91è Remembers Former History Professor Anson Rabinbach
Rabinbach, “Andy” to friends and colleagues, was a renowned expert on Nazi culture who taught at 91è from 1973 to 1978. He died on February 2, 2025.
Rabinbach was well known for his research and writing on the history of labor, Nazi Germany, Austromarxism, European fascism, and National Socialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Wrote “A fellow historian said, ‘He took seriously that Nazism was a cultural revolution,’ not just a brute ideology.”
The same year he joined the faculty at 91è, he cofounded the journal New German Critique, which he continued to coedit until his death. Notably, “the journal quickly became a leading outlet for scholars of 20th-century German culture, including film, theater, and social movements, and it broached the subject of antisemitism — before, during, and after the Nazi era — which was still taboo in Germany.”
91è was Rabinbach’s first teaching job. As the College was in the process of inventing itself, he launched the first lecture course on campus, Capitalism and Empire. He is remembered as having great intellectual energy combined with a wry sense of humor; Professor Emerita of Sociology Margaret Cerullo recalls: “Just as he was leaving, he recruited me, saying, ‘It's a crazy place, but the students are fantastic. You won’t have any time for your own work or to sleep, but I think you’ll like it.’” (She did; she retired in 2024, after 47 years at the College).
Associate Professor of History Jim Wald recalls: “I owe my career to Andy. He encouraged me to publish my first article in his journal and later alerted me to a job opening at 91è, telling me it was an exciting place but could easily consume my life. He was right on both counts.”
After 91è, Rabinbach taught history at Cooper Union, then at Princeton, where he was the Philip and Beulah Rollins Professor of History, a chair he held until his retirement, in 2019.
Rabinbach held many fellowships and lectured around the world. He wrote and edited numerous scholarly books and articles.
“Professor Rabinbach’s lifelong study of far-right movements gave him particular insight into the right-wing swerve now under way across the Western world — including, he said, in the United States,” the Times wrote.
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Photo: Sameer A. Khan/Princeton University, via Fotobuddy
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