Historiker Deutschlands (German Historians’ Association) after World War II, on September 12, 1949, Gerhard Ritter outlined the “present situation and future tasks of the German historical profession.”3 Oscillating between assertiveness and defensiveness, Ritter conceded that German historians had previously focused too much on political history and the history of ideas and that a closer cooperation with the social sciences was the new order of the day. In addition, while “truly great statesmen” such as Frederick the Great and Otto von Bismarck now more than ever should serve the purpose of fostering German self-confidence, German historians at the same time had to eschew the blatant apologia characterizing much of post–World War I scholarship.4
In retrospect, it is obvious that the West German historical profession as a whole did not achieve many of these ambitious aims during the next two decades. Traditional political history still dominated, and the West German historians’ willingness to reexamine their interpretive and methodological assumptions remained limited.5 Nevertheless, the discipline of the 1950s registered a few new impulses—for example, from the institutional establishment of contemporary history (Zeitgeschichte), initially defined as the period 1917–1945 with a focus on National Socialism.6 Despite his own ideological proximity to National Socialism prior to his emigration to the United States, Hans Rothfels became a crucial figure in the development of Zeitgeschichte in West Germany after his return.7 The conservative politics of leading figures like Rothfels influenced the studies produced at places such as the newly founded Institut für Zeitgeschichte as well as at most West German universities. Thus, while Rothfels, for example, insisted on the moral legitimacy of resistance to National Socialism—which many contemporary Germans still viewed as treason—in his publications of the late 1940s, he also emphasized the degree to which Germans had been victims rather than supporters of the regime.8
Another shift occurred with respect to the historical profession’s religious makeup. In a discipline that had historically been dominated by Protestants, Catholic scholars now attempted to promote a counter-narrative to the Protestant master narrative of modern German history.9 This narrative had comprised a Prussia-centric focus on the German Empire, at the expense of the southern and southwestern states. French and German efforts to strengthen pro-European and pro-Catholic forces within West German historiography led to the foundation of the Institut für Europäische Geschichte in Mainz in 1950. While these developments somewhat broadened the topical scope of West German historiography and modified some interpretations, they did not contribute decisively to a methodological renewal of the profession.
At the same time, Ludwig Dehio, the first postwar editor of the profession’s leading journal, Historische Zeitschrift, also embarked on a cautiously reformist course. Yet the resistance he encountered revealed the limited degree to which the West German historical profession was willing to reconsider its interpretive and methodological foundations in traditional political history.10 All in all, Ernst Schulin’s assessment of a “politically and morally tamed historicism”—in the sense that historians were now supposed to show a greater degree of moral and political responsibility while remaining “neutral” vis-à-vis historical phenomena—that dominated West German historiography during the first two postwar decades is still accurate.11
With only a few exceptions, it was conservative historians who shaped the West German historical profession. Jerry Muller’s dictum regarding the postwar “deradicalization” of West German conservatism, from compromising with or even embracing National Socialism to accepting liberal democracy and a pluralistic society, aptly describes the transformation of some of the most influential historians.12 Beginning in the late 1950s, “deradicalized” conservatives such as Theodor Schieder, Karl Dietrich Erdmann, and Werner Conze became the West German discipline’s leading figures. All of them had supported the Nazi regime through their writings, and all of them managed to cover the brown spots in their biographies throughout their long and successful careers in the Federal Republic.13 For decades after 1945, these historians edited the profession’s main journals—Schieder at Historische Zeitschrift (1959–1984), Erdmann at Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht (1950–1989)—or coordinated large-scale research, as did Werner Conze at the University of Heidelberg. Erdmann, Schieder, and Conze successively served as chairmen of the Verband der Historiker Deutschlands between 1962 and 1976. Conze and especially Schieder trained a large number of historians who later had distinguished careers themselves. For his part, Conze was a cautious methodological modernizer; during the 1950s he began to develop his project of Strukturgeschichte (structural history), which signaled a methodological departure from much of the previous historiography.14
In some ways, then, historiographical developments of the 1950s resembled developments in West German society at large. Most historians of the Federal Republic now argue that in many areas of society, liberalization processes began slowly during the later 1950s rather than in the 1960s, or more specifically, in 1968. But they also acknowledge that during the 1960s these processes accelerated and took on a new quality.15 Similarly, it was not until the early 1970s that the West German historical profession significantly advanced toward the reorientation Ritter had set as a goal in 1949, the historiographical changes of the late 1940s and 1950s notwithstanding.
The assessment of West German historians’ interpretive shift—from “apologia” to “revisionism”—largely depends on the observer’s own position. Less controversial is the view that the methodological changes Ritter had demanded soon after the war did not take place until the 1960s. It was another generation of historians, born between the late 1920s and early 1940s, that carried out this task. Many of them maintained close relationships with American historians of modern Germany. Just as historians emphasize the role of the United States in the democratization process of the West German society,16 they also credit American scholars of German history for having made decisive contributions to the historiographical renewal, as Wehler emphasized with regard to the importance of the “transatlantic dialogue.”17
Indeed, Hans-Ulrich Wehler’s career exemplifies the development and intensity of this transatlantic dialogue very well: Wehler first came to the United States as a Fulbright student in 1952, when he spent a year at Ohio University. Ten years later, after completing his PhD at the University of Cologne, he returned with funding from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) to conduct research at Stanford University and at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., for a study of American imperialism. In California he met the cultural historian Carl Schorske and, more importantly, the émigré social historian Hans Rosenberg, who would become a major influence on Wehler and many other historians of his generation.18 Through Rosenberg, Wehler even received a job offer from the University of California at Berkeley in 1963, which he declined.19 He did, however, repeatedly return to the United States, as a visiting professor at Harvard (1972 and 1989), Princeton (1976), and Stanford (1983–1984). Finally, in 2000, the American Historical Association (AHA) awarded Wehler its honorary foreign membership.
After almost complete silence during the Nazi years, scholarly contacts and cooperation between the two countries intensified, and for many German historians of Wehler’s generation the United States became an attractive destination. Participating in student exchange programs and, later in their careers, holding visiting appointments at American universities became increasingly desirable. Ultimately, in the field of modern German history, West German historians developed closer ties with their American colleagues than with scholars of any other country. The resulting intellectual dialogue between American and West German historians was fundamentally shaped by the events and processes Wehler emphasized, in particular the legacy of National Socialism and postwar political challenges. Yet the different generations involved in this dialogue contributed to and benefited from what Wehler called these “fundamental experiences” in a multitude of ways.
Shortly after the end of World War II, many American scholars had wondered if their German colleagues would overcome the nationalism and intellectual isolation that had characterized the German historical
