Table Of ContentBiography between Structure and Agency
Studies in German History
Published in Association with the German Historical Institute, Washington, DC
General Editors: Hartmut Berghoff , German Historical Institute, Washington, DC,
and Christof Mauch, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich
Volume 1
Nature in German History
Edited by Christof Mauch
Volume 2
Coping with the Nazi Past: West German Debates on Nazism and
Generational Confl ict, 1955–1975
Edited by Philipp Gassert and Alan E. Steinweis
Volume 3
Adolf Cluss, Architect: From Germany to America
Edited by Alan Lessoff and Christof Mauch
Volume 4
Two Lives in Uncertain Times: Facing the Challenges of the 20th Century
as Scholars and Citizens
Wilma Iggers and Georg Iggers
Volume 5
Driving Germany: Th e Landscape of the German Autobahn, 1930–1970
Th omas Zeller
Volume 6
Th e Pleasure of a Surplus Income: Part-Time Work, Gender Politics, and
Social Change in West Germany, 1955–1969
Christine von Oertzen
Volume 7
Between Mass Death and Individual Loss: Th e Place of the Dead in
Twentieth-Century Germany
Edited by Paul Betts, Alon Confi no, and Dirk Schumann
Volume 8
Nature of the Miracle Years: Conservation in West Germany, 1945–1975
Sandra Chaney
Volume 9
Biography between Structure and Agency: Central European Lives in
International Historiography
Edited by Volker R. Berghahn and Simone Lässig
B
IOGRAPHY BETWEEN
S A
TRUCTURE AND GENCY
Central European Lives in International Historiography
S
Edited by
Volker R. Berghahn
and
Simone Lässig
Berghahn Books
NEW YORK • OXFORD
First published in 2008 by
Berghahn Books
www.berghahnbooks.com
© 2008 Volker R. Berghahn and Simone Lässig
All rights reserved.
Except for the quotation of short passages
for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book
may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented,
without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Biography between structure and agency : Central European lives in international histo-
riography / edited by Volker R. Berghahn and Simone Lässig. -- 1st ed.
p. cm. -- (Studies in German history ; v. 9)
ISBN 978-1-84545-518-7 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Europe, Central--Historiography. 2. Europeans--Europe, Central--Biography--His-
tory and criticism. 3. Social sciences--Biographical methods. I. Berghahn, Volker Rolf.
II. Lässig, Simone, 1964-
D13.5.E85B56 2008
943.00072--dc22
2008017890
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Printed in the United States on acid-free paper
ISBN 978-1-84545-518-7 hardback
C
ONTENTS
Preface vii
1. Introduction: Biography in Modern History—
Modern Historiography in Biography 1
Simone Lässig
2. Biography and the Historian: Opportunities and Constraints 27
Ian Kershaw
3. Dreams and Nightmares: Writing the Biography of
Kaiser Wilhelm II 40
John C.G. Röhl
4. Gustav Stresemann: A German Bürger? 51
Karl Heinrich Pohl
5. Women’s Biographies—Men’s History? 72
Angelika Schaser
6. Historiography, Biography, and Experience:
Th e Case of Hans Rothfels 85
Jan Eckel
7. A Historian’s Life in Biographical Perspective: Johan Huizinga 103
Christoph Strupp
8. Th e Heroic Ecstasy of Drunken Elephants:
Th e Substrate of Nature in Max Weber—A Missing Link
between his Life and Work 119
Joachim Radkau
– v –
vi | Contents
9. Generational Experience and Genocide: A Biographical Approach
to Nazi Perpetrators 143
Michael Wildt
10. Criminal Biographies and Biographies of Criminals:
Understanding the History of War Crimes Trials and
Perpetrator “Routes to Crime” Using Biographical Method 162
Hilary Earl
11. From Himmler’s Circle of Friends to the Lions Club:
Th e Career of a Provincial Nazi Leader 182
Hartmut Berghoff and Cornelia Rauh-Kühne
12. Contexts and Contradictions: Writing the Biography of
a Holocaust Survivor 201
Mark Roseman
13. Th e Improbable Biography: Uncommon Sources,
a Moving Identity, a Plural Story? 215
Willem Frijhoff
14. Structuralism and Biography: Some Concluding Th oughts
on the Uncertainties of a Historiographical Genre 234
Volker R. Berghahn
Bibliography 251
Notes on Contributors 262
P
REFACE
Th e project from which this volume has emerged was originally conceived in even
broader international terms than this anthology in its fi nal version. We started
from the observation that, while biographies of the great and famous have never
ceased to fi ll the shelves of major bookstores, especially in the English-speaking
world, academic historians had long since moved away from what one scholar on
one occasion, and somewhat disdainfully, called “personalizing historiography.”
Certainly, in the 1960s and 1970s, historians in colleges and universities were
fi rmly wedded to the production of structuralist analyses of institutions, orga-
nizations, and movements. By the late 1970s, this focus had been expanded to
include smaller, often marginalized communities and minorities. Th e periphery
of a particular society became more important than its capital. Grassroots level
and daily life history was in; structuralism was out.
However, by the 1990s, a further shift was to be observed after a number
of academic historians had rediscovered biography. Our project was originally
designed to raise, in comparative perspective, the question as to how signifi cant
and durable the apparent “return of biography” really was. Furthermore, there
was the problem of to what extent the larger Zeitgeist might have contributed to
the renewed interest in biography.
Our exchanges of ideas on the subject with colleagues in Europe and the
United States ultimately led us to believe that the questions we had been asking
were rather more applicable to Continental European and especially Central
European writing than to Britain and North America. It also became clear that,
in constantly having to confront the country’s Nazi past, historians of Germany
have developed a particularly interesting and challenging subgenre, i.e., the biog-
raphy of perpetrators and victims.
Th ese insights into the debate on biography explain the sharper focus that we
decided to give our volume. Still, it is our hope that the arguments presented
here will be of interest to scholars in all parts of the world who have decided to
try their hand at biography and wrestle with its methodological and conceptual
problems.
Th e editors of an anthology of this kind cannot do without the support and
commitment of many other people. Our thanks go fi rst of all to Professor Christof
– vii –
viii | Preface
Mauch, the former director of the German Historical Institute in Washington,
and his staff in bringing the contributors and other scholars together for lively
discussions of the subject matter. Wendy Kopisch’s assistance with the editing
was invaluable. We are also grateful to David Lazar, chief editor at the German
Historical Institute in Washington, to Th omas Dunlap, who translated several
manuscripts, to the two anonymous reviewers who gave individual authors excel-
lent advice on their manuscripts, and to our student assistants Lars Müller and
Johannes Kaufmann. Finally, we thank the editors and production managers at
Berghahn Books for guiding this volume through the fi nal stages.
Chapter 1
I
NTRODUCTION
Biography in Modern History—
Modern Historiography in Biography
Simone Lässig
S
Biography is one of the more demanding and popular genres of historical scholar-
ship, yet at the same time it is contested and controversial. What has seemed to
some to be the royal road to historical writing has been to others a source of irrita-
tion and controversy.1 It seemed to be a small step from the growing disenchant-
ment with Historicism after 1945 to the fundamental criticism of biography in
the 1970s: biography seemed especially resistant to the conceptual claims of those
historians who were seeking a theory-driven historical science, who were deeply
skeptical about purely hermeneutical approaches, and who tended to focus their
interests more on structures and long-term developments than on singular events
and individuals. Works of biography were increasingly seen—not always without
reason—as evidence of an antiquated and unrefl ective approach to history. Th ey
constituted an ideal contrast to social history and an important negative foil that
could (help) advance the creation of the new discipline.2 Although social histo-
rians also occasionally warned against an overly mechanical and distorted image
of biographical writing, and although even such prominent pioneers of modern
social history as E.P. Th ompson published biographical studies themselves or at
least pointed to distinctions within the genre itself,3 two generations of historians
were profoundly shaped by these deeply rooted biases.
At fi rst glance, this development appears to have been a largely German phe-
nomenon; in countries like the United States or Great Britain, at least, such ups
and downs of biography are not discernible in the same way. In fact, quite the
contrary is true. In the Anglo-Saxon world, biography has been and continues
to be among the most highly regarded products of historical scholarship and is
Notes from this chapter begin on page 21.
