Wolfgang Benz


Wolfgang Benz is a German historian from Ellwangen. He was the director of the Center for Research on Antisemitism of the Technische Universität Berlin between 1990 and 2011.

Personal life

Benz studied history, political science and arts history in Frankfurt am Main, Kiel and Munich. In 1968 he completed his doctoral thesis on under the supervision of Karl Bosl at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. From 1969 till 1990, Benz worked at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich.
In 1985 he was co-founder and editor of Dachauer Hefte and since 1992 he also edits the Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung. He is also editor of the Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft.
In 1986 he lectured at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
In 1992 Benz was awarded the Geschwister-Scholl-Preis and the Das politische Buch prize of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a social democratic political foundation.
Benz received the emeritus status on 21 October 2010.
Benz is a member of the advisory board of the Islamophobia Studies Yearbook, edited by Farid Hafez.

Research and opinions

Holocaust casualty numbers

Benz is known for his research at the Technical University of Berlin, estimating that between 5.29–6.2 million Jews were killed by the German Nazi regime during the Holocaust. Benz has been carrying out work on data received after the opening of government archives in Eastern Europe in the 1990s resulting in the adjustment of the death tolls that had been published in the pioneering works by Raul Hilberg, Lucy Dawidowicz and Martin Gilbert. He concluded in 1999:

Comparing Islamophobia and Antisemitism

Benz claimed in early 2010 in connection with the Minaret controversy in Switzerland that "anti-Semites of the 19th Century and some detractors of the Islam of the 21st Century work with similar methods on their concept of the enemy“ and warned against the global discrimination of Muslims, which he saw as a "declaration of war against tolerance and democracy". He was criticized by historian Julius H. Schoeps who claimed Benz's suggestions are "dubious - if not dangerous“ and by journalist Henryk M. Broder, pointing out that 'Islamophobia' - unlike Antisemitism - has a real basis, e.g. terrorist acts, the way dissidents are treated in Islamic countries etc. The educationist Micha Brumlik, however, has argued that as far as social-psychological aspect is concerned, Benz was right when comparing today's Islamophobia and anti-Semitism of the late 19th and early 20th century. Much like Brumlik argued also the historian Norbert Frei.

Anti-Polish attitude

Benz opposed the idea of constructing the monument in Berlin to honor Poles who were victims of the German occupation between 1939 and 1945. Being the director of the Center for Research on Anti-Semitism, Wolfgang Benz wrote a letter to the Bundestag president warning of the “danger of nationalizing memory” by building such monuments.

Literature