration of independence for the Sonderweg argument’ and created a foundation for this new, critical approach to German history.[19]

In 1973, Hans-Ulrich Wehler approached the Sonderweg debate, offering expanded conclusions to Fritz’s offering, Wehler’s work analysed the historical issues within Germany from 1870, citing two main fundamental problems. The first existed within the economy; Wehler argued historical experiences in Germany showed industrialization and bureaucratization to be linked together in mutual dependency, stating the ‘undeniable success of Germany’s industrial economy gave rise to its problems’. [20] It created an unstoppable capitalist state due to the mass support for this industrial revolution, and meant fruits of labour continued to be distributed unevenly. The second was due to the participation crisis, as in Wehler’s perspective, a social structure impeded modernizations in some areas whilst other areas were dominating between 1871 and 1945.[21] Wehler described the pre-modern ruling elites’ position as ‘constant’ over this period as the ideology of the German state was rooted within vested interests of above-party considerations, with the public providing little resistance to elitist rule.[22] Thus, these patterns of continuity from the Second Empire to the Third Reich were expressed by Wehler within these structures, with a general thread throughout the analysis stating that Sonderweg was a product of the years 1871-1918. The work of Wehler is a great example of the ‘Bielefeld School’ approach, which presents the view that the German Sonderweg led from Bismarck to Hitler, ‘however long and circuitous’.[23] Wehler illustrates how the fatal success of Imperial Germany’s ruling elite led ‘the nation up a blind alley’ and would ‘lead to its downfall’.[24] These historians popularised the exceptional nature of Germany’s modernization and presented a critical analysis of Germany’s past to a greater audience.

In 1988, a later product of the Bielefeld School, Jürgen Kocka developed the thesis of Wehler. As the Sonderweg thesis became disputed, Kocka stressed that whilst the Sonderweg may not explain the reasons for the rise of Nazism, the ‘German Path’ explained the failure of the democratic Weimar Republic.[25] Much like Wehler, Kocka placed emphasis on this failure in class structure and within the political arena. Kocka stresses the importance of the traditional bureaucratic tradition which was seen within a strong and effective Beamtentum (official government) that retained a long record of reform from above. This was widely admired yet paid for by a weakness of civic virtues and liberal practices, explaining the lack of public resistance from 1870 to 1940 towards authoritarian figures. These processes identified by the Sonderweg thesis did facilitate the collapse of the Weimar Republic and eventually, the rise of Nazism. This reconstruction of the thesis enabled it to become more meaningful as it places greater emphasis on the long run that hindered the development of liberal democracy and facilitated the rise of fascism. This gives a stronger thesis as to the peculiarities of German history under the Sonderweg label as explaining the weakness of the Weimar Republic is noted as a stronger adaptation.

Section 2: Early Criticisms and Approaches to the Sonderweg Theory (1975-1990)

Among the earliest of Hans-Ulrich Wehler’s critics was the conservative German historian Thomas Nipperdey who argued that Wehler was too willing to portray the aristocratic nature of the Kaiserreich in a negative hue.[26] Nipperdey wrote a critical analysis of Wehler’s Kaiserreich, stating Wehler focused too little on forces from below and put too stark of a contrast between the forces of order and those of democracy. Nipperdey took the position that the years before 1914 are those of the strong state and the middle class. As a result, the Sonderweg theory failed to explain how the Weimar Republic occurred as Wehler concluded prior to 1918 that the forces of authoritarianism were so strong and those of democracy were so weak. Whilst the issues with the Sonderweg theory that Nipperdey offers are convincing, this approach offers only a closed solution, stating that the Sonderweg must be written by placing Germany within a comparative European perspective. Nipperdey claims this would end the ‘fixation on the struggle with our great-grandfathers’,[27] yet this appears problematic as many would argue this does not provide an explanation for German history and the unique catastrophe it brought forth.[28]

The greatest challenge to the traditional Sonderweg approach was offered in 1984, in The Peculiarities of German History by David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley. The authors provide a dissection of the prevailing theses, mainly that of Wehler, and successfully bring to light the issues of complacency and the acceptance of assumptions in historical discourse. The authors attempt to redefine the sense of a ‘Bourgeois Revolution’ within Germany and target the area of the Sonderweg debate that looked at domestic politics and question whether it was manipulation from above or mobilization from below that led to changes after 1870. The overall approach argues that Wehler presented the above as superior, due to the ‘strong monarchy with its military power… and industrial success, undergoing a process dubbed ‘the feudalization of the bourgeoisie’.[29] Conversely, Blackbourn and Eley argued for the ‘consolidation of bourgeois civil society’ and presented the political effects their mindset created for the Kaissereich.[30] Thus, the biggest aberration in German History, the failure of a proper bourgeois revolution, was depicted as an illusion by Blackbourn and Eley.

Instead, Blackbourn and Eley argue that Germany followed a path to democracy and modernization not as dissimilar to the rest of Europe. The authors argue that the bourgeois revolution was only a failure when depicted against the success of those within Britain and France. They further argue that the traditional Sonderweg arguments are inherently flawed in the way we measure success, stating the German bourgeois revolution did not fail at all, and asking why it must follow the recipe of ‘bourgeoisie-liberalism-parliamentarization-democracy’ to be noted as a success.[31] Rather, the authors argue not that not only did the ‘bourgeoisie exist, economically and sociologically speaking as a class’ but also uncover the special aspects of the German bourgeoisie that made a successful revolution on their own terms.[32] Their dominant position in society lay within the ‘silent and anonymous’ nature and got what they needed from the ruling class, such as a united decision on subjects such as property rights and patent laws.[33] As a result, the authors argue this political class became resistant to elite manipulation and ideologies that challenged the status quo, placing the modernizers as the carriers of continuity rather than the feudal elite. Thus, the conclusion from Blackbourn and Eley acknowledged the German bourgeois revolution as a success, as they provided meticulous insight into the inadequacies of the Sonderweg theory.

This leads to the overall conclusion within the historiography of the Sonderweg presented by Blackbourn and Eley. What should be noted as significant is that it did not challenge the notion of continuity offered by the Bielefeld School between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Everett notes that they argued not whether continuity existed, but instead which form it took.[34] In acknowledging this continuity, Blackbourn and Eley present Germany as the ‘tragic land’ of the twentieth century which should be viewed as a culmination of this continuity.[35] Rather, this replaces the generalized answer of Fritz Fischer and Hans-Ulrich Wehler and gives a sharpened historical and moral sense of what happened. Blackbourn and Eley stress that this form of continuity should be seen as distinctive but not peculiar. These distinctive events of continuity are clearly seen within the uneven combination of Germany’s dynamic capitalism and the social and political consequences it generated, which eventually led to Germany’s radical form of fascism.

In 1978, David Patrick Calleo also reconsidered the Sonderweg theory and focused on the impact of foreign policy and geography within the historiography.[36] In another response to Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Calleo rejects the Sonderweg theory treating Germany as an isolated case within Europe. Rather, the continuity of German history does not emanate from some special German ‘character’ – Imperial Germany was not uniquely aggressive (within foreign policies) only uniquely inconvenient.[37] Unlike the rest of Europe, Germany did not have the space to work out ‘their abundant vitality’ – it was born encircled and was thus an immediate threat to the rest of Europe.[38] In a similar vein to Blackbourn and Eley, Calleo presents that the staple substance of a dominant middle-class opinion focused on general geopolitical perspectives and was ‘aggressive’ against the status quo, appearing to collude that the role of the middle class fuelled the nationalistic rise.[39] However, Calleo concludes its fatal handicap in creating this national state was in its central position and the rise of extra-European giants that threatened external domination within Europe. Thus, the uniquely ‘German Problem’ was a combination of the history and geography of Germany, which meant its late rise became rapid and aggressive but with vulnerabilities that were met by a reaction from the rest of the world to crush the upstart. This presents another variation of criticism to the Sonderweg theory that relegated it to an increasingly more constrained role in German history.

Section 3. Modern Criticisms and Approaches to the Sonderweg Theory

(1990-)

Following on from the initial reactions to the Sonderweg theory, historians called for new examinations of the meaning of German history. In Shattered Past, Konrad Jarausch and Michael Geyer address the void left by the collapse of three traditional ‘master narratives of German history, which they argued had failed to adequately explain the story of the German past.[40] This included the Sonderweg theory which had incorrectly presented an Anglo-American version of modernization, that led to false assumptions about Germany’s uniqueness and backwardness.[41] This was mainly a result of many scholars having fled or been driven out of Germany in the 1930s, finding new homes within the United States. The decisive divergence between Germany and ‘the West’ became a central concern within their intellectual lives. Ultimately, as Kocka elaborates upon, to the first and second generation of scholars, the Sonderweg was able to answer urgent questions based on fundamental life experiences.[42] New generations of historians have begun to ask new questions and come to expect different answers to the debate. Jarausch and Geyer encouraged historians to analyse themes such as war and genocide and the definitions of national identities to navigate the extremes of Germany’s past and ‘serve as guideposts in deciphering the shifting map of territories and people that make up Germany’s past’.[43]

Detlev Peukert in his influential essay in 1994, the Genesis of the Final Solution, shifts the Sonderweg thesis into the twentieth century and focuses on these themes of genocide and national identities within the broader term of modernization.[44] He situates the Holocaust within the Enlightenment view of naming and counting individuals in terms of citizenship and ethnicity from the period around 1900. The influence of anti-Semitism in the Third Reich stemmed from this ‘fatally racist dynamism’ within Germany, with anti-Semitic ideals at its centrepiece.[45] This was coupled with a generation with ‘high technology’ that enabled the Nazi party to ‘annihilate abstractly defined categories of victims’.[46] Thus, Peukert defined the new extreme of Germany’s past as that of dividing humanity into worthy and worthless people, coupled with a view that man is not the measure, but the body of the nation or race. Although this highlights a more modern approach that focuses on Germany’s extremities, there are issues with the impact Peukert places on eugenics in Germany. Helmut Walser Smith rejects this convincingly using statistical evidence to present the eugenics behind anti-Semitism being so marginal until Hitler came to power meaning Peukert can only conclude with ‘thin reeds of continuity’.[47]

Helmut Walser Smith offers a method of moving beyond the traditional historical narrative in favour of an approach that looks at strands of continuity found in nationalism, racism, and anti-Semitism within Germany.[48] Continuity according to Smith should only be considered within forms (i.e. anti-Semitic violence), as it would only then be possible to see actual German peculiarities. Smith also recognises the remarkability of both Helmut-Smith Wehler and David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley’s earlier books and notes the similarities with both favouring political histories. Smith further notes that the impact of violence or war nor the mass murder of the Holocaust are reference points in either work, despite the decisive and crucial aspects of these within the historiography. In one response to Eley, Smith places the murderous dynamic of the Third Reich into normal life and away from the Nazi leaders’ immediate ideas. Smith works backwards from the new vanishing point of German history circa 1941 to the years of ‘complex politics before 1939’.[49] These include population, public health, wealth directed at women, euthanasia, eugenics’, and most significantly the increasingly scientific-racial treatment of Jews in Germany and Europe.[50] The response from Eley must be considered,[51] who states that this approach by Smith results in German history with a limited chronological reach, cutting off most of the nineteenth century, thus going against the historical explanations the Sonderweg theory attempts to achieve.

In the 2008 review, Where the Sonderweg Debate Left Us, Smith dismisses the Sonderweg theory as weakening the sense of continuities in German history, as no thesis accounted for the fundamental aspects of the Third Reich’s catastrophic violence. Smith acknowledges that the Third Reich appears unthinkable without the history of Germany from the Reformation to Bismarck but rejects the view of the Sonderweg theory that these events predetermined National Socialism. Rather, the view of Smith and other prevailing modern historians is that National Socialism was a product of the apocalyptic twentieth century or dark modernity commencing from the 1880s. Thus, he claims that an anti-Sonderweg consensus would lead to a German history that is not foreshortened and explains 20th-century horrors. Combining this with the smaller strands of continuity shows the extension of German continuities en masse and gives greater depth to the field of German history. What must be noted is that this postmodern analysis does not consider the aforementioned scholarship, rejecting to focus on factors in Germany alone, placing these continuities within a larger European framework.[52] Whilst this does cut off most of the nineteenth century, Smith opens greater possibilities for explaining German history and the twentieth-century catastrophe it brought forth, situating the German past in a denser weave of international history.

Conclusion

The historiography of the Sonderweg debate has developed considerably since the 1960s when it first became a tool to help define Germany’s past. These early notions of the Sonderweg focused on placing the rise of Nazism and the eventual Holocaust in the long stream of German history. This approach began as early as 1945 when Taylor presented the notions of a Sonderweg, yet one that was inherently flawed being a product of its time. The popularity of the debate rose greatly with the approaches of Fritz and Wehler, who demonstrated with strong analysis of the strands of continuity between the Second Empire and the Third Reich within Germany. For the most part, these approaches were and still are widely regarded as the most important within German historiography. Historians today continue to use the Sonderweg thesis as a method of discussion and as a powerful intellectual agent, in order to aid the construction of a German historical narrative.

Since the 1980s, these Sonderweg theses have come under increased attacks and responses have presented convincing rebuttals to the traditional argument. Blackbourn and Eley strongly argued that German history was distinctive yet not peculiar. They use the notion of a ‘bourgeois revolution’ to present an aspect that is misinterpreted by Wehler as a unique failure yet appears to have succeeded in a distinctive direction in comparison to the rest of Europe. In this case, the earlier Sonderweg approaches failed to present a history of Germany that appeared exceptional compared to a wider European perspective. This resulted in the Sonderweg being relegated to a far more limited position and role in German history.

New trends in the Sonderweg debate emerged in the 1990s and at the start of the twenty-first century, which saw the shift towards a new anti-Sonderweg consensus. Modern contemporary historians like Jarausch, Peukert and Smith have all presented new ways of analysing the German past. Jarausch maintains the goal of the new German historiography to navigate the extremes through the view of national identity and the topics of war and genocide, as Peukert presented strongly within his work. Arguably the most interesting development in the recent historiography came from the writing of Smith, who dismisses the Sonderweg theory as weakening the sense of continuity in German history, instead presenting the German past within a weave of international history, that appears to open greater opportunities for explaining twentieth-century tragedies. Although it feels too dismissive to let go of the Sonderweg thesis completely, it no doubt presents some interesting conclusions.

Thus, the Sonderweg debate is a massive part of German history and continues to capture the attention of historians since the end of the Second World War. Historians still find themselves at a crossroads, many unable to defend the Sonderweg theory but unable to let it go completely. The debate still brings many Germans to a modern confrontation with the past and a lively debate surrounding the legacy of the Holocaust. Thus, this debate should continue to be used to help define Germany’s past whilst incorporating modern methods to organize its future.

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[1] J.N. Retallack, Imperial Germany 1871-1918, (Oxford University Press, 2008),.2 [2] Heinrich August Winkler, Germany: The Long Road West, (Oxford, 2007), 1 [3]Annie Everett, The Genesis of the Sonderweg, International Social Science Review, (Vol 92, Issue 2, 2015), 1-52 [4]A.J.P Taylor, The Course of German History: A Survey of the Development of German History since 1815, (New York: Routledge, 1945), 1-304 [5] John Moses, Fischer, Fritz, Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, Vol.1, (London:Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999) 386-387 [6]Hans-Ulrich Wehler; translated from German by Traynor, Kim, The German Empire 1871-1918, (Leamington Spa: Berg, 1985), 1-293 [7]Thomas Nipperdey, Wehler’s ‘Kaiserreich:’ Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 1, (1975), 539-60 [8]David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley, The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth Century Germany, (Oxford University Press,1984), 1-312 [9]Everett, The Genesis of the Sonderweg, 2 [10]Helmut Walser Smith, Where the Sonderweg Debate Left Us, German Studies Review 31, (no. 2, 2008) 225–40. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27668514 - accessed 17/02/22 [11]Jürgen Kocka, German History before Hitler: The Debate about the German Sonderweg, Journal of Contemporary History 23, no. 1, (1988) 3–16. http://www.jstor.org/stable/260865. – accessed 14/02/22 [12]Taylor, The Course of German History, 18 [13] Sigmund Neumann, The Future in Perspective, The American Historical Review 52, No.4, (1947), 730-33 [14]John, Fischer, Fritz,386 [15] Ibid [16] Sean McMeekin, The Russian Origins of the First World War. (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2013), 1-344 [17]Everett, The Genesis of the Sonderweg, 8 [18]Ibid, 9 [19] Andreas W. Daum, The Second Generation: Emigres from Nazi Germany as Historians, Studies in German History, Vol.20, (New York, Berghahn Books, 2015), 261 [20]Wehler, The German Empire, 26 [21] Everett, The Genesis of the Sonderweg, 8 [22] Wehler, The German Empire,.28 [23] James N Retallack, Social History with a Vengeance? Some reactions to H-U Wehler’s ‘Das Deutsche Kaissereich, German Studies Review 7 (1984), 424 [24]Wehler, The German Empire, 31 [25]Kocka, The Debate about the German Sonderweg, 3–16. [26]Nipperdey, Wehler’s ‘Kaiserreich, 539-60 [27] Theodore S Hamerow, Guilt. Redemption and Writing German History, The American Historical Review, (1983), 71 [28] Everett, The Genesis of the Sonderweg, 10 [29] Blackbourn, Eley, Peculiarities of German History, 16 [30] Blackbourn, Eley, 29 [31] Ibid, 16 [32] Ibid, 28 [33] Ibid, 204 [34]Everett, The Genesis of the Sonderweg, 13 [35] Blackbourn, Eley, Peculiarities of German History, 289 [36]David Patrick Calleo, The German problem reconsidered: Germany and the world order, 1870 to the present, (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978) 1-239 [37]Ibid, 217 [38] Ibid, 216 [39] Ibid, 145 [40] Konrad Jarausch and Michael Geyer, Shattered Past: Reconstructing German Histories (Princeton University Press, 2003), 18 [41] Everett, The Genesis of the Sonderweg, 14 [42]Jürgen Kocka, Looking back on the Sonderweg, Central European History 51, no. 1, (2018), 2 [43] Peter Black, Shattered Past, Reconstructing German Histories by Konrad H. Jarausch and Michael Geyer, German Studies Review 27 (2004) 150 [44] Detlev Peukert, The Genesis of the ‘Final Solution’ from the Spirit of Science in Thomas Childers; Jane Caplan, Re-evaluating the Third Reich, (New York, 1994), 290-295 [45] Peukert, The Genesis of the Final Solution, 293 [46] Ibid, 293 [47]Smith, Where the Sonderweg Debate Left Us, 10 [48] Smith, Helmut Walser, The Continuities of German History: Nation, Religion and Race Across the Long Nineteenth Century, (New York: Cambridge Press, 2008), 1-20 [49] Smith, Where the Sonderweg Debate Left Us, 11 [50] Ibid, 11 [51] Geoff Eley, What Produces Fascism, Politics and Society 12, (1983), 53-82 [52] Smith, Continuities of German History, 12