- Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof
Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof (born
26 May 1939 ) is a German author and formerGeneralmajor in theGerman Army of the "Bundeswehr ".Biography
Schultze-Rhonhof was born in
Weimar . He entered military service in 1959 a few years after the "Bundeswehr" was founded. When he retired in 1996, he was Territorial Commander-in-chief in charge ofLower Saxony andBremen and held the rank of Generalmajor (Major General ).The year before, he gained prominence by publicly criticizing the verdict of the
Bundesverfassungsgericht approval of the use of the so called -quote ("soldiers are murderers", 1931 byKurt Tucholsky ), and his decision to retire due to this. He also left the evangelical church after bishop Wolfgang Huber called for an exclusion ofMartin Hohmann from theCDU .In recent years, Schultze-Rhonhof published works on the history of the
Causes of World War II in Europe. In this context, in May 2006 he and historians Stefan Scheil and Walter Post took part in a conference organized by the publishers WigbertGrabert and Gert Sudholt (which are assessed asextreme right byVerfassungsschutz , the German Federal Agency for Internal Security).“Der Krieg, der viele Väter hatte” (The War which had many Fathers)
In his book “Der Krieg, der viele Väter hatte”, he argues that Adolf Hitler had not wanted to risk war right until September 1939. Thus, Schultze-Rhonhof especially blames
Poland for the outbreak of World War II as a result the rejection of German willingness of negotiations. Besides, alsoGreat Britain ,France , theUnited States and theSoviet Union had taken their part in the outbreak of the war because they had drivenPoland into the war.Though admitting he did not write a scientific book Schultze-Rhonhof accuses German historians of not analysing the origins of World War II correctly. Official publications as the Documents on German Foreign Policy had been manipulated, and even today German academic history and educational publishers were forced to maintain
Germany ’s sole responsibility for the outbreak of the war. Well-known sources revealingHitler ’s will to war (for instance the Halder War Diary) are ignored or doubted. Schultze-Rhonhof’s book therefore stands in a long tradition of revisionist literature on the origins of Wold War II though it never reaches the same level of sophistication asA.J.P. Taylor ’s "The Origins of the Second World War".The bibliography includes 178 titles, and is dominated by revisionist and extreme right authors such as
David L. Hoggan ,Paul Rassinier andErich Kern or other German right-wing conservatives. Results of historical research are not or barely mentioned and are not considered by Schultze-Rhonhof. Instead, he relies on already printed documents on contemporary foreign policy.Reception
Schultze-Rhonhofs writings on the origins of World War II have not been perceived by professional historians. His claim that Hitler had been against a war with Poland goes against the conventional opinion in historical research and academic teaching. Schultze-Rhonhofs book has been reviewed by important German newspapers as
Die Welt [ [http://www.welt.de/data/2003/11/20/199587.html] Sven Felix Kellerhoff: Der Stoff, aus dem die Mythen sind. Nicht nur für Hohmann: Von der Mühe der Historiker, Vor- und Fehlurteile über Juden und Drittes Reich abzubauen. In: Die WELT, 20.3.2003.] andFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung [ [http://www.faz.net/s/RubA330E54C3C12410780B68403A11F948B/Doc~E9904C51AEC914C6AA0D4B9996E24EBA6~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html] Christian Hartmann: Im Generalsblick. Abstruses zur Vorgeschichte des Zweiten Weltkriegs. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 26.11.2003, Nr. 275, S. 8.] . Both articles assessed it as “myth-creating” and “abstruse”.Works
* "1939 - Der Krieg, der viele Väter hatte - Der lange Anlauf zum Zweiten Weltkrieg", 4th ed. 2003. [http://www.amazon.de/dp/3789281883]
* "Wozu noch tapfer sein?", 1997 [http://www.amazon.de/dp/3930039648]
* "Der zweite Dreißigjährige Krieg" (The Second
Thirty Years' War ), 2 Audio-CDs, [http://www.amazon.de/dp/3937163972]Notes
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