German 697K Debates and Issues in Modern German History

Andrew Donson
German Department
505 Herter

Spring 2010, Monday 6-8:30 p.m.

Synopsis:

This seminar introduces students to the various interpretations of modern Germany’s troubled past, with an emphasis on the often bitter controversies and competing historical approaches.  It explores how the exile of intellectuals and the collaboration of historians with the Nazis in the 1930s produced a so-called Atlantic divide between American and German scholars.  It also introduces students the Sonderweg debate, the disagreement about whether the Nazi dictatorship was a result of developments in Germany before 1914 that were peculiar, unlike anything in Western Europe or the United
States.  The course gives overviews of the classic “problems” of  early twentieth-century German history:  the nature of the worker’s movement; the origins of the First World War; the failure or success of the 1918 revolution; the rise of the Nazis; the fall of Weimar Republic; and the place of women and gender in all these developments. Particular attention will be paid to the explosive disputes over Nazism and the genocide. These include the quarrels about the singularity of the Holocaust; the photography exhibitions of murders by regular German soldiers; the intentionalist vs. structural-functionalist interpretations of the development of the Nazi state; and the Goldhagen controversy about whether Germans were ideological killers or just “ordinary men.” Finally, the course explores East German history written by the victors of the Cold War and the recent challenges to this narrative.

Syllabus: Not available

Course Website: Not available