German History: Some New German Views

224 Pages·1954·5.4 MB·English

by  Hans Kohn

GERMAN HISTORY
BOOKS BY HANS KOHN
The Idea of Nationalism (New York: Macmillan, 1944)
A fifth printing appeared in 1951; the German translation, Die
Idee des Nationalismus, was published by Lambert Schneider
Verlag, Heidelberg, 1950. There are also Spanish and Italian
translations.
Prophets and Peoples (New York: Macmillan, 1946)
A third printing appeared in 1952; the German transla­
tion was published under the title Propheten ihrer Völker by
A. Franckesche Verlag, Berne, 1949. There are also Japanese
and Italian translations.
The Twentieth Century (New York: Macmillan, 1949)
A third printing appeared in 1952; the German translation was
published under the title Das Zwanzigste Jahrhundert by Europa-
Verlag, Zurich, 1950. There is also an Italian translation.
Panslavism: Its History and Ideology (Notre Dame
University Press, 1953)
A German translation by Dr. Helge Pross will be published in
1954.
GERMAN HISTORY
SOME NEW GERMAN VIEWS
Edited by Hans Kohn
Professor of History, City College of New York
The Beacon Press
BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS
First published in 1954
All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain
To the Memory of
Sam A. Lewisohn
The German texts were translated
by Dr. Herbert H. Rowen
PREFACE
This book owes its origin to the two visits which I paid to Germany
in the spring of 1951 and 1952. A paper which I read before the
annual meeting of the American Historical Association in New York
on December 29, 1951, forms the substance of the first chapter of
the present book. Professor Karl W. Deutsch of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, who heard the paper, encouraged me to
enlarge it and to document it in the present book. I am grateful to
Dr. Herbert H. Rowen for having undertaken the translation of the
German texts. Anybody who has tried to render German writings
in the Geisteswissenschaften into English will appreciate the difficulties
of Dr. Rowen’s task.
Ten German scholars are represented in this book with essays or
studies written since 1945. They range in age from ninety, the
venerable age reached by Meinecke, who was born before Bismarck
created the Second German Empire, to his biographer Hofer, who
grew up in the shadow of the Third Reich. Eight of the historians
represented are German in every sense of the word. Two do not
fit this description: Professor Holborn was born and educated in
Germany but is now an American historian; Dr. Hofer is Swiss but
has been teaching for several years at the Free University in Berlin,
where he is a member of the Friedrich Meinecke Institute. Though
these two are partly outsiders, their views will be found helpful in
elucidating the various aspects of a complex and troubling problem.
The bibliography at the end of the volume supplements that given
in the notes to Chapter One. Miss Anne Marie Reinold, assistant in
the Friedrich Meinecke Institute of the Free University of Berlin,
has helped in compiling this selected bibliography for which all
students who wish further to pursue the discussion going on among
historians in Germany today, will be greatly indebted to her.
Footnotes by the authors of the various chapters are numbered.
Asterisked footnotes are by the editor for the purpose of identifying
for the English-speaking student some of the less familiar names.
In some of the essays a few unessential abridgements were made in
the translation.
Finally, I have to thank Miss Janet Schuck for the extremely
pleasant and careful manner in which she helped to prepare this
manuscript for the printer.
H. K.
Cambridge, Mass.
Summer, 1952

CONTENTS
P*&
PREFACE 7
INTRODUCTION II
I hans kohn: Rethinking Recent German
History 24
Il Karl buchheim: The Via Dolorosa of
the Civilian Spirit in Germany 44
ID franz schnabel: The Bismarck Problem 65
IV ALFRED VON MARTIN:
I Bismarck and Ourselves 94
II Historians and History 101
V hans herzfeld: Militarism in Modern
History 108
VI Ludwig DEHio: Germany and the Epoch of
World Wars 122
Vn Friedrich meinecke: Ranke andBurck­
hardt 141
VH! JOHANN ALBRECHT VON RANTZAU: The
Glorification of the State in German His­
torical Writing 15 7
IX ELLiNOR von putt kamer: Modification
of the German-Polish Relationship 175
X Walther hofer: Toward a Revision of the
German Concept of History 187
XI HAJO holborn: Misfortune and Moral
Decisions in German History 206
BIBLIOGRAPHY 2I3
221
INDEX