Hans Mommsen (November 5, 1930-) is an left-wing German historian and twin brother of Wolfgang Mommsen. He was born in Marburg, the son of the historian Wilhelm Mommsen. He studied German, history and philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, the University of Tübingen and the University of Marburg. Mommsen served as professor at Tubingen (1960-1961), Heidelberg (1963-1968) and at the University of Bochum (1968-). He married Margaretha Reindel in 1966.

Mommsen is an leading expert on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Mommsen is a Functionalist in regards to the origins of the Holocaust question, seeing the Final Solution as an result of the "cumulative radicalization" of the German state as opposed to being the result of an long-term plan of the part of Hitler. In Mommsen's view, Hitler was an anti-semitic, but one who lacked an real idea of what he wanted to do with the Jews. Furthermore, for Mommsen, Hitler played little or no real role in the development of the Holocaust. The Holocaust was caused primarly by the German bureaucracy who as the result of bureaucratic turf wars, started to compete with one another by engaging in every more radical anti-semitic steps between 1933 and 1941.

Mommsen is best known for arguing that Hitler was an "weak dictator" who rather then acting, reacted to various social pressures. Mommsen is opposed to the notion of seeing against Nazi Germany as an totalitarian state. In Mommsen's view, the Nazis were far too disorganized to ever be an totalitarian dictatorship. The reason why the Nazis stayed in power was that the average German either supported the Nazis or was indifferent to the regime. In Mommsen's view, the fact that the majority of the German people supported or were indifferent to Nazism is what enabled the Nazis to stay in power.

In the Historikerstreit debate, Mommsen argued that the Holocaust was an uniquely evil event which should not compared to the other horrors of the 20th century. Mommsen has written well regarded books and essays on the fall of the Weimar Republic, blaming the downfall of the Republic on German conservatives. Another area of interest for Mommsen is dissent, opposition, and resistence in the Third Reich. Mommsen has drawn unfavorable comparisons between what he sees as conservative opposition and Social Democratic and Communist resistence to the Nazis. Mommsen is also an expert on social history and often writes about working-class life in the Weimar and Nazi eras.

A major figure in his homeland, Mommsen often takes stands on the great issues of the time. An cranky individual, Mommsen feels that the responsibility for ensuring the mistakes of the past are never repeated rests on an engaged and historically-consciousness citzentry.

Work

• Die Sozialdemokratie und die Nationalitätenfrage im habsburgischen Vielvölkerstaat, 1963.
• "Der Reichstagsbrand und seine politischen Folgen" pages 351-413 from Vierteljahrensefte fur Zeitgeschihte, Volume 12, 1964.
• Beamtentum im Dritten Reich: Mit ausgewählten Quelen zur nationalsozialistischen Beamtenpolitik, 1966.
• Industrielles System und politische Entwicklung in der Weimarer Republik, co-edited with Dietmar Petzina and Bernd Weisbrod, 1974.
• Sozialdemokratie zwische Klassenbewegung ud Volkspartei, edited by Hans Mommsen, 1974.
• Arbeiterbewegung und industriller Wandel: Studien zu Gewrkschaftlichen Organisationsproblemn im Riech und an der Ruhr, edited by Hans Mommsen, 1978.
• Klassenkampft oder Mitbestimmung: zum Problem der Kontrolle wirschaftlicher Macht in der Weimarer Republik, 1978.
• Arbeiterbewegugn und Nationale Frage: Ausgeahlt Aufsatz, 1979.
• Gluck, Auf, Kameraden! Die Bergarbeiter und ihre Organisationen in Deutschland, co-edited with Ulrich Borsdorf, 1979.
• Vom Elend der Handarbeit: Proleme historisher Unterschichtenforschung, co-edited with Winfried Schulze, 1981.
• Politik und Gesellschaft im alten und neuen Osterreich: Festschrift fur Rodolf Neck zum 60. Geurtstag, co-edited with Isabella Acker and Walter Hummelbergrer, 1981.
• Auf der Suche nach historicher Normalitat: Beitrage zum Geschichtsbildstreit in der Bunderepublik, 1987.
• Herrschaftsalltag im Dritten Reich: Studien und Texte, co-edited with Susanne Willems, 1988.
• Die verspielte Freiheit: der Weg der Republik von Weimar in den Untergang, 1918 bis 1933, 1989.
• Der Nationalsozialismus und die deutsche Gesellschaft, 1991.
• Der Nationalsozialismus: Studien zur Ideologie und Herrschaft, co-edited with Wolfgang Benz and Hans Buchleim, 1993.
• Ungleiche Nachbarn: demokratische und Nationale Emanzipation bei Deutsche, Tschechen und Slowaken (1815-1914) co-edited with Jiri Koralka, 1993.
• "Adolf Hitler und der 9. November 1923" from Der 9. November: Fünf Essays zur deutschen Geschichte, 1994.
• Widerstand und politische Kultur in Deutschland und Österreich, 1994.

Reference

• "Einleitung" (Introduction) in Der Nationalsozialismus und die deutsche Geselleschaft: Ausgewählte Aufsätze (National Socialism and German Society: Selected Essays) edited by Lutz Niethammer and Bernd Wiesbrod, Reinbek: Rowoht, 1991.
• Von der Aufgabe der Freihiet: politische Antwortung und Bürgerliche Gesellschaft im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert: Fesschift für Hans Mommsesn zum. 5. November 1995 (The Task of Freedom: Political Responsbility and Civil Society in the 19th and 20th centuries) edited by Christain Jansen, Lutz Niethammer, and Bernd Wiesbrod, Berlin: Akademie, 1995.
• The Genesis of the Holocaust: An Assessment of the Functionalist School of Historiography, Jacqueline Bird [1]