![CAK 2020](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/CAK_2020.jpg)
Claudia Ann Koonz is an American historian of
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. Koonz's critique of the
role of women during the Nazi era, from a
feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
perspective, has become a subject of much debate and research in itself.
She is a recipient of the
PEN New England Award The PEN New England Award (previously L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award and Laurence L. & Thomas Winship/PEN New England Award) is awarded annually by PEN New England (today PEN America Boston) to honor a New England author or book with a New Engl ...
, and a
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.
The Nat ...
finalist.
Koonz has appeared on the podcasts ''Holocaust'', hosted by
University of California Television
University of California Television (known simply as UCTV) is a 24-hour television channel presenting educational and enrichment programming from the campuses, national laboratories, and affiliated institutions of the University of California sy ...
, and ''Real Dictators'', hosted by
Paul McGann
Paul John McGann (; born 14 November 1959) is an English actor. He came to prominence for portraying Percy Toplis in the television serial ''The Monocled Mutineer'' (1986), then starred in the dark comedy ''Withnail and I'' (1987), which was a ...
. In the months before the
2020 United States presidential election
The 2020 United States presidential election was the 59th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and the junior U.S. senator from California Kamala Ha ...
, Koonz wrote about the risks of
autocracy
Autocracy is a system of government in which absolute power over a state is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject neither to external legal restraints nor to regularized mechanisms of popular control (except perh ...
in the United States for
History News Network
History News Network (HNN) at George Washington University is a platform for historians writing about current events.
History
History News Network (HNN) is a non-profit corporation registered in Washington DC. HNN was founded by Richard Shenkman ...
and the
New School
The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...
's ''Public Seminar.''
Education
Koonz received a BA in 1962 from the
University of Wisconsin, Madison
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
that included two semesters studying at the
University of Munich
The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's List of universities in Germany, sixth-oldest u ...
. After a year of traveling overland through Asia,
she studied at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, from which she earned an MA in 1964, before earning a
PhD from
Rutgers University
Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...
in 1969.
Scholarship
Claudia Koonz is Peabody Family Professor emerita in the History Department at
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
. Before coming to Duke in 1988, she taught at
College of the Holy Cross
The College of the Holy Cross is a private, Jesuit liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts, about 40 miles (64 km) west of Boston. Founded in 1843, Holy Cross is the oldest Catholic college in New England and one of the oldest ...
in
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...
,
and at
Long Island University, Southampton from 1969 to 1971.
Together with Renate Bridenthal, she edited the first anthology of European women’s history, ''Becoming Visible''. She subsequently published two books, ''Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family and Nazi Politics'' and ''The Nazi Conscience'', which analyze the sources of ordinary Germans' support for the Nazi Party during
Weimar
Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...
and Nazi Germany.
''The Nazi Conscience'' has been translated into
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
,
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
, and
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
.
Her current book on stereotypes in French media (forthcoming with
Duke University Press
Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 Du ...
) is ''Between Foreign and French: Prominent French Women from Muslim Backgrounds in the Media Spotlight, 1989-2020.''
''Mothers in the Fatherland''
Koonz is best known for documenting the appeal of
Nazism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
to German women and understanding their enthusiasm for the Nazis. Koonz has established that the leaders of German feminist, civic, and religious groups acquiesced to Nazification () that coerced Germans into following Nazi policy. Women in Marxist movements joined with men in operating underground opposition networks. Koonz has noted that female supporters of the Nazis accepted the Nazi division of the sexes into a public sphere for men and a private sphere for women. A reviewer in the ''New York Times'' wrote that ''Mothers in the Fatherland'' explored the “paradox that the very women who were so protective of their children, so warm, nurturing and giving to their families, could at the same time display extraordinary cruelty.” Koonz has claimed that women involved in resistance activities were more likely to escape notice owing to the "masculine" values of the
Third Reich
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. A mother, for example, could smuggle illegal leaflets through a checkpoint in a pram without arousing suspicion.
Koonz is also known for her claim that two kinds of women asserted themselves in the Third Reich: those, like
Gertrud Scholtz-Klink
Gertrud Emma Scholtz-Klink, ''née'' Treusch, later known as Maria Stuckebrock (9 February 1902 – 24 March 1999), was a Nazi Party member and leader of the National Socialist Women's League (''NS-Frauenschaft'') in Nazi Germany.
Nazi activities
...
, who gained power over women under their supervision in exchange for subservience to the men who wielded power over them (the authoritarian trade off) and the women who violated the norms of civilized society, such as camp guards like
Ilse Koch
Ilse Koch (22 September 1906 – 1 September 1967) was a German war criminal who was an overseer at Nazi concentration camps run by her husband, commandant Karl-Otto Koch. Working at Buchenwald (1937–1941) and Majdanek (1941–1943), Koch ...
. Koonz includes women who were opposed to Nazism 100% as well as "single issue" critics (of, for example,
sterilization and
euthanasia
Euthanasia (from el, εὐθανασία 'good death': εὖ, ''eu'' 'well, good' + θάνατος, ''thanatos'' 'death') is the practice of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering.
Different countries have different eut ...
) but did not protect or protest the deportation of Jews to
death camps
Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...
. Koonz's views have often been pitted against those of
Gisela Bock
Gisela Bock (born 1942 in Karlsruhe, Germany) is a German historian. She studied in Freiburg, Berlin, Paris and Rome. She took her doctorate at the Free University Berlin in 1971 (on early modern intellectual history in Italy) and her Habilitatio ...
in a battle some have referred to as the (quarrel among historians of women).
''Mothers in the Fatherland'' integrates archival research into an exploration of “the nature of feminist commitment, complicity in the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
, and the meaning of Germany’s past.” The Nazis promised “emancipation from emancipation,” an appeal that resonated with Germans who feared that male-female equality meant “social and family disintegration.” But Koonz highlights the paradoxes produced by the Third Reich’s dependence on women’s participation (as subordinates, to be sure) in child-bearing, social work, education, surveillance, health care, and compliance with race policy. A reviewer in the ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' wrote that Koonz dug “deeply and discerningly into a variety of documents,... to record the mixed results of Nazi efforts at mobilizing women’s groups, secular, Protestant and Catholic” and Jewish women’s efforts to fight against confiscation, ostracism, deportation and murder.
Catherine Stimpson called the contradictory message of ''Mothers of the Fatherland'' “painful” because:
“If many societies deprive women of power over themselves, women still have power to exercise. Women, though Other to men, have their Others too. In the United States white women ''did'' own black slaves of both sexes, and in Nazi Germany, as Claudia Koonz showed us in her heartbreaking book, ''Mothers in the Fatherland,'' Nazi women ''did'' brutalize and kill Jews of both sexes. And colonizers both lorded and ladied it over the colonized of both sexes.”
''The Nazi Conscience''
Conventional scholarship defines Nazism by its anti-Semitism, anti-modernism, and anti-liberalism, as expressed in publications like , but ''The Nazi Conscience'' examines the “positive” values of community and ethnic purity that attracted ordinary Germans, including millions who had never voted Nazi before
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 ...
's takeover.
A reviewer wrote that Koonz’s book challenges us to “suspend temporarily our understanding of Nazism and to try to understand the movement as the Nazis themselves understood it. In doing so, we can better understand how murderous racist doctrines infiltrated the moral and psychological fabric of the German people so easily.”
A reviewer for ''
The Review of Politics
''The Review of Politics'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal in the fields of politics, philosophy, and history. It was founded in 1939 and is published by Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the universit ...
'' called ''The Nazi Conscience'' a “meticulously researched and engrossingly written book”.
Another reviewer called it a "tour de force" that documents the formation of a consensus that evolved during the “normal” years of the Third Reich, 1933-1941. This was a time when National Socialist racial policy congealed, or according to Koonz, “metastasized” in three contexts: Hitler’s public persona, academic think tanks, and bureaucratic networks.
During these years, the rabidly anti-Semitic Nazi base was held in check by Hitler himself and the proponents of a “rational” assault against Jews. Although ordinary Germans deplored violence, anti-Semitic measures that appeared “legal” were scarcely noticed. After all, fewer than one percent of all Germans were Jewish, and by 1939 half of them had emigrated. Besides, Hitler’s government ended unemployment, scored diplomatic victories, and revived national pride. Most citizens “accepted a new Nazi-specific morality that was steeped in the language of ethnic superiority, love of fatherland, and community values," according to another review of ''The Nazi Conscience.''
Koonz cautioned that nostalgia for imagined glory is a potent force that could rally aggrieved citizens to ethnic nationalism elsewhere. “In examining how National Socialism mobilized diverse but quotidian institutional contexts to create a ‘community of moral obligation,’ she invites us to reflect on . . . the ways contemporary society demonizes, ostracizes, and excludes certain classes of people."
Corey Robin Corey Robin (born 1967) is an American political theorist, journalist and professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has written books on the role of fear in political life, tr ...
noted Koonz “might have cited Thomas Jefferson who, anticipating the Nazis by more than a century, saw no future for freed blacks other than deportation or extermination.”
Recent work
Prior to the 2020 United States presidential election, Koonz published articles in History News Network and the New School's ''Public Seminar'' warning about the risks of autocracy in the United States.
Following the election of
Joe Biden in 2020, Koonz's work analyzed the presidency of
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
through the lens of World War II history, and analyzed the
withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan in 2021 through a historical lens.
Awards and honors
* 1987 National Book Award non-fiction finalist
* 1987
''New York Times'' Notable Book of 1987
* 1987 Outstanding Book in Women's History at the
Berkshire Conference of Women Historians The Berkshire Conference of Women Historians (also known as the "Little Berks") is an organization for female historians. The Conference welcomes women historians from all fields and historical eras, not just the history of women and gender. The Ber ...
* 1987
PEN-Boston Globe Winship Book of the Year Award
* 1990 ''
Libération
''Libération'' (), popularly known as ''Libé'' (), is a daily newspaper in France, founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Initially positioned on the far-left of France's ...
'' (Paris) best 100 books of 1990
* 1990-1991 Raoul Wallenberg Visiting Professorship,
Rutgers University
Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...
, Rutgers Institute for History
* 1993-1994
National Humanities Center The National Humanities Center (NHC) is an independent institute for advanced study in the humanities. The NHC operates as a privately incorporated nonprofit and is not part of any university or federal agency. The center was planned under the auspi ...
Fellowship
* 1993-1994
American Council of Learned Societies
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
Fellowship
* 2005-2006
John Simon Guggenheim Foundation
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim
John Simon Guggenheim (December 30, 1867 – November 2, 1941) was an American businessman, politician and philanthropist.
Life
Born in Philadelphi ...
* 2006
American Academy in Berlin
The American Academy in Berlin is a private, independent, nonpartisan research and cultural institution in Berlin dedicated to sustaining and enhancing the long-term intellectual, cultural, and political ties between the United States and Germany ...
Haniel Fellow
* 2007
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
Distinguished Teaching Award
Work
* co-edited with Renate Bridenthal ''Becoming Visible: Women in European History'', 1977, revised edition 1987.
* ''Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family, and Nazi Politics'', 1986
[; ]
* ''The Nazi Conscience'' Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003, .
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Koonz, Claudia
Historians of Nazism
21st-century American historians
Feminist historians
Duke University faculty
Living people
University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni
American women historians
21st-century American women writers
Columbia University alumni
Rutgers University alumni
American expatriates in Germany
Year of birth missing (living people)