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Re-thinking Recent German History
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
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Friedrich meinecke, the Dean of German historians, celebrated* in October 1951, the month of his eighty-ninth birthday, the fiftieth anniversary of his appointment to a full professorship. In his reply to an adress by the Freie Universität Berlin, of which he is one of the founders and Ehrenrektor, Professor Meinecke called our time great because of its concern with the “highest and most sacred values of mankind, the liberty, honor, right and dignity of the individual,” a struggle which draws “all the vital forces of Western civilization” closer together, labor and the middle class, Catholics and Protestants. This emphasis on individual liberty and on the unity of Western civilization has rarely been heard among German historians. Perhaps Meinecke's personal evolution is one of the hopeful signs in Germany. For he came from the strictest conservative Old-Prussian background: his upbringing was satiated with anti-liberalism, anti-semitism and a fervent Bismarckism. In his younger years he praised the German “ascent” from the cosmopolitanism of a Kant or Goethe to the nation-state of a Ranke and Bismarck. As an old man he began to ask himself whether Ranke had not misled German historiography and the German intellectual development. As far back as 1924, in an introduction to a new edition of Ranke's Politisches Gespräch, he pointed out that Ranke's concept of the powerful states as the embodiment of God's thoughts and ideas ennobled and sanctioned their elemental struggle for power. This glorification of the State became even more dangerous when later German historians abandoned the objective
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* A paper read before the sixty-sixth Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association at New York, December 29, 1951.
1 The address is reprinted in Colloquium, Zeitschrift der Freien Studenten Berlins. V (1951), no. 11.Google Scholar
2 See his autobiographical volumes Erlebtes 1862–1901 (Leipzig: Koehler & Amelang, 1941)Google Scholar and Erinnerungen: Strassburg, Freiburg, Berlin 1901–1919 (Stuttgart: K. F. Koehler, 1949).
3 Meinecke, , Vom Geschichtlichen Sinn und vom Sinn der Geschichte, 3rd ed. (Leipzig: Koehler & Amelang, 1939)Google Scholar, See on Ranke, , von Laue, Theodore H., Leopold Ranke, the Formative Years (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950)Google Scholar and on Meinecke the comprehensive study by Hofer, Walther, Geschichtsschreibung und Weltanschauung. Betrachtungen zum Werk Friedrich Meineckes (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1950).Google Scholar In his well known Die Deutsche Katastrophe (Wiesbaden: Brockhaus, 1946)Google Scholar Meinecke suggested for Germany a return to the objective realism of the Goethe period.
4 Meinecke, F., Ranke und Burckhardt (Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Vorträge und Schriften, no. 27, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1948).Google Scholar
5 The memoirs at present published in Germany by former high officials like Otto Meissner and Ernst von Weizsäcker or former officers like Gen. Guderian or Adm. Kurt Assman largely serve this purpose. An example of books capable of misguiding the Germans is a collection of talks, delivered by Hitler before officers in his headquarters in 1942–43 and published as Hitlers Tischgespräche (Bonn: Athenaum Verlag, 1951).Google Scholar Though there are some passages on genocide in the German occupied Soviet territories which reveal the true Hitler, (pp. 44, 73, 115–117)Google Scholar the book can serve, as it was intended by Hitler, to obscure the true character of the man and his movement. More promising are books by younger authors like von Einsiedel, Heinrich Graf, Tagebuch der Versuchung (Berlin & Stuttgart: Pontes Verlag, 1951).Google Scholar Einsiedel, a great-grandson of Bismarck, a fighter pilot in World War II, was in 1939 eighteen years old.
6 See also Hofer, Walther, “Über das Problem einer Revision des deutschen Geschichtsbildes,” Schweizerische Hochschuheitung, XXI, no. 1 (03, 1948).Google Scholar
7 Meinecke's book has been translated by Fay, Sidney B. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950).Google Scholar Meinecke believes that “the desire to become a world power has proven to be a false idol for us” and sees the German future similar to that of the other Germanic states like Holland or Sweden.
8 The 6th printing appeared in 1948, Munich: R. Oldenbourg. The 1st printing under the title Machtstaat und Utopie appeared in 1940.Google Scholar See also by Ritter, Das Sittliche Problem der Macht (Bern: A. Francke, 1948)Google Scholar and Europa und die Deutsche Frage, Betrachtungen über die geschichtliche Eigenart des Deutschen Staatsdenkens (Munich: Bruckmann, 1948).Google Scholar See there the characteristic passage p. 144 f., and Barth, Hans “Deutsche Vergangenheit und Zukunft in Deutscher Perspektive,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 06 3, 1950.Google Scholar Against Gerhard Ritter's conservative nationalist interpretation see Roegele, Otto B., “Gerhard Ritter und die Geschichtsrevision,” Rheinischer Merkur, 12 16, 1950Google Scholar, and von Rantzau, Johann Albrecht, “Individualitätsprinzip, Staatsverherrlichung und Deutsche Geschichtsschreibung,” Die Sammlung, 05, 1950.Google Scholar The controversy is carried on in Ritter, , “Naionalismus und Vaterlandsliebe,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 02 2, 1951Google Scholar, and Rantzau, , “Politische Geschichtsschreibung und Patriotismus,”Google Scholaribidem, March 16, 1951.
9 Die Dämonie der Macht, p. 153Google Scholar: “Loslösung des deutschen Staatsdenkens vom westeuropäisch-insularem, die von Fichte und Hegel über Ranke und seine Schüler bis zu Heinrich von Treitschke führte.” On p. 106Google Scholar Ritter sresses that the Western political religious revolution of the seventeenth century has deepened still more the difference between insular and continental (in any case German) thought. (“Den Gegensatz zwischen insularem und kontinentalem, jedenfalls deutschen, Denken noch erheblich vertieft.”)
10 See Dämonie der Macht, pp. 57, 167.Google Scholar On the other hand, see the excellent passages pp. 135–138, 154, 159. The re-appearance of Carl Schmitt in 1950 is certainly remarkable. See von der Heydte, Friedrich August, Hochland, XLIII, 3, 288–294Google Scholar; Barth, Hans in Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 06 9, 1951Google Scholar; Rosenbaum, Eduard in Rheinischer Merkur, 11 25, 1950.Google Scholar
11 See Kohn, Hans, The Idea of Nationalism (New York: Macmillan, 1944), pp. 356–369Google Scholar, and Meinecke, Friedrich, Die Idee der Staatsräson in der Neueren Geschichte (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1929), pp. 340–424; especially p. 357.Google Scholar
12 “Für die westliche Welt (liegt) die sündhafte Möglichkeit des Menschen im Missbrauch der Macht, während für die deutsch-lutherische Welt die sündhafte Möglichkeit des Menschen in der Auflehnung gegen die Macht liegt.” Fischer, Fritz, “Der Deutsche Protestantismus und die Politik im Neunzehnten Jahrhundert,” Historische Zeitschrift, 171 (05, 1951), p. 475.CrossRefGoogle ScholarRitter, Gerhard, Luther Gestalt und Symbol (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1925), p. 154Google Scholar: “One has discussed much recently whether Luther belongs to the Middle Ages or to the modern world. Much more important seems to us the question whether we ourselves belong or wish to belong to the modern world, if one understands by it the spirit of the Anglo-Saxon or Latin Civilizations.”
13 See Gervinus, G. G., Hinterlassene Schriften (Vienna: W. Braumüller, 1872), pp. 21–23, 73, 92, 95, 97Google Scholar; and von Kiopp, Wiard, Onno Klopp: Leben und Wirken, ed. by Schnabel, Franz (Munich: Schnell & Steiner, 1950).Google Scholar
14 “Der christliche Staat ist ein Uncling ohne den christlichen Völkerbund.… Nicht in der Pflege und Verherrlichung des eigentlichen Wesens ihrer Nation werden dann die Patrioten ihren Beruf finden wollen, sondern darin, ihre Nation hinzuweisen auf die grossen Anliegen der Menschheit.” From an article, “Überwindung des Nationalismus” in Bayreuther Blätter, 1885.Google Scholar Most of the many writings of Frantz are inaccessible today. A selection of his works under the title Der Föderalismus als Universale Idee was edited by Hartmann, Ilse (Berlin: Oswald Arnold, 1948).Google Scholar
15 The essay, published in July, 1862, was reprinted in Acton, Lord, The History of Freedom and other Essays (London: Macmillan, 1907), pp. 270–300.Google Scholar
16 “Das Problem Bismarck,” Hochland, 42, no. I (10, 1949), pp. 1–27, p. 14.Google Scholar See also Schnabel, , “Bismarck und die Nationen,” in Europa und der Nationalisms, Report of the International Meeting of Historians in Speyer, Oct., 1949 (Baden-Baden: Verlag für Kunst und Wissenschaft, 1950), pp. 91–108.Google Scholar
17 “Das Problem Bismarck,” op. cit., p. 24.Google Scholar
18 Lehman, Max, Bismarck, ed. by Lehmann, Gertrud (his daughter) (Berlin: Oswald, 1948).Google Scholar The short book deals only with the period to 1871. An English translation would be desirable.
19 Bismarck, op. cit., pp. 135, 154, 160Google Scholar. On Bismarck's policy in 1866 see Becker, O. “Der Sinn der dualistischen Verständigunsversuche Bismarcks vor dem Kriege 1866,” Historisehe Zeitschrift, 169, no. 2 (08, 1949), pp. 264–298Google Scholar, which approaches the problem from a pro-Bismarck point of view and believes that Bismarck wished to secure Prussian hegemony peacefully if possible by Austria's yielding, by war for which Prussia prepared if necessary. “Bismarck wollte österreich so weit matt setzen, dass es sich zu den Opfern geswungen sehe, die es freiwillig, nicht su leisten gedenke” p. 271. A more critical attitude is taken by Lipgens, W., “Bismarcks Österreich-Politik vor 1866,” Die Welt als Geschichte, X (1950), no. 4, pp. 246–262Google Scholar. Bismarck's only goal was the increase of Prussian power and to this goal he was ready to sacrifice everything. “Dass die nationale Einigung jedenfalls bis 1866 bestimmt kein Leitgedanke seines Handelns war, dass er vielmehr ununterbrochen seinen Spott über die nationalen Gefühlsduseleien der Nationalliberalen … ausgegossen und als ein etatistisch Denkender ausserdem ständig ein Bündnis mit den Tuillerien erwogen hat, ist seit der Jahrhundertwende eindeutige Erkenntnis der wissenschaftlichen Forschung gewesen.” The liberal opposition against Bismarck shows its understanding of the situation also in four new letters by Franz von Roggenbach, published by Fuchs, Walther Peter, “Zur Bismarck-Kritik Franz von Rog-genbachs,” Die Welt als Geschichte, X (1950) no. 1, pp. 39 ff.Google Scholar
20 Eyck, Erich, Bismarck: Leben und Werk, 3 vols. (Zürich: Eugen Rentsch 1941–1944)Google Scholar. A much abbreviated version was published in English under the title Bismarck and the German Empire (London: Allen & Unwin, 1950)Google Scholar. See on the Bismarck controversy the important article by Ritter, Gerhard, “Das Bismarckproblem,” Der Merkur, IV (1950), no. 6, pp. 657–676Google Scholar and “Grossdeutsch und Kleindeutsch im 19. Jahrhundert,” in Schicksalswege deutscher Vergangenheit, Festschrift für Siegfried A. Kaehler, ed. by Hubatsch, Walther (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1950)Google Scholar; Rothfels, Hans, “Problems of a Bismarck Biography,” The Review of Politics, July, 1947; Heinrich Ritter von Srbik, “Die Bismarck-Kontroverse. Zur Revision der deutschen Geschichte,” Wort und Wahrheit, Vienna, 12, 1950, pp. 918–931Google Scholar; Hölzle, Erwin, “Die Reichsgründung und der Aufstieg der Weltmächte,” Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, II, no. 3 (03, 1951), pp. 132–147.Google Scholar
21 Stadelmann, Rudolf (1902–1949), Soziale und Politische Geschichte der Revolution von 1848 (Munich: Münchner Verlag, 1948), pp. 109 ffGoogle Scholar. “Die äusseren politischen Voraussetzungen für einen massvollen deutschen Verfassungsstaat waren also nicht ungünstig, und wenn dieser deutsche Nationalstaat nicht geboren wurde, so werden wir die Ursachen nicht in feindseligen europäischen Voraussetzungen, sondern im Innern der Revolution selbst zu suchen haben,” (p. 115). See also his interesting book, Moltke und der Staat (Krefeld: Scherpe-Verlag, 1950)Google Scholar. On the newest researches on 1848: Grie-wank, Karl, “Ursachen und Folgen des Scheiterns der deutschen Revolution von 1848,” Historische Zeitschrift, 170, no. 3 (10, 1950), pp. 495–523.Google Scholar
22 Schicksalswege deutscher Vergangenheit, op. cit., p. 184Google Scholar. See also the work of another German “outsider” and émigré, Richter, Werner, Kaiser Friedrich III (Zürich: Eugen Rentsch, 1938)Google Scholar, a book equally remarkable for the fairness of its views and the brilliancy of its presentation. A translation of this book into English would be desirable.
23 “Nur von Hegel und Ranke her ist die Eigenart deutscher Geschichtswissenschaft bis in unsere Tage zu verstehen.” Ritter, Gerhart, “Deutsche Geschichtswissenschaft im 20. Jahrhundert,” Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, I, no. 2 (05, 1950), p. 82.Google Scholar
23a Die gossen schnellen Taten der Gewalt,
Des Augenblicks erstaunenswerte Wunder,
Die sind es nicht, die das Beglückende,
Das ruhig, mächtig Dauernde erzeugen.
24 The literature in this field is little known. See on Hannover, Leonhardt, H. H., Der Weg preussischer Vorherrschaft und das unsichtbare Reich der Welfen (Hannover: Culemannsche Verlagsanstalt, 1949)Google Scholar; and on south-west Germany, Feger, Otto, Schwäbisch-Allemannische Demokratie (Konstantz, 1946)Google Scholar. A good survey from the federalist point of view is offered by Röpke, Wilhelm, Die Deutsche Frage (Zürich: Bugen Rentsch, 1945)Google Scholar, tr. into English, The Solution of the German Problem (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1947).Google Scholar
25 Highly critical of Bismarck is Saitschik, Robert, Bismarck und das Schicksal des deutschen Volkes. Zur Psychologie der Geschichte der deutschen Frage (Munich: Reinhardt, 1949)Google Scholar. Critical and well balanced is Hemmerle, Eduard, Der Weg in die Katastrophe (Munich: Kösel, 1948)Google Scholar. On the whole problem see Holborn, Hajo, “Irrwege in unserer Geschichte,” Der Monat, No. 17 (02, 1950).Google Scholar
26 Wilmanns, Ernst, “Geschichtsunterricht, Weltanschauung, Christentum,” Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, I, no. 2 (05, 1950), p. 77fGoogle Scholar. The same periodical published a highly critical and excellent review of von Salomon, Ernst, Der Fmgebogen (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1951)Google Scholar by Eschenburg, Theodor, “Bilanz eines konservativen Revolutionärs,”Google Scholaribid., II, no. 10 (Oct., 1951), pp. 617–620, where the reviewer says: “Der unpolitische Deutsche mit seinem Hang zum Nationalismus und seiner Antipathie gegen alles Demokratische könnte in diesem Buch einer beglückenden Bestätigung seiner eigenen Empfindung gewahr werden.”
27 Characteristically it was this very book which was published in an English translation in 1930 and used in a number of college courses in the United States. The book sold in its eight printings, 125,000 copies in Germany. The printing of March, 1939, proclaimed Hitler as the fulfillment of German history. The new edition appeared in Stuttgart: Port Verlag, 1950. It was not changed in tone or contents.
28 “Während sich unsere Wissenschaft um die Erneuerung des geschichtlichen Bildes müht, wird hier ein retouchiertes altes als ‘völlig modern’ angeboten. Man glaubt einem Gespenst zu begegnen.” Dehio, L., Historische Zeitschrift, 172, no. 2 (10, 1951), p. 325Google Scholar. Gerhard Ritter spoke of this and similar books as works “deren nationalistischer Grundton uns heute unerträglich dünkt.” And at the end of 1951 Erich Marck's enthusiastic Bismarck, eine Biographie 1815–1851 which, except for an addition covering the years 1848–1851, appeared first in 1909, was republished. One can read at the same time in Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, I, no. 6 (09, 1950), p. 330Google Scholar, in an article on eastern Germany: “Wie auch immer geartetes Renegatentum ist verwerflicher als Überbewertung des eigenen Volkstums.”
29 It might be recommended to re-read today books like Vogel, Walther, Das Neue Europa und seine historisch-geographischen Grundlagen, 2nd ed. (Bonn: Kurt Schroeder 1923)Google Scholar, and van den Bruck, Moeller, von Gleichen, Heinrich, Boehm, Max Hildebert, eds., Die Neue Front (Berlin: Gebrüder Paetel, 1922)Google Scholar. See Mohler, Armin, Die konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918–1932 (Stuttgart: Friedrich Vorwerk Verlag, 1950)Google Scholar. A liberal voice in the Weimar Republic was that of Ziekursch, Johannes, Politische Geschichte des neuen deutschen Kaiserreiches, 3 vols. (Frankfurt: Societäts-Druckerei, 1927–1932)Google Scholar, while Meyer, A. O., Bismarck, der Mensch und der Staatsmann (Stuttgart: Koehler, 1949)Google Scholar represents perhaps the best monument, erected by nationalist-conservative scholarship under the Weimar Republic, to its hero. Though the book was written under Hitler, it belongs really to the preceding period.
30 A criticism of the development in Prussia, based on Christian ethics and recalling the non-Friederician tradition in Prussia which was strong before Bismarck's triumph—one is reminded of Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach's opposition to Bismarck's annexation in 1866 and to the Kulturkampf—can be found in von der Gablentz, Otto Heinrich, Die Tragik des Preussentums (Munich: Hanfstängl, 1948)Google Scholar and Geschichtliche Verantvortung. Zum christlichen Verständnis der deutschen Geschichte (Stuttgart: Ernst Klett, 1949)Google Scholar. See, on the other hand, Schoeps, Hans Joachim, Die Ehre Preussens (Stuttgart: Friedrich Vorwerk Verlag, 1951)Google Scholar, an address delivered on January 18, 1951, in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the foundation of the Prussian kingdom, at the Bavarian University of Erlangen.
31 Richtlinien des Geschichtsunterrichts in alien Schulen im Lande Hessen by Bauer, Ida Maria (1949)Google Scholar. See also Die Sammlung, 03, 1950Google Scholar, and “Richtlinien für Geschichtsunterricht an höheren Schulen im Land Nordrhein-Westfalen,” Geschichte in Wissenschajt und Unterricht, I, no. 4 (07, 1950), pp. 219–234Google Scholar. Very useful is also the survey of U. S. attitude towards Germany 1945–1950 in Ernst, Fritz, “Blick auf Deutschland. Ausländische Stimmen zur neuesten deutschen Geschichte,” Die Welt als Geschichte, X (1950), no. 3, pp. 192 ff.Google Scholar
32 The lecture, published in the Historische Zeitschrift, vol. 173 (02, 1952), pp. 77–94Google Scholar, was a continuation of the author's Gleichgewicht oder Hegemonie, Betrachtungen uber ein Grundproblem der neueren Stdatengeschichte (Krefeld: Scherpe Verlag, 1948)Google Scholar. Dehio also published an essay, “Ranke und der deutsche Imperialismus,” Historische Zeitschrift, 170, no. 2 (09, 1950), pp. 307–328Google Scholar. See also Müller-Graaft, Carl H., Irrweg und Umkehr, Betrachtungen über das Schicksal Deutschlands (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1948)Google Scholar: “The majority of Germans see today in Hitler a terrible destroyer of their country. But if we seek a better way we must leam to understand fully that the destruction started with Bismarck's work and that the Wilhelminian epoch externally so glamorous contained the seed of deaht,”
33 Pannwitz, Rudolf, “Die deutsche Idee Europa (München-Feldafing, 1931Google Scholar, now Verlag Hans Carl, Nürnberg), has some excellent pages (29–32) on the proposed German-Austrian customs union of 1931 which are very worthwhile re-reading today not only for Germans but also for Anglo-Americans. Remarkable are the opening sentences of the book: “The historical moment has come when Germany must be integrated into Europe. Germany did not wish it: in world politics and in world economy it wished to be as independent as the United States or Britain. … Through this delusion Germany has allowed itself to be misguided into an anti-European direction and has misunderstood itself and its task.”
34 A very promising Institut für europäische Geschichte was founded in 1951 in Mainz. The section on universal history (Abteilung Universalgeschichte) is directed by ProfGöhring, Martin, author of a new history of the French Revolution, Geschichte der Grossen Revolution, 2 vols. (Tübingen: Mohr, 1950–1951).Google Scholar