Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T04:58:51.309Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Central European History at Fifty: Notes from a Longtime Fan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2018

Konrad H. Jarausch
Konrad H. Jarausch*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the mid-1960s, a small delegation of graduate students went to Theodore S. Hamerow's office at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Noting that the Journal of Central European Affairs had ceased publication in 1964, James Harris, Stanley Zucker, and I asked our advisor why there was no academic journal dedicated to German history, a new field that had been developing rapidly. What could we do to create such an organ? The otherwise placid Hamerow wrinkled his brow and angrily asked who had put us up to this initiative! When we answered that this was just our idea, he relaxed and told us that he was the chair of a committee charged by the Conference Group for Central European History with doing just that, namely, founding such a new journal. Douglas A. Unfug of Emory University had already put in a bid, in fact, and Central European History started to appear in 1968. By using a variation of the previous name, the journal hoped to pick up prior subscribers and avoid being identified by its title with the erstwhile enemy—Germany.

Type
Part I: Recollections and Reminiscences
Information
Central European History , Volume 51 , Special Issue 1: Special Commemorative Issue: Central European History at Fifty (1968–2018) , March 2018 , pp. 12 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Central European History Society of the American Historical Association 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Jarausch, Konrad H., “Contemporary History as a Transatlantic Project: Autobiographical Reflections on the German Problem, 1960–2010,” Historical Social Research 24 (2012): 7–49Google Scholar.

2 Stelzel, Philipp, “The Second Generation Emigres’ Impact on German Historiography,” in The Second Generation: Émigrés from Nazi Germany as Historians, ed. Daum, Andreas, Lehmann, Hartmut, and Sheehan, James J. (New York: Berghahn, 2016), 287–303Google Scholar.

3 Fleck, Ludwig, Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache: Einführung in die Lehre von Denkstil und Denkkollektiv (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1960)Google Scholar; Ash, Mitchell G. and Ehmer, Josef, eds., Universität–Politik–Gesellschaft (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Jarausch, Konrad H., The Enigmatic Chancellor: Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg and the Hybris of Imperial Germany (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1973)Google Scholar.

5 “From the Editors” [Unfug, Douglas A.], Central European History (CEH) 1, no. 1 (1968), 1Google Scholar. The initial price for an annual subscription was all of eight dollars! Also see James Van Horn Melton's memorial for Unfug in this commemorative issue of CEH, which includes as well a reprint of Unfug's inaugural letter.

6 Clark, Christopher, The Sleepwalkers (London: Penguin Books, 2013), 418Google Scholar.

7 Jarausch, Konrad H., “The Illusion of Limited War: Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg's Calculated Risk, July 1914,” CEH 2, no. 1 (1969): 48–76Google Scholar.

8 Jarausch, Konrad H., “German Students in the First World War,” CEH 17, no. 4 (1984): 310–29Google Scholar. Also see idem, Deutsche Studenten, 1800–1970 (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1984)Google Scholar.

9 Jarausch, Konrad H., “Promises and Problems of Quantitative Research in Central European History,” CEH 11, no. 3 (1978); 279–89Google Scholar; also see idem, ed., Quantifizierung in der Geschichtswissenschaft: Probleme und Möglichkeiten (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1976)Google Scholar.

10 See Falter, Jürgen, Hitlers Wähler (Munich: CH Beck Verlag, 1991)Google Scholar; Kater, Michael, The Nazi Party: A Social Profile of Members and Leaders, 1919–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

11 Fischer, Fritz, Krieg der Illusionen: Die Deutsche Politik von 1911 bis 1914 (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1969)Google Scholar.

12 Jarausch, Konrad H., “World Power or Tragic Fate? The Kriegsschuldfrage as Historical Neurosis,” CEH 5, no. 1 (1972): 72–92Google Scholar. Also see Kracht, Klaus Große, Die zankende Zunft: Historische Kontroversen in Deutschland nach 1945 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005)Google Scholar.

13 Jarausch, Konrad H., “From Second to Third Reich: The Problem of Continuity in German Foreign Policy,” CEH 12, no. 1 (1979): 68–82Google Scholar; idem, “Revising German History: Bethmann Hollweg Revisited,” CEH 21, no. 3 (1979): 224–43Google Scholar.

14 Barkin, Kenneth D., “Editor's Letter,” CEH 24, no. 1 (1991): vGoogle Scholar; idem, The Controversy over German Industrialization, 1890–1902 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1970)Google Scholar.

15 Geyer, Michael and Jarausch, Konrad H., eds., “German Histories: Challenges in Theory, Practice, Technique,” CEH 22, no. 3/4 (1989): 227–457Google Scholar. Also see Jarausch, Konrad H., The Rush to German Unity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

16 Barkin, Kenneth D., “Bismarck in a Postmodern World,” German Studies Review (GSR) 18, no. 2 (1995): 241–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Geyer, Michael and Jarausch, Konrad H., “Great Men and Postmodern Ruptures: Overcoming the ‘Belatedness’ of German Historiography,” GSR 18, no. 2 (1995): 253–73Google Scholar; idem, Shattered Past: Reconstructing German Histories (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

18 Hagen, William W., “Master Narratives beyond Postmodernity: Germany's ‘Separate Path’ in Historiographical-Philosophical Light,” GSR 30, no. 1 (2007): 1–32Google Scholar; Jarausch, Konrad H., Geyer, Michael, and Hagen, William W., “Reply to William W. Hagen [With Response by the Author],” GSR 30, no. 2 (2007): 242Google Scholar.

19 Ledford, Kenneth D., “From the Editors,” CEH 38, no. 1 (1995): 1–4Google Scholar; idem, From General Estate to Special Interest: German Lawyers 1878–1933 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996)Google Scholar; idem, “Conflict within the Legal Profession: Simultaneous Admission and the German Bar, 1903–1927,” in German Professions, 1800–1950, ed. Cocks, Geoffrey and Jarausch, Konrad H. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 252–69Google Scholar.

20 Epstein, Catherine, A Past Renewed: German-Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States after 1933 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; The Last Revolutionaries: German Communists and Their Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2003)Google Scholar; Model Nazi: Arthur Greiser and the Occupation of Western Poland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)Google Scholar.

21 See Jarausch, Konrad H. “The Economic Dynamics of German Unification,” CEH 24 no. 4 (1991): 446–49Google Scholar; and reviews of: Ash, Timothy Garton, In Europe's Name: Germany and the Divided Continent (New York: Random House, 1993)Google Scholar, in CEH 27, no. 2 (1994): 257–59Google Scholar; Naimark, Norman, The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995)Google Scholar, in CEH 29, no. 1 (1996): 142–45Google Scholar; Fulbrook, Mary, Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR, 1949–1989 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)Google Scholar, in CEH 30, no. 2 (1997): 344–46Google Scholar; Herbert, Ulrich, Geschichte Deutschlands im 20. Jahrhundert (Munich: Beck Verlag, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, in CEH 48, no. 2 (2015): 249–51Google Scholar; Merkl, Peter H. and Glaessner, Gert-Joachim, German Unification in the European Context (State College: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993)Google Scholar, in CEH 27, no. 1 (1994): 121–23Google Scholar.

22 Weitz, Eric, review of Dictatorship as Experience: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR (New York: Berghahn Books, 1999)Google Scholar, CEH 36, no. 3 (2003): 490–94Google Scholar; Moeller, Robert G., review of Shattered Past: Reconstructing German Histories (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003)Google Scholar, CEH 37, no. 3 (2004): 461–65Google Scholar; Crew, David F., review of After Hitler: Recivilizing Germans, 1945–1995 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006)Google Scholar, CEH 41, no. 3 (2008): 541–43Google Scholar; Buse, Dieter K., review of “Das stille Sterben….” Feldpostbriefe von Konrad Jarausch aus Polen und Russland 1939–1942 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2008)Google Scholar, CEH 42, no. 4 (2009): 781–83Google Scholar.

23 Heineman, Elizabeth, “Complete Families, Half Families, No Families at All: Female-Headed Households and the Reconstruction of the Family in the Early Federal Republic,” CEH 29, no. 1 (1996): 19–60Google Scholar; Kaplan, Thomas Pegelow, “‘German Jews,’ ‘National Jews,’ ‘Jewish Volk,’ or ‘Racial Jews’? The Constitution and Contestation of ‘Jewishness’ in Newspapers of Nazi Germany, 1933–1938,” CEH 35, no. 2 (2002): 195–221Google Scholar; Meng, Michael, “East Germany's Jewish Question: The Return and Preservation of Jewish Sites in East Berlin and Potsdam, 1945–1989,” CEH 38, no. 4 (2005): 606–36Google Scholar; Stelzel, Philipp, “Working Toward a Common Goal? American Views on German Historiography and German-American Scholarly Relations during the 1960s,” CEH 41, no. 4 (2008): 639–71Google Scholar; Pearson, Benjamin, “The Pluralization of Protestant Politics: Public Responsibility, Rearmament, and Division at the 1950s Kirchentage,” CEH 43, no. 2 (2010): 270–300Google Scholar; Milder, Stephen, “Thinking Globally, Acting (Trans-)Locally: Petra Kelly and the Transnational Roots of West German Green Politics,” CEH 43, no. 2 (2010): 301–26Google Scholar; Krause, Scott, “Neue Westpolitik: The Clandestine Campaign to Westernize the SPD in Cold War Berlin, 1948–1958,” CEH 48, no. 1 (2015): 79–99Google Scholar.

24 Port, Andrew I., Conflict and Stability in the German Democratic Republic (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007)Google Scholar; idem, with Fulbrook, Mary, eds., Becoming East German: Socialist Structures and Sensibilities after Hitler (New York: Berghahn, 2013)Google Scholar; Port, Andrew I., “‘To Deploy or Not to Deploy’: The Erratic Evolution of German Foreign Policy since Unification,” in United Germany: Debating Processes and Prospects, ed. Jarausch, Konrad H. (New York: Berghahn, 2013), 267–77Google Scholar.

25 Torrie, Julie, For Their Own Good: Civilian Evacuations in Germany and France, 1939–1945 (New York: Berghahn, 2010)Google Scholar; Port, Andrew I., “From the Editor: Changing of the Guard,” CEH 47, no. 3 (2014): 481Google Scholar.

26 Epstein, Catherine, “German Historians at the Back of the Pack: Hiring Patterns in Modern European History, 1945–2010,” CEH 46, no. 3 (2013): 599–639Google Scholar.

27 Port, Andrew I., “Central European History since 1990: Historiographical Trends and Post-Wende ‘Turns,’” CEH 48, no. 2 (2015): 238–48Google Scholar.

28 Port, Andrew I., ed., “Holocaust Scholarship and Politics in the Public Sphere: Reexamining the Causes, Consequences, and Controversy of the Historikerstreit and the Goldhagen Debate: A Forum with Gerrit Dworok, Richard J. Evans, Mary Fulbrook, Wendy Lower, A. Dirk Moses, Jeffrey K. Olick, and Timothy Snyder,” CEH 50, no. 3 (2017): 375–403Google Scholar.

29 Karen Hagemann, Tobias Hof, and Konrad H. Jarausch, eds, “Burdens and Beginnings: Rebuilding East and West Germany after Nazism,” CEH (forthcoming).

30 See the contributions by Kenneth Ledford and Kees Gispen in this commemorative issue.

31 Lessons and Legacies (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1991-pres.)Google Scholar publishes the proceedings of the biennial Holocaust conference.

32 Lindenberger, Thomas and Sabrow, Martin, eds., German Zeitgeschichte: Konturen eines Forschungsfelds. Konrad Jarausch zum 75. Geburtstag (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2016)Google Scholar; Meng, Michael and Seipp, Adam, eds., Modern Germany in Transatlantic Perspective (New York: Berghahn, 2017)Google Scholar; Karen Hagemann, ed., “Festgabe in Honor of Konrad H. Jarausch” (Chapel Hill, NC: ms., 2017).