and likely foreign, evaluations of German history; the second term referred to what he considered apologetic German interpretations. Both Meinecke and Ritter emphasized, to different degrees, that one needed to explain National Socialism in a European perspective rather than solely a German context. Meinecke focused primarily on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries while Ritter briefly discussed the legacy of Lutheranism and Prussianism (Preussentum) and then concentrated on German nationalism in the nineteenth century and the consequences of the First World War for Germany.92 Ritter, who shortly after World War II became a political adviser to the leadership of the Evangelische Kirche Deutschlands (a federation of twenty Lutheran, Reformed, and United Protestant regional and denominational churches, established in 1945), strongly rejected any connections between Lutheranism and National Socialism, since he saw the rise of the latter closely related to the forces of “modern secularism.”93
Meinecke and Ritter differed significantly in their evaluation of Preussentum. Meinecke distinguished two souls within the Prussian state, one capable of and one hostile to culture. With the end of the Prussian reforms in 1819 the latter had emerged triumphant. Closely linked to this assessment was Meinecke’s negative view of the Prussian military tradition, which had adopted a “dangerous one-sidedness” in the early nineteenth century, emphasizing merely professionalism, efficiency, and technical competence.94 Ritter, in contrast, conceded that the Prussian military spirit’s emphasis on obedience might have facilitated the rise of National Socialism, but argued that eventually it “did not grow on Prussian-Protestant soil, but on the soil of radical, revolutionary democracy.”95 The Israeli historian Jacob Talmon shortly afterward developed a similar argument regarding the genealogy of totalitarianism.96 And while Ritter believed that historians had to rethink the “problem of Prussian-German militarism,” he at the same time insisted that “National Socialism [was] not a Prussian plant, but an Austrian-Bavarian import.”97
In a similar vein, Ritter also emphasized the importance of the French Revolution in the origins of totalitarianism and thus National Socialism. The Revolution produced egalitarian mass democracy, and “historical experience shows that the democratic principle as such offers no protection against dictatorship; on the contrary: egalitarian democracy is the most important political precondition for it.”98 For Ritter, the French Revolution had in another respect laid the ground for the developments of the twentieth century: “When the old authoritarian state was transformed into the democratic nation-state and the churches were dislodged from their central position, the way was open, in principle, for the development of the modern total state.”99 Ritter thus indirectly relativized German developments at the expense of common, European ones. By contrast, Meinecke tended to scrutinize nineteenth- and twentieth-century German rather than European history, for he believed it was important to “sweep in front of one’s own door”100 A disturbing feature in Meinecke’s account was a repeated reference to a negative Jewish influence on the course of German history, even though he also strongly condemned anti-Semitism.101
What, then, was the turning point in German history? For Ritter, it was the aftermath of World War I, even though he stated that already the conflict itself had caused an “exaggerated national consciousness” as a mass phenomenon in Germany.102 But only in the 1920s, when the masses (Massenmenschentum, a key term in Ritter’s vocabulary) rose, as they did throughout Europe at that time, could a demagogue like Adolf Hitler achieve power. Meinecke, in contrast, was more willing to reevaluate previously celebrated events such as the unification of Germany in 1871 and to concede that the Pan-German League in the late Empire and the Vaterlandspartei during World War I could be seen as forerunners of National Socialism.103 And while Meinecke emphasized coincidence as an important factor for the eventual success of the Nazis, he did not hesitate to assign blame to particular political actors, namely, to Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg and to the chairman of the German National People’s Party, Alfred Hugenberg.104 A final difference between Ritter and Meinecke was the tone of their writings: the latter wrote a more contemplative prose, while Ritter’s style can be termed more combative—possibly just a result of their tempers, but likely also a reflection of their respective attitudes. Nevertheless, for an evaluation of Ritter, one also needs to consider his later magnum opus Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk, which constituted a serious attempt to grapple with the intricacies of militarism in German history.105
Even broader in its scope was Ludwig Dehio’s Gleichgewicht oder Hegemonie, which attempted to make sense of five hundred years of European history. Dehio argued that since the fifteenth century, six different leaders had sought to eliminate the European state system: Charles V, Philip II, Louis XIV, Napoleon I, and finally Wilhelm II and Hitler had pursued hegemony in Europe—endeavors only ended by the defeat of Nazi Germany and the emergence of the bipolar Cold War world.106 While Dehio’s study remained within the confines of diplomatic history, it was comparatively revisionist in interpretive respects. After all, his argument that the development of German militarism had led to two successive bids for European hegemony was very much at odds with the position of historians such as Ritter. This became apparent again when Ritter published the first volumes of Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk, which Dehio reviewed very critically.107
Gerhard Ritter’s and Hans Rothfels’ studies of the German resistance during World War II served a slightly different purpose. Of course, both Ritter and Rothfels wanted to convince the world—or at least their foreign colleagues—that there had indeed existed an “other,” better Germany. Rothfels wrote specifically for an American audience (where the book was published first). But at the same time they also addressed their fellow Germans, many of whom considered the participants in the plot of July 20, 1944, let alone more leftist resistance fighters, traitors.108 The two analyses were quite different in scope: Rothfels’ The German Opposition to Hitler (1948), emerging out of a lecture at the University of Chicago in 1947, was a shorter essay, less based on archival and other unpublished sources than Ritter’s more voluminous Carl Goerdeler und die deutsche Widerstandsbewegung, published in 1954.109
The goals of the books also differed. Rothfels wrote his study “for the sake of historical justice,” since in his opinion “the German opposition to Hitler was not only much broader than has been conceded so far, but also more extensive than could have been expected under conditions of terror.”110 Ritter, who had known Goerdeler and had been asked by his family and relatives of other participants in the plot of July 20, 1944 to write its history, focused more on the resisters’ values and ideas, since he believed in their usefulness for a future Germany as well as a future Europe: “The spirit of these men, the moral and political opinions which drove them into opposition, must be kept alive among us, too, if our own work of reconstruction is to prosper.”111
Rothfels’ essay, significantly shorter than Ritter’s book, was nevertheless the more comprehensive of the two. While Rothfels placed the resisters involved in the plot of July 20, 1944, at the center of his study, he also included student circles such as Weisse Rose and Communist-leaning groups such as Arvid Harnack’s Rote Kapelle. In light of his political convictions and Rote Kapelle’s contacts with the Soviet Union during World War II, Rothfels’ recognition of their “background of convictions and the awareness of a European mission” is remarkable.112 But it might also have reflected his desire to depict a resistance stemming from all sectors of German society, since he even argued that one should include intellectuals and artists who opted for the so-called inner emigration (that is, they kept a low profile and disengaged themselves from the regime). Ultimately, Rothfels attempted to counter interpretations that many Germans at the time perceived as accusations of collective guilt (Kollektivschuld).113 He thus rejected notions of an inherent German submissiveness to authoritarian regimes and denied that anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany “met with more or less general approval or connivance.”114
Ritter largely agreed with Rothfels’ evaluation of the Resistance and praised it in a review.115 But he was less able than Rothfels to
