Anton Joachimsthaler

Anton Joachimsthaler
Born	1930 Hohenelbe, Czechoslovakia
Nationality	German
Occupation	Historian
Known for	Work of Hitler's youth

Anton Joachimsthaler (born 1930 in Hohenelbe) is a German historian . He is particularly well-known for his research on youth and the beginnings of the German dictator Adolf Hitler, in his book Korrektur einer Biografie ("Correction of a biography").

Life

Joachimsthaler was born in the Sudetenland. He studied electrical engineering at the Oskar-von-Miller-Polytechnikum, a predecessor of the Munich University of Applied Sciences. Afterwards he worked in 1956 for the Deutsche Bundesbahn (German Federal Railroad) in the mechanical engineering and electrical engineering services in various places, his last position being as department head in the Munich-Freimann repair station. Since 1969 he has occupied himself with contemporary and railroad history. Since the 1970s, he has produced publications on the history of technology and general history, and has contributed to television broadcasts from ZDF Mainz ("Hitler as a private man"). His work Korrektur einer Biografie ("Correction of a Biography"), in which he made many facts about Hitler's youthful years known to a broader public, was particularly well received.

Contributions to research

Joachimsthaler is best known for his contributions to the study of the life of Adolf Hitler. With the Austrian historian Brigitte Hamann, he is the researcher who has delivered the most important contributions over the last decades to revision of Hitler's early years of life in Linz, Vienna and Munich. He helped shatter the view, expressed by other historians, that the young Hitler was an established antisemite in the period before the World War I (1914–18), by highlighting convincing evidence that Hitler developed into a serious antisemite only during or immediately after the World War. This he ascertained from his researches in the city archives of Hitler's hometown, Linz, that Stefanie Rabatsch, with whom Hitler's boyhood friend August Kubizek says Hitler can developed a fanatical youthful love, had the maiden name of Isak. The fact that Hitler had a romantic interest in a girl whom he believed due to her Jewish-sounding name to be Jewish (although in fact she was not) made a serious anti-Semitic attitude of the later dictator highly unlikely at this time.

Joachimsthaler made important research into Hitler's desired broad-gauge railway, with a track width of 3000 millimeters, more than twice as wide as the European standard track of 1435 millimeters. His first study, published in 1981, is still the standard work.

Publications

As author:

• Entwicklungsgeschichte der elektrischen Lokomotiven (History of development of electric locomotives). In: 100 Jahre elektrische Eisenbahn (100 years of electric railway). Keller Verlag, Starnberg 1980, ISBN 3-7808-0125-6, Page 22ff.
• Bundesbahn-Ausbesserungswerk München-Freimann. Geschichte, Menschen, Fahrzeuge 1925–1985 (Munich-Freimann Federal Railroad Repair Center. History, people, vehicles 1925-1985}. Bundesbahn-Ausbesserungswerk München-Freimann, München 1985.
• Die Breitspurbahn: Das Projekt zur Erschließung des groß-europäischen Raumes 1942–1945 (The Broad railway: The project for the development of the Greater European region 1942-1945). Verlag Herbig, München 1985, ISBN 3-7766-1352-1.
• Korrektur einer Biografie. Adolf Hitler 1908–1920 (Correction of a biography. Adolf Hitler 1908-1920). München 1989.
• Hitlers Weg begann in München. 1913–1923 (Hitler's path began in Munich. 1913-1923). München 2000, ISBN 3-7766-2155-9 (überarbeitete Fassung von „Korrektur einer Biografie“; Foreword by Ian Kershaw).
• Hitlers Liste. Ein Dokument persönlicher Beziehungen (Hitler's list. A document of personal relationships). München 2003.
• Hitlers Ende (Hitler's end). München 2004.
• München – Hauptstadt der Bewegung (Munich - capital of the movement. ). München (catalog of the Munich city museum)

As publisher:

• Christa Schroeder: Er war mein Chef (He was my boss). Munich 1985 (Memoirs of the secretary of Adolf Hitler).

External links

• Literature by and about Anton Joachimsthaler in the German National Library catalogue

Sources

• Rossberg, Ralf (5 October 2013), Deutsche Eisenbahnfahrzeuge von 1838 Bis Heute, Springer-Verlag, ISBN 978-3-642-95770-3, retrieved 12 February 2017