AYÇOBERRY, Pierre

PERSONAL: Male. Education: École Normale Supérieure, Université de Paris I-Sorbonne, doctorate es lettres, 1977.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—University Marc Bloch, Historical Sciences, Palais Universitaire, 9, place de l'Université, 67084 Strasbourg Cedex, France.

CAREER: University of Human Sciences, Strasbourg, France, emeritus professor of contemporary history, 1993—.

WRITINGS:

L'Unité allemande, 1800-1871, Presses Universitaires de France (Paris, France), 1968, 2nd edition, 1972.

La Question Nazie: Essai sur les interprétations du national-socialisme, 1922-1975, Editions du Seuil (Paris, France), 1979, translation by Robert Hurley published as The Nazi Question: An Essay on the Interpretations of National Socialism (1922-1975), Pantheon Books (New York, NY), 1981.

(Editor, with Marc Ferro) Une Histoire du Rhin, Ramsay (Paris, France), 1981.

Cologne: Entre Napoléon et Bismarck, la croissance d'une ville rhénane, Aubier-Montaigne (Paris, France), 1981.

(Compiler and editor, with Jean-Paul Bled and István Hunyadi) Les Conséquences des traités de paix de 1919-1920 en Europe Centrale et Sud-orientale: Colloque de Strasbourg, 24-26 Mai 1984, Association des Publications près les Universités de Strasbourg (Strasbourg, France), 1987.

(With others) Josiane Olff-Nathan, managing editor, La Science sous le Troisième Reich: Victime ou alliée du nazisme?, Editions du Seuil (Paris, France), 1993.

La Société allemande sous le IIIe Reich: 1933-1945, Editions du Seuil (Paris, France), 1998, translation by Janet Lloyd published as The Social History of the Third Reich: 1933-1945, The New Press (New York, NY), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: Pierre Ayçoberry is an emeritus professor of history who has been especially interested in the history of Germany. Some of his published works on the subject have been translated from their original French, including books on Cologne, German unification, and two important volumes on Nazi Germany.

In L'Unité allemande, 1800-1871, Ayçoberry examines the evolution of Germany as a "society dominated by economic factors," according to Agatha Ramm in the English Historical Review. Ayçoberry suggests there was a French influence in the creation of German nationality, Ramm observed, and couches the history of Germany from 1848 to 1871 in terms of the Germans learning whether politics represent a conflict of ideas or a force. Although Ramm stated that she did not believe Ayçoberry adequately covers eighteenth-century Germany, "the book remains useful in its concise and fresh presentation and its welcome emphasis on economic factors."

Cologne: Entre Napoléon et Bismarck, la croissance d'une ville rhénane is an abridged version of Ayçoberry's 1977 doctoral thesis. The book traces the development of Cologne from a small, traditional, Roman Catholic city that was incorporated unwillingly in 1815 into a Protestant-dominated Prussia that possessed "no respect for its traditional function as a Rhine staging-post to dynamic participation in an industrialization process which made it the metropolis of a reinvigorated Rhineland," wrote Anthony Sutcliffe in the English Historical Review. The existing social classes of Cologne resisted the transformation into a modern industrial city, commented Robert Bezucha in the American Historical Review. Michael Hanagan, writing in the Journal of Modern History, noted that Ayçoberry's "marvelous study of Cologne between Napoléon and Bismarck centers on the response and resistance of the Bürgerstand to change." However, their efforts did not stop this change, which took place over the following seventy-five years and was caused by the flourishing of a new bourgeois class founded in the city during the 1830s, Sutcliffe explained. Ayçoberry also "demonstrates the great influence exerted by the old order on the social classes that succeeded it," Hanagan commented.

Using statistical analysis and reliance on primary sources such as census and marriage records, Ayçoberry explains the demographic elements that allowed the population of Cologne to retain some link to its past even as the changes accelerated. Fertility rates allowed a natural increase in Cologne's growth, while immigrants also entered the city from surrounding areas. New economic leaders, such as bankers and industrialists, came in from outside the city, displacing traditional leaders. Local master artisans began to feel the pressures of these changes, not only from the new technologies but from "oligarchical control over the market" or "usurious loans" from larger merchants and manufacturers, as Hanagan observed. Master craftsmen also experienced an unprecedented amount of rebellion among apprentices and subordinates, who threatened to establish their own competitive shops. Analyzing all these facts behind Cologne's metamorphosis, "Ayçoberry goes to great pains to group economic, social, political, and cultural phenomena in a single perspective, and he succeeds in incorporating superficially non-conforming phenomena, such as the revival of the Roman Catholic church," Sutcliffe commented. "Wielding a massive array of quantitative evidence with rare analytical skill, he successfully uses the new methods of social history to investigate the time-honored problems of social history," Hanagan further observed. Bezucha concluded that Cologne reveals Ayçoberry to be "an excellent scholar" and "a sensitive interpreter of German culture."

Ayçoberry's oeuvre also includes two books on the history of Nazi Germany and the Third Reich. The Nazi Question: An Essay on the Interpretations of National Socialism (1922-1975) is "an extremely useful accounting of how academics, journalists, and political activists have tried to explain the rise of Hitler," wrote E. J. Dionne in the New York Times Book Review. "Ayçoberry conducts us on a systematic tour of our 'images of Nazism'—in other words, of the theories and hypotheses that people have put forward to explain the Nazi phenomenon—and the result is devastating," declared Geoffrey Barraclough in the New York Review of Books. In this study, the author carefully examines the theories and arguments of scholars from fields as diverse as history, economics, sociology, political science, and psychology. He addresses questions of whether German leader Adolf Hitler was genuinely in control of what was going on around him, of who put the Nazis in power, and whether Hitlerism developed as "a peculiarly German phenomenon," Dionne said.

The book is divided into two sections: "Analysis for Action," which concerns the opinions and reactions to contemporaries of the rise of Nazism from 1922 to 1945, and "Settling with the Past," which addresses attempts to interpret Nazi Germany from the postwar perspective. "Particularly useful are Ayçoberry's discussions of the varieties of Marxist interpretation and his subtle exegesis of the theory of totalitarianism," wrote a reviewer in Choice. For Ayçoberry, most current theories and images of Nazi Germany are inadequate, based largely on "bright and not-so-bright intuitions, glib generalizations, [and] dogmatic assertions," Barraclough remarked. In addition, said Barraclough, "when we examine our images of Nazi Germany, almost without exception" they are "the work of men with an axe to grind" or an ulterior motive to satisfy. This is true not only of the Nazis themselves, whose self-portrayal was one of a "monolithic super-state," but of all elements at all points of the political spectrum. "Ayçoberry is an iconoclast, a destroyer not only of established reputations but also of cherished beliefs," Barraclough attested. "By the time he has finished, little we thought we knew about Nazism is left standing."

The Social History of the Third Reich: 1933-1945 is Ayçoberry's description of civilian life in Nazi Germany, a book that "sheds light on how and why [Hitler] was able to package and sell Nazism to the Germans," explained Peter Rollberg in Insight on the News. Separately examining Germany before and during the war, Ayçoberry points out that both individual and group reactions to the rising Nazi party varied wildly within Germany—some resisted it, others saw in it means of advancement, and others found themselves forced simply to survive. Often, Ayçoberry "tells who knew what when, and what they could have done or did do about it, stating facts without adding personal judgment or blame," commented John Mosher in Perspectives on Political Science. Calling the book a "balanced account of the time," Library Journal contributor Mary F. Salony said Ayçoberry demonstrates that Germans themselves "were both victims of and accomplices to one of the most terrible events in history."

As important as Ayçoberry's discussion of Nazi violence is, even more important is that "the attention he devotes to the victims of that violence . . . restores their humanity and identities, reminding us that the concentration camps opened in 1933," remarked a Publishers Weekly reviewer. The author's examination of how the Nazis managed to convince both the elite members of society and the general masses to follow their rule "recognizes the limitations of class as a category and attempts to provide nuances for the various segments of society," commented Troy Paddock in

History: Review of New Books. Jay Freeman, writing in Booklist, concluded that Ayçoberry's "disturbing, brutally honest, and scrupulously fair work may be a landmark in the field."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, Robert Bezucha, review of Cologne: Entre Napoléon et Bismarck, la croissance d'une ville rhénane, p. 418.

Booklist, November 1, 1999, Jay Freeman, review of The Social History of the Third Reich: 1933-1945, p. 504.

Choice, September, 1981, review of The Nazi Question: An Essay on the Interpretations of National Socialism (1922-1975), p. 142.

Christian Century, October 7, 1981, review of TheNazi Question, p. 1004.

Economist, September 12, 1981, review of The NaziQuestion, pp. 103-104.

English Historical Review, January, 1971, Agatha Ramm, review of L'Unité allemande, 1800-1871 pp. 187-188; October, 1984, Anthony Sutcliffe, review of Cologne, pp. 898-899.

Foreign Affairs, summer, 1981, Fritz Stern, review of The Nazi Question, p. 1186.

History: Review of New Books, winter, 2000, Troy Paddock, review of The Social History of the Third Reich, p. 68.

Insight on the News, April 17, 2000, Peter Rollberg, review of The Social History of the Third Reich.

Journal of Modern History, March, 1984, Michael Hanagan, review of Cologne, pp. 182-183.

Library Journal, March 15, 1981, Donald J. Dietrich, review of The Nazi Question, p. 106; October 1, 1999, Mary F. Salony, review of The Social History of the Third Reich, p. 106.

New Republic, May 16, 1981, Norman Stone, review of The Nazi Question, pp. 36-38.

New York Review of Books, November 19, 1981, Geoffrey Barraclough, "Goodbye, Hitler," pp. 14-15.

New York Times Book Review, August 30, 1981, E. J. Dionne, review of The Nazi Question, p. 13.

Perspectives on Political Science, summer, 2000, John Mosher, review of The Social History of the Third Reich, p. 182.

Publishers Weekly, March 6, 1981, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of The Nazi Question, p. 87; November 15, 1999, review of The Social History of the Third Reich, p. 50.