Article: British academic and political historian
David Childs at a meeting with Lord Triesmann
Bolton, Lancashire, England
Emeritus Professor of Politics, University of Nottingham
davidchilds.co.uk
David Haslam Childs FRSA (born September 1933) is a British academic and political historian, who is Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Nottingham. His research chiefly concerns the modern German state and the field of German studies, and helping the public develop a greater knowledge of the history and politics of the former East and West Germany.
Family and education
Childs was born in Bolton, Lancashire, the son of John Arthur Childs, a police officer, who went on to become Mayor of Bolton (1962–63), and Ellen Childs (née Haslam). He has one sister, Margaret, who still lives in Bolton. He was educated at Thornleigh Salesian College and the Wigan & District Mining & Technical College in Lancashire. He graduated at the London School of Economics in 1956 before spending a year at the University of Hamburg on a British Council scholarship. He completed his PhD at the University of London in 1962 whilst working part-time as a journalist for Associated Television.
Career
Childs' anti-communist views had been developed by works such as Orwell's 1984 and Koestler's Darkness At Noon, as well as his early visits to Germany. The first was in 1951, to the communist-organized Festival of Youth And Students in East Berlin. He traveled again to East Berlin just after the rising of June 1953 when the Soviet Army was used to crush the workers' revolt.
After completing his PhD, he turned to academic work and was appointed as a lecturer at the University of Nottingham in 1966. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer, and then reader in 1976. By this time, he was well known for his books on Germany and for his book Marx and the Marxists – An Outline of Practice And Theory.
In 1983, Childs was appointed as chairman of the Association for the Study of German Politics and conceived the idea for an Institute of German, Austrian and Swiss Affairs at the University of Nottingham that focussed on politics and society rather than language and literature. It was established in 1985 with the help of John H. Gunn, a businessman and graduate of the university. The institute's purpose-built centre was opened by then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1989, hosting conferences on themes such as the Austrian resistance to National Socialism, and ethnic Germans in the Soviet Union. In 1990, controversy arose as speakers from all of the new East German political parties and the Communist SED argued at a conference in the University's great hall about the future of East Germany.
German reunification, in October 1990, coincided with the start of the fall of the institute. John Gunn had presided over the collapse of British & Commonwealth, one of the largest city businesses, and could no longer fund the Institute. The slump made it difficult to find alternative supporters. Childs, promoted to professor in 1989, came under great pressure from those who had long disapproved of his line on Germany and Communism, and from professional rivals. He was removed from the directorship of the Institute in 1992, and took early retirement from the University two years later. He continued to serve as a member of the committee of the British-German Association until 1997.
Childs' former students include politicians Neil Carmichael and Kelvin Hopkins, and Owain Blackwell, Head of Law at Bolton University.
The Fall of the German Democratic Republic
Childs was one of the few who predicted the collapse of the Berlin Wall and of the East German Republic in 1989, concluding after several visits that it was not sustainable. He made such a prediction at a conference at the University of Dundee in 1981. As Professor Marianne Howarth later found in the East German archives, a secret report on this was duly sent back to East Berlin.
The Stasi attempted to monitor his activities not only on visits to East Germany but also in Britain. His appearance at a conference in Bradford in 1983 was again duly recorded in the Stasi archives. He was put on a Stasi Fahndung [investigation] list and denounced in DDR publications as a 'British imperialist East researcher'. Childs later discovered the file that the Stasi had on him which covered a seven-year period. The file revealed that he had, in fact, been spied upon by two British spies, who were two British academics. It also revealed that he was regarded by the East German secret police as one of their most serious opponents in Britain.
Childs delivered the same 'Dundee' analysis at the German Historical Institute in London, 24 November 1987, and elsewhere. He predicted early German reunification and outlined a plan in an interview with Peter Johnson on the West German radio Deutschlandfunk in April 1988, but faced ridicule in reaction. When he later spoke at the 'Pacific Workshop On German Affairs: The Two Germanies at Forty' about the likely collapse of the DDR, he again met with strong opposition and ridicule. However, the organiser, Professor Christian Soe, invited him back, after German reunification, in 1991, writing, 'We are happy that David Childs, who in April 1989 took a minority position in clearly diagnosing the moribund condition of the East German system, returns to give us a post mortem ...' In an article written the day before the opening of the Berlin Wall, and published in the Yorkshire Evening Post, 9 November 1989, Childs again predicted full German reunification and welcomed it. The following day The Guardian wrote, 'It would mean that a dangerous situation in the heart of Europe has been liquidated ...'
British political history, later works and diplomatic missions
Childs' wide knowledge of both domestic and international affairs has been utilised by both government and commercial organisations. He has been a guest speaker on contemporary German themes in universities across Europe and the United States of America. In 2011, he was invited to talk at the Italian-German Historical Institute, based in Trento, Italy, at a conference on International and multidisciplinary perspectives 20 years after the collapse of communism.
Although a long-standing member of the European Movement, and a strong supporter of the European Union, Childs is known as the author of works on Britain rather than Germany, notably his 1979 work Britain Since 1945: A Political History.
Childs' most recent publication differs from his more usual academic publications as it is a novel, entitled We Were No Heroes. It is about Martin Thomas, an Englishman who fought for the Waffen SS on the Eastern Front, survived a Soviet concentration camp, worked as a Stasi agent during the Cold War and witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall. Childs based the semi-fictional account on a man he had met in Leipzig in 1989.
Childs also writes for newspapers, magazines and journals. Over 250 of his obituaries have been published in The Independent from 1988 to 2013.
In September 2013, Childs was among a number of international observers following the German Federal Elections, German federal election, 2013. They travelled across Germany monitoring the various parties and witnessed Angela Merkel's famous third term as German Chancellor.
Membership
Founder member of the Association for the Study of German Politics since 1974; member of the executive, 1981–91; Chair, 1981–86; Secretary, 1986–88; founder/editor of journal, 1988–92
Member of British-German Association, member of executive 1987–97
Member of the European Movement
Member of Nottingham University Committee, 1994-8
Elected Fellow of Royal Society of Arts 1990
Director of the Institute of German, Austrian and Swiss Affairs at the University of Nottingham, 1985–92
Order of Merit
On 4 March 2013, Childs was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany ( Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland ), Germany's highest honour, in recognition of his 50 years of outstanding, pioneering academic work, particularly on the GDR, and his practical work in the field of reconciliation and friendship between Germany and the United Kingdom. The Cross of the German Order of Merit was presented at the German Embassy by the German Ambassador, on behalf of the German President, Joachim Gauck.
Books Sole author:
The Fall of the GDR: Germany's Road To Unity, Longman, 2001. .
The GDR: Moscow's German Ally, (Second Edition 1988, First Edition 1983, George Allen & Unwin, London) .
The Fall of the GDR, Longman, 2001. .
The Two Red Flags: European Social Democracy & Soviet Communism Since 1945, Routledge, 2000.
Germany in the Twentieth Century, (From pre-1918 to the restoration of German unity), Batsford, Third edition, 1991. .
East Germany to the 1990s Can It Resist Glasnost? The Economist Intelligence Unit, 1987. .
Germany Since 1918, (second edition 1980, first 1972, Batsford/Harper & Row).
Marx and the Marxists an Outline of Practice and Theory, Ernest Benn/Barnes & Noble, 1973.
East Germany, Ernest Benn/Praeger, 1969.
From Schumacher to Brandt: The Story of German Socialism Since 1945, Pergamon, 1966.
Britain Since 1945: A Political History – Sixth Edition, Routledge, 2006. .
Britain since 1939: Progress and Decline, Macmillan, 1995, 2nd Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.
Britain Since 1945: A Political History – Seventh Edition, Routledge, 2012.
Co-author/editor:
The Changing Face of Western Communism, Edited By David Childs, Croom Helm, 1980. ,
West Germany: Politics And Society, David H. Childs and Jeffrey Johnson, Croom Helm, 1982. .
Honecker's Germany, Edited By David Childs, Allen & Unwin, 1985.
East Germany in Comparative Perspective, Thomas A. Baylis, David H. Childs and Marilyn Rueschemeyer, eds., Routledge, 1989.
Children In War: Reminiscences of the second World War, Edited by David Childs and Janet Wharton, 1989.
The Stasi: East German Intelligence and Security Service, David H. Childs & Richard Popplewell, Palgrave Macmillan, 1996, Revised paperback edition 1999.
Most recent conference publications:
"British Views on the German Economy and the Germans, 1949–1964" in Franz Bosbach, John R. Davis, Andreas Fahrmeir (Hg.), Industrieentwicklung: Ein deutsch-britischer Dialog, Prinz-Albert Studien, Band 27, Munich, 2009.
"Schwierigkeiten und Möglichkeiten der britischen DDR-Forschung vor 1990" in Peter Barker, Marc Dietrich Ohse, Dennis Tate (Hg.), Views from Abroad Die DDR aus britischer Perspektive, Bielefeld, 2007.
‘Un paese sconosciuto, La DDR vista dalla Gran Bretagna’ (Ein unbekanntes Land: Die DDR aus britischer Sicht) – An Unknown Country: The GDR from a British Perspective, edited by Magda Martini & Thomas Schaarschmidt, (Reflections on the DDR / GDR), Bologna, 2011.
Intelligence Gathering in Cold War Germany, Journal of Contemporary History, (Volume 48, Number 3, pp. 617–624), Sage Publications, London, July 2013.
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Source: Skip to content About Bio Award & Membership Latest Book Publications Contact Home
Professor David H. Childs, BSc (Econ), PhD, FRSA
Renowned Political Commentator & Author
Bio
David was born in the inter-war years in
Bolton
, Lancashire, in 1933. His father John Arthur Childs was a caretaker at Bolton Trustee Bank (TSB), who had volunteered in 1916 (The Great War), served with the Yeomanry, 1924-28, and later commanded No. 3 Company, the East Lancashire Boys’ Brigade. After serving as a special constable during the Second World War, John was elected councillor in 1946 and later Alderman. He served as Mayor of Bolton 1962-3. David’s mother, Ellen (née Haslam) was a cinema projectionist before marriage.
His aunt, Florrie Haslam, was a leading member of the famous
Dick, Kerr Ladies
‘ football team until the women’s game was effectively shut down by the Football Association in the early 1920s. She then had a successful career in nursing. He has one sister, Margaret, who became a secondary school teacher and still lives in Bolton with her husband, who was a senior lecturer in public health at Salford Technical College. David is married to Monire, a photographer, and has two sons who are also both married with children.
Education
David was educated at
Thornleigh Salesian College
and the Wigan & District Mining & Technical College in Lancashire. He later progressed to and graduated from the
London School of Economics
in 1956 before spending a year at the
University of Hamburg on a British Council
Scholarship. He completed his PhD at the
University of London
in 1962 whilst working part-time as a journalist for
Associated Television .
David’s anti-communist views had been developed by works such as George Orwell’s
1984 and Arthur Koestler’s Darkness At Noon
, as well as his early visits to Germany. The first was in 1951, to the communist-organised Festival of Youth & Students in
East Berlin
. He travelled again to East Berlin just after the
rising of June 1953
when the Soviet Army was used to crush the workers’ revolt.
Career
After completing his PhD, he turned to academic work and was appointed as a
lecturer
at the University of Nottingham in 1966. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer, and then
Reader
in 1976 before becoming a Professor a few years later. By this time, he was well known for his books on Germany and Britain, and for his book
Marx
and the Marxists – An Outline of Practice And Theory.
In 1983, David was appointed chairman of the Association for the Study of German Politics and conceived the idea for an Institute of German, Austrian and Swiss Affairs at the University of Nottingham, that focussed on politics and society rather than language and literature. It was founded in 1985 with the help of John H. Gunn, a City of London financier and graduate of the university and the Institute’s purpose-built centre was opened by then-Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher
in 1989. As its director from 1985–92, the Institute hosted numerous lectures and conferences with keynote speakers from across Europe talking on themes such as the
Austrian Resistance to National Socialism
, and Ethnic Germans in the Soviet Union.
In 1990, controversy arose as speakers from all of the new East German political parties and the Communist
SED
argued at a conference in the University’s Great Hall about the future of
East Germany .
David took early retirement from the University in 1994. He continued to serve as a member of the committee of the British-German Association until 1997.
Former students include politicians
Neil Carmichael and Kelvin Hopkins
, and Owain Blackwell, Head of Law at Bolton University.
The Fall of the GDR
With his years of study and numerous visits to the GDR and constant surveillance David had become an enemy of the state and as such the Stasi, the Ministry for State Security, monitored his activities not only on visits to East Germany but also in the Britain and further afield, for example his appearance at a conference in Bradford in 1983 was meticulously documented in the Stasi archives. He was put on a
Stasi Fahndung / Untersuchung
(investigation) list and denounced in DDR publications as a ‘British Imperialist East researcher’.
David later discovered the file that the Stasi had on him, which covered a 10-year period, revealed that he had, in fact, been spied upon by two British spies, who were both British academics. It also revealed that he was regarded by the East German secret police as one of their most serious opponents in Britain, and shortly before the collapse of the GDR, he was to have be banned from travelling to the country.
David was one of the few who predicted
the Fall of the Berlin Wall
and of the East German Republic
(1989), concluding after several visits that it was unsustainable. He made such a prediction at a conference at the University of Dundee in 1981. As Professor Marianne Howarth later found in the East German archives, a secret report on this had been duly sent back to East Berlin.
David delivered the same ‘Dundee’ analysis at the
German Historical Institute
in London, 24 November 1987, and elsewhere. He also predicted early German reunification and outlined a plan in an interview with Peter Johnson on the West German radio
Deutschlandfunk
in April 1988, but faced ridicule from other domestic and international academics and commentators.
When he later spoke at the
‘Pacific Workshop On German Affairs: The Two Germanies at Forty’
(Long Beach, California) about the likely collapse of the GDR, he was again met with strong opposition and derision. However, the organiser, Professor Christian Soe, invited him back, after
German reunification
, in 1991, writing,
‘We are happy that David Childs, who in April 1989 took a minority position in clearly diagnosing the moribund condition of the East German system, returns to give us a post mortem…’
In an article written the day before the opening of the Berlin Wall, and published in the
Yorkshire Evening Post
, 9 November 1989, David again predicted full German reunification and welcomed it. The following day
The Guardian
newspaper wrote, ‘It would mean that a dangerous situation in the heart of Europe has been liquidated…’
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