Review Article History from Below Comes to Germany: The New History Movement in the Federal Republic of Germany* Roger Fletcher London School of Economics and Political Science Ina recent essay, a distinguished partisan of the new German social history complained of “‘a nagging feeling . . . that the SPD may be sold too short”? if current historiographical trends get out of hand. Warning that ‘the social history of the German working class may too easily become history with the SPD left out,’” Geoff Eley here put his finger on an interesting paradox.! The experience of West Germany’s poststructuralist Practitioners of history from below, the grass-roots social historians, would at first glance seem to suggest that there is very little danger of the new social history in Germany ignoring institutions, organizations, and ideologies or neglecting high or low politics in its drive to recover the past of the common people. Yet Fritz Stern, Gertrude Himmelfarb, John Rohl, and many others have re- cently issued similar warnings, and it would be foolish to ignore such voices. Arguably the most famous definition of social history is the now hack- neyed phrase coined by G. M. Trevelyan in his English Social History (1942), where he called it “the history of the people with the politics left out.’? But today such a definition could not be applied to social history, or history from below, as it is often practiced in either the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) or the German Democratic Republic (East Lam greatly indebted to numerous colleagues for advice and cri icism, especially to Alfred Birke, Alfred Frei, Jitrgen Habermas, Giinther Heydemann, Klaus Hildebrand, Andreas Hillgruber, Bernd Happauf, Konrad Jarausch, Alt Liidtke, Andrei Markovits, G. A. Ritter, Peter Schottler, Michael Stiirmer, Ginther Thien, Volker Ullrich, Michael Wildt, and Heinrich August Winkler. Responsibility for the views expressed here re- ideology more seriously than some felt inclined to do. See Geoff Eley and Keith Nield, “Why Does Social History Ignore Politics?” Social History 5, no. 2 (1980): 249-71. *G. M. Trevelyan, English Social History (London, 1942), p. 9. Yournal of Modern History 60 (September 1988): 557-568] ©1988 by The University of Chicago. 0022-2801/88/6003-0005801.00 Alll rights reserved.558 Fletcher Germany). History from below has grown from different roots and devel- oped along different lines in each of the two post-1945 German states. The subject of the present paper is the history from below movement in West Germany, which has proven thus far the more original, autonomous, fruit- ful, and stimulating foray into modern social history.? This West German phenomenon is here described in the words of the June 1983 Spiegel report as ‘the new history movement’’*—for it is demonstrably a movement; it is definitely new; and its ramifications are probably wider than those of story from below as practiced hitherto in the anglophone world, in France, in Italy, or in the West in general. The first point to note about the so-called new history movement in the Federal Republic is its relative novelty: it has emerged only within the last decade. In significant respects history from below in West Germany prop- erly belongs to the 1980s. Prior to the 1980s its practitioners had achieved comparatively little, in terms of either publications or organization. The first history workshop in West Germany, for example, was held in Géttingen as recently as 1982.5 Thus Hartmut Kaelble, the eminent Berlin-based social historian, recently admitted that social history in the Federal Re- public, for all its progress over the past two decades, still lags well behind that practiced in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Sweden.® This relative tardiness requires some explanation. Social history per se probably developed more slowly in Germany than elsewhere for two main reasons. One was the extraordinary power and longevity of the conser- vative historiographical tradition in Central Europe. Often associated with Leopold von Ranke, but really beginning with the Prussian School of Jo- hann Gustav Droysen, Heinrich von Sybel, and Heinrich von Treitschke,7 * On the East German approach, see Gunther Heydemann, *‘Geschichtswissenschaft und Geschichtsverstandnis in der DDR seit 1945," Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, B 13/87 (March 28, 1987): 15-26, and Geschichtswissenschaft im geteilten Deutschland (Frankfurt am Main, 1980), pp. 137~234; Christina von Buxhoeven, Geschichtswissen- schaft und Politik in der DDR (Cologne, 1980); Andreas Dorpalen, German History in Marxist Perspective: The East German Approach (London, 1985); Wolfgang Kittler, ed., Geselischafistheorie und geschichtswissenschafiliche Erklérung (Vaduz, 1985). ‘ “Ein kraftiger Schub far die Vergangenheit,” Der Spiegel 37, no. 23 (June 6, 1983): 36-42. See also the statement of aims in Geschichtswerkstatt, no. 1 (1983), pp. 24-25. * The History Workshop Society (Geschichtswerkstatt e.V.) was founded in Bochum in the spring of 1983 and the first History Festival took place in Berlin in the following year. However, the first preliminary meetings of more than a local nature (in Hanover, Bremen, Cologne, etc.) date from 1980. See Anthony McElligott, “The German History Workshop Festival in Berlin, May-June 1984," German History 2 (1985): 21-29. Regular reports have also been published in the relevant issues of Geschichtswerkstatt, the journal of the History Workshop Society. ° Hartmut Kaelble, ‘‘Sozialgeschichte in Frankreich und der Bundesrepublik: Annales gegen historische Sozialwissenschaften?”” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 13, no. | (1987): 88. 7 See Georg G. Iggers, The German Conception of History, rev. ed. (Middletown, Conn., 1984); Hans-Ulrich Wehler, ed., Deutsche Historiker, 9 vols. (Gottingen, 1971-82).History from Below Comes to Germany 559 this tradition survived the defeat and revolution of 1918, the democratic experiment of the Weimar Republic, the Great Depression, the Nazi dic- tatorship, and the watershed of 1945. Only with Fritz Fischer's initiatives of the 1960s was it seriously and openly challenged,* although important impulses also came simultaneously from Werner Conze and Hans Rosen- in the Cold War, the changing political climate in West Germany (the Grand Coalition of 1966-69, followed by the social-liberal coalition government of 1969-82), the impact of the student Tevolt of the late 1960s, and the advent of a new era of university expansion and reform. The principal practitioners of the emergent school of critical-historical social science were the Bielefeld-based historians of Imperial Germany, Hans-Ulrich Wehler and Jurgen Kocka. Although in several respects they were quite revolutionary for their time, these lefelders and their colleagues (some of whom were former students of Fischer, while others, like Volker Berg- hahn, lived and worked abroad) nevertheless remained very much con- cerned with the issues and Perspectives of their more conservative predecessors—Wehler perhaps more so than Kocka.? The second impor- fant reason social history, as known elsewhere in the West, remained largely terra incognita in the Federal Republic has to do with the recent German past. The experience of German fascism, together with the defeat and * On the work and significance of the Fischer school, see Arnold Sywottek, “Die her-Kontroverse,”’ in Deutschland in der Weltpolitik des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. Imanuel Geiss and Bernd J. Wendt (Ditsseldorf, 1973), pp. 19-47; Georg G. Iggers, Aa Directions in European Historiography, rev. ed. (Middletown, Conn., 1984), pp. 80-122; H.-U. Wehler, “Historiography in Germany Today,” in Observations on “The Spiritual Situation of the Age,” ed. Jurgen Habermas, trans. A. Showalter (Cambridge, Mass., 1984), pp. 221-59; Wolfgang Jager, Historische Forschung und politische Kultur in Deutschland (Gottingen, 1984), Pp. 132—57; Roger Fletcher, “Introduction,” From Kaiserreich to Third Reich: Elements of Continuity in German History, 1871-1945, by Fritz Fischer (London and Boston, 1986), pp. 1-32. ° See G. G. Iggers, ed., The Social History of Politics: Critical Perspectives in West German Historical Writing since 1945 (Leamington Spa, 1985); and Wolfgang Schieder and Volker Sellin, eds., Sozialgeschichte in Deutschland, 4 vols. (Gottingen, 1986~87). The best-known works by Wehler and Kocka are H.-U. Wehler’s Das Deutsche Kaiser- reich, 1871-1918 (Gottingen, 1973) and J. Kocka’s Klassengesellschaft im Krieg: Deutsche Sozialgeschichte, 1914-1918 (Gottingen, 1973); although Webler’s four-volume study, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte (Munich, 1987-), of which two volumes appeared in 1987, promises to become the paradigmatic work of the Bielefeld school. Among the major programmatic statements of this school are H.-U. Wehler, Historische Sozial- wissenschaft und Geschichtsschreibung (G6ttingen, 1980); Reinhard Riirup, ed., His- torische Sozialwissenschaft (Gottingen, 1977); and Jurgen Kocka, Sozialgeschichte: Begriff, Entwicklung, Probleme (Gottingen, 1977), Their Journal, Geschichte und Gesellschaft: Zeitschrift fiir Historische Sozialwissenschaft (launched in 1975), also publishes theo- retical debates and discussions.560 Fletcher dismemberment of the German nation in 1945-49, have combined to ensure that in West Germany today all historical questions tend to be posed si- multaneously as political questions." This continued focus on politics, and on high politics at that, has made it very difficult for a genuine social history to emerge or even for historians working on periods other than the later modern era to obtain a fair hearing in West Germany. A new social history has nevertheless emerged within the past decade. Its origins are both social and professional. An important factor in the emergence of the new history movement has been the recent socioeco- nomic climate of political conservatism and fiscal restraint. With no aca- demic jobs to go to, or even to aspire to, a large unemployed academii proletariat has begun to make its presence felt in West Germany. By now the Federal Republic has tens of thousands of frustrated schoolteachers, former Assistenten (junior professors), restless booksellers, and the like who are interested in history but who have no prospect of conventional employment as professional historians. Free of the traditional patron-client relationship within German universities and enjoying far greater indepen- dence and flexi than their more fortunate or “successful” academic colleagues, these hapless professional underdogs have flocked to the his- tory workshop festivals and have provided the new history movement with much of its initiative, enthusiasm, and mass base. In the Federal Republic as elsewhere in the West, the current younger generation has manifested a marked loss of faith in the ideals of modernization and unlimited Progress. This has undoubtedly helped to win recruits for the movement. The si- multaneous emergence of the Green Party (as a loose alliance of numerous single-issue groups, including ecologists, feminists, gays, pacifists, and disillusioned leftists) and of other ‘new social movements” of the early 1980s"! has also done much to arouse widespread interest in and support for it. All these movements appeal, or seem to appeal, to a similar clientele. \ See Gordon A. Craig, "’The War of the German Historians,” New York Review of Books 33, nos. 21~22 (January 15, 1987): 16~19. This, of course, is not to imply that a social history worthy of the name necessarily avoids or undervalues the political dimension. '! See Elim Papadakis, “The Green Alternative: Interpretations of Social Protest and litical Action in West Germany,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 32, no. 3 (1986): 443-54; Wilhelm P. Buirklin, Griine Politik: Ideologische Zyklen, Wahler und Parteisystem (Opladen, 1984), and ‘The Split between the Established and the Non- established Left in Germany,” European Journal of Political Research 13, no. 3 (1985): 283-93; Ferdinand Miller-Rommel, “‘Social Movements and the Greens: New Internal Politics in Germany,” European Journal of Political Research 13, no. 1 (1985): 53-67; Rudolf Bahro, From Red to Green (London, 1984), and Building the Green Movement (Philadelphia, 1986); Jonathan Porritt, Seeing Green (Oxford, 1984); Johan Galtung, “The Green Movement: A Socio-historical Exploration,” International Sociology 1, no. 1 (1986): 75-90; Giselher Schmidt, Die Griinen (Krefeld, 1986); Otto Kallscheuer, ed., Die Gritnen—letzte Wahl? (Berlin, 1986); Klaus Drager and Werner Hillsberg, Aus fiir Grin? Die griine Orientierungskrise zwischen Anpassung und Systemopposition (Frankfurt am Main, 1986); Thomas Poguntke, ‘The Organization of a Participatory Party—The Ger- man Greens,” Evropean Journal of Political Research 15, no. 6 (1987): 609-33; Peter Gatter, Die Aufsteiger: Ein politisches Portrat der Griinen (Hamburg, 1987); Werner Hiulsberg, The German Greens: A Social and Political Profile (London, 1988). TheHistory from Below Comes to Germany 561 Professionally, the new history movement can perhaps be seen most accurately asa belated and possibly exaggerated reaction to the long neglect of social history in Germany. Although not without native antecedents (including Karl Lamprecht, Otto Hintze, Eckart Kehr, Werner Conze, and Theodor Schieder), social history had never really taken root in Germany until the critical historical social science of Wehler and Kocka materialized in the early seventies. By the onset of the 1980s, however, a new generation of historians was pointing an accusing finger at the alleged deficiencies of these Bielefeld historians. The latter, it seemed, had offered only half the loaf, and the younger generation was keen to know more about French structuralism, the social and cultural anthropology of Clifford Geertz, the new narrative history of Carlo Ginzburg, the achievements of the history workshop of Ruskin College (Oxford), and also about Sven Lindquist’s “dig where you stand” movement in Sweden. The new history movement in West Germany may thus be seen as the product of a multiplicity of forces—social and professional, domestic and foreign—which have combined only very recently to present a serious challenge to the historical establishment of the Fede: literature on the Greens is now extensive. On the “new social movements,” see Peter H. Merkl, “How New the Brave New World? New Social Movements in West Germany,” German Studies Review 1, no. | (1987): 127-47; Hanspeter Kriesi, “Neue soziale Bewegungen: Auf der Suche nach ihrem gemeinsamen Nenner,” Politische Viertel- Jakrsschrift 28, no. 3 (1987): 315~34; Roland Roth and Dieter Rucht, eds., Neue soziate Bewegungen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Frankfurt am Main and New York, 1987); Lothar Rolke, Protestbewegungen in der Bundesrepublik (Opladen, 1987). © This is not to say that they dominate the profession to the exclusion of all other elements. Neither Christian Meier, a distinguished ancient historian, nor Gerhard A. Ritter, both former chairpersons of the Verband der Historiker Deutschlands (German Historical Association), nor such members of its executive body as Karl Otmar von Aretin, Rudolf Vierhaus, Hans Mommsen, Jirgen Kocka, and Eberhard Kolb could be classified as traditionalists or “*neoconservatives.”” as traditionalists have become mis- leadingly labeled. Nevertheless, to avoid confusion, the term ‘tneoconservative” will hereafter be applied to historians like Stiirmer, Hillgruber, Hildebrand, and Gall. On hages stvatism within the FRG and in the historical profession, see Martin Greiffen- hagen, Das Dilemma des Konservatismus in Deutschland (Frankfurt am Main, 1986); Joachim Bischoff, Klaus Bullan, et al., eds., Zwischen Neokonservatismus und Rechts- fadikalismus: Politische und populistische Rechtstendencen in der Bundesrepublik (Ham- burg, 1986); Thomas Kreuder and Hanno Loewy, eds » Konservatismus in der Strukturkrise (Frankfurt am Main, 1987); Claus Leggewie, Der Geist steht rechts: Ausfliige in die Denkfabriken der Wende (Berlin, 1987); Matthias von Hellfeld, Modell Vergangenheit: Rechisextreme und neokonservative Ideologien in der Bundesrepublik (Cologne, 1987); Margret Feit, Die “Neue Rechte” in der Bundesrepublik (Frankfurt am Main and New562 Fletcher voluble body of left-liberal or Social Democratic historians allied to or practicing Wehler’s and Kocka’s critical ‘historical social science’’ (or social history of politics).!? The challenge to the establishment is strikingly New Left in nature and an index of stasis or internal strife within the more radical wing of the West German historical profession. Rightly or wrongly, the challengers have been linked by friend and foe alike with the Green movement, which gained political representation for the first time in the Bundestag or Federal Parliament in 1983 and has been in government or vying for office in several of the Lender (states) in coalition with local Social Democrats. In composition, the new history movement is dichotomous. It has both an academic wing and a more numerous and active popular or lay wing. The former exhibits a variety of heterodoxies, all claiming to practice Alltagsgeschichte, or the history of everyday life, in some shape or form. These include ethnographers like Hans Medick and Alf Liidtke (based at the Max Planck Institute in Géttingen), members of what used to be Dieter Groh’s Marxist group at Constance (practicing local history inter alia), oral historians such as Lutz Niethammer, Franz Josef Briiggemeier, Ulrich Herbert (based at the Hagen Open University), a widely dispersed younger generation of German feminists (Regina Schulte, Dorothee Wierling, An- nette Kuhn, Ursula Nienhaus, and Karin Hausen), and a multiplicity of quantitative historians.'* Occasionally these groups find support from older- generation mavericks like Martin Broszat at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich.'5 Less productive but organizationally more important, and certainly enjoying a higher media profile, is the second arm of this York, 1987); and Iring Fetscher, ed., Neokonservative und ‘Neue Rechte’ (Munich, 1983). 3 See Roger Fletcher, “Recent Developments in West German Historiography: The Bielefeld School and Its Cri German Studies Review 7, no. 3 (October 1984): 451— 80. The extent to which the Bielefelders have been accepted by the traditionalists should not be exaggerated. As recently as April 1982, e.g., Andreas Hillgruber, while reviewing a book by Wehler, referred to a Wehler essay as demonstrating that he “is not ready to return to the fold of serious history writing’’ (Hillgruber, in Historische Zeitschrift 234, no. 2 (1982): 494). Wehler’s own “vehement” polemical style is legendary. See, e.g., his review of Stiirmer’s Bismarck biography (Bismarck: Die Grenzen der Politik (Munich, 1987]), entitled, significantly, *‘Bismarck—Der Durchbruch zur ‘eigentlichen’ Biogra- phie? Michael Stiirmers Versuch iiber den ersten Reichskanzler, oder: Die Nemesis der Hektik,” Die Zeit 43, no. 16 (April 10, 1987): 1718, or his recent pamphlet, Entsorgung der deutschen Vergangenheit? Ein polemischer Essay zum ‘‘Historikerstreit” (Munich, 1988). "4 See Alf Liidtke, ed., Alltagsgeschichte: Zur Rekonstruktion historischer Erfahr- ungen und Lebensweisen (Frankfurt am Main and New York, 1988); Peter Borscheid, “Alltagsgeschichte—Modetorheit oder neues Tor zur Vergangenheit?” in Sozial- geschichte in Deutschland, 3:78-100. '5 See, e.g., several of the essays in Martin Broszat, Nach Hitler: Der schwierige Umgang mit unserer Geschichte, ed. Hermann Graml and Klaus-Dietmar Henke (Mu- nich, 1986).History from Below Comes to Germany 563 compass—the West German history workshop Practitioners of what is known to anglophones as ‘‘people’s history.’ Headed by a registered association (Geschichtswerkstatt e.V.), this body seeks to coordinate the activities of all ‘alternative history’’ groups through its publication, Geschichtswerk- stat (History workshop), and its annual workshops or festivals, which function as a kind of “barefoot” alternative to the more sedate gatherings of the academic guild or Zunft. There is, of course, considerable overlap in membership. The vast majority of the grass-roots membership of the new history movement is undoubtedly drawn from the tertiary education sphere, with women outnumbering men among the activists. Even so, there are occasional frissons within the movement suggesting friction between academic and nonacademic members, !6 The main distinguishing features of this movement, as defined recently by two sympathetic commentators, are its insistence on adopting the per- spective of the subordinate classes and the ‘‘victims” of history (producing history from below, from within, and from the Periphery); its Primary history; its approach to history as a collective and public activity (hence its claim to be nonelitist and more democratic); and its Perception of itself as part of a contemporary social and cultural movement which seeks to change and liberate existing society.!7 The movement does not claim to ‘* More serious, however, is the generational cum ideological bifurcation between the young intellectuals of the new history movement and the older members of the German intellectual establishment. The former charge their elders with having failed to come to grips with the legacy of German fascism and condemn this failure as a major cause of the German mandarins’ allegedly narrow Worldview. They argue that instead of rigorously analyzing, ruthlessly attacking, and vigorously eradicating the last vestiges of National Socialism, the dominant figures of the West German historical establishment—including those who, like Wehler and Kacka, see themselves as champions of the left—have been standpoints, see Hauke Brunkhorst, Der Intellektuelle in Land der Mandarine (Frankfurt am Main, 1987); Volker Berghahn, _ Geschichtswissenschaft und Grosse Politik.”” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte B 11/87 (March 14, 1987), pp. 25-37; and Heide Gerstenberger and Dorothea Schmidt, eds., Normalitat oder Normalisierung? Geschichtswerkstatten und Faschismusanalyse (Minster, 1987) ‘” Hannes Heer and Volker Ullrich, “Die ‘neue Geschichtsbewegung’ in der Bundes- republik,”” in Geschichte entdecken: Exfahrungen und Projekte der neuen Geschichts, bewegung, ed. H. Heer and V. Ullrich (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1985), p. 21. Another 800d introduction to this movement is Gerhard Pav and Bernhard Schossig, eds., Die andere Geschichte (Cologne, 1986). Of a more theoretical nature is Gert Zang, Die unaufhaltsame Anndherung an das Einzelne (Constance, 1985). For a critical introduc. tion, incorporating a variety of viewpoints, see F: J. Briggemeier and J. Kocka, eds.,564 Fletcher have a monopoly on any of these viewpoints or methods, but it does profess to have combined them in a unique way and to have given them novel practical applications. If most of these criteria are also applicable to the older critical social history of politics & la Wehler or Kocka, then in what sense, it may be asked, is the new history movement novel or even a movement? In some respects it evinces greater diversity than cohesion—for example, in subject matter, ideology, and organization. In the realm of methodology and theory there is perhaps greater uniformity, if only in the negative sense of broad agreement as to the identity of the common foe. Most members of the new history movement disregard or explicitly reject the models and theories of historical social science, and there have been several acrimonious public exchanges between some of the ““Bielefelders’’ and representatives of the “‘barefoot’’ historians in particular, for the latter generally prefer their theory and methodology to be either minimal or imported, and they bitterly resent Wehler’s “‘vehement”’ efforts to divide and marginalize them.'® Other areas of solidarity and homogeneity in the new history movement are the relative youth of most of its spokespersons and supporters, their common outsider status (even among its academic wing, few have university chairs | Geschichte von unten—Geschichte von innen’: Kontroversen um die Alltagsgeschichte (Fernuniversitat Hagen, 1985). Examples of successful products of the “new history movement” are Lutz Niethammer, “Die Jahre weiss man nicht, wo man die heute hinsetzen soll”: Faschismuserfahrungen im Ruhrgebiet (Berlin and Bonn, 1983), and “Die Menschen machen ihre Geschichte nicht aus freien Stiicken, aber sie machen sie selbst’’: Einladung zu einer Geschichte des Volkes Nordrhein-Westfalen (Berlin and Bonn, 1985); Peter Kriedtke, Hans Medick, and Jiirgen Schlumbohm, Industrialisierung vor der Industrialisierung (Gettingen, 1977); Robert Berdahl, Alf Litdtke, etal.,eds., Klassen und Kultur: Sozialanthropologische Perspektiven in der Geschichtsschreilu ig (Frankfurt am Main, 1982); Alf Litdtke, ““Gemeinwohl,”’ Polizei, und ““Festungspraxis’: Staatliche Gewaltsamkeit und innere Verwaltung in Preussen, 1815~1850 (Gottingen, 1982); and and Norbert Schindler. N See H.-U. Wehler, “Neoromantik und Pseudorealismus in der neuen ‘Alltags- Beschichte,’ ” in Preussen ist wieder chic (Frankfurt am Main, 1983), “Geschichte von unten gesehen,”” Die Zeit 40, no. 19 (May 3, 1985): 64: and “Tritt in die Rumpelkammer,” Der Spiegel 39, no. 25 (June 17, 1985): 13;J. Kocka, “Klassen oder Kultur? Durchbriiche und Sackgassen in der Arbeitergeschichte,” Merkur 412 (1982): 955-65. and “Antwort an David Sabean,” Geschichtsdidaktik 11, no. 1 (1986): 25-27. The real object of their wrath appears to be works like Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller (London and Henley, 1980), and Spurensicherung: Uber verborgene Geschichte, Kunst, und soziales Geddchtnis (Berlin, 1983). Spirited replies from German “barefoot historians” (populist practitioners of history from below) have not been wanting. See, e.g., Volker Ullrich, “‘Alltagsgeschichte: Uber einen neuen Trend in der Bundesrepublik,” Neue Politische Literatur 29, no. 1 (1984): 50—71: Hans Medick, “ ‘Missionare im Ruderboot"? Ethnologische Erkenntnisweisen als Herausforderung an die Sozialgeschichte,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 10, no. 3 (1984): 295-319; various short articles in Geschichtswerkstatt 7 (1985): 41-52; Alfred Frei and Michael Wildt, clitsebrei _und Seifenblasen: Die Geschichtswerkstatten und ihre Kritiker.” 1°80 39 (1986): 64-72,History from Below Comes to Germany 565 ‘or any real prospect of elevation to same), and their widely remarked neoromantic and neohistoricist traits. Indeed, some critics have accused them of reverting to irrationalism and peddling a primitive and politically ambivalent nativism.!9 The new history movement is certainly new in the sense that its pedigree is a short and largely foreign one.?° Yet it already has certain undeniable achievements to its name. Within the West German historical profession it has unquestionably provided valuable stimuli to the study of such topics and problem areas as the working class and its movement, National So- Cialism, the family, strikes and protest movements, and the feminist move- ment and women’s history.?! The workshops thus far held have been widely publicized, well attended, and successful as alternative forums both for practicing historians and for citizens with an active interest in their past. Outside academia, too, they have performed useful work. For instance, by stimulating interest in local history and in the use of oral history tech- niques, they have overturned many a Nazi stone, broken taboos, and compelled not a few of their fellow citizens to confront (often for the first time) the realities of their past—stripped of the protective myths and mis- leading propaganda in which so many older Germans have taken refuge for so long. As popularizers, the young historical enthusiasts have also attempted to bring large numbers of Germans into a new relationship with their past. Thanks to the efforts of the new history movement, history has become less academic and more accessible to a wider public than Perhaps at any time before or since 1945. By directing attention to new subjects and employing new approaches, West German practitioners of history from below have helped to transform popular attitudes toward history in general and recent German history in particular. If media attention may be said to Teflect the true state of affairs, it appears that more Germans now contem- plate their history not as an unmitigated tale of woe—punctuated by wars, plagues, failed revolutions, and kindred disasters—but as one generation learning from the life experiences of another, not judgmentally but with '? In the political sphere, these charges have been paralleled by accusations of left- wing susceptibility to German Sonderweg delusions, allegedly manifested in the blan- dishments of neutralist neonationalism. See, e.g., Michael Stirmer, *‘Idea of Mittel- europa: An Emergency Exit for Germany’s Left,” Wall Street Journal (European edition) (April 27, 1987), p. 8; Wolfgang Pohrt, Endstation: Uber die Wiedergeburt der Nation (Berlin, 1982), esp. “Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Frieden,” pp. 71-76. * Thus Lutz Niethammer, writing in a postscript to the 1985 edition of his Lebens- erfahrung und kollektives Geddchtnis (Frankfurt am Main, 1985), expressed the view that “within the German historical profession there exists (as yet) no oral history as an established method or even as an autonomous discipline"* (p. 471), Indeed. almost all the contributors to this book are non-Germans. 2! It may be a measure of the achievement of the West German Practitioners of history from below that some academic studies are beginning to describe their role as one of mediating between critical social history (the historical social science of Bielefeld prove- Rance) and the newer and more popular “alternative” historiography. See, e.g., Inge Marssolek and René Ott, Bremen im Dritten Reich (Bremen, 1986), p. 16.566 Fletcher due compassion and understanding. Increasingly, German history is. seen as a fascinating, engaging, and processual attempt to recover, reconstruct, and preserve the past lives of real, living people. This awakening of popular interest in the past is reflected in the proliferation of exhibitions and mu- seums of local history, of technical and industrial museums, of publications on ‘‘the other Hamburg,’’ “the other Tibingen,’’ and so on, and of films like Edgar Reitz’s extraordinarily successful Heimat (1984). Despite these accomplishments, the new history movement still faces daunting problems. One very real danger is the threat of fragmentation. It cannot be denied that tensions and conflicts exist within the movement, especially between its academic supporters and the comparatively un- trained amateur or ‘“‘barefoot’”’ historians. Any attempt by the former to compel their lay colleagues to adopt a more serious approach to theory, for example, could well tear the movement asunder. A second danger is that of social isolation and marginalization. The movement has probably suffered as much as it has benefited from the Green tag—first attached to it, ironically, by a trade-union spokesman. To date, it has generally not enjoyed particularly good relations with the SPD or the labor unions, its natural allies, while more conservative forces have often tended to ignore it or to greet it with alarm verging on hysteria. With prominent neocon- servative historians presently doffing their caps at popular culture and All- tagsgeschichte2—and drawing unwonted and unseemly loud applause from more left-wing academic colleagues for so doing’*—while skillfully and elegantly writing what is basically the same kind of history, and from much the same perspective, as that offered generations ago by the Old Masters,”4 the new people’s history of West Germany runs the risk of being co-opted and neutered. Since neither the ‘“‘barefoot’’ historians nor their more fa- vorably placed academic comrades have anything like the same access to funds as do the current German mandarins (the Bielefelders and the neo- traditionalists), their chances of competing fairly and successfully with the latter must be seen as anything but good. To sum up what has been said about the new history movement in West Germany: it is clearly of very recent vintage; it is extremely diverse in 2 See, e.g., some of the essays in Michael Sturmer, Dissonanzen des Fortschritts (Munich, 1986); Klaus Hildebrand, Das Dritte Reich, 3d ed. (Munich, 1987), esp. the section on ““Herrschaft und Alltag” (“domination and everyday life”), pp. 178-88; and Thomas Nipperdey, Nachdenken ther die deutsche Geschichte (Munich, 1986). 2 Thus Webler, “Deutschland von Napoleon bis Bismarck: Thomas Nipperdeys “Deutsche Geschichte, 1800-1866": Ein Meisterwerk historischer Synthese,” Die Zeit 39, no. 42 (October 14, 1983): 32, and ““Politik/Geschichte: Eine Kolumne,” Merkur 38, no. 5 (1984): 568-73. 24 This is not to say that some of the work being produced by the new Old Masters is not equal to the highest standards of scholarship. Cases in point are Lothar Gall, Bismarck: Der weisse Revolutiondr (Frankfurt am Main, 1980); T. Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte, 1800-1866: Burgerwelt und starker Staat (Munich, 1984); and M. Stiirmer, Das ruhelose Reich: Deutschland, 1866-1918 (Berlin, 1983).History from Below Comes to Germany 567 origin, owing much to foreign models? as well as to domestic social and Professional impulses; it is leftish in orientation and has found much of its group identity in conflict with the critical historical social science of Bie- lefeld provenance; it is heterogeneous in composition, its members polar: izing around two main Broupings (academic historians of everyday life and amateur ‘‘barefoot”” historians); it exhibits a number of common charac- teristics, although these are by no means peculiar t for collective effort, and for social Commitment); although still in its salad days, the movement unquestionably has a number of impressive social and Professional achievements to its credit; and finally, its future is by no means assured and seems less securely based than history from below in com- parable Western societies.26 What the West German Practitioners of ‘‘his- tory from the bottom up” have attempted to do is exactly the same as the objective of the British Marxist historians. Harvey Kaye has expressed this goal as follows: They have accepted that the making of a truly democratic Socialism. . . requires more than “necessity”... and more than organization. It also requires the desire to create an alternative social order. And yet, even that is not enough, There must be a “prior education of desire.” .. . In other words, we must yesterday. At the same time, we should be fully aware that such an educational Process must be dialectical and that the educators, too, must be educated.27 If the new history movement fails in its task, Carlo Ginzburg’s complaint will long continue to have special force within the West German historical % Whereas Anglo-American models and mentors have generally proven most attrac- tive to the Bielefelders (the shadow of E. P. Thompson has recently begun to catch up with reimported neo-Weberian sociology), the influence of French social history in the Federal Republic has thus far been confined almost exclusively to the practitioners of people's history.” See Norbert Schindler, “Spuren in die Geschichte der ‘anderen’ Zivilisation: Probleme und Perspektiven einer historischen Volkskulturforschung,” in and Norbert Schindler (Frankfurt am Main. 1984), pp. 13-77; H. Kaelble, “Sozialge- Schichte in Frankreich und der Bundesrepublik,” pp. 77-93; and Wolfgang Kaschuba, Volkskultur zwischen feudaler und biirgerlicher Gesellschaft (Frankfurt and New York. 1988), pp. 20-31, *° For a comparative perspective, see Raphael Samuel, ed., People’s History and Socialist Theory (London, Boston, and Henley, 1981); Raphael Samuel and Gareth Sted_568 Fletcher classes are no longer ignored by historians, they seem condemned, never- theless, to remain ‘silent.’ "8 If the part played—or not played—by the grass-roots social historians in the recent and still raging ‘war of the Ger- man historians’ may be taken as an indication of things to come, it seems that, while there is very little prospect of German social historians writing the politics out of their history, the future direction of history from below in the Federal Republic remains very much an open question. 28 Ginzburg (n. 18 above), p. xx.