The Politics of German Historyстатья из журнала
Аннотация: The Historikerstreit that broke out in West Germany in the summer of 1986 was one of those rare instances when the work of historians suddenly seems to take on vital national political importance, catapulting otherwise unassuming scholars into the public spotlight and creating immense general interest in what they do and say. At the time this seemed both a blessing and a curse to West German historians. Yet in retrospect it is clear that the historians' debate was somewhat misnamed. It dealt not so much with the facts of history itself as with the interpretation of those facts; moreover, it was not, strictly speaking, new, since its positions had already been formulated for many years; and, indeed, it was less a serious scholarly debate than a chance to state mutually exclusive and unchanging positions. The debate did not even really begin with an historian. Rather, it began with a sociologist or, as Andreas Hillgruber subsequently referred to him with scorn, a philosopher.I It was Jurgen Habermas's July 11, 1986 article Eine Art Schadensabwicklung in Die Zeit which really initiated what has since become known as the Historikerstreit.2 Habermas's article in turn had been a response to a speech published on June 6, 1986 in the Frankfurter Aligemeine Zeitung by Ernst Nolte, who claimed that his speech had been suppressed at that year's Romergesprache in Frankfurt; he subtitled it A Speech Which Could Be Written But Could Not Be Delivered.3 Since the entire complex debate which subsequently emerged centered around the contributions of these two opponents, one (Habermas) associated with the left wing of the Social Democratic Party and the other (Nolte) with the Christian Democratic Union, it is important to clarify their positions. At the same time it will be clear that the debate had not so much subtle political implications as
Год издания: 1990
Авторы: Stephen Brockmann
Издательство: Wiley
Источник: History and Theory
Ключевые слова: European history and politics, German History and Society, Communism, Protests, Social Movements
Открытый доступ: closed
Том: 29
Выпуск: 2
Страницы: 179–179