Fischer, Fritz

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Fischer, Fritz

Fischer, Fritz, 1908–99, German historian. Appointed professor at the Univ. of Hamburg in 1948 (emeritus after 1973), he became famous as the result of his book Griff nach der Weltmacht (1961; tr. Germany's Aims in the First World War, 1967). His controversial thesis held that Germany's bid for world power before and during World War I was the main cause of the conflict in 1914. Fischer's unflattering picture of imperial Germany led to sharp criticism by German conservatives. In 1969 he published Krieg der Illusionen, a reinforcement of his earlier work that covered in greater detail the period before 1914.

References in periodicals archive ?

Fritz Fischer's influential Griff nach der Weltmacht finds its way into many of the chapters' citations.

28 June: Sarajevo 1914-Versailles 1919: the War and Peace that Made the Modern World

Not only did we have former German biathlon champion Christina Maierhofer for an instructor, but at one point, 1992 Winter Olympic gold medal winner Fritz Fischer just happened to wander over to see how we were getting on.

WHEN SNOW'S A NO SHOW; is snowed under with activities, even though there's not a flake in sight

This study applies Fritz Fischer and Hans-Ulrich Wehler's understandings of the Sonderweg to the pre-Nazi era, exploring the existence of a specifically Weimar Sonderweg and analyzing the ways in which the concept of a German Sonderweg differed between the 1920s and the postwar period.

The Genesis of the Sonderweg

Only occasionally, as during the controversy over the theses advanced by historian Fritz Fischer in the 1960s, has the First World War overshadowed the Second World War in public discourse.

A challenging legacy: Hans-Hubertus Mack discusses the place of memories of the First World War in Germany and the German approach to commemoration of the centenary of that conflict

In making the case for the importance of contingency and of personalities, The Sleepwalkers demythologizes the shamans of the 1960s and 1970s--the following of Fritz Fischer, the Hamburg historian who held that Germany's reactionary elites, in their attempt to consolidate their power and checkmate socialism at home, willed the war; and also demolishes the orthodoxy of the 1980s--the Rule, Britannia school of W.N.

Christopher Clark. The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914

Resonating with the earlier work of the historian Fritz Fischer, who was stigmatized for challenging a taboo by emphasizing the violent nature of the German empire, Zimmerer's contributions have provoked strong reactions and an ongoing debate in Germany.

Jurgen Zimmerer, Von Windhuk nach Auschwitz? Beitrage zum Verhaltnis von Kolonialismus und Holocaust

Fritz Fischer caused huge controversy in the 1960s by arguing that imperial Germany had deliberately gone to war to achieve world power status, thus shattering the consensus that the nations of Europe somehow 'slithered over the brink' in August 1914.

Signposts: The Great War

Fritz Fischer was German Executive Director for the World Bank Group (1991-1996) and also served as Executive Secretary of the Joint Bank/Fund Development Committee (1984-1987).

Thinking the unthinkable: combining the IMF and World Bank?

It was Fritz Fischer who sucessfully challenged this orthodoxy in 1961 with his Griff nach der Weltmacht (called more prosaically Germany's Aims in the First World War when it was translated into English in 1967).

Guilty as charged

She then looks at the effect of the Versailles Peace Conference and, after that, at the effects of the Second World War and of the work by the revisionist historian, Fritz Fischer. Finally she looks at the most recent debates.

New and noteworthy. (Review)

First, there is scant evidence that German civilians--not even the enigmatic Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg--were defensively inclined in 1914, a case made compellingly by Fritz Fischer: