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(, "special path") refers to the theory in
German historiography The historiography of Germany deals with the manner in which historians have depicted, analyzed and debated the history of Germany. It also covers the popular memory of critical historical events, ideas and leaders, as well as the depiction of thos ...
that considers the German-speaking lands or the country of
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
itself to have followed a course from
aristocracy Aristocracy (; ) is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocracy (class), aristocrats. Across Europe, the aristocracy exercised immense Economy, economic, Politics, political, and soc ...
to
democracy Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...
unlike any other in
Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
. The modern school of thought by that name arose early during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
as a consequence of the rise of
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
. In consequence of the scale of the devastation wrought on Europe by Nazi Germany, the theory of
German history The concept of Germany as a distinct region in Central Europe can be traced to Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as ''Germania'', thus distinguishing it from Gaul. The victory of the Cherusci, Germanic tribes ...
has progressively gained a following inside and outside Germany, especially since the late 1960s. In particular, its proponents argue that the way Germany developed over the centuries virtually ensured the evolution of a social and political order along the lines of Nazi Germany. In their view, German mentalities, the structure of society, and institutional developments followed a different course in comparison with the other nations of the West. The German historian Heinrich August Winkler wrote about the question of there being a :


19th century

The term was first used by German conservatives in the imperial period, starting in the late 19th century as a source of pride at the "Golden Mean"Hinde, John "Sonderweg" pages 934–935 from ''Modern Germany An Encyclopedia of History, People and Culture 1871-1990'' edited by Dieter Buse and Juergen Doerr Volume 2, New York: Garland Publishing, 1998 page 934. of governance that in their view had been attained by the German state, whose distinctiveness as an
authoritarian Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and ...
state lay in taking the initiative in instituting social reforms and in imposing them without waiting to be pressured by demands "from below". That type of authoritarianism was seen to be avoiding both the autocracy of
Imperial Russia Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor/empress, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * ...
and what they regarded as the weak, decadent and ineffective democratic governments of Britain and France.Hinde, John "Sonderweg" pages 934–935 from ''Modern Germany An Encyclopedia of History, People and Culture 1871–1990'' edited by Dieter Buse and Juergen Doerr Volume 2, New York: Garland Publishing, 1998 page 935. The idea of Germany as a great Central European power, neither of the West nor of the East was to be a recurring feature of right-wing German thought right up to 1945. The historian
Hans-Ulrich Wehler Hans-Ulrich Wehler (September 11, 1931 – July 5, 2014) was a German left-liberal historian known for his role in promoting social history through the "Bielefeld School", and for his critical studies of 19th-century Germany. Life Wehler was bor ...
of the
Bielefeld School The Bielefeld School is a group of German historians based originally at Bielefeld University who promote social history and political history using quantification and the methods of political science and sociology.Lorenz, Chris "Wehler, Hans-Ul ...
places the origins of Germany's path to disaster in the 1860s and the 1870s, when economic
modernization Modernization theory or modernisation theory holds that as societies become more economically modernized, wealthier and more educated, their political institutions become increasingly liberal democratic and rationalist. The "classical" theories ...
took place, but political modernization did not happen, and the old Prussian rural elite remained in firm control of the army, diplomacy and the civil service. Traditional, aristocratic and premodern society battled an emerging capitalist, bourgeois and modernizing society. Recognizing the importance of modernizing forces in industry and the economy and in the cultural realm, Wehler argues that reactionary traditionalism dominated the political hierarchy of power in Germany, as well as social mentalities and in class relations ().Hans-Ulrich Wehler, (1995)


20th century


During World War II

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
's occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 and its invasion of Poland in September 1939 (the latter invasion immediately drawing France and Britain into
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
) provoked the drive to explain the phenomenon of Nazi Germany. In 1940,
Sebastian Haffner Raimund Pretzel (27 December 1907 – 2 January 1999), better known by his pseudonym Sebastian Haffner, was a German journalist and historian. As an émigré in Britain during World War II, Haffner argued that accommodation was impossible not on ...
, a German émigré living in Britain, published ''Germany: Jekyll and Hyde'', in which he argued it was
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
alone, by the force of his peculiar personality, who had brought about Nazi Germany. In 1941, the British diplomat Robert Vansittart published ''The Black Record: Germans Past And Present'', according to which Nazism was only the latest manifestation of what Vansittart argued were the exclusively German traits of aggressiveness and brutality. Other books with a thesis similar to Vansittart's were Rohan Butler's '' The Roots of National Socialism'' (1941) and William Montgomery McGovern's '' From Luther to Hitler: The History of Nazi-Fascist Philosophy'' (1946).


Early postwar period

After Germany's defeat in World War II in 1945, the term lost its positive connotations from the 19th century and acquired its present negative meaning. There was much debate about the origins of this "German catastrophe" (as the German historian Meinecke titled his 1946 book) of Nazi Germany's rise and fall. Since then, scholars have examined developments in
intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and Human self-reflection, reflection about the nature of reality, especially the nature of society and proposed solutions for its normative problems. Coming from the wor ...
,
political Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...
,
social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives fro ...
,
economic An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...
and
cultural history Cultural history records and interprets past events involving human beings through the social, cultural, and political milieu of or relating to the arts and manners that a group favors. Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897) helped found cultural history ...
to investigate why German
democracy Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...
failed during the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...
and which factors led to the rise of
Nazism Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was fre ...
. In the 1960s, many historians concluded that the failure of Germany to develop firm democratic institutions in the 19th century had been decisive for the failure of the Weimar Republic in the 20th century. Until the mid-1960s, the debate was polarized with most non-German participants at one pole and German participants at the other. Historians like Léon Poliakov, A. J. P. Taylor, and Sir
Lewis Bernstein Namier Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier (; 27 June 1888 – 19 August 1960) was a British historian of Polish-Jewish background. His best-known works were '' The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III'' (1929), ''England in the Age of the Ame ...
, echoed by journalists like the American William L. Shirer, portrayed Nazism as the inevitable result of German history, reflecting unique flaws in "German national character" that went back to the days of Martin Luther, if not before. During the Raleigh Lecture on History in 1944, Namier stated that the German liberals in the Revolution of 1848 were "in reality forerunners of Hitler", whose views about the Poles and Czechs presaged the great international crises of 1938–39, and called the 1848 revolution "a touchstone of German mentality and a decisive element in East-European politics" In his lecture, Namier described the 1848 revolution as "the early manifestations of aggressive nationalism, especially of German nationalism which derives from the much belauded
Frankfurt Parliament The Frankfurt National Assembly () was the first freely elected parliament for all German Confederation, German states, including the German-populated areas of the Austrian Empire, elected on 1 May 1848 (see German federal election, 1848). The ...
rather than from Bismarck and " Prussianism". Namier concluded "had not Hitler and his associates blindly accepted the legend which latter-day liberals, German and foreign had spun around 1848, they might well have found a great deal to extol in the of the Frankfort Assembly". Taylor wrote in his 1945 book '' The Course of German History'' that the Nazi regime "represented the deepest wishes of the German people", and that it was the first and only German government created by the Germans as the
Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...
had been created by France and Austria, the
German Confederation The German Confederation ( ) was an association of 39 predominantly German-speaking sovereign states in Central Europe. It was created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as a replacement of the former Holy Roman Empire, which had been dissolved ...
by Austria and Prussia and the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...
by the Allies.Taylor, A.J.P. ''The Course of German History'', Hamish Hamilton 1945 page 213. In contrast, Taylor argued, "But the Third Reich rested solely on German force and impulse; it owed nothing to alien forces. It was a tyranny imposed upon the German people by themselves". Taylor argued that Nazism was inevitable because the Germans wanted "to repudiate the equality with the peoples of eastern Europe which had then been forced upon them" after 1918. Taylor wrote that:
During the preceding eighty years the Germans had sacrificed to the all their liberties; they demanded as a reward the enslavement of others. No German recognized the Czechs or Poles as equals. Therefore, every German desired the achievement which only total war could give. By no other means could the ''Reich'' be held together. It had been made by conquest and for conquest; if it ever gave up its career of conquest, it would dissolve.
The American historian Peter Viereck wrote in his 1949 book ''Conservatism Revisited: The Revolt Against the Revolt 1815–1949'':
Is it being unhistorical to judge the anti-Metternichian nationalism and racism of 19th century Germany by its Nazi consequences? Were those consequences the logical outcome or a modern accident for which nationalism should not be blamed? Is it a case of the wise-after-the-fallacy to read so much into those early rebels of 1806-1848, whom many historians still consider great liberals?...The liberal university professors, Metternich's fiercest foes and now so prominent in 1848, were often far from the cloudy idealists pictured in our textbooks. From his own viewpoint, Bismarck erred in mocking their lack of ''Realpolitik''. The majority... was more Bismarckian than Bismarck ever realized. Many liberals... later became leading propagandists for Bismarck, along with the new National Liberal Party. Only an honorable few continued to oppose him and the militarist success-worship that followed his victorious wars.Hamerow, Theodore "Guilt, Redemption and Writing German History" pages 53–72 from ''The American Historical Review'', 1983 page 56.
Shirer in his 1960 book '' The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'' argued for the view that German history proceeded logically from "Luther to Hitler""The notion that 'rectitude and authenticity
ere Ere or ERE may refer to: * ''Environmental and Resource Economics'', a peer-reviewed academic journal * ERE Informatique, one of the first French video game companies * Ere language, an Austronesian language * Ebi Ere (born 1981), American-Nigeria ...
integrally German attributes in contrast to Roman or Latin influences which were degrading' held to have originated with Luther developed with German Romanticism in the 19th Century and culminated with National Socialism." Johnson 2001
and saw Hitler's rise to power as an expression of German character, rather than of the international phenomenon of totalitarianism. Shirer encapsulated that by stating that "the course of German history... made blind obedience to temporal rulers the highest virtue of Germanic man and put a premium on servility." The French historian Edmond Vermeil wrote in his 1952 book ("Contemporary Germany") that Nazi Germany was not "a purely adventitious episode appearing on the fringes of the German tradition". Instead, Vermeil contended that German nationalism had an especially aggressive character, which had been restrained only by Bismarck. After Bismarck's departure in 1890, Vermeil wrote, "It was after his fall, under William II, that this nationalism, breaking all barriers and escaping from the grip of a weak government, gave rise to a state of mind and a general situation that we have to analyze, for otherwise Nazism with its momentary triumphs and its terrible collapse will remain incomprehensible". Vermeil concluded that Germany will remain on a separate path, "always placing the spirit of its implacable technical discipline at the service of those visions of the future that its eternal romanticism begets". Poliakov wrote that even if not all Germans supported the Holocaust, it was "tacitly accepted by the popular will". In contrast, German historians such as
Friedrich Meinecke Friedrich Meinecke (October 20, 1862 – February 6, 1954) was a German historian with national liberal and antisemitic views who supported the Nazi invasion of Poland. As a representative of an older tradition, he criticized the Nazi regime ...
,
Hans Rothfels Hans Rothfels (12 April 1891 – 22 June 1976) was a German historian. He supported an idea of authoritarian German state, dominance of Germany over Europe and was hostile to Germany's eastern neighbours. After his applications for honorary Arya ...
, and Gerhard Ritter, joined by a few non-German historians such as Pieter Geyl, contended that the Nazi period had no relationship to earlier periods of German history and that German traditions were at sharp variance with the totalitarianism of the Nazi movement. Meinecke famously described Nazism in his 1946 book ("The German Catastrophe") as a particularly unfortunate ("on-the-job accident") of history. Although opposed to what they regarded as Meinecke's excessively-defensive tone, Ritter and Rothfels have been joined by their intellectual heirs Klaus Hildebrand,
Karl Dietrich Bracher Karl Dietrich Bracher (13 March 1922 – 19 September 2016) was a German political scientist and historian of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany, born in Stuttgart. During World War II, he served in the Wehrmacht and was captured by the Americ ...
and
Henry Ashby Turner Henry Ashby Turner, Jr. (April 4, 1932 – December 17, 2008) was an American historian of Germany who was a professor at Yale University for over forty years. He is best known for his book ''German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler'' (1985) ...
in contending that although the Nazi dictatorship was rooted in the German past, individual choices made during the later Weimar years led to the Nazi years. Though Bracher is opposed to the interpretation of German history, he does believe in a special German mentality () that emerged in the late 18th century.Lukacs, John ''The Hitler of History'', New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997 page 201. Bracher wrote that:
The German "" should be limited to the era of the Third Reich, but the strength of the particular German mentality [] that had arisen already with its opposition to the French Revolution and grew stronger after 1870 and 1918 must be emphasized. Out of its exaggerated perspectives (and, I would add, rhetoric) it become a power in politics, out of a mythic reality. The road from democracy to dictatorship was not a particular German case, but the radical nature of the National Socialist dictatorship corresponded to the power of the German ideology that in 1933–1945 became a political and totalitarian reality
In a 1983 speech, Hildebrand denied there had been a and claimed that the applied only to the "special case" of the Nazi dictatorshipWinkler, Heinrich August "Eternally in the Shadow of Hitler" pages 171–176 from ''Forever In The Shadow of Hitler?'' edited by Ernst Piper, Humanities Press, Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, 1993 page 174 In a 1984 essay, Hildebrand went further and wrote:
It remains to be seen, whether future scholarship will initiate a process of historicization of the Hitler period, for example by comparing it with Stalinist Russia and with examples such as the Stone Age Communism of Cambodia. This would doubtless be accompanied by terrifying scholarly insights and painful human experiences. Both phenomena could, , even relativize the concept of the German between 1933 and 1945
In response, Heinrich August Winkler argued that there was a before 1933 and that Germany was a country deeply influenced by the Enlightenment, which meant there was no point of comparison between Hitler on one hand and Pol Pot and Stalin on the other.


Since mid-1960s

Starting in the 1960s, historians such as Fritz Fischer and
Hans-Ulrich Wehler Hans-Ulrich Wehler (September 11, 1931 – July 5, 2014) was a German left-liberal historian known for his role in promoting social history through the "Bielefeld School", and for his critical studies of 19th-century Germany. Life Wehler was bor ...
argued that unlike France and Britain, Germany had experienced only "partial modernization" in which
industrialization Industrialisation (British English, UK) American and British English spelling differences, or industrialization (American English, US) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an i ...
was not followed by changes in the political and social spheres which in the opinion of Fischer and Wehler, continued to be dominated by a "pre-modern" aristocratic elite. In the opinion of the proponents of the thesis, the crucial turning point was the Revolution of 1848, when German liberals failed to seize power and consequently either
emigrated Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...
or chose to resign themselves to being ruled by a reactionary elite and to live in a society that taught its children obedience, glorification of
militarism Militarism is the belief or the desire of a government or a people that a state should maintain a strong military capability and to use it aggressively to expand national interests and/or values. It may also imply the glorification of the mili ...
and pride in a very complex notion of German culture. During the latter half of the German Empire, from about 1890 to 1918, that pride, they argued, developed into
hubris Hubris (; ), or less frequently hybris (), is extreme or excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence and complacency, often in combination with (or synonymous with) arrogance. Hubris, arrogance, and pretension are related to the need for vi ...
. Since 1950, historians such as Fischer, Wehler and Hans Mommsen have drawn a harsh indictment of the German elite from 1870 to 1945, who were accused of promoting authoritarian values; being solely responsible for launching
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
; sabotaging the democratic Weimar Republic; and aiding and abetting the Nazi dictatorship in internal repression, war, and genocide. In the view of Wehler, Fischer and their supporters, only the German defeat in 1945 put an end to the "premodern" social structure, which had led to and then sustained traditional German authoritarianism and its more radical variant, National Socialism. Wehler has asserted that the effects of the traditional power elite in maintaining power up to 1945 "and in many respects even beyond that" took the form of:
a penchant for authoritarian politics; a hostility toward democracy in the educational and party system; the influence of preindustrial leadership groups, values and ideas; the tenacity of German state ideology; the myth of the bureaucracy; the superimposition of caste tendencies and class distinctions; and the manipulation of political antisemitism.
Another version of the thesis emerged in the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
in the 1950s to the 1960s, when historians such as Fritz Stern and George Mosse examined ideas and culture in 19th-century Germany, especially those of the virulently anti-Semitic movement. Mosse and Stern both concluded that the intellectual and cultural elites in Germany by and large chose to consciously reject modernity and along with it those groups they identified with modernity, such as Jews, and embraced
anti-Semitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
as the basis for their (world-view). However, in recent years, Stern has abandoned his conclusion and now argues against the thesis, holding the views of the movement to be a mere "dark undercurrent" in Imperial Germany. In 1990, Jürgen Kocka wrote about the s theories:
Yet, at the same time, researches looked back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to uncover the deeper roots of the Third Reich. Through comparisons with England, France, the United States, or simply "the West", they attempted to identify the peculiarities of Germany history, those structures and processes, experiences, and turning points, which while they may not have led directly to National Socialism, nevertheless hindered the long term development of liberal democracy in Germany and eventually facilitated the triumph of fascism. Many authors made various contributions to the elaboration of this argument, usually without actually using the word .
Helmuth Plessner, for example, spoke of the "belated nation" (), the delayed creation of a nation-state from above. Other historians have argued that nationalism played an especially aggressive, precociously right-wing destructive role during the Second Empire. Ernst Fraenkel, the young
Karl Dietrich Bracher Karl Dietrich Bracher (13 March 1922 – 19 September 2016) was a German political scientist and historian of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany, born in Stuttgart. During World War II, he served in the Wehrmacht and was captured by the Americ ...
, Gerhard A. Ritter, M. Rainer Lepsius and others identified powerful long-term weaknesses in the Empire's system of government: the blocked development of parliamentarianism, the severely fragmented system of parties that resembled self-contained blocks, and other factors that later burdened Weimar and contributed to its breakdown. Leonard Krieger, Fritz Stern, George Mosse and Kurt Sontheimer emphasized the illiberal, antipluralistic elements in German political culture upon which National Socialist ideas could later build. Hans Rosenberg and others argued that preindustrial elites, especially the east Elbian landowners (the ''
Junkers Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG (JFM, earlier JCO or JKO in World War I, English language, English: Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works) more commonly Junkers , was a major German aircraft manufacturer, aircraft and aircraft engine manufactu ...
''), upper-level civil servants and the officer corps retained great power and influence well into the 20th century. In the long term, they represented an obstacle to democratization and parliamentarianism. As Heinrich August Winkler has shown, their effort is visible in the pernicious role played by agrarian interests in the collapse of the Weimar Republic. The unification of Germany by means of " blood and iron" under Prussian hegemony expanded the political influence and social weight of the officer corps with its status-oriented claims to exclusivity and autonomy. Along with the old elites, many traditional and preindustrial norms, ways of thinking and modes of life also survived, which included the authoritarian outlook and antiproletarian claims of the petty bourgeoise as well as militaristic elements of middle-class political culture, such as the institution of the "reserve officer". The liberal
Max Weber Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German Sociology, sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economy, political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sc ...
criticized the "feudalization" of the upper bourgeoisie, which seemed to accept both the disproportional representation of the nobility in politics and the aristocratic norms and practices, instead of striving for power on its own terms or cultivating a distinctly middle-class culture. Lacking the experience of a successful revolution from below, schooled in a long tradition of bureaucratically led reforms from above and challenged by a growing workers' movement, the German bourgeoise appeared relatively weak and—compared with the West—almost "unbourgeois." Another variant of the theory has been provided by Michael Stürmer, who, echoing claims of conservative historians during the Imperial and Weimar periods, argues that it was
geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...
that was the key to German history. Stürmer contends that what he regards as Germany's vulnerable geopolitical situation in
Central Europe Central Europe is a geographical region of Europe between Eastern Europe, Eastern, Southern Europe, Southern, Western Europe, Western and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Central Europe is known for its cultural diversity; however, countries in ...
left successive German governments no other choice but to engage in
authoritarianism Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and ...
. Stürmer's views have been controversial and would become one of the central issues in the notorious ("Historians' Quarrel") of the mid-1980s. One of Stürmer's leading critics, Jürgen Kocka, himself a proponent of the view of history, argued that "Geography is not destiny",Kocka, Jürgen "Hitler Should Not Be Repressed by Stalin and Pol Pot" pages 85-92 from ''Forever In The Shadow of Hitler?'' edited by Ernst Piper, Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1993 page 91. suggesting that the reasons for the were political and cultural instead. Kocka wrote against Stürmer that both
Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
and
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
are also "in the middle" but each has a completely different history.


Subdebate over Holocaust

In his 1992 book ''Ordinary Men'', Christopher Browning opposed the theory that Germans in the Nazi era were motivated by the especially virulent anti-Semitism that had characterized
German culture The culture of Germany has been shaped by its central position in Europe and a history spanning over a millennium. Characterized by significant contributions to art, music, philosophy, science, and technology, German culture is both diverse and ...
for centuries. Analyzing the troops of the special police battalion units, who were the ones who directly killed Jews in the mass raids phase of the Holocaust (prior to the death camps), Browning concluded that the typical middle-class workers were not ingrained with
anti-Semitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
but became killers through peer pressure and indoctrination. The debate on the was renewed by the American scholar Daniel Goldhagen with his 1996 book, '' Hitler's Willing Executioners''. Goldhagen countered that German society, politics and life until 1945 were characterized by a unique version of extreme anti-Semitism that held the murder of Jews as the highest possible national value. His critics such as
Yehuda Bauer Yehuda Bauer (; 6 April 1926 – 18 October 2024) was a Czech-born Israeli historian and scholar of the The Holocaust, Holocaust. He was a professor of Holocaust studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew Univer ...
replied that Goldhagen ignored most recent research and ignored other developments both in Germany and abroad. Ruth Bettina Birn asserts that Goldhagen "allow dhis thesis to dictate his presentation of the evidence". Nonetheless, Goldhagen is often held to have succeeded in reviving the debate on the question of a German "
collective guilt Collective responsibility or collective guilt is the responsibility of organizations, groups and societies. Collective responsibility in the form of collective punishment is often used as a disciplinary measure in closed institutions, e.g., boa ...
", and, in Germany, of bringing many Germans to a modern confrontation with a debate about the legacy of the Holocaust.


Pan-European criticism

In recent decades, German historiography has shifted from nationalism to a pan-European viewpoint. Most recent scholars reject the old notion of separate national paths typified by models of the German "Sonderweg" or the French "singularité française". The leading critics of the thesis have been two British Marxist historians,
Geoff Eley Geoffrey Howard "Geoff" Eley (born 4 May 1949) is a British-born historian of Germany. He studied history at Balliol College, Oxford, and received his PhD from the University of Sussex in 1974. He has taught at the University of Michigan, An ...
and
David Blackbourn David Gordon Blackbourn (born 1949 in Spilsby, Lincolnshire, England) is Cornelius Vanderbilt distinguished chair of history at Vanderbilt University, where he teaches modern German and European history. Prior to arriving at Vanderbilt, Blackb ...
, who in their 1984 book ''The Peculiarities of German History'' (first published in German in 1980 as ) argued that there is no normal course of social and political change; that the experience of
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
and
Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...
in the 19th century was not the norm for Europe; and that even if the liberal German middle class was disempowered at the national political level, it nevertheless dominated the social, economic and cultural life of 19th-century Germany. The embourgeoisement of German social life was greater than in Britain and France, which, in the opinion of Eley and Blackbourn, was more distinctly marked by aristocratic values than Germany. They rejected the entire concept of the as a flawed construct supported by "a curious mixture of idealistic analysis and vulgar materialism" that led to an "exaggerated linear continuity between the nineteenth century and the 1930s".Hamerow, Theodore S. "Guilt, Redemption and Writing German History" pages 53-72 from ''The American Historical Review'', February 1983, Volume 88 page 71 In the view of Blackbourn and Eley, there was no , and it is ahistorical to judge why Germany did not become Britain for the simple reason that Germany is Germany, and Britain is Britain. Moreover, Eley and Blackbourn argued that after 1890, there was a tendency towards greater democratization in German society with the growth of civil society as reflected in the growth of trade unions and a more-or-less free press. From the right, Otto Pflanze claimed that Wehler's use of such terms as "Bonapartism", "social imperialism", "negative integration" and ("the politics of rallying together") has gone beyond mere heuristic devices and instead become a form of historical fiction.Hamerow, Theodore S. "Guilt, Redemption and Writing German History" pages 53-72 from ''The American Historical Review'', February 1983, Volume 88 page 68 The German conservative historian Thomas Nipperdey, in a 1975 book review of Wehler's , argued that Wehler presented German elites as more united than they were, focused too much on forces from above and not enough on forces from below in 19th-century German society and presented too stark a contrast between the forces of order and stabilization and the forces of democracy with no explanation for the relative stability of the Empire. In Nipperdey's opinion, Wehler's work fails to explain how the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...
occurred since, according to Wehler, prior to 1918, the forces of authoritarianism were so strong and those of democracy so weak. Nipperdey concluded his review that a proper history of the Imperial period could be written only by placing German history in a comparative European and trans-Atlantic perspective, which might allow for "our fixation on the struggle with our great-grandfathers" to end. Many scholars have disputed Eley's and Blackbourn's conclusions such as Jürgen Kocka and Wolfgang Mommsen. Kocka in particular has argued that while the thesis may not explain the reasons for the rise of the Nazi movement, it still explains the failure of the democratic
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...
. That seems to entail that the issue of the is limited to an individual development (albeit of a type frequently encountered). Detlev Peukert in his influential 1987 (English translation 1992) work ''The Weimar Republic: The Crisis of Classical Modernity'' suggested Germany's experience was a crisis involving socio-political phenomena common to all modernising countries. In the 2014 work "AntiJudaism: The Western Tradition", historian David Nirenberg argues that the conditions of Jew-hatred and replacement were also found in every other European country and had their roots in Graeco-Roman antiquity and imperial Christianity.


German history before 1806

Schubert states that the history of the
Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...
is not to be confused with the , which can be seen only as a result of the concept of German identity, which developed in the
Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...
of the late 18th century and was reinforced by the
Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...
in which Germany was under French occupation. Previous events, especially those of the Holy Roman Empire,as attempted by Timothy Reuter, in: Anne Duggan, Kings and Kingship in Medieval Europe, London 1993, p.179-211 cannot be related to the evolution of Nazism.


See also

*
Mitteleuropa (), meaning Middle Europe, is one of the German terms for Central Europe. The term has acquired diverse cultural, political and historical connotations. University of Warsaw, Johnson, Lonnie (1996) ''Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends' ...
*
Exceptionalism Exceptionalism is the perception or belief that a species, country, society, institution, movement, individual, or time period is "wiktionary:exceptional, exceptional" (i.e., unusual or extraordinary). The term carries the implication, whether or ...
*
Manifest destiny Manifest destiny was the belief in the 19th century in the United States, 19th-century United States that American pioneer, American settlers were destined to expand westward across North America, and that this belief was both obvious ("''m ...
* German ''Sonderweg'' in affirmative Marxist perspectives: **''
The German Ideology ''The German Ideology'' (German: ''Die deutsche Ideologie''), also known as ''A Critique of the German Ideology'', is a set of manuscripts written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels around April or early May 1846. Marx and Engels did not find a p ...
'' (a work by
Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
and
Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.
Frankfurt School The Frankfurt School is a school of thought in sociology and critical theory. It is associated with the University of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, Institute for Social Research founded in 1923 at the University of Frankfurt am Main ...
and was expanded upon in regards to the ''Sonderweg'' theory particularly by
Theodor W. Adorno Theodor W. Adorno ( ; ; born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund; 11 September 1903 – 6 August 1969) was a German philosopher, musicologist, and social theorist. He was a leading member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, whose work has com ...
's works '' The Jargon of Authenticity: An Essay On German Ideology'', ''The Meaning of Working Through the Past'', and ''Culture und Kultur'' ** Non-simultaneity, a concept by Ernst Bloch *
Functionalism versus intentionalism Functionalism may refer to: * Functionalism (aesthetics), a doctrine declaring that only objects based on utility and economy can be beautiful ** Functionalism (architecture), the principle that architects should design a building based on the pur ...
* ("Historians' Dispute") * Modernization theory § Germany * ("coming to terms with the past") * Here Is Germany * Black Legend * Robert Vansittart, 1st Baron Vansittart * Your Job in Germany


Notes


References

* Berman, Sherri. 2001. "Modernization in Historical Perspective: The Case of Imperial Germany." ''World Politics'' Volume 53, Number 3, April 2001, pp. 431–462 in Project MUSE * Blackbourn, David & Eley, Geoff. 1984. ''The Peculiarities of German History: bourgeois society and politics in nineteenth-century Germany''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Revised and expanded translation of the authors' , 1980. * Browning, Christopher. 1992. ''Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland''. New York:
HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...
. * Goldhagen, Daniel J. 1996. ''Hitler's Willing Executioners; Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. * Grebing, Helga. 1986. . Stuttgart:
Kohlhammer Verlag W. Kohlhammer Verlag GmbH, or Kohlhammer Verlag, is a German publishing house headquartered in Stuttgart. History Kohlhammer Verlag was founded in Stuttgart on 30 April 1866 by . Kohlhammer had taken over the businesses of his late father-in-la ...
. * Groh, Dieter. 1983. " " , 38:1166–87. * Hamerow, Theodore S. 1983. "Guilt, Redemption and Writing German History." ''The American Historical Review'', February 1983, 88:53–72. * Heilbronner, Oded. 2000. "From Antisemitic Peripheries to Antisemitic Centres: The Place of Antisemitism in Modern German History." ''Journal of Contemporary History'', 35(4):559–576. * Jarausch, Konrad. 1983. "Illiberalism and Beyond: German History in Search of a Paradigm." ''Journal of Modern History'', 55:647–686. * Kershaw, Ian. 2000. ''The Nazi Dictatorship Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation''. London: Arnold Press. * Kocka, Jürgen. Jan 1988. "German History before Hitler: The Debate about the German '.'" ''Journal of Contemporary History'', 23(1):3–1
in JSTOR
* Moeller, Robert. 1983. "The Recast?: Continuity and Change in Modern German Historiography." ''Journal of Social History'', 1983–1984, 17:655–684. * Mommsen, Wolfgang. 1980. "Review of ." ''Bulletin of the German Historical Institute'', 4:19–26. * Peukert, Detlev. , Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1987 translated into English as ''The Weimar Republic: the Crisis of Classical Modernity,'' New York: Hill and Wang, 1992 . * Smith, Helmut Walser. "When the Debate Left Us." ''German Studies Review'', May 2008, 31(2):225–240 * Wehler, Hans-Ulrich. 1985. ''The German Empire, 1871–1918''. Kim Traynor, translator. Leamington Spa: Berg. * Wehler, Hans-Ulrich. 1981. "" ''Merkur'', 5:478–487.


External links


Four paths explained
in a 2006 college lecture by Prof. Harold Marcuse at UC Santa Barbara

by Michael Brooks, then a graduate student at the University of Toledo, Ohio {{Authority control 19th century in Germany 20th century in Germany German words and phrases Historiography of Germany History of Europe Holocaust historiography Linear theories