Ronald Smelser | |
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Born | 1942 (age 81–82) Pennsylvania, United States |
Occupations |
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Academic background | |
Alma mater | University of Wisconsin |
Academic work | |
Era | 20th century |
Institutions | University of Utah |
Main interests | Modern European history [ broken anchor ],historiography |
Notable works | The Myth of the Eastern Front:The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture |
Ronald Smelser (born 1942) is an American historian,author,and former professor of history at the University of Utah. He specializes in modern European history,including the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust,and has written several books on these topics. Smelser is the author,together with fellow historian Edward J. Davies,of the 2008 book The Myth of the Eastern Front:The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture .
Smelser was born in 1942 in Pennsylvania,United States. He obtained his Ph.D. in history in 1970 at the University of Wisconsin and was appointed as an assistant professor at Alma College (Michigan). In 1978,Smelser joined the history department at the University of Utah;he became a full professor in 1983. He also taught classes at the Free University of Berlin during the summer. [1] He retired from the University of Utah in the 2010s,and,as of 2016,is Professor Emeritus at the school. [2]
Smelser is a historian of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. He is the author of several books,including The Sudeten Problem 1933–1938:Volkstumspolitik and the Formulation of Nazi Foreign Policy and Robert Ley:Hitler's Labor Front Leader. Both books have been translated into German. He has also published seven edited or co-edited books and numerous articles. Smelser is the former president of the German Studies Association and the Conference Group for the journal Central European History ,as well as a former member of the American Advisory Board of the German Historical Institute in Washington,D.C. [3] In 2001 Smelser brought the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Nazi Olympics exhibit to the University of Utah as part of the Cultural Olympiad. [4]
Smelser is the co-editor of four prosopographic anthologies [note 1] in which he and his co-editors compiled biographical essays on leading figures of the Nazi movement and the Nazi state,authored by various historians. The first in the series was the 1989 work The Brown Elite I,co-edited with Rainer Zitelmann,with twenty-two biographical sketches of leaders of the Nazi Party and of functionaries of the military and the Nazi regime of World War II. [5]
In 1993 Smelser published The Brown Elite II,which contained twenty additional sketches of the same type,co-edited with Enrico Syring . The 1995 volume was a collection of essays on the military elite of Nazi Germany,which included twenty-seven sketches specifically about military leaders of the Reichswehr and the Wehrmacht during the 1930s and 1940s. The 2000 volume,Die SS:Elite unter dem Totenkopf:30 Lebensläufe (Elite under the Skull) contains biographical sketches of thirty leading members of the SS. [6]
Smelser established the annual Holocaust "Days of Remembrance" program at the University of Utah,directing it for 21 years. [7] He has worked closely with the Holocaust Educational Foundation and is the editor-in-chief of the Learning about the Holocaust:A Student Guide. Based on the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust ,the four-volume work presents the events surrounding the Holocaust to teenagers in the language they can understand. [8]
Smelser has also studied the cultural impact of the Holocaust –from the marginal topic that it was in the 1950s and 60s to the event,in Smelser's words,that has "practically absorb[ed] the war". His research has focused on how several counterbalancing narratives of World War II and the Holocaust can co-exist,with the goal of demystifying and explaining their impact on popular culture. [9]
Together with fellow historian Edward J. Davies of the University of Utah, Smelser is the author of the 2008 book The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture. It discusses perceptions of the Eastern Front of World War II in the United States in the context of historical revisionism. The book traces the foundation of the post-war myth of the "clean Wehrmacht", its support by U.S. military officials, and the impact of Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS mythology on American popular culture, including in the present time. The book garnered largely positive reviews for its thorough analysis of the myth's creation by German ex-participants and its entry into American culture. Several reviews noted some limitations of the book: in its discussion of the myth's role in contemporary culture and the extent of its impact on widely held popular perceptions of the Eastern Front, outside of a few select groups. [10] [11]
Foreign Affairs magazine called the book a "fascinating exercise in historiography", highlighting the authors' analysis of how a "number of Hitler's leading generals were given an opportunity to write the history of the Eastern Front (...) provid[ing] a sanitized version of events". [12] Military historian Jonathan House reviewed the book for The Journal of Military History , describing it as a "tour de force of cultural historiography" and commending the authors for "hav[ing] performed a signal service by tracing the origin and spread of this mythology". House recommends that military historians not only study the book, but "use it to teach students the dangers of bias and propaganda in history". [13]
A review published in the journal History provided a critical assessment of the book. While it praises Smelser and Davies for setting out the main myths concerning the Eastern Front, the review argues that they did not provide convincing evidence to support their argument that most Americans accept such an account. It concludes that "the book therefore delivers a rather weak conclusion, which dilutes the impact of the useful analysis earlier in the book..." [14] Likewise, American historian Dennis Showalter acknowledges that the romanticised views described in the book exist, but argues that they remain limited in their impact on the wider popular culture: "Eastern Front enthusiasts—who buy a disproportionate number of the books romanticizing the Eastern Front—are a minority within a minority, and, as a rule, are at some pains to deny sympathy with the Third Reich". The reviewer concludes that the opening of the Russian archives since the fall of the Soviet Union has enabled "balanced analysis at academic levels", leading to a new interest in the Red Army operations from popular history writers and World War II enthusiasts. [11]
Franz Bäke was a German officer and tank commander during World War II. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords of Nazi Germany. In post-war popular culture, Bäke was memorialised in the historical fiction series Panzer Aces by German author Franz Kurowski.
Franz Halder was a German general and the chief of staff of the Army High Command (OKH) in Nazi Germany from 1938 until September 1942. During World War II, he directed the planning and implementation of Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. Halder became instrumental in the radicalisation of warfare on the Eastern Front. He had his staff draft both the Commissar Order and the Barbarossa Decree that allowed German soldiers to execute Soviet citizens for any reason without fear of later prosecution, leading to numerous war crimes and atrocities during the campaign. After the war, he had a decisive role in the development of the myth of the clean Wehrmacht.
Friedrich von Mellenthin was a German general during World War II. A participant in most of the major campaigns of the war, he became known afterwards for his memoirs Panzer Battles, first published in 1956 and reprinted several times since then.
Panzer Battles is the English language title of Friedrich von Mellenthin's memoirs of his service as a staff officer in the Panzerwaffe of the German Army during World War II.
Paul Carell was the post-war pen name of Paul Karl Schmidt who was a writer and German propagandist. During the Nazi era, Schmidt served as the chief press spokesman for Joachim von Ribbentrop's Foreign Ministry. In this capacity during World War II, he maintained close ties with the Wehrmacht, while he served in the Allgemeine-SS. One of his specialities was the "Jewish question". After the war, Carell became a successful author mostly of revisionist books that romanticized and whitewashed the Wehrmacht.
Schiffer Publishing Ltd. is a family-owned publisher of nonfiction books. Founded in 1974 and based in Atglen, Pennsylvania, its coverage includes antiques, architecture and design, arts and crafts, collectibles, lifestyle, children's books, regional, military history, militaria, tarot and oracle, and mind, body, and spirit.
Panzer ace is a contemporary term used in English-speaking popular culture to describe highly decorated German tank ("panzer") commanders and crews during World War II. The Wehrmacht as well as British and American militaries did not recognise the concept of an "ace" during the war. The similar term, tank ace has been used post-war to describe highly regarded tanks commanders.
Verlorene Siege is the personal narrative of Erich von Manstein, a German field marshal during World War II. The book was first published in West Germany in 1955, then in Spain in 1956. Its English translation was published in 1958 for distribution in the UK and the US.
Trevor James Constable was an early UFO writer who believed that the UFO phenomenon was best explained by the presence of enormous amoeba-like animals inhabiting Earth's atmosphere. A native of Wellington, New Zealand, he served 31 years at sea, 26 of them as a radio officer in the U.S. merchant marine. He authored several books on the aerial warfare of World War II, together with co-author Raymond Toliver. These works have been described as uncritical and not grounded in historical realities by several historians.
Franz Kurowski was a German author of fiction and non-fiction who specialised in World War II topics. He is best known for producing apologist, revisionist and semi-fictional works on the history of the war, including the popular English-language series Panzer Aces and Infantry Aces.
The myth of the clean Wehrmacht is the negationist notion that the regular German armed forces were not involved in the Holocaust or other war crimes during World War II. The myth, heavily promoted by German authors and military personnel after World War II, completely denies the culpability of the German military command in the planning and perpetration of war crimes. Even where the perpetration of war crimes and the waging of an extermination campaign, particularly in the Soviet Union – the populace of which was viewed by the Nazis as "sub-humans" ruled by "Jewish Bolshevik" conspirators – has been acknowledged, they are ascribed to the "Party soldiers corps", the Schutzstaffel (SS), but not the regular German military.
The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi–Soviet War in American Popular Culture (2008) by Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies, is a historical analysis of the post-war myth of the "Clean Wehrmacht", the negative impact of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS mythologies in popular culture, and the effects of historical negationism upon cultural perceptions of the Eastern Front of the Second World War.
The Waffen-SS, the combat branch of the paramilitary SS organisation of Nazi Germany, is often portrayed uncritically or admiringly in popular culture.
Panzer Aces is an English-language book series by the German author Franz Kurowski. Originally released in 1992 by J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing, a Canadian publisher of military literature, it was licensed in 2002 by the firm to American publishers Ballantine Books and Stackpole Books. The series' books were a commercial success and enjoyed a wide readership among the American public.
J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing is a Canadian publishing house that specialises in literature on the German armed forces of the World War II era. Its authors are both popular history writers such as Paul Carell and Franz Kurowski, along with the war-time veterans, including Kurt Meyer of the SS Division Hitlerjugend and Otto Weidinger of the SS Division Das Reich.
Hitler's War in the East, 1941−1945: A Critical Assessment is a 1997 book by the German historians Rolf-Dieter Müller and Gerd R. Ueberschär. It surveys the literature on the Soviet–German war of 1941−1945 from the German perspective. Writing in the introduction to the 2002 edition, Gerhard Weinberg describes the book as providing a broad coverage of the conflict, by "stressing ideological and political as well as more specifically military aspects". The book has been updated in subsequent editions, the latest having been issued in 2009.
Edward J. Davies is an American historian, author, and professor of history at the University of Utah. He specialises in modern American history and has written several books on the subject. Davies is the author, together with fellow historian Ronald Smelser, of the 2008 book The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture.
Infantry Aces is an English-language book by the German author Franz Kurowski. Originally released by the Canadian publisher of militaria literature J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing, it was later licensed by Fedorowicz to the American publishers Ballantine Books and Stackpole Books. The book was a commercial success and enjoyed a wide readership among the American public.
The Blond Knight of Germany is a book by the American authors Trevor J. Constable and Raymond F. Toliver dedicated to the life and career of the German fighter pilot of World War II, Erich Hartmann. Originally released in the United States in 1970, it was published in Germany the next year, as Holt Hartmann vom Himmel!.
Mark C. Yerger was an American author of books about the Schutzstaffel (SS) and Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany. He had close contacts to SS veterans, through whom he was able to access private archives, and wrote biographies of commanders and award recipients of the SS and of SS units. Historians of World War II have described Yerger's work as uncritical, hagiographic and whitewashing towards the SS.