Fritz Stern - Topics of Writings

Topics of Writings

The focus of much of Stern's work is attempting to track the development of the rise of National Socialism in Germany and its characteristics. Stern has traced the origins of Nazism back to the 19th century völkische movement. In Stern's opinion, the virulently anti-Semitic völkische movement was the result of the "politics of cultural despair" experienced by German intellectuals who were unable to come to grips with modernity. However, Stern rejects the Sonderweg interpretation of German history. In his view, the ideas of the völkische movement were merely a "dark undercurrent" in 19th century German society. In the 1990s, Stern was a leading critic of the controversial American author Daniel Goldhagen, whose book Hitler's Willing Executioners Stern denounced as unscholarly and full of Germanophobia.

Another major area of research for Stern has been the history of the Jewish community in Germany and how the Jewish culture influenced German culture and vice-versa. In Stern's view, this interaction produced what Stern has often called the "Jewish-German symbiosis". In Stern’s view, the best example of the "Jewish-German symbiosis" was Albert Einstein.