Jörg Friedrich
Encyclopedia
Jörg Friedrich (born 17 August 1944 in Kitzbühel
) is a German author and historian. Friedrich is best known for his publication Der Brand (2002), in which he portrays the Allied bombing of civilian targets during World War II as systematic and in many ways pointless mass murder. An English translation, The Fire, was published in 2006 by Columbia University Press
and met with widespread critical approval. For example, the New York Times said it "describes in stark, unrelenting and very literary detail what happened in city after city as the Allies dropped 80 million incendiary bombs on Germany..... There is... an edginess to Friedrich's writing and commentary, an emotional power."
Friedrich was formerly considered a left-wing antiwar activist and described as a student Trotskyist. His books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies in Germany, and some have also been translated into English, Dutch, French and many other languages. He is well connected in German political and military circles and is a friend of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
. He has published interviews with Bahro and Hilberg when their books were published.
For his work The Law of War: The German Army in Russia Friedrich has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands
.
in 1944, he spent his childhood in Essen
. Jörg Friedrich became a Trotskyist and, during the Vietnam war
, an antiwar protester. Following thereon, he began to write books on the history of the war in Germany and work as an independent historian, researching postwar justice and the Nuremberg Trials
. His books have always been controversial and have largely sold through this controversial analysis and the publicity surrounding them.
, Friedrich's position has always been assumed to be anti-Nazi with antiwar tendencies focused towards Germany's taking responsibility for its actions during the war.
Friedrich admits the fact that Germany initiated bombing of civilians in the UK by bombing London, although he claims the first raid was "accidental," thereby leaving Britain in his book as the first nation to "deliberately" bomb nonmilitary targets. Less well-known bombings, such as that of the Polish town of Wieluń
within the first two hours of the war and prior to any attack on Germany, either by air or land, are left out. Friedrich, whose primary claim to fame is as a military historian, mentions the British use of explosive weapons followed by incendiary, a mixture designed to create large fires. He also mentions that the technique to create firestorms was a German development first seen in the bombing against British cities, such as the Coventry Blitz
(14 November 1940) and the Second Great Fire of London
(29/30 December 1940).
Friedrich was persuaded to publish his book of Dresden photographs by Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
; however, a prerequisite was given that equivalent photographs of Polish
and British
victims should be shown. He has repeatedly mentioned Schroeder's endorsement but admitted failing to fulfil the conditions, explaining that the archives of the U.K. Government would not allow him to publish such photographs. In fact, many of the photographs of the Blitz in London belong to private collections, such as that of George Rodger
of Magnum Photos
.
Friedrich has specifically attempted to claim the position of an objective historian, making no judgement about the morality of Allied bombing. Many reviews of his books have pointed out that the language Friedrich uses in his books, with words such as "Einsatzgruppen
" (task force in English) used to describe allied pilots and "crematoria" (as in the crematoria of Auschwitz
) to describe the air raid shelters in which Dresden residents died. This has led to accusations that Friedrich "is downright reckless" and is attempting to make the reader consider a parallel to "the Nazi dehumanisation of the Jews.".
Taken together, two explanations have been given for Friedrich's recent books and their choice of topics. The first is that Friedrich maintains strong antiwar feelings, and with the looming War in Iraq and other global conflicts, Friedrich wanted to join in the general German antiwar feelings and implicitly criticise the policy of attacks on foreign nonmilitary targets in Iraq. Friedrich has himself rejected this explanation, stating that he "is dismayed that "The Fire" has bolstered the pacifist argument against German participation in an Iraq war".
The second explanation that has been given is that Friedrich, whilst probably still anti-Nazi, has been acting as a German nationalist and trying to put into a reasonable perspective the crimes of some German officials in World War II as not different from, or not even worse than, the many atrocities committed by the other nations involved in the war.
Friedrich has cooperated with historians from various countries, including Peter Maguire, during the creation of his book "Land and War".
, a public television channel, wrote "the Fire" ("Der Brand") off as a "provocation", and Süddeutsche Zeitung
recommended throwing his latest book, Places of Fire, directly into the garbage bin.
Even with these strong criticisms, Friedrich has had considerable public success. Der Brand was serialised in the German tabloid Bild
and has had a serious influence on German national debate. Friedrich has claimed that this has meant that German civilians who had never previously talked about their wartime experiences have begun to tell about this phase in history, which was previously documented primarily from the point of view of influence on the war. At other times, revision of the outlook on the war has taken place, with Klaus Naumann
, a former NATO General and friend of Friedrich's, saying, during a joint promotional interview with Friedrich, that he now doubted the legality and military need for Churchill's decision to attack Dresden, thereby implying that the attacks may have been war crimes.
Both in Germany and abroad, neo-Nazi groups have seized on the book as proving that the air war was begun by the UK. Claims that the book shows that bombings of German towns in 1940 were the first attacks on civilians of the war, based on the omission of attacks in Poland
, are common. The equating of the bombing of Dresden with the Holocaust is made explicit and even inverted (?), with the actions towards Jews described as a decision of Hitler for strategic reasons whilst the needless incineration of hundreds of thousands of defenseless German civilians is reappraised as a war crime and a massacre.
It is alleged that it was not until 15 May 1940, two days after the Rotterdam Blitz, that the British abandoned their policy of using aerial bombing only against military targets and against infrastructure, such as ports and railways west of the Rhine, which were of direct military importance. It is also alleged that Rotterdam was bombed by mistake.
Comparison of reviews made in Germany with those in the U.S.
and the UK
is also interesting. Some of the differences may be seen as being due to different points of view; however, specific aspects of the book (for example, the most commonly mentioned failure to provide context) are reliably mentioned in English language reviews whilst being included strongly in some German reviews and missing entirely in others.
The review on H-German network by Joerg Arnold is online.
Kitzbühel
-Demographic evolution:-Personalities:*Karl Wilhelm von Dalla Torre , entomologist and botanist*Alfons Walde , expressionist painter and architect*Peter Aufschnaiter , mountaineer and geographer...
) is a German author and historian. Friedrich is best known for his publication Der Brand (2002), in which he portrays the Allied bombing of civilian targets during World War II as systematic and in many ways pointless mass murder. An English translation, The Fire, was published in 2006 by Columbia University Press
Columbia University Press
Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by James D. Jordan and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fields of literary and cultural studies, history, social work, sociology,...
and met with widespread critical approval. For example, the New York Times said it "describes in stark, unrelenting and very literary detail what happened in city after city as the Allies dropped 80 million incendiary bombs on Germany..... There is... an edginess to Friedrich's writing and commentary, an emotional power."
Friedrich was formerly considered a left-wing antiwar activist and described as a student Trotskyist. His books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies in Germany, and some have also been translated into English, Dutch, French and many other languages. He is well connected in German political and military circles and is a friend of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1973 to 1998...
. He has published interviews with Bahro and Hilberg when their books were published.
For his work The Law of War: The German Army in Russia Friedrich has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
.
Life and career
Born in KitzbühelKitzbühel
-Demographic evolution:-Personalities:*Karl Wilhelm von Dalla Torre , entomologist and botanist*Alfons Walde , expressionist painter and architect*Peter Aufschnaiter , mountaineer and geographer...
in 1944, he spent his childhood in Essen
Essen
- Origin of the name :In German-speaking countries, the name of the city Essen often causes confusion as to its origins, because it is commonly known as the German infinitive of the verb for the act of eating, and/or the German noun for food. Although scholars still dispute the interpretation of...
. Jörg Friedrich became a Trotskyist and, during the Vietnam war
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, an antiwar protester. Following thereon, he began to write books on the history of the war in Germany and work as an independent historian, researching postwar justice and the Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
. His books have always been controversial and have largely sold through this controversial analysis and the publicity surrounding them.
Criticism of Friedrich's position
As a historian who has written strongly on the horrors committed by the German state under the NazisNazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
, Friedrich's position has always been assumed to be anti-Nazi with antiwar tendencies focused towards Germany's taking responsibility for its actions during the war.
- "his previous work examining Wehrmacht crimes and Nazi justice enables him to approach the subject without risking automatic dismissal as a right-wing apologist." (from the Peifer review of Der Brand)
Friedrich admits the fact that Germany initiated bombing of civilians in the UK by bombing London, although he claims the first raid was "accidental," thereby leaving Britain in his book as the first nation to "deliberately" bomb nonmilitary targets. Less well-known bombings, such as that of the Polish town of Wieluń
Wielun
Wieluń is a city in central Poland with 24,347 inhabitants . Situated in the Łódź Voivodeship , it was previously in Sieradz Voivodeship .- History :...
within the first two hours of the war and prior to any attack on Germany, either by air or land, are left out. Friedrich, whose primary claim to fame is as a military historian, mentions the British use of explosive weapons followed by incendiary, a mixture designed to create large fires. He also mentions that the technique to create firestorms was a German development first seen in the bombing against British cities, such as the Coventry Blitz
Coventry Blitz
The Coventry blitz was a series of bombing raids that took place in the English city of Coventry. The city was bombed many times during the Second World War by the German Air Force...
(14 November 1940) and the Second Great Fire of London
The Second Great Fire of London
The "Second Great Fire of London" is a name used at the time to refer to one of the most destructive air raids of the London Blitz, over the night of 29/30 December 1940. Between 6pm and 6am the next day, more than 24,000 high explosive bombs and 100,000 incendiary bombs were dropped...
(29/30 December 1940).
Friedrich was persuaded to publish his book of Dresden photographs by Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1973 to 1998...
; however, a prerequisite was given that equivalent photographs of Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
victims should be shown. He has repeatedly mentioned Schroeder's endorsement but admitted failing to fulfil the conditions, explaining that the archives of the U.K. Government would not allow him to publish such photographs. In fact, many of the photographs of the Blitz in London belong to private collections, such as that of George Rodger
George Rodger
George Rodger was a British photojournalist noted for his work in Africa and for taking the first photographs of the death camps at Bergen-Belsen at the end of the Second World War....
of Magnum Photos
Magnum Photos
Magnum Photos is an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members, with offices located in New York, Paris, London and Tokyo...
.
Friedrich has specifically attempted to claim the position of an objective historian, making no judgement about the morality of Allied bombing. Many reviews of his books have pointed out that the language Friedrich uses in his books, with words such as "Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen were SS paramilitary death squads that were responsible for mass killings, typically by shooting, of Jews in particular, but also significant numbers of other population groups and political categories...
" (task force in English) used to describe allied pilots and "crematoria" (as in the crematoria of Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
) to describe the air raid shelters in which Dresden residents died. This has led to accusations that Friedrich "is downright reckless" and is attempting to make the reader consider a parallel to "the Nazi dehumanisation of the Jews.".
Taken together, two explanations have been given for Friedrich's recent books and their choice of topics. The first is that Friedrich maintains strong antiwar feelings, and with the looming War in Iraq and other global conflicts, Friedrich wanted to join in the general German antiwar feelings and implicitly criticise the policy of attacks on foreign nonmilitary targets in Iraq. Friedrich has himself rejected this explanation, stating that he "is dismayed that "The Fire" has bolstered the pacifist argument against German participation in an Iraq war".
The second explanation that has been given is that Friedrich, whilst probably still anti-Nazi, has been acting as a German nationalist and trying to put into a reasonable perspective the crimes of some German officials in World War II as not different from, or not even worse than, the many atrocities committed by the other nations involved in the war.
Other related historians
Other German historians closer to the mainstream of historical research have also covered the suffering of the German people during the war. The bombing of Dresden had been covered in detail by Götz Bergander prior to Friedrich's book.Friedrich has cooperated with historians from various countries, including Peter Maguire, during the creation of his book "Land and War".
Influence on German and international debate on the war
Friedrich's books have not been well received by some media outlets in Germany. ARDARD (broadcaster)
ARD is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters...
, a public television channel, wrote "the Fire" ("Der Brand") off as a "provocation", and Süddeutsche Zeitung
Süddeutsche Zeitung
The Süddeutsche Zeitung , published in Munich, is the largest German national subscription daily newspaper.-Profile:The title literally translates as "South German Newspaper". It is read throughout Germany by 1.1 million readers daily and boasts a relatively high circulation abroad...
recommended throwing his latest book, Places of Fire, directly into the garbage bin.
Even with these strong criticisms, Friedrich has had considerable public success. Der Brand was serialised in the German tabloid Bild
Bild-Zeitung
The Bild is a German tabloid published by Axel Springer AG. The paper is published from Monday to Saturday, while on Sundays, Bild am Sonntag is published instead, which has a different style and its own editors...
and has had a serious influence on German national debate. Friedrich has claimed that this has meant that German civilians who had never previously talked about their wartime experiences have begun to tell about this phase in history, which was previously documented primarily from the point of view of influence on the war. At other times, revision of the outlook on the war has taken place, with Klaus Naumann
Klaus Naumann
Klaus Naumann is a retired German General, who served as Chief of Staff of the Bundeswehr, the German armed fources, from 1991 to 1996, and as Chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 1996 to 1999, succeeding the British general Richard Frederick Vincent, Baron Vincent of Coleshill...
, a former NATO General and friend of Friedrich's, saying, during a joint promotional interview with Friedrich, that he now doubted the legality and military need for Churchill's decision to attack Dresden, thereby implying that the attacks may have been war crimes.
Both in Germany and abroad, neo-Nazi groups have seized on the book as proving that the air war was begun by the UK. Claims that the book shows that bombings of German towns in 1940 were the first attacks on civilians of the war, based on the omission of attacks in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, are common. The equating of the bombing of Dresden with the Holocaust is made explicit and even inverted (?), with the actions towards Jews described as a decision of Hitler for strategic reasons whilst the needless incineration of hundreds of thousands of defenseless German civilians is reappraised as a war crime and a massacre.
It is alleged that it was not until 15 May 1940, two days after the Rotterdam Blitz, that the British abandoned their policy of using aerial bombing only against military targets and against infrastructure, such as ports and railways west of the Rhine, which were of direct military importance. It is also alleged that Rotterdam was bombed by mistake.
Reviews
Due to the level of controversy it has raised, a number of reviews of the German edition of "Der Brand" have been written in English and published in English language journals and/or made available on the Internet. These reviews, made shortly after the publication of the book and prior to Friedrich's public statements, have tended to treat the inaccuracies and omissions in Friedrich's books as carelessness, although criticism of the language used has been almost universal.Comparison of reviews made in Germany with those in the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
is also interesting. Some of the differences may be seen as being due to different points of view; however, specific aspects of the book (for example, the most commonly mentioned failure to provide context) are reliably mentioned in English language reviews whilst being included strongly in some German reviews and missing entirely in others.
- Review: Der Brand: Deutschland im Bombenkrieg, 1940-1945, Douglas Peifer, Air and Space Power Chronicles, Spring 2004
- Peifer provides a detailed review of the book, which finds that it is "Highly effective as a literary dirge and lamentation, it comes up short when judged by the standards of the history discipline". Perhaps more importantly he states that the language is "deliberately provocative", that the book's unclear chronology can be misleading and that the lack of clear references included makes it unverifiable. Even given these flaws, Fifer finds that "for those willing to make the effort, reading the piece is worthwhile".
- Review of Jörg Friedrich, Der Brand. Deutschland im Bombenkrieg 1940-1945; A Narrative of Loss, Joerg Arnold, Department of History, University of Southampton,
- Perhaps best summarised by its final line, "As a narrative of loss, Der Brand succeeds like few other texts, but as a historical treatment of the allied air war, it is seriously deficient." this review analyses in particular the use of sources within Friedrich's work and also his refusal to apply analysis to the reasons for the bombing. A particularly strong criticism is in Arnold's contrast between Friedrich's overt claim that the bombing had nothing to do with the holocaust and his implicit linkage of the two subjects through his use of the language of the holocaust to describe the effects of the bombings; however, Arnold fails to clarify what exactly he means with 'language of the holocaust' and why it should not be used in relation to atrocities perpetrated against Germans.
- Jörg Friedrich: Der Brand, Franz Kaessl, Öbib online (German Language).
- From its opening sentence "The fate of German civilians in the Second World War was treated as a taboo topic for many decades", this review contrasts strongly with most English language reviews. It points to the example of Günter GrassGünter GrassGünter Wilhelm Grass is a Nobel Prize-winning German author, poet, playwright, sculptor and artist.He was born in the Free City of Danzig...
as an author recently discovered the suffering of the war, whilst reviews elsewhere have claimed that Grass's work of the 1960s is actually a far more powerful portrait of the effects of wars on civilians. In the end the review concludes that the book should give a new view on history, not a new assignment of blame.
- The Destruction of Germany, Ian Buruma, in The New York Review of Books
- In a footnote to his article "Targeting the city: Debates and silences about the aerial of World War II", published in the International Review of the Red CrossInternational Review of the Red CrossThe International Review of the Red Cross is a quarterly academic journal published by the International Committee of the Red Cross and Cambridge University Press. The journal aims to serve as a forum for debate, reflection and critical analysis on international humanitarian law, humanitarian...
, Charles Maier (Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History at Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
) collates several reviews of Der Brand:- See the excellent reviews submitted to the H-German network by Joerg Arnold, 3 November 2003, and Douglas Pfeifer, 4 November 2003, which appropriately address, I believe, the strengths and weaknesses of this work — Pfeiffer's with more emphasis on the military and political issues, Arnold's with greater emphasis on the moral and conceptual problems. Others have also indicated the deficiencies of the book as a scholarly source. See for instance Horst Boogs’ summary list of errors in his contribution to Ein Volk von Opfern? Die neue Debatte um den Bombenkrieg 1940-45, Rowohlt, Berlin, 2003. Obviously many issues are contentious in this debate. The most parochial issues are those that concern historians as such. To what extent can the historian merely report or dissect the differing positions without engaging his own sense of moral judgment? Second, what sort of rhetoric is legitimate in a historical account?
The review on H-German network by Joerg Arnold is online.