ing in the early 1960’s, Schramm exposedrnthe fallacy—and the danger—of arnthen-common tendency to trivializernHitler. Ernst Deuerlein’s Hitler: A PoliticalrnBiography (1969), which Lukacsrncalls “the best short hiider biography,” isrnalso well-written. Deuerlein pondered arnkey problem —”how Hitler had beenrnpossible”—that also preoccupied SebastianrnHaffner, who asserted the unquestionablernunit}’ of Hitler with the Germanrnpeople in the 1930’s. With the onset ofrnthe 1980’s, a new generation of scholarsrnemerged, having no personal memoriesrnof the Third Reich. This period wasrnmarked by the debate between “Functionalists”rnand “Intentionalists,” behveenrnthose who regard Hitler as an opportunistrnand those who regard him as anrnideologue. Lukacs’s implied conclusion,rnwith which there can be litde argument,rnis that the Nazi hierarchy mayrnhave been “functionalist” in form andrnoutward appearance but it was alwaysrn”intentionalist” in substance (evenrnthough the nature of tiiat intent was concealedrnbehind the multiple layers ofrnHitler’s secretiveness).rnThe second half of the 1980’s broughtrnus the famous (in Germany, at least)rn”Quarrel of the Historians,” no longer arncivilized debate but a bitter controversyrnover the nature of National Socialismrnand its proper place in the context ofrnEuropean history. The “neoconservatiye”rncamp in the dispute (Ernst Nolternand Andreas Hillgruber, later joined byrnthe voung and talented Rainer Zitelmann,rnand supported “from without”rnb)’ )oachim Fest), made a number ofrnclaims that threatened to shatter the acceptancernof a general consensus soughtrnfor decades by the left-liberal, anti-nationalistrnGerman academic and intellectualrnestablishment represented by JurgenrnHabermas.rnNolte’s thesis was that Nazism mustrnbe understood as a reaction to So’iet Bolshevism:rnthe Gulag preceded Auschwitz,rnand indirectly led to it. Hillgruber furtherrndeveloped his thesis of “Ivvo wars”rn(conventional, 1939-41; apocahptic,rn1941-45) to the point where he sought tornpresent the desperate German strugglernagainst the Red Army in 1944-45 as arndoomed epic that had developed —inrnspite of Hitler, rather than thanks tornhim —into an all-German defense ofrnWestern civilization against Eastern barbarity.rnWhile the older authors implicitlyrnsought to separate the storv of thernThird Reich from Hitler, the uncompromisingrnyoung newcomer Zitelmannrndeepened the split bv asserting thatrnHider was truly a revolutionary, that hisrnaspirations and isions were essentiallyrnmodem, and that “[his] thinking and actionsrnwere essentially much more rationalrnthan hitherto accepted.” (Lukacs’srnwarning that Zitelmann’s views containrnthe seeds of “at least a partial rehabilitation”rnseems to be confirmed by the latter’srnrecent willingness to become an advocaternof ultra-nationalist positions thatrnare alarming, and not only to Germans.)rnLukacs’s ensuing treatment of therndilemmas posed bv Hitier’s biographersrnand historians is masterly andrnconfident. Lukacs regards Hitler as thernultimate refutation of the economic interpretationrnof histor’ and of the notionrnthat history is made not by individualrnpersons but by underlying social conditionsrnand economic forces. His argument:rnthe war would not have come inrn1939 except for Hitler. Far from beingrn”mad,” Hitier “was a normal human being”rnwhose inclination to eil, while reprehensible,rnwas itself normal. His evil intentionsrn—most notably the killing ofrnEuropean Jews —”were spiritual, notrnphysical,” which only makes the deedrnmore reprehensible. The problem isrncomplicated by the great popularity ofrnthe Fiihrer, who “may have been thernmost popular revolutionary leader in thernhistory of the modern world…. [He] belongsrnto the democratic, not the aristocratic,rnage of history.”rnGiven Lukacs’s acceptance of Hitlerrnas a “revolutionary” in his ideas, hisrnrhetoric, and his plans and their execution,rnthe reader is puzzled by the author’srnuncompromising dismissal of the viewrnthat Bolshevik brutal it- affected the restrnof Europe and provided an impetus forrnlater Nazi outrages, since the horror ofrnLenin’s and Stalin’s Russia cannot be divorcedrnfrom the totality of Western experiencesrnin this century. Contrary tornLukacs’s implication, Russia under communismrnwas an eminenth’ Europeanrnphenomenon, not a marginal episodernthat can be confined to the dark heart ofrnthe Eurasian steppes.rnIdeologically inspired mass murder—rnsymbolically injected into Russia’s weakenedrnbody-politic by tire Kaiser’s sealedrntrain from Switzerland—was neither therninvention nor the unique prerogative ofrna brutal, Asiatic Russia needing to bernjudged by standards different from thosernof the rest of Europe. Lukacs invokes thernRussian tradition of han the Terrible torndismiss Fest’s and Nolte’s linkage; butrnthe exact or near-contemporaries of Ivanrnslaughtered the burghers of Antwerprnwith a papal blessing in 1585, brutalizedrnGerman}’ and Bohemia during the Thirt}’rnYears’ War, and sacked Drogheda underrnthe banner of the New Model Army.rnAlmost two centuries later GeneralrnWestermann, a client of Danton, triumphantlyrnreported to the Conventionrnthat “the Vendee is no more. . . . I havernburned it in the woods and marshes ofrnSavenay. . . . I hae trampled their childrenrnbeneath our horses’ feet; I havernmassacred their women, so they will nornlonger give birth to brigands; I do notrnhave a single prisoner to reproach me. Irnhave exterminated them all. Mercy isrnnot a revolutionar}’sentiment!” In 1794,rnat the harbor ot Rochefort, thousands ofrnnonjuror priests were slowly starved torndeath on the decks of prison hulks. AtrnAngers, thousands were summarily shot.rnBut the “infernal columns,” the Einsatzgruppenrnof their dav, could not accomplishrnenough killing by conventionalrnmethods. A solution was successfulK’ appliedrnat Nantes, where thousands werernsystematicallv drowned — the first attemptrnat industrialized and “depersonalized”rnmass luurder in history.rnThe list goes on, but the point is clear:rnWestern Europe cannot be judged “byrnits own standards” because those standardsrnare not qualitatively different fromrnthose of its Slavic-Orthodox cousins.rnLukacs is right to concur in the descriptionrnof Hitler as a rexolutionar}’, but he isrnmistaken in denying the link betweenrn1789, 1917, and” 1933 (or, more aptly,rn1942-45).rnThe decline and ultimate collapsernof the religious impulse among Europeans,rnfrom the Atlantic to the Urals,rncreated a gaping hole that was filled byrnideologies uninhibited by religious restraintsrnand moti’ated by the will to power.rnLukacs aptly describes Hitler as “anrnidealist determinist” who believed in thernsupreme importance of will and thernsupreme power of ideas, and acknowledgesrnthat the Hegelian Zeitgeist ma}’rnhave assisted Hitler’s rise to power.rnLukacs belie’es nonetheless that the veryrnfact of his taking power enabled Hitler torncreate his own Zeitgeist, and argues thatrn”contrar}’ to Hegel or Dostoyevsky, whatrnmen do to ideas is more important thanrnwhat ideas do to them.”rnBut is it? Lukacs recognizes the Ger-rn28/CHRONICLESrnrnrn