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The Future of the German Past Transatlantic Reflections for the 1990s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Michael Geyer  and
Konrad H. Jarausch
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Extract

Although it seems ages ago, it was only in October 1989 that a group of historians, who teach at North American universities, gathered for a conference on postmodern challenges to German History. The symposium was meant to reflect on the changing tempers of the Germans and their (re)appropriations of the German past and on the temperament of those who make German history their living on this side of the Atlantic. What appeared to be a good idea back then, proves to be an even better one after the events of November 1989. German history is being remade and, with it, interpreters as well as their interpretations on both sides of the Atlantic. The call for the conference was a testament to the fact that tremors of this impending earthquake could be felt for some time, although none of the conference participants had any particular foresight into the unfolding events. Already then it seemed that the past had begun to change much faster than historians could remake the written record. History had come unstuck from all sorts of framing devices that historians had devised in order to nail it down.

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Central European History , Volume 22 , Issue 3-4 , September 1989 , pp. 229 - 259
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Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1989

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References

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61. For the German-French (para)academic discourse see the journal Geschichtswerkstatt (in history) and KultuRRevolution (in litcrit). See also the useful bibliography in Geier, Manfred and Woetzel, Harold, eds., Das Subjekt des Diskurses (Berlin, 1983)Google Scholar. The Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies has been a guiding light for Great Britain and the United States.

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65. Medick, Hans, “‘Missionare im Ruderboot?’ Ethnologische Erkenntnisweisen als Heraus-forderung an die Sozialgeschichte,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 10 (1984): 295–319Google Scholar, or Cohen, Bernard S., An Anthropologist among the Historians and Other Essays (New Dehli, 1987)Google Scholar. A less glamorous aspect of every-day history is the revival of Landesgeschichte as Regionalgeschichte. See Zang, Gert, Die unaufhaltsame Annäherung an das Einzelne: Reflexionen über den theoretischen und praktischen Nutzen der Regional- und Alltagsgeschichte (Konstanz, 1985).Google Scholar

66. The tantalizing remarks by Trommler, Frank, “Über die Lesbarkeit der deutschen Kultur,” Germanistik in den USA: Neue Entwicklungen und Methoden (Opladen, 1989), 222–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Rethinking Benjamin, Walter and writing on historical performance is Michael Taussig, Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing (Chicago and London, 1987)Google Scholar. A different, practical aspect of performative history is discussed in Frei, Alfred and Baier, Ernst, Geschichte spielen: Ein Handbuch für historische Stadtspiele (Pfaffenweiler, 1990).Google Scholar

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70. It is intriguing to see how historians are fixated on the “high-cultural” film, while they neglect TV. However, more history “happens” on TV than anywhere else, notwithstanding the pretensions of the American Historical Review! See Dotterweich, Helmut, “Fernsehen und Geschichte: Die Bedeutung des Erzählerischen-auch das unterhaltende Fernsehspiel kann Historie vermitteln,” Die Zeit (11 01 1985), 14Google Scholar. On film see Aurich, Rolf, “Film in der deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft,” Geschichtswerkstatt 17 (1989): 54–66.Google Scholar

71. Among others Cohen, Sande, Historical Culture: On the Recoding of an Academic Discipline (Berkeley, 1986).Google Scholar

72. For some sample reactions see Diwald, Helmut, Deutschland einig Vaterland (Frankfurt, 1990)Google Scholar; Nipperdey, Thomas, “Die Deutschen wollen und dürfen eine Nation sein,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 13 07 1990Google Scholar; Gall, Lothar, “Bismarck-Preussen, Deutschland und Europa,” in the catalogue of the exhibition with the same name (Berlin 1990), 25ff.;Google ScholarMommsen, Wolfgang J., “Die Idee der deutschen Nation in Geschichte und Gegenwart,” Gewerkschaftliche Monatshefte (Spring 1990).Google Scholar

73. For GDR responses see Wroblewsky, Clement von, “Die Lüge zur Weltordnung gemacht,” Temps modernes (Spring 1990)Google Scholar; Schulze, Winfried, “Die zweigeteilte Geschichte,” Die Zeit, 7 09 1990Google Scholar; and Jarausch, Konrad H., “The Failure of East German Anti-Fascism: Some Ironies of History as Politics,” forthcoming in the German Studies Review, 02 1991.Google Scholar

74. Mearsheimer, John, “Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War,” The Atlantic Monthly (08 1990), 35–50Google Scholar. See also Ash, Timothy Garton, The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of '89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague (New York, 1990)Google Scholar, and Dahrendorf, Ralf, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (New York, 1990).Google Scholar

75. Kocka, Jürgen, “Revolution und Nation 1989: Zur historischen Einordnung der gegenwärtigen Ereignisse,” Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte 19 (1990): 479–99Google Scholar. In spite of constant references to the historicity of the changes, historians have been surprisingly reluctant to comment on the upheaval in the GDR.

76. Geyer, Michael, “On Sovereignty as a German Problem” (Chicago, 03 1990, MS).Google Scholar

77. Jarausch, Konrad H., “Old Fears and New Hopes: Historical Reflections on German (Re-)unification” (Chapel Hill, 04 1990, MS)Google Scholar. For a first English-language summary see Pond, Elizabeth, After the Wall: U.S. Policy toward Germany (New York, 1990).Google Scholar

78. Gransow, Volker and Jarausch, Konrad H., eds., Die deutsche Vereinigung: Dokumente zu Bürgerbewegung, Annäherung und Beitritt (Cologne, 1991)Google Scholar. Although there has been a tremendous amount of journalistic commentary on the recent events, the conceptual implications of the revolution of 1989 have been entirely neglected so far.

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