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German History in America, 1884–1984

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Fritz Stern
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Type
Centennial Symposium: One Hundred Years of German Historiography in America
Information
Central European History , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , June 1986 , pp. 131 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1986

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References

1. Hofstadter, Richard, The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington (New York, 1968), 7Google Scholar; Hofstadter, , America at 1750: A Social Portrait, 1st ed. (New York, 1971), ii.Google Scholar

2. Krieger, Leonard, “European History in America,” in Higham, John, with Krieger, Leonard and Gilbert, Felix, History, The Princeton Studies of Humanistic Scholarship in America (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1965), 243.Google Scholar

3. Herbst, Jurgen, The German Historical School in American Scholarship: A Study in the Transfer of Culture (Ithaca, N.Y., 1965), 1.Google Scholar

4. Hofstadter, The Progressive Historians, 35.

5. Cunningham, Raymond J., “The German Historical World of Herbert Baxter Adams: 1874–1876,” Journal of American History 68, no. 2 (09 1981): 268CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on Droysen, see also Stern, Fritz, ed., The Varieties of History (New York, 1956, 1972), 120–21 and 137–44.Google Scholar

6. Cunningham, 261.

7. George Bancroft, letter to Leopold von Ranke, 5 Sept. 1885. In Papers of the American Historical Association (AHA), vol. 1, no. 6: Report of the Proceedings, Second Annual Meeting, Saratoga, 8–10 09 1885, by Adams, Herbert B. (New York and London, 1886), 63, n. 1.Google Scholar

8. The Progressive Historians, xiii.

9. The text of Judge Dubbin's speech can be found in the archives of the Johns Hopkins University and was quoted in an unpublished speech by Felix Gilbert on the occasion of the Centenary Celebration of the Johns Hopkins University in 1976.

10. Nicholas Murray Butler realized the dream of creating a major research university. Like many other presidents of American colleges and universities, Butler had studied in Germany, and remembered that his time in Berlin had “left an ineffaceable impression of what scholarship meant, of what a university was and of what a long road higher education in America had to travel before it could hope to reach a place of equal elevation.” Quoted in Hofstadter, Richard and Metzger, Walter, The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States (New York, 1955), 375Google Scholar; see the excellent section, “The German Influence,” 367–412.

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12. Charles Kendall Adams's Manual of Historical Literature, first published in 1882, makes clear that there was almost no German history being written in America. Adams was a man of very decided taste. Of Carlyle's, Frederick he wrote: “A work of superlative genius … the best history of Frederick the Great in any language.” He also thought “there is, perhaps, no more brilliant historical writing in any language than some of the writing of Michelet.” 3d ed. (New York, 1889), 292, 328.Google Scholar

13. Albert Bushnell Hart, quoted in Higham, 161.

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17. Quoted in Herbst, 17.

18. On Dodd, see Dallek, Robert, Democrat and Diplomat: The Life of William E. Dodd (New York, 1968), 20–21, 80.Google Scholar

19. Quoted in Hofstadter, The Progressive Historians, 121.

20. It was a time when Americans became aware of the growing differences between American and German practices; in 1901, the Association of American Universities declared that doctoral exams in the United States “in nearly all cases … were more rigorous than the examinations held at the University of Berlin.” Association of American Universities, Journal of Proceedings and Addresses (1901), 11, 38. Quoted in Herbst, 9. In a different context but at the same time, Henry Adams expressed his frustration at teaching history at Harvard: “The rather pretentious name of historical method was sometimes given to this process of instruction, but the name smacked of German pedagogy…. Nothing is easier than to teach historical method, but, when learned, it has little use.” The Education of Henry Adams, ed. Samuels, Ernest (Boston, 1918, 1973), 302.Google Scholar

21. See Stern, Fritz, ed., The Varieties of History, “A ‘New History’ in America: Robinson and Beard,” 256–66Google Scholar. On the German connection and the New History, see Schorn–Schütte, Louise, Karl Lamprecht: Kulturgeschichtsschreibung zwischen Wissenschaft und Politik, Schriftenreihe der Historischen Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Göttingen, 1984), 287–309.Google Scholar

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28. Lovejoy had probably seen an early copy of “The Manifesto of the 93,” which was formally published in early October 1914 and in which the leading men of German science and public life sought to rebut Allied charges that Germany had begun the war, had criminally violated Belgian neutrality, and had committed atrocities in Belgium. The Manifesto also insisted that German militarism and German culture were identical, while Allied writers—in deference to German culture—had insisted that the two were distinct. The Manifesto had the most profound and lasting effect in creating an anti-German mood, especially among Allied academics. On this, see vom Brocke's, Bernhard authoritative article, “‘Wissenschaft und Militarismus’” in Wilamowitz nach 50 Jahren, ed. Calder, William M. III, et al. (Darmstadt, 1985), 649–719Google Scholar, which appeared after I delivered this talk. See also my essay “Einstein's Germany,” in Albert Einstein: Historical and Cultural Perspectives: The Centennial Symposium in Jerusalem, ed. Holton, Gerald and Elkana, Yehuda (Princeton, 1982), 327–28.Google Scholar

29. Lovejoy, Arthur O., “German Scholars and ‘Truth About Germany,’” letter to the Editor, The Nation 99, no. 2569 (24 09 1914): 376.Google Scholar

30. Quoted in Hofstadter, The Progressive Historians, 286.

31. Quoted in Gruber, Carol S., Mars and Minerva: World War I and the Uses of Higher Learning in America (Baton Rouge, 1975), 70.Google Scholar

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35. Year Book, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Washington, D.C., 1928), 170Google Scholar. See also Shotwell, James T., Autobiography (New York and Indianapolis, 1961), 134–55.Google Scholar

36. See Chapter 6 of Finch, George A., “History of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1910–1946” (Carnegie Endowment, Washington, D.C., mimeographed, n.d.)Google Scholar

37. Haskins, 226.

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39. Lukacs, John, Decline and Rise of Europe (Garden City, N.Y., 1965), 267, n. 12.Google Scholar

40. The Progressive Historians, 442.

41. These figures are culled from the Reports of the President and the Treasurer of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1979), xxxii. I am grateful to G. Thomas Tanselle, Vice President of the Guggenheim Foundation, for his help in this matter.

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47. I do not mean to suggest that there was any kind of unanimity of view or quality among historians. Some emigré historians, often reluctant departers, could not shed their conservative nationalist views, such as Hans Rothfels. Some younger American scholars could not resist the temptation to reinterpret the past in a conveniently simplistic fashion, as if Hitler really was the culmination of all German traditions. Viereck, Peter, Metapolitics: From the Romantics to Hitler (New York, 1941)Google Scholar, is one such example, distinguished at least by style and learning. After I finished the revision of this paper, Greenberg, Karen J. kindly sent me “The Search for Silver Lining: The American Academic Establishment and the ‘Aryanization’ of German Scholarship,” Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual 2 (White Plains, N. Y. 1985): 115–37Google Scholar, in which she documents the continued pro-German attitude of some leading American academics and university presidents in the years 1933 to 1938.

48. In Higham, 291.

49. “From the Editors,” Central European History 1, no. 1 (03 1968): 3.CrossRefGoogle ScholarMcNeill, William H., “Modern European History,” in The Past Before Us: Contemporary Historical Writing in the United States, ed. for the AHA by Kammen, Michael (Ithaca and London, 1982), 97.Google Scholar

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57. Haskins, 223.

58. Annan, Noel, Introduction to Isaiah Berlin, Personal Impressions (London, 1980), xiii.Google Scholar

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