Mario Keßler

Mario Keßler (born 4 May 1955) is a German historian.[1]

He was born in what was then the Soviet sponsored German Democratic Republic (East Germany): he was 34, and working on his habilitation (senior level university qualification) by the time the wall was breached. German reunification, in 1990, transformed the historiographical context on both sides of the former inner German border, but the changes were particularly stark for scholars who had learned their craft in the east. By the mid-1990s only around 40 East German professional historians were still in their old posts and by 2017 it was possible to assert that only around ten East German trained historians were employed by universities or reputable apolitical research institutions. Mario Keßler was one historian who made the professional transition to the post-reunification world successfully.[2]

Biography

Mario Keßler was born in the south of the country, in Jena, a city rich in academic heritage and industrial tradition which had been the administrative capital of Thuringia until the authorities had reconfigured and delayered regional government in 1952. He attended school in Jena between 1962 and 1974 and then, between 1974 and 1979, studied History and Germanistics at Jena and Leipzig. His doctorate, also from Leipzig, followed in 1982. His dissertation topic was "The Comintern and the Arabic East 1919-1929". Between 1982 and 1987 he held a research position in the Africa and Middle East department at the University of Leipzig. In 1987 he moved to Berlin, taking up an academic research position. His habilitation, this time from the German Academy of Humanities and Sciences at Berlin, followed in 1990. This time his dissertation dealt with "Socialism and Zionism: the international labour movement and political zionism 1897-1933". Work on the habilitation involved lengthy study visits to Moscow and Warsaw.[1]

Since 1990 has spent periods teaching as a guest professor at various North American universities including the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and the Yeshiva University in New York City. He has held an extraordinary professorship at the University of Potsdam, where he is also a member of the Central Institute for Research in Contemporary History, since 2005.[1]

Keßler's particular professional interests include Zionism, Antisemitism and the German Labour Movement, with a particular interest on Communist Research in the twentieth century. He also has a particular interest in the career and fate of Paul Merker, an East German politician who excited the mistrust of Walter Ulbricht in the 1950s and became a victim of the East German show trial culture of those times.[1] In 2011 Keßler was a co-signatory of an open letter organised by Andreas Weber, addressed to the publisher Ulla Berkéwicz at Suhrkamp Verlag. The signatories urged against the publication of a German translation of a Trotsky biography by the English historian Robert Service. The book by Service had already been available in English for nearly two years and the German scholars, expressing their shared view forcefully, endorsed the critical assessment of the socialist historian David North. They complained of factual inaccuracies, misrepresentation of sources and failure to meet normal academic standards.[3] There was also a strong sense that Stalin's twenty-year campaign to discredit his political rival had been swallowed uncritically by Service, despite Stalin himself having been dead and openly discredited for half a century.[4] The Berlin publishers nevertheless printed the German version of the book.

Output (selection)

• Antisemitismus, Zionismus und Sozialismus. Arbeiterbewegung und jüdische Frage im 20. Jahrhundert Decaton-Verlag, Mainz 1993, ISBN 3-929455-00-5 (2. Auflage. ebenda 1994).
• Zionismus und internationale Arbeiterbewegung. 1897–1933. Vorwort von Theodor Bergmann. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-05-002047-4 (Zugleich: Berlin, Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR, Dissertation, 1990: Sozialismus und Zionismus.).
• Die SED und die Juden – zwischen Repression und Toleranz. Politische Entwicklungen bis 1967 (= Zeithistorische Studien. Bd. 6). Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-05-003007-0.
• Heroische Illusion und Stalin-Terror. Beiträge zur Kommunismus-Forschung. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-87975-745-3.
• Exilerfahrung in Wissenschaft und Politik. Remigrierte Historiker in der frühen DDR (= Zeithistorische Studien. Bd. 18). Vorwort von Georg G. Iggers. Böhlau, Köln u. a. 2001, ISBN 3-412-14300-6.
• Exil und Nach-Exil. Vertriebene Intellektuelle im 20. Jahrhundert. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-87975-877-8.
• Arthur Rosenberg. Ein Historiker im Zeitalter der Katastrophen (1889–1943) (= Zeithistorische Studien. Bd. 24). Vorwort von Theodor Bergmann. Böhlau, Köln u. a. 2003, ISBN 3-412-04503-9.
• Ein Funken Hoffnung. Verwicklungen: Antisemitismus, Nahost, Stalinismus. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-89965-099-9.
• Vom bürgerlichen Zeitalter zur Globalisierung. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung (= Reihe Hochschulschriften. Bd. 8). trafo, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89626-279-3.
• On Anti-Semitism and Socialism. Selected Essays (= Reihe Hochschulschriften. Bd. 9). trafo, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89626-284-X.
• Ossip K. Flechtheim. Politischer Wissenschaftler und Zukunftsdenker (1909–1998) (= Zeithistorische Studien. Bd. 41). Böhlau, Köln u. a. 2007, ISBN 978-3-412-14206-3.
• Von Hippokrates zu Hitler. Über Kommunismus, Faschismus und die Totalitarismus-Debatte (= Reihe Hochschulschriften. Bd. 20). trafo, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-89626-795-5.
• Historia magistra vitae? Über Geschichtswissenschaft und politische Bildung (= Reihe Hochschulschriften. Bd. 34). trafo, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-89626-646-0.
• Kommunismuskritik im westlichen Nachkriegsdeutschland. Franz Borkenau – Richard Löwenthal – Ossip Flechtheim. vbb – Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-942476-15-7.
• with Werner Berthold: Klios Jünger. 100 Historiker von Homer bis Hobsbawm. Akademische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2011, ISBN 978-3-931982-72-0.
• Ruth Fischer. Ein Leben mit und gegen Kommunisten (1895–1961) (= Zeithistorische Studien. Bd. 51). Böhlau, Köln u. a. 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21014-4.
• Communism – For and Against. The Political Itineraries of Ruth Fischer (1895–1961) (= BzG – Kleine Reihe Biographien. Bd. 27). trafo, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86464-035-3.
• Moses Hess and Ferdinand Lassalle. Pioneers of Social Emancipation (= BzG – Kleine Reihe Biographien. Bd. 28). trafo, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86464-044-5.
• Albert Schreiner. Kommunist mit Lebensbrüchen. * 7.8.1892, Aglasterhausen, † 4.8.1979, Berlin-Ost (= BzG – Kleine Reihe Biographien. Bd. 29). trafo, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86464-058-2.
• as co-compiler with Wladislaw Hedeler: Reformen und Reformer im Kommunismus. Für Theodor Bergmann. Eine Würdigung. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-89965-635-0 (Onlinezugang).
• Revolution und Konterrevolution. Studien über Gewalt und Humanität aus dem Jahrhundert der Katastrophen, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86464-081-0.
• Alfred Meusel: Soziologe und Historiker zwischen Bürgertum und Marxismus (1896–1960), Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-32002-330-0.

References

1. "Mario Keßler - Vita". Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam e.V. Retrieved 8 July 2017.
2. Axel Fair-Schulz (co-compiler); Mario Kessler (co-compiler (29 June 2017). Introduction. East German Historians since Reunification: A Discipline Transformed. SUNY Press. pp. 1–9. ISBN 978-1-4384-6537-1.
3. Dr. Dr. h. c. Hermann Weber; et al. (30 July 2011). ""Das Buch von Robert Service ist in Ihrem hochangesehenen Verlag fehlplatziert!"". 14 Geschichts- und Politikwissenschaftler schreiben an Frau Ulla Unseld-Berkéwicz, Suhrkamp-Verlag. International Youth and Students for Social Equality, Berlin.
4. Wolfgang Weber (23 November 2011). "European historians oppose publication by Suhrkamp of Robert Service's Trotsky biography". World Socialist Web Site. Retrieved 8 July 2017.