As a historian there are different ways of living with your own research field and its actors.

Some inflate (or, to put it less nicely: inflate) with the size they describe.

Others practice tracing the irony of historical developments that rarely reveal what was intended, but often the opposite.

Still others keep their fingers crossed for their subjects, or enjoy the wind that blows the story one way or another, often to the west.

Finally, there are the chroniclers of the lost cases.

Jürgen Kaube

Editor.

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For the historians of National Socialism, none of these possibilities exist.

A few weeks ago the last of the sixteen volumes of the source collection “The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany” appeared.

From the first decrees after the seizure of power to the witness reports from the World War up to the time of the death marches: hardly any size, no wind blowing in the right direction, no reason to cross your fingers, sense of purpose or irony, no lost cases, just endless misery, Wickedness, opportunism, coldness and cruel excesses.

An illusion-free approach

Ulrich Herbert spent his entire life as a historian with this period, its preconditions and its consequences; he is one of the editors of that source collection. Born in Düsseldorf in 1951, Herbert studied in Freiburg and, after five years as a school teacher, came across work on forced labor in the Nazi state and his highly readable habilitation on the Gestapo deputy chief and governor of the "Third Reich" in Denmark, Werner Best, at the center of studies in the National Socialist era. It only began then. Herbert's sentence that the historians' dispute of 1986/87 was conducted without reference to research because there was no such research at that time is hardly an exaggeration. What we know today about the years from 1933 to 1945owes to the work of those born after 1950 and largely to the writings of Herbert, his students and colleagues.

If one wanted to describe the research style used, one would probably speak of a preoccupation with facts without illusions and disinterested in any philosophy of history. Let's just take the discussion about who was a National Socialist, a book by Herbert. After the downfall, hundreds of nuances were emphasized in order to differentiate between mere followers, people with fundamentally different intentions, entangled people, those who were only conscientious or only partially committed. The image of the blond beast only led to minor search successes. Conversely, however - the murdered had been murdered - this had to mean that the search image was wrong and had a relieving function. Through Herbert we know how much National Socialism was a reservoir of divergent views and intentions,who found themselves in hatred of democracy and of Jews. National Socialism absorbed all of this with a willingness to organize and unrestrainedly.

Zone of objectivity

In his book about Best, Ulrich Herbert traced this combination of ruthless, fanatical behavior and organizational skills.

We recognize the high school teacher in his texts in the most pleasing way.

The moral of the story is not communicated through moral judgments, because those are superfluous in the face of the unspeakable.

Herbert's short account of "The Third Reich" should form the basis of any history lesson about the German years between 1918 and 1945 because of the coolness with which the most evil is confronted here and because of the refusal of any consolation.

That is the fact that makes such a life of research special: its preoccupation with a completely desolate time.

We haven't even talked about the science manager, who was Ulrich Herbert too. And not about the ridiculous justification with which his Freiburg Center of Excellence was once denied the extension. It is to be hoped that they are long gone. He then published his History of Germany in the Twentieth Century, which even those who do not like their theses have to recognize as a masterpiece.

But what does masterpiece mean here?

Herbert would reject the name with good reason.

He is a researcher who is almost grimly focused on evidence.

He almost resembles Christian Streich, the coach of SC Freiburg, who was unrecognized among the visitors to Herbert's farewell lecture in Freiburg.

People who are very serious about their job and who are not ready to leave the zone of objectivity despite their willingness to conflict.

Today Ulrich Herbert turns seventy, and we congratulate this exemplary researcher very much.