The German Conception of History: The National Tradition of Historical Thought from Herder to the Present

Preface to the First Edition

Preface to the First Edition DESPITE the great impact of German historical thought and scholarship on the development of the cultural sciences throughout the world, as well as on political and social thought in Germany, no comprehensive study of German historiography or German historical thought has appeared in English during the past fifty years. In Germany a great number of monographs have been published on individual historians, but only two general works have appeared in recent years, each written from a point of view very different from that of the present author. Of these, one, Geist und Geschichte vom deutschen Humanismus bis zur Gegenwart, was written by an Austrian advocate of a Greater Germany, Heinrich Ritter von Srbik, an historian still steeped in the tradition of German Idealism; the other, Studien tiber die deutsche Geschichtswissenschaft, consists of a collection of essays by East German Marxist historians edited by Joachim Streisand. Like the two above-mentioned studies, this work is not primarily intended as a history of German historiography. Rather it seeks to present an interpretative, critical analysis of the theoretical presuppositions and political values of German historians in the major national tradition of German historiography from Wilhelm von Humboldt and Leopold von Ranke to Friedrich Meinecke and Gerhard Ritter. Ranke's ideal of absolute scholarly detachment proved to be unobtainable by any historian in the tradition and undesirable to many. Instead, the scholarship of these historians conxiii D Xiv PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION tinued to be closely interwoven with a Weltanschauung and a set of political values that remained relatively static in the face of changing intellectual and social conditions. The book traces the dissolution of the tradition in terms of its own inner contradictions and under the impact of political events. It is hoped that this volume may be of use at a moment when German historians are seriously re-examining their national history as well as the methodological and philosophic assumptions of their classical historians in the light of the political catastrophes of the twentieth century. It should also be of particular interest to historians and social theorists outside of Germany in countries such as the United States, France, and Italy. There, in recent years, the theoretical assumptions of "German historicism," especially as interpreted by Wilhelm Dilthey and Max Weber, have received considerable attention. This book is an outgrowth of a broader and yet uncompleted work on the idea of progress the twofold purpose of which is to deal historically with the role of ideas of progress and decline in modern historical and political thought and theoretically with the validity of these ideas. A grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation permitted me to devote myself full-time to this topic in Paris during the academic year 1960-1961. As I became increasingly concerned with the German critics of the idea of progress, I moved across the Rhine to Gottingen, where with the help of a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation I was able to complete the basic research for the present volume. I gratefully acknowledge these grants as well as a grant-in-aid from the Newberry Library in Chicago in the fall of 1964, which enabled me to complete the manuscript. Further grants from the Research Foundation of the State University of New York and the University of Buffalo Foundation allowed me to spend the summer of 1966 in Gottingen in order to rewrite the section of the manuscript dealing with German historiography since 1945. Two supplementary grants came from Dillard University during the academic year 1960-1961 and from Roosevelt University during my stay at the Newberry Library. I also wish to express my gratitude to the staffs of the Niedersdchsische Staats-und-Universitdtsbibliothek in Gottingen and of the Newberry Library with its excellent collection of German historiography, and particularly to Lawrence Towner, the director of the Newberry Library . PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION XV I am indebted to a large number of individuals for their advice and comments. I especially wish to thank my wife for her many suggestions and her encouragement. Professors Manfred Schlenke, Louis Gottschalk, Harold T. Parker, Gerald Feldman, Gerhard Masur, and Gunter Birtsch read the entire manuscript. I am particularly grateful for Professor Feldman's extensive criticisms and detailed suggestions. Dieter Groh and Maarten Brands read the introduction ; Jurgen Herbst, the chapter on Humboldt; Ernst Schulin, the chapter on Ranke; Peter Krausser, the section on Wilhelm...