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The Long Reign and the Final Fall of the German Conception of History: A Historical-Sociological View

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Wolfgang Weber
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Extract

The study of history in Germany differs from its counterparts in other lands in that from the very beginning it possessed a unique theoretical and methodological conception, called “historicism,” to which German historians held with great tenacity until the 1960s. This point, which is hardly controversial, has recently been reinforced by Georg G. Iggers.

Type
Suggestions and Debates
Information
Central European History , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , December 1988 , pp. 379 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1988

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References

1. See Iggers, Georg G., The German Conception of History: The National Tradition of Historical Thought from Herder to the Present, 2d ed. (Middletown, Conn., 1983).Google Scholar My study is based primarily on the findings of my book, Priester der Klio: Historisch-sozialwissenschaftliche Studien zur Herkunft und Karriere deutscher Historiker und zur Geschichte der Geschichtswissenschaft 1800–1970 (Frankfurt a. M., 1984; 2d ed., 1987)Google Scholar, which is the source of all information for which no other source is cited. My thanks for his help to Thomas A. Brady, Jr., of the University of Oregon.

2. See also Mommsen, Wolfgang J., Die Geschichtswissenschaft jenseits des Historismus, 2d ed. (Düsseldorf, 1972)Google Scholar; Faulenbach, Bernd, ed., Geschichtswissenschaft in Deutschland (Munich, 1974)Google Scholar; Rüsen, Jörn, Für eine emeuerte Historik: Studien zur Theorie der Geschichtswissenschaft (Stuttgart and Bad Canstatt, 1976)Google Scholar; Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, Historische Sozialwissenschaft und Geschichtsschreibung (Göttingen, 1980)Google Scholar; and Schleier, Hans, “Zum idealistischen Historismus in der bürgerlichen. deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte 28 (1983): 133–54.Google Scholar

3. All the following numbers and percentages are taken from my study (n. 1), 59–187. See also the complementary volume of documentation, which contains curricula vitae of all chairholders at German-speaking universities, arranged along the lines of my inquiry. Biographisches Lexikon zur Geschichtswissenschaft in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz: Die Lehrstuhlinhaber für Geschichte von den Anfängen des Fatches bis 1970 (Frankfurt a. M., 1984; 2d ed., 1987).Google Scholar

4. For further information on the German academic system, see McClelland, Charles, State, Society, and University in Germany, 1700–1914 (Cambridge, 1980).Google Scholar

5. There is only one systematic, empirically based study of the German professoriate as a whole: Ferber, Christian von, Die Entwicklung des Lehrkörpers der deutschen Universitäten und Hochschulen 1864–1954 (Göttingen, 1956).Google Scholar

6. On this topic, see Bühl, Walter L., Einführung in die Wissenschafissoziologie (Munich, 1974)Google Scholar, who summarizes the conclusions of the sociology of science.

7. For some impressive self-assessments, see my study (n. 1), 189–93, 334–35.

8. Schulin, Ernst, Traditionskritik und Rekonstruktionsversuch: Studien zur Entwicklung von Geschichtswissenschaft und historischem Denken (Göttingen, 1979).Google Scholar Mommsen and his school are treated at some length by Christ, Karl, Römische Geschichte und deutsche Geschichtswissenschaft (Munich, 1983).Google Scholar

9. Quotations from Ranke, Meinecke, and others in my study (n. 1), 326–33.

10. See Bödeker, H. E., et al. , Aufklärung und Geschichte: Studien zur deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft im 18. Jahrhundert (Göttingen and Zurich, 1985).Google Scholar

11. For further details and notes, see my study (n. 1), 210–21, 262–65, 272–74.

12. This is from a contemporary statement, ibid., 339.

13. Ibid., 341–45, with examples.

14. For a systematic overview, see ibid., 290–93.

15. Friedrich Meinecke considered post-Rankean German historiography to be necessarily decadent. Ibid., 493, n. 96.

16. On the generational structure of the chairholders of history, see ibid., 164–71.

17. See Mommsen, Wolfgang J., “Gegenwärtige Tendenzen in der Geschichtsschreibung der Bundesrepublik,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 7 (1981): 149–88.Google Scholar