Albert Brackmann (24 June 1871,

Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

– 17 March 1952, Berlin-Dahlem)Goetting, Hans (1955).
Brackmann, Albert Theodor Johann Karl Ferdinand
" in: ''Neue Deutsche Biographie'', vol. 2, p. 504-505. Online version retrieved 2015-11-03. was a leading nationalist

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

historian associated with the ''

Ostforschung ''Ostforschung'' (; "research on the east") is a German term dating from the 18th century for the study of the areas to the east of the core German-speaking region. At its core, Ostforschung postulated that Germans and Germany were superior to Po ...

'', a multi-disciplined organisation set up to co-ordinate German propaganda on

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, wh ...

. After Nazis were elected to power, he became one of the chief propagandists in service of the regime. In this position he supported Nazi genocidal policies, ethnic cleansing and anti-semitism. At the conclusion of his university education in

Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in thre ...

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

, and

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

, Brackmann joined, at the age of twenty-seven, the staff of MGH (''

Monumenta Germaniae Historica The ''Monumenta Germaniae Historica'' (''MGH'') is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published primary sources, both chronicle and archival, for the study of Northwestern and Central European history from the end of the Roman Empir ...

''),Burleigh, Michael (1988). "Albert Brackmann (1871-1952) Ostforscher: The Years of Retirement." ''Journal of Contemporary History'', 23(4), p. 573-588; here: p. 573. the leading German source publication for medieval documents. He was appointed professor of history at

Königsberg Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was na ...

in 1913,

Marburg Marburg ( or ) is a university town in the German federal state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district (''Landkreis''). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has a population of approx ...

in 1920, and

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

in 1922. In 1929 he became the director general of the Prussian Privy State Archives, in Berlin-Dahlem.Musial, Torsten (1996). ''Staatsarchive im Dritten Reich. Zur Geschichte des staatlichen Archivwesens in Deutschland 1933-1945''. Potsdam: Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg. p. 24. In connection with accepting the position he advocated for the establishment of a special Institute for Archival Sciences and Historical Training (Preußisches Institut für Archivwissenschaft), to provide for the professional training of archivists; the institute, which came under the administration of the state archives, opened in Berlin-Dahlem in May 1930. Brackmann, in his capacity as director general of the archives, simultaneously served as the archival institute's first director, until his retirement in 1936. During his term at the archives he retained an honorary professorship at the

University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (german: link=no, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick Will ...

. Originally a specialist in relations between the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. From the accession of Otto I in 962 ...

and the

Papacy The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

, he turned towards the history of the Germans in Eastern Europe as a result of his experiences of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...

. Politically

right-wing Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, autho ...

, he was a member first of the DVP (German People's Party) and then of the DNVP (German National People's Party) during the

Weimar Republic The German Reich, commonly referred to as the Weimar Republic,, was a historical period of Germany from 9 November 1918 to 23 March 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is also r ...

, and was joint editor of the prestigious and influential ''

Historische Zeitschrift ''Historische Zeitschrift'', founded in 1859 by Heinrich von Sybel is considered to be the first and for a time the foremost historical journal. The creation of this journal inspired Gabriel Monod to found the French '' Revue historique'' in 187 ...

'' from 1928 to 1935. Favoured by leading

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...

, including

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

himself, Brackmann steadily turned the ''Ostforschung'' away from detached academic work towards projects that fed directly into the wider foreign policy and expansionist aims being pursued by the Nazi government. In September 1939, he congratulated himself on heading a research organisation that had become the central agency "for scholarly advice for the Foreign, Interior and Propaganda ministries, the army high command and a number of SS departments." He was also an author for the Ahnenerbe, a research body set up under the auspices of

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...

, publishing a booklet entitled "Crisis and Construction in Eastern Europe" that questioned the historical validity of

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is divided into Voivodeships of Poland, sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU), with over 38 mill ...

as a nation by arguing that ''

Mitteleuropa (), meaning Middle Europe, is one of the German terms for Central Europe. The term has acquired diverse cultural, political and historical connotations. University of Warsaw, Johnson, Lonnie (1996) ''Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends'p ...

'' (Central Europe) was the original ''

Lebensraum (, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Impe ...

'' of the German nation.Burleigh (1988),
Germany Turns Eastwards
', p. 150. After the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Brackmann's work also extended to issues of Germanisation, and the removal of "undesired ethnic elements" from German domains. In this particular context he did much to promote the work of Otto Reche, professor of racial studies at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

, and a noted anti-Semite. Responding to Reche's appeal that Germany needed ''Raum'' (room), and not "Polish lice in the fur", Brackmann brought his argument for a strict definition of ethnicity to the attention of a number of different ministries. In essence, Reche argued that the Poles should be pushed eastwards further into

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian invas ...

, whose population, in turn, would be pushed even further east. Defeat in the war produced only a temporary halt in Brackmann's academic work. In 1946 he was actively involved in the reconstruction of ''Ostforschung'', and many of his pupils went on to occupy important academic positions in the

German Federal Republic BRD (german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland ; English: FRG/Federal Republic of Germany) is an unofficial abbreviation for the Federal Republic of Germany, informally known in English as West Germany until 1990, and just Germany since reunification. I ...

, with

anti-communism Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and ...

replacing the former fashion for

expansionism Expansionism refers to states obtaining greater territory through military empire-building or colonialism. In the classical age of conquest moral justification for territorial expansion at the direct expense of another established polity (who o ...

. Brackmann died in 1952, but the ''Zeitschrift für Ostforschung'' went on, amongst other things, to re-publish some of the work of the notoriously

anti-Polish Polonophobia, also referred to as anti-Polonism, ( pl, Antypolonizm), and anti-Polish sentiment are terms for negative attitudes, prejudices, and actions against Poles as an ethnic group, Poland as their country, and their culture. These incl ...

Dr Kurt Lück, who served as an SS-Sonderführer, before he was killed by

Soviet partisans Soviet partisans were members of resistance movements that fought a guerrilla war against Axis forces during World War II in the Soviet Union, the previously Soviet-occupied territories of interwar Poland in 1941–45 and eastern Finland. T ...

in 1942.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Brackmann, Albert 1871 births 1952 deaths 20th-century German historians German male non-fiction writers German National People's Party politicians German nationalists German People's Party politicians Humboldt University of Berlin faculty Leipzig University alumni Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences Writers from Hanover People from the Province of Hanover University of Göttingen alumni University of Königsberg faculty University of Marburg faculty University of Tübingen alumni Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities

References

Further reading

External links

External links