Ernst Nolte, Historian Whose Views on Hitler Caused an Uproar, Dies at 93

[Larry Davis]

Ernst Nolte, a German revisionist historian who broke academic taboos by equating Nazism with Bolshevism and who was denounced as an apologist for Hitler and even the Holocaust, died on Thursday in Berlin. He was 93.




http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/wo...ies-at-93.html

[pasoleati]

Nolte was basically correct. It is also quite interesting to note that the linked article does not mention that Nolte's main opponent Habermas was basically a card-carrying Communist...

[ZacharyB]

I remember when "revisionist historian" was an insult in the academic community because those who were so labeled were known to sanitize history with the aim of steering the student toward a particular political/social conclusion.

Now the current trend in historiography seems to be to embrace the inevitability of being revisionist. Simply accept that there is a general (and generally left wing) destination being sought and that "revision" is no longer a dirty word in academia as it now represents the correcting of past biases.

So while growing up, most of us were taught that "two wrongs don't make a right" historians these days seem to think that you fight bias with bias (hence revisionism as a legitimate discipline) and the result will somehow be more sound.

As for unbiased and sterile reporting of the "who, what, when, and where" in which the student/reader is left to draw his own conclusions, we are supposed to leave that to the journalism department.