With their biography of the Nazi functionary Fritz Kiehn, historians Hartmut Berghoff and Cornelia Rauh have delivered a formidable study. The product of a decade and a half of research, the work appeared in Germany in 2000, where it unleashed an emotional public debate in the town of Trossingen, Kiehn’s hometown, as inhabitants grappled with the legacy of this honored citizen and the Third Reich. Incorporating this furor into their English edition, Berghoff and Rauh not only provide an astute examination of the biographical continuities and interruptions of a Nazi at the local level, but also how that history continues to reverberate.
To make their case, the authors’ interdisciplinary approach examines the links between Kiehn and small-town life, regional and national politics, and how history is remembered. Relying on sources from nearly two dozen archives and materials of the Kiehn family, the book is divided along the caesura of 1945. The first portion focuses on Kiehn’s meteoric rise in Trossingen, his early activism and support of Nazism, and his emergence as the “leader of the Württemberg economy” (p. 47). The second half covers the postwar era, including Kiehn’s successful denazification and reemergence as an honored citizen of the community.
Contending with the complexities and motivations of Kiehn is a recurring theme of the book. His intense obsession with social advancement combined with a high tolerance for risk guaranteed economic success in his manufacturing business. Early enthusiastic support of the Nazi Party also paid off, though his corruption and aggressive striving irritated party and local elites, who saw him as a vainglorious parvenu. Nevertheless, Kiehn possessed enough contacts, including Heinrich Himmler, so that he obtained numerous offices and expanded his business through Aryanization and state contracts. Nazism advanced Kiehn financially and politically, though his influence remained regional and even limited to Trossingen.
After 1945 Kiehn faced a number of denazification and legal trials that threatened his standing, and the community of Trossingen briefly saw him as a scapegoat for the disastrous defeat and ensuing hardship. However, the 1950s societal consensus to shroud the Third Reich in silence allowed Kiehn to reemerge as a pillar of the community. Through philanthropy and a shrewd reinvention as a victim of the war and a Nazi activist who wanted only to help “the little man,” Kiehn ensured that his legacy remained largely intact to this day.
Overall, Berghoff and Rauh argue that Kiehn’s evolution from “old fighter” to honored citizen reflects the social and political history of the Federal Republic of Germany. It reveals how some found their way to National Socialism and the movement’s dynamics within a small community. Moreover, Kiehn’s postwar biography demonstrates how Germany was able to transform itself into a Western liberal civil society, at the expense of papering over its dictatorial past.
The authoritative mobilization and judicious analysis of the sources capture all of Kiehn’s paradoxes and contradictions, providing an impressively nuanced investigation of a German industrialist from the collapse of the German Empire to the late Bonn Republic. The careful treatment grants insights into the mentalities of that generation: why they were animated by the promise and opportunities of National Socialism, and how they reinvented themselves after 1945. It is an astute study of what “normal life” looked like in a German town throughout the twentieth century. Rapacious and unscrupulous opportunism and outright criminality are portrayed side-by-side with generosity and magnanimity. The authors construct a complex portrait that perfectly captures ambivalences, as it should be with a historical examination of what made an “ordinary” Nazi. Readers seeking to understand why Germans could support Hitler only to seamlessly integrate in the postwar period will be well served to ponder the motivations of Kiehn.
The thoughtful analysis and dissection of Kiehn’s self-portrayals have not only produced a compelling biography covering nearly a century, but Berghoff and Rauh effectively use their case study also to cast light on developments in German history in general. A view of the Nazi economy and political system “from below” reveals the dynamics of the polycratic regime in practice, and its dependence on personal connections and susceptibility to corruption, cronyism, and vicious rivalry. Among the most captivating chapters are those that examine Kiehn’s role in the Aryanization of Jewish businesses and his denazification trials. Not only do the authors illuminate the actual processes, but they also powerfully resurrect those affected by Kiehn’s machinations, as most thoughtfully demonstrated by the passages chronicling the fate of the Fleischer family during Aryanization and their quest for justice against Kiehn after 1945.
The great strength of the study is that it captures the paradoxical nature of Kiehn. The treatment of his ideological motivations, however, could have been more precise. Public statements and educated guessing about his worldview based on his generational experiences, socialization, and class suggest an authoritarian nationalist with antidemocratic, anticommunist, and vague anti-Semitic convictions. Undoubtedly, Kiehn identified with aspects of National Socialism. However, he also possessed syncretic beliefs that contradicted official policy. He associated with Jews and freemasons, exhibited ambivalence toward key tenets of Nazism, and greatly admired France and the United States. After 1945 he employed and even welcomed into his family Nazis who promised political or economic connections, yet he distanced himself from the network of politically active fascists. Victims of the regime spoke in his defense and attested to his status as a “humane Nazi.” He was a supporter of Adenauer and seemed to reconcile himself with democracy.
In the end, a murky picture emerges, and as unsatisfying as this may appear analytically, Berghoff and Rauh are sometimes unconvincing when they attempt to concretize what actually moved Kiehn beyond unbridled opportunism and hubris. Relying on statements or biographical information of other contemporaries as “typical” to people like Kiehn seems a stretch, particularly when they come from SS elites and ideological hardliners intimately involved in genocidal policy. To what extent was National Socialism a convenient chance for Kiehn to get ahead, rather than a matter of the heart? Perhaps it was some combination, and while certainly Kiehn was not apolitical, cutting through the parroting of Nazi platitudes and selective appropriation of its leadership and presentational style, one is left wondering how representative Kiehn is of midlevel functionaries.
Nevertheless, Berghoff and Rauh make important contributions to historical scholarship. This interdisciplinary work joins other sophisticated biographical case studies that permit a broader examination of milieus and mentalities that many Germans of a particular class, generation, or institutional background may have shared. The authors also present important findings that enrich an understanding of the dynamics of Aryanization and the contradictions and long-term effects of the Volksgemeinschaft (national community), particularly at the local level. The investigation of a middle-class businessman and his surroundings is a further important historiographical intervention, given that this field has been somewhat of a desideratum.
Overall, the authors make a convincing case that to examine Kiehn “is to bring almost a century of German social, economic, political, and cultural history into vivid reach” (p. 8). By scrutinizing the connection between history that is experienced and history that is remembered and how national developments played out regionally over several regime changes, Berghoff and Rauh have produced a remarkable study that no one seeking to understand the dynamics of National Socialism can forego.
