Politika, morál és történetírás a háború utáni Németországban
Politics, Moral and the History Writing in Post-War Germany

Summary/Abstract: The brief introduction to this essay stresses that the scientific goal frankly set by Ranke (the forming of history into a branch of science) and Ranke’s hidden political goal (the forming of a unified national identity) produce a fruitful tension that constructively affects the writing of history. The second part of the essay analyses how the criteria of Rankean science change toward the end of the sixties primarily on external political pressure that did not accord with the Rankean political goal (for the ’68 movements aimed at social critique and not collective identity). The final result of this process was the forming of an old-new criterion of science that acquired acknowledgement among scientific society. The third part takes a look at the third big change in German history writing. In the mid-eighties German historical science faced two possibilities. On the one hand there was the possibility to reformulate scientific criteria according to recent debates. However, instead of following the methodological renewal offered by Martin Broszat, German writing of history chose a different path. Initially out of internal reasons, later on American influence, the interference of politics and history writing was one-sidedly upset that meant that the political pressure on the scientific writing of history in a sense crushed the latter. The third part of the essay is thus concerned with the problematic of marketing the political goals of history, of elevating these goals above the goals of science and finally, the rejection of these phenomena.

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