When was Karl Dietrich Bracher born?
1961039#0
Karl Dietrich Bracher (13 March 1922 – 19 September 2016) was a German political scientist and historian of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. Born in Stuttgart, Bracher was awarded a Ph.D. in the classics by the University of Tübingen in 1948 and subsequently studied at Harvard University from 1949 to 1950. During World War II, he served in the Wehrmacht and was captured by the Americans while serving in Tunisia in 1943. He was then held as a POW in Camp Concordia, Kansas. Bracher taught at the Free University of Berlin from 1950 to 1958 and at the University of Bonn since 1959. In 1951 Bracher married Dorothee Schleicher, the niece of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. They had two children.
Karl Dietrich Bracher
1961039#25
Bracher emerged as one of the first proponents of the idea of the Federal Republic as a "post-national democracy" or what become known as "constitutional patriotism", a new definition of what it meant to be German. Bracher argued that in the aftermath of the Third Reich, the traditional German nationalism based on a "blood-and-soil" ideology that defined "Deutschtum" (Germanness) in racial terms was too morally compromised by its association with Nazism, and the values promoted by the old Prussian-Imperial "Obrigkeitsstaat" (authoritarian state) were not suitable for a democratic society, thus requiring something new. Instead, Bracher called for a new German nationalism that defined itself in terms of its commitment to democracy and made upholding the humanist values of the 1949 Basic Law (the constitution) the centerpiece of what it meant to be German. Bracher argued contra the traditional "national patriotism" with loyalty to the nation that with "constitutional patriotism" the primary loyalty of Germans was to be towards the Basic Law and its values, creating a new sense of German national identity based upon a sense of loyalty to the Basic Law that would to apply to all regardless of sex, religion, skin color or ethnicity. Many supporters of "national patriotism" like the historian Hagen Schulze argued Bracher's "constitutional patriotism" was too dry and abstract, maintaining that Germans needed a stronger glue than loyalty to the Basic Law to have a sustainable sense of national identity, thus requiring loyalty to the nation. In the 1970s-80s, Bracher published a series of essays calling for "constitutional patriotism" and a "post-national democracy" that redefined "Deutschtum" in terms of republican belonging to a democratic state and rejected the old definitions of the nation-state. Such was the success of Bracher's efforts that many younger Germans starting in the 1980s embraced his idea of "constitutional patriotism" as a way of affirming one's pride in being German. In 1989-1990, Bracher welcomed the fall of the East German dictatorship and German reunification. Bracher did not feel the East German SED dictatorship was morally equivalent to the Nazi regime, but he argued that the memory of how awful the Communist regime in East Germany should be preserved to prevent any return to Communism.
Karl Dietrich Bracher
1961039#7
Another well-known book associated with Bracher was the 1960 monograph co-written with Wolfgang Sauer and Gerhard Schulz "Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung" ("The National Socialist Seizure of Power"), which described in considerable detail the "Gleichschaltung" of German life in 1933–1934. In a review of "Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung", the American historian Walter Laqueur praised Bracher, Sauer and Schulz for their refusal to engage in apologetics, and willingness to ask tough questions about the conduct of Germans under the Nazi regime. In the same review, Laqueur expressed regret that books like William L. Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" were best-sellers, while a book like "Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung", which Laqueur regarded as infinitely better work of scholarship then Shirer's book was unlikely ever to be translated into English, let alone become a bestseller.
Karl Dietrich Bracher
1961039#22
During the "Historikerstreit" (Historians' Dispute) of the 1986–88, Bracher argued in a letter to the editor of "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" published on 6 September 1986 that nothing new was being presented by either side. Bracher wrote that he approved of Joachim Fest's essay “Encumbered Remembrance“ about the moral equivalence of Nazi and Communist crimes, through he remained pointly silent about Fest's support for the theory of Ernst Nolte of a “casual nexus” with German National Socialism as an extreme, but understandable response to Soviet Communism. Bracher argued that "...the "totalitarian" force of these two ideologies [Communism and National Socialism] seized the whole human and seduced and enslaved him". Bracher accused both Jürgen Habermas and Ernst Nolte of both "...tabooing the concept of totalitarianism and inflating the formula of fascism". Bracher complained about the "politically polarized" dispute that was blinding historians to the "comparability" of Communism and National Socialism Bracher ended his letter by writing that neither National Socialism nor Communism lost none of "...their respective "singular" inhumanity by comparisons. Neither a national nor a socialist apologetic can be supported on that basis".
Karl Dietrich Bracher
1961039#11
In the 1960s, Bracher was a leading critic of the theory of generic fascism presented by Ernst Nolte. Bracher criticized the entire notion of generic fascism as intellectually invalid and argued that it was individual choice on the part of Germans as opposed to Nolte's philosophical view of the "metapolitical" that produced National Socialism. Bracher's "magnum opus", his 1969 book "Die deutsche Diktatur" ("The German Dictatorship") was partly written to rebut Nolte's theory of generic fascism, and instead presented a picture of the National Socialist dictatorship as a totalitarian regime created and sustained by human actions. In "Die deutsche Diktatur", Bracher rejected theories of generic fascism, and instead used totalitarianism theory and the methods of the social sciences to explain Nazi Germany. As an advocate of history as a social science, Bracher took a strong dislike to Nolte's philosophical theories of generic fascism. In a 1971 review, the American historian Lucy Dawidowicz called "The German Dictatorship" "...a work of unparalleled distinction, combing the most scrupulous objectivity with a passionate commitment to the democratic ethos". In 1989, the British historian Richard J. Evans called "The German Dictatorship" a "valuable" book
Karl Dietrich Bracher
84199#2
Bonhoeffer was born on 4 February 1906 in Breslau, Germany into a large family. In addition to his other siblings, Dietrich had a twin sister, Sabine Bonhoeffer Leibholz: he and Sabine were the sixth and seventh children out of eight. His father was psychiatrist and neurologist Karl Bonhoeffer, noted for his criticism of Sigmund Freud, and his mother Paula Bonhoeffer, née von Hase, was a teacher and the granddaughter of Protestant theologian Karl von Hase and painter Stanislaus Kalckreuth. His oldest brother Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer became a chemist, and, along with Paul Harteck, discovered the spin isomers of hydrogen in 1929. Walter Bonhoeffer, the second born of the Bonhoeffer family, was killed in action during World War I, when the twins were 12. The third Bonhoeffer child, Klaus, was a lawyer until he was executed for his involvement in the 20 July plot. Both of Bonhoeffer's older sisters, Ursula Bonhoeffer Schleicher and Christel Bonhoeffer von Dohnanyi, married men who were eventually executed by the Nazis. Christel was imprisoned by the Nazis but survived. Sabine and their youngest sister Susanne Bonhoeffer Dress each married men who survived Nazism. His cousin Karl-Günther von Hase was the German Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1977.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1961039#1
Bracher was mainly concerned with the problems of preserving and developing democracy. Bracher was consistent in all his works in arguing for the value of human rights, pluralism and constitutional values, together with urging that Germans align themselves with the democratic values of the West. He saw democracy as a frail institution and has argued that only a concerned citizenry can guarantee it. This theme began with Bracher's first book in 1948, "Verfall und Fortschritt im Denken der frühen römischen Kaiserzeit" which concerned the downfall of the Roman Republic and the rise of Augustus. His 1955 book "Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik" ("The Disintegration of the Weimar Republic") is his best known book, in which he ascribed the collapse of German democracy not to the "Sonderweg" ("special path" of German historical development) or other impersonal forces but to human action that followed conscious choice. In that book, Bracher rejected not only the "Sonderweg" thesis, but also the Marxist theory of National Socialism as the result of a capitalist "conspiracy", the theory that the Treaty of Versailles caused the collapse of the Weimar Republic, and the view that the Nazi dictatorship was simply the work of "fate". Bracher's methodology in "Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik" involving a mixture of political science and history was considered to be highly innovative and controversial in the 1950s. The German historian Eberhard Kolb wrote "Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik" was "still unsurpassed as a work of research" on the end of the Weimar Republic. Bracher wrote that though almost all Germans rejected the Treaty of Versailles, this dislike of Versailles had nothing with do with the coming of "presidential government" in March 1930 or rise of the Nazi Party starting with the September 1930 "Reichstag" election. Furthermore, Bracher wrote that under Weimar, the judicial system had already politicized as the judges, almost all of whom had begun their careers in the Imperial era, had a tendency to impose very lenient sentences for political crimes done in the name of the right. In "Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik", Bracher wrote the judiciary was in part responsible for the collapse of the Weimar republic, "contributing to its overthrow by authoritarian and totalitarian movements."
Karl Dietrich Bracher
14046416#2
This enzyme belongs to the family of oxidoreductases, specifically those acting on paired donors, with O2 as oxidant and incorporation or reduction of oxygen. The oxygen incorporated need not be derived from O2 with 2-oxoglutarate as one donor, and incorporation of one atom o oxygen into each donor. The systematic name of this enzyme class is N6,N6,N6-trimethyl-L-lysine,2-oxoglutarate:oxygen oxidoreductase (3-hydroxylating). Other names in common use include trimethyllysine alpha-ketoglutarate dioxygenase, TML-alpha-ketoglutarate dioxygenase, TML hydroxylase, 6-N,6-N,6-N-trimethyl-L-lysine,2-oxoglutarate:oxygen oxidoreductase, and (3-hydroxylating). This enzyme participates in lysine degradation and L-carnitine biosynthesis and requires the presence of iron and ascorbate.
Trimethyllysine dioxygenase
11247268#8
"We designed the building from the inside out, not the outside in,” said Loretta H. Cockrum, Foram’s founder, chairman and CEO. “We wanted the most efficient office building ever designed, with no wasted space or wasted energy. This is a building of the future more than a building of the present. A lot of love has gone into that building, and a lot of pride."
Brickell World Plaza
37861574#1
Breer was born in Los Angeles, California, on 8 November 1883. He was from German ancestry. His father came from a village of the Hartz Mountains in Germany, while his mother came from a village of the Black Forest. Breer was the youngest of 9 children in the family. He had 2 sisters and 6 brothers. His father's name was Louis (b. 1828). His mother's name was Julia (b. 1840).
Carl Breer