Jörg Baberowski

Distinction At the Leipzig Book Fair in 2012, he won the Leipzig Book Prize in the category of nonfiction/essay writing for his book .

Academic criticism Benno Ennker, who teaches Eastern European history in Tübingen and St. Gallen, criticized Baberowski's book for its "implicit exoneration of the Wehrmacht" in World War II during the war against the Soviet Union. Historian Christoph Dieckmann of the Fritz Bauer Institute, a center on the history and impact of the Holocaust, accused Baberowski of failing to recognize the "general state of research, which proves a far-reaching consensus of the German leadership and the upper echelons of the Wehrmacht, prior to the assault on the Soviet Union, to subject many millions of Soviet citizens to death by starvation within a few months". Martin Wagner, a research fellow at Humboldt, noted that Baberowski's critics accuse him of falling behind modern historical research on totalitarianism.

Political views and disputes As a student Baberowski joined the Communist League of West Germany, which was aligned with Maoism, even raising money for Pol Pot, though he later distanced himself from these views.

In a 2014 interview with Der Spiegel, Baberowski reiterated his support for Ernst Nolte, saying, Hitler was no psychopath, and he wasn't vicious. He didn't want people to talk about the extermination of the Jews at his table. Stalin, on the other hand, delighted in adding to and signing off on the death lists. He was vicious. He was a psychopath. Baberowski added that this did not make Hitler's actions morally better, but worse.

In 2016, Baberowski sued the General Students' Committee (AStA) of the University of Bremen for distributing a leaflet that called him "radical right-wing" and "racist" and accused him of theses that were "glorifying violence" and "frighteningly brutal". The Cologne district court ruled it illegal to label him as "racist", but permissible, under the freedom of speech, to claim that Baberowski advocated "radical right-wing positions". According to the court it does not matter, whether this rating is correct or wrong.

In June 2017, law professor Andreas Fischer-Lescano, head of the Center for European Law and Politics at Bremen University, wrote in the Frankfurter Rundschau supporting the students. He stated that Baberowski's "academic oeuvre and short-term political remarks" blended into "an amalgam of radical right-wing criticism that is interspersed with historical revisionist and nationalist motifs". The Neue Zürcher Zeitung described Lescano's article as an attempt to establish an opinion police force (″″).

Conflict with Trotskyists Baberowski has been in a conflict with the Trotskyist Socialist Equality Party (SGP) and its student wing since 2014. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote that the conflict may have begun after he invited British historian Robert Service, who has written critically about Trotsky, as a guest lecturer at his institute.

The Times Higher Education reported in 2015 that according to Baberowski, he has been harassed by left-wing students. The conservative newspaper Die Welt wrote in 2017 that "Baberowski is regarded as Germany's leading expert on Stalinism. This makes him a hate figure of leftist groups." Karl Schlögel, Professor of Eastern European History, called the campaign of the Trotskyists a targeted calumny.

In November 2017, Baberowski lost a defamation lawsuit against the SGP: the Hamburg district court ruled that the party could accuse Baberowski of a "falsification of history", referencing Baberowski's statements about Adolf Hitler.

The Presidium and Dean's Office of the Faculty of Philosophy I at the Humboldt University stood behind Baberowski after the judgment in the first instance and again after the hearing at the Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht). They published a statement saying that Baberowski's integrity is beyond doubt; his scientific statements are controversial, but not radical right wing. A number of professors from the Humboldt University of Berlin and one professor from LMU Munich agreed with this statement.

Selected works Autokratie und Justiz. Zum Verhältnis von Rechtsstaatlichkeit und Rückständigkeit im ausgehenden Zarenreich 1864–1914, Frankfurt am Main (Klostermann) 1996. Zivilisation der Gewalt. Die kulturellen Ursprünge des Stalinismus, Berlin 2003. Der Feind ist überall. Stalinismus im Kaukasus, Munich (DVA) 2003. Der rote Terror. Die Geschichte des Stalinismus, Munich (DVA) 2003. Der Sinn der Geschichte. Geschichtstheorien von Hegel bis Foucault, Munich (C.H. Beck) 2005. Jörg Baberowski und Anselm Doering-Manteuffel: Ordnung durch Terror. Bonn (Dietz) 2006. Moderne Zeiten? Krieg, Revolution und Gewalt im 20. Jahrhundert, Göttingen 2006. Verbrannte Erde. Stalins Herrschaft der Gewalt, Munich (C.H. Beck) 2012. Räume der Gewalt. Frankfurt am Main (S. Fischer) 2015.

Edited volumes Moderne Zeiten?. Krieg, Revolution und Gewalt im 20. Jahrhundert. Mit 5 Tabellen. Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung 2006). with Hartmut Kaelble, Jürgen Schriewer: Selbstbilder und Fremdbilder. Repräsentation sozialer Ordnungen im Wandel. Campus, Frankfurt 2008. with David Feest, Maike Lehmann: Dem Anderen begegnen. Eigene und fremde Repräsentationen in sozialen Gemeinschaften. Campus, Frankfurt 2008. with David Feest, Christoph Gumb: Imperiale Herrschaft in der Provinz. Repräsentationen politischer Macht im späten Zarenreich. Campus, Frankfurt 2008. Arbeit an der Geschichte. Wie viel Theorie braucht die Geschichtswissenschaft? Campus, Frankfurt 2010. with Gabriele Metzler: Gewalträume. soziale Ordnungen im Ausnahmezustand. Campus, Frankfurt 2012. Was ist Vertrauen?. Ein interdisziplinäres Gespräch. Campus, Frankfurt 2014. with Robert Kindler: Macht ohne Grenzen. Herrschaft und Terror im Stalinismus. Campus, Frankfurt 2014.