Hans Rothfels - Biography

Biography

Rothfels was born to a wealthy Jewish family in Kassel, Hesse-Nassau. In 1910, he converted to Lutheranism. He converted to Protestantism before First World War broke out He was studying history and philosophy at Heidelberg University when World War I broke out in 1914. As a student, Rothfels had been a leading pupil of Friedrich Meinecke. Rothfels served in the German Army as a reserve officer and was badly wounded near Soissons. He lost one of his legs and was in a hospital until 1917. He was awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class. In 1918, Rothfels's dissertation on Carl von Clausewitz, "Carl von Clausewitz: Politik und Krieg", led to Heidelberg granting him a degree in History. In 1920, Rothfels's dissertation was published as a book. In 1922, he edited and published a collection of Clausewitz's private letters. In addition, Rothfels published several collections of Otto von Bismarck's letters, and was the first historian to be authorized by the Bismarck family to publish the Iron Chancellor's correspondence. Rothfels was noted for his claim that Bismarck was neither the "iron chancellor" of "banal legend" nor an "opportunist", but rather a profoundly religious man struggling to deal with a reality that whose full complexity was only understandable to God. He defended Bismarck's Germanization policies against Poles claiming they were "defensive".

Between 1924-1926, Rothfels taught at the University of Berlin. From 1926 to 1934, he worked as a professor, holding the Chair of History at the University of Königsberg. During his time in Königsberg, he was well known for his highly nationalistic interpretation of German history. A reactionary in his politics, Rothfels was hostile towards the Weimar Republic, through combination of authoritarianism and mass national movement, he hoped, it would be destroyed, and connections with Western democracies broken, and envisioned that on ruins of this state a new Reich would emerged formed out of East Prussian Baltic Northeast and Southeastern outposts of former Habsburg Empire. In foreign affairs, he often denounced the Treaty of Versailles and the eastern borders it had imposed on Germany. Rothfels advocated German domination of Eastern Europe and making its population into serfs. As a historian, his major interests were Otto von Bismarck, Clausewitz, and later on, the conservative German opposition to Adolf Hitler. A major interest of Rothfels in the 1920s was his belief in the obsolescence of the nation-state, and the need for a "loosening up" of the Versailles borders through increased protection of minorities. Rothfels promoted an idea of race classification based on readiness of non-German ethnic groups in Eastern Europe to submit themselves to rule of German Third Reich The Eastern and Southeastern nationalities were to be "restructured" and integrated with German "master race". Non-Germans would have been subject to hierarchical employment conditions and essentially have status of indentured workers, based on racist criteria Those living outside the "German sphere" were to be classified by hierarchy based on their "cultural heritage" and ruled under direction of Germans and a vassal class that would collaborated with them.

Although supportive of right wing politics (according to some, he might have voted for Hitler in 1932), he was subject to increasing persecution, being Jewish by birth. Eventually, Rothfels was forced to leave his s university position due to his Jewish ancestry, despite intervention by Hermann Rauschning the Nazi president of Danzig Senate and Theodor Oberlander, director of League of German East(Bund der Deutschen Osten) and NSDAP's East Prussian intelligence agency and forbidden to teach a year later. While Rothfels tried to get an honorary Aryan status with support by Joachim von Ribbentrop, his efforts were fruitless. Subject to increasing persecution and discrimination by the State, he reluctantly left Germany in 1938 for Britain. What decided the issue for him was his experience during the Kristallnacht pogrom when his house was looted and trashed by the SA and he himself was arrested and held by the Gestapo for several hours, during which he was deprived of his crutches and beaten up. Together with his wife and their three children, Rothfels left for the United Kingdom, where he hastily began to learn English, a language that he subsequently mastered.