The Thirty Years' War and German Memory in the Nineteenth Century

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments Since this is a book about war, memory, and place, I think I should begin by acknowledging the profound influence my childhood had on the conceptual origins of this study. Although I was born in Michigan, I grew up in Stone Mountain, Georgia, in the 1960s and 1970s when the town was being steadily absorbed into the vast sprawl of Atlanta, the self-declared capital of the “New South.” The growth of Atlanta as a major American city meant, among other things, the gradual effacement of the more visible marks the Civil War had left on the north Georgia landscape. Yet traces remained. Backyards were marked by slowly eroding lines of fortifications. At many an intersection, cast-iron signs commemorated the battles, skirmishes, and cavalry raids of the Battle of Atlanta in 1864. Every spring on Confederate Memorial Day, across from the gas station where I worked as a teenager, the small cemetery blossomed with miniature Stars and Bars placed on veterans’ graves. Blasted into the side of the most visible natural landmark in the area, the massive granite monolith that gave Stone Mountain its name, was a huge bas-relief sculpture of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis on horseback. A frequent destination of elementary school field trips was the Cyclorama in Grant Park Zoo that depicted the Battle of Atlanta. The memory of the Civil War was an inescapable presence. Even on the playground, lingering animosities of the war manifested themselves when my friends good-naturedly declared a sharp line of demarcation between those born in the South, “Rebels,” and those unfortunates like myself, “Yankees,” who, through no fault of their own, had come into the world north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Suffice it to say, as I began exploring how Germans had refought the Thirty Years’ War in the nineteenth century, I immediately recognized the preoccupation with a past that would not pass. That moment of recognition was the beginning of this book. Many people made this book possible. I owe my wife, Linda Santoro (fighter girl from the future), more gratitude than the English language can convey for her love and encouragement. Our friends in Massachusetts— Lucas, Joe and Trish, Nancy, Susan, Gerard, Dom, Rob and Jude—maintained our sanity with good music, strong drink, and much laughter. Leslie Poe talked baseball and Einstürzende Neubauten with me in the kitchen of our dorm that first alienating year of graduate school. Robert Fisher distracted me with feats of strength. David and Joelle Paulson, Frank Trentmann and Lizza Ruddick, and Andrew Port never once let me lose confidence in my ideas. It is no exaggeration to say that, without the spiritual and intellectual generosity of David Craig and Jocelyn Sisson, I could not have finished this book. I owe more to their insight, humor, and camaraderie than they know. The intellectual debts I have incurred in the course of this project are substantial. Walter Struve and Emmanuel Chill at the City College of New York changed my life by encouraging me to be a historian. At Harvard University the wisdom of Franklin Ford, Charles Maier, James Hankins, Olwen Hufton, and Daniel Aaron guided me through the first stages of my apprenticeship. I hope this study approaches the very high standards they set as intellectual mentors. I owe the most, however, to my adviser, David Blackbourn. In the beginning his great gift was to comprehend the ramifications of this project better than I did myself. As the book finally took shape on paper, his erudition and conceptual discipline led me clear of many dead ends and set an example I have tried to emulate every day. Yet, as I finished the manuscript, I realized that his most valuable gift was his friendship. Several true gentlemen and scholars were unstinting in their advice and encouragement during the revision of the manuscript. Geoff Eley, Mike Harris, Michael Geyer, Hartmut Lehmann, Roland Löffler, Charles McClelland, Keith Pickus, Till van Rhaden, James Sheehan, Helmut Smith, Geoffrey Wawro, Siegfried Weichlein, and Steven Welch all took valuable time at conferences and in correspondence to offer crucial insights that immeasurably sharpened the book’s focus and strengthened its organization. My initial research in Germany got its bearings from the suggestions and formidable collective wisdom of Dr. Karl Otmar Frhr. von Acknowledgments x Aretin, Dr. Hans Fenske, Dr. Lothar Gall, Dr. Gottfried Korff, Dr. Jörn Rüsen, Dr...