Götz Haydar Aly (; born 3 May 1947) is a German journalist, historian and

political scientist Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

Life and career

Aly was born in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

, Baden-Württemberg. He is a patrilineal descendant of a Turkish convert to Christianity named Friedrich Christian (Haydar) Aly who was a chamberlain at the

Prussian court The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918. Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signi ...

in the late 1600s. By family tradition, the oldest son gets the middle name 'Haydar'. After attending the Deutsche Journalistenschule, Aly studied history and

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

in Berlin. As a journalist, he worked for the taz, the

Berliner Zeitung The ''Berliner Zeitung'' (; ) is a daily newspaper based in Berlin, Germany. Founded in East Germany in 1945, it is the only East German paper to achieve national prominence since Reunification of Germany, reunification. It is published by Berl ...

and the FAZ. Active in the leftist German student movement in the late 60s and early 70s, he has published a polemic retrospective book ''Unser Kampf 1968: Ein irritierter Blick zurück'' (Fischer TB, Frankfurt/Main 2009) in which he argues that the radical students of the time had more in common with the "1933 generation" than they realized. He obtained his

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

in political science at the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period a ...

in 1994 with a dissertation on the Nazi euthanasia of disabled children. His interest in the subject was initially sparked when his infant daughter incurred severe permanent brain damage from a

meningitis Meningitis is acute or chronic inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, collectively called the meninges. The most common symptoms are fever, intense headache, vomiting and neck stiffness and occasion ...

infection. From 2004 to 2005, he was a visiting professor for interdisciplinary

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

research at the Fritz Bauer Institut in

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

, and from 2012–13 at the Institute for Contemporary History at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

. He has also been a visiting researcher at

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...

Work

Aly's main area of study has been the history of the

and the parties involved in formulating destructive

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

policies. In his 1999 book ''"Final Solution": Nazi Population Policy and the Murder of the European Jews'', he argues that Germans of lower rank influenced Nazi leadership to implement the

Final Solution The Final Solution or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question was a plan orchestrated by Nazi Germany during World War II for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews. The "Final Solution to the Jewish question" was the official ...

. This argument is known as the bottom-up approach of the Holocaust. For his work, Aly was awarded the Heinrich-Mann-Preis in 2002 and the Marion-Samuel-Preis one year later. In 2005, he gained widespread attention in Germany for the popular success of his book '' Hitlers Volksstaat'' (''Hitler's People's State'', translated in English as ''Hitler's Beneficiaries''). In it, Aly characterises

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

as a "convenience dictatorship" that until late in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

retained broad public support by enabling an unprecedented

social mobility Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families, households or other categories of people within or between social strata in a society. It is a change in social status relative to one's current social location within a given socie ...

for the lower classes, by introducing redistributive fiscal policies, and by greatly extending the German

welfare state A welfare state is a form of government in which the State (polity), state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal oppor ...

. Aly describes how all this was paid for in large part by confiscation of Jewish property in Germany, and later by looting conquered countries, especially their Jewish populations. He maintains that the reason for the enthusiastic support enjoyed by the Nazi regime was not so much a consequence of its violent anti-Semitism, but rather by appeasing Germans with the fruits of the plunder acquired in Nazi-occupied territories. Aly shows how the ''

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

'' was directly involved in this mass plunder and how in many cases it was the initiator of policies which led to confiscation and eventual extermination. Moreover, he asserts that Germany's leading bankers and other members of the conservative, non-Nazi financial state bureaucracy were instrumental in formulating this policy of plunder and murder. His views have not remained without criticism from the mainstream of historical research.

Adam Tooze John Adam Tooze (born 5 July 1967) is an English historian who is a professor at Columbia University, Director of the European Institute and nonresident scholar at Carnegie Europe. Previously, he was Reader in Twentieth-Century History at the Un ...

, in particular, rejected Aly's argumentation in detailed analysis published in the German press. Economic historian Marc Buggeln compared Germany to other countries in order to check Aly's contention in ''Hitler's Beneficiaries'' that the Nazis enacted a

progressive tax A progressive tax is a tax in which the tax rate increases as the taxable amount increases. The term ''progressive'' refers to the way the tax rate progresses from low to high, with the result that a taxpayer's average tax rate is less than the ...

policy, summarized as "tax breaks for the masses" and "tax rigor for the bourgeoisie". Buggeln found that Nazi Germany actually had a less progressive tax policy than countries such as the United Kingdom and United States. In his review of ''Hitler's Beneficiaries'', British historian Richard J. Evans cited what he called "a fundamental weakness" in Aly's approach:

Publications

''For an extensive list of Aly's publications and related web links in German, please refer to the German version of this article''. In English: *co-written with Peter Chroust & Christian Pross: ''Cleansing the Fatherland: Nazi Medicine and Racial Hygiene'', Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. *''"Final Solution": Nazi Population Policy and the Murder of the European Jews'', London: Arnold; New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. *co-written with Susanne Heim: ''Architects of Annihilation: Auschwitz and the Logic of Destruction'', Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002 *co-written with Karl Heinz Roth: ''The Nazi Census: Identification and Control in the Third Reich'', Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004. *''Hitlers Volksstaat. Raub, Rassenkrieg und nationaler Sozialismus'', Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 2005. ISBN 3-10-000420-5. *translated by Jefferson Chase from the German ''Hitlers Volksstaat'' (see above): ''Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State'', New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2005. *
Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State
'' Metropolitan Books. January 2007. , . *''Why the Germans? Why the Jews? Envy, Race Hatred, and the Prehistory of the Holocaust'', Metropolitan Books, April 2014. . *''Europe Against the Jews, 1880–1945'', Metropolitan Books, April 2020,

Awards

* 2002: Heinrich-Mann-Preis * 2003: Marion-Samuel-Preis * 2007:

National Jewish Book Award The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1943, is an American organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature. The goal of the council, as stated on its website, is "to promote the reading, writing and publishing of qual ...

in the Holocaust category for ''Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State'' * 2018: Geschwister-Scholl-Preis for ''Europa gegen die Juden, 1880–1945''

References

External links

''How Germans Fell for the 'Feel-Good' Fuehrer''
book review by Jody K. Biehl in '' Spiegel International'', 22 March 2005
''The Logic of Horror''
article by Götz Aly on the German "

Historikerstreit The ''Historikerstreit'' (, "historians' dispute") was a dispute in the late 1980s in West Germany between conservative and left-of-center academics and other intellectuals about how to incorporate Nazi Germany and the Holocaust into German histor ...

" or historians' dispute
''Mahatma Gandhi 'was one of Nazis' greatest friends' German historian claims''
article on Aly in ''

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are often names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * The Telegraph (Adelaide), ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaid ...

'', 4 September 2009
Material in English
on a 2005 debate at

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

between

and Götz Aly over the book, ''Hitlers Volksstaat''
An interview with Götz Aly
on the

website {{DEFAULTSORT:Aly, Gotz 1947 births Living people 20th-century German historians 20th-century German journalists 21st-century German historians 21st-century German journalists Die Tageszeitung people Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung people Free University of Berlin alumni German historians of the Holocaust German male journalists German male writers German newspaper journalists German people of Turkish descent Heinrich Mann Prize winners Historians of Nazism Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Writers from Heidelberg