‘Hitler’s Thucydides’: Percy Ernst Schramm (1894–1970) and the Problem of Nazi Historiography

The historian Percy Ernst Schramm (1894–1970) distinguished himself in three discrete areas: the political history of the Middle Ages, the commercial history of nineteenth-century Hamburg, and the history of Nazi Germany and the Second World War. In the third of those fields, Schramm was not only an observer but also an active witness and participant: from 1939 to 1945 he was a member of the Nazi Party, and from 1943 he was the official diarist of the Wehrmacht high command. His postwar writings on Hitler attracted considerable controversy and can only be understood in the context of his other scholarly work. Drawing from archival materials as well as published sources, this article offers a comprehensive interpretation of Schramm’s historical thought, finding therein a profitable case study with which to cast light on a contested chapter in the history of German historiography.