Norbert Elias et l’Allemagne nazie

Abstract

In one of his latter works, Stüdien über die Deutschen (Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1989), Norbert Elias, the famous sociologist of Jewish-German origin (b. Breslau 1897, d. Amsterdam 1990), defends the thesis that it is both possible and necessary to understand and explain Nazism and the extermination of Jews. Whether it is by Elias’s own theory of social exclusion, or by his modified version of historical sociology that examines the German habitus and collective identity (or lack thereof), the author agrees that ”to understand and explain” would in fact summarize the mission of sociology, which must thus contribute to avoiding other Nazisms and other genocides. Or this preventive task cannot be achieved by the mere recollection and condemnation of history.