Richard Grunberger (7 March 1924

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

– 15 February 2005) was a British historian who specialised in study of the

Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. He was born in Austria to

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

parents. After the 1938

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germa ...

with Hitler's Germany, he was put on the first

Kindertransport The ''Kindertransport'' (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort of children (but not their parents) from Nazi-controlled territory that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World ...

train to leave

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. He was initially housed in a

refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

camp at

Lowestoft Lowestoft ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish in the East Suffolk (district), East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . As the List of extreme points of the United Kingdom, most easterly UK se ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. After this he lived with a Jewish family, who were West End tailors in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. Grunberger entered their tailoring business. His desire for education however led to his taking A levels at

Birkbeck college , mottoeng = Advice comes over nightTranslation used by Birkbeck. , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £4.3 m (2014) , budget = £10 ...

. He gained an

exhibition An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibitio ...

scholarship in history at

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...

. When he went to the Wiener Library in London, he expressed to a friend his frustration at the absence of a book that held together the masses of documentation surrounding

Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...

and 20th-century

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

. A friend asked why he did not write one, and so he did. The product was ''A Social History of the Third Reich'', first published in 1971 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. It has since become a significant text for studying the social history of Nazi Germany in schools and at undergraduate level. Initially, much of Grunberger's leisure time in Britain was taken up by the

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

youth group Young Austria. In spite of this, his political outlook was

social democratic Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...

Publications

*''A Social History of the Third Reich'' *''Germany 1918–1945'' *''Hitler's S.S.'' *''Red Rising in Bavaria''

References

1924 births 2005 deaths Austrian Jews English Jews English people of Austrian-Jewish descent Jewish historians Alumni of King's College London Alumni of Birkbeck, University of London Kindertransport refugees 20th-century British historians Austrian emigrants to the United Kingdom {{UK-historian-stub