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Die DDR-Geschichtswissenschaft auf dem Weg zur deutschen Einheit: Luther, Friedrich II und Bismarck als Paradigmen politischen Wandels (Campus Forschung) (German Edition)
Die DDRGeschichtswissenschaft auf dem Weg zur deutschen Einheit Luther Friedrich II und Bismarck als Paradigmen politischen Wandels - Campus Forschung - German Edition Author:Jan Herman Brinks This book by Dutch historian J.H. Brinks contributes to the study of GDR historiography in the context of Germany's national reunification. The author analyzes the interrelationship of historical scholarship and the political-ideological framework within which the historical profession functioned, especially regarding the GDR's self-concept... more »ion of a separate German socialist nation. The ideological guidelines were closely integrated into a system of political control and discipline of the historical profession. History as such occupied a very important place in the hierarchy of academic sciences because of the special function it served in legitimating the regime and the rationale of the GDR as an autonomous state. The author's main thesis touches the central dichotomy within the tradition of German Socialist thought regarding the 'national question': a persistent attachment to the ideal of a Socialist 'class-state' versus the hope of a (re)unified German 'nation-state'. From the early 1980s onward it became clear that the GDR sought to establish its legitimacy on a much broader basis than the progressive 'traditions' (Traditionen) with which it used to identify itself. Party and state increasingly claimed Germany's national past as the 'heritage' (Erbe) of the Socialist nation, hence including the historical chapters formerly rejected as the 'darker' side in German history, such as Lutheranism, Prussian absolutism, and Bismarck's authoritarian Second Empire. The concept of 'tradition' in its traditional sense was now understood more broadly to comprehend not only the heroic and positive line in history, but also those who in paving the way for German nationhood had created the possibility of a Socialist Germany. In recovering Germany's national history, originally aimed at creating a seperate GDR national identity, the author argues, historians and ideologists in the GDR curiously anticipated the reconstruction of Germany in 1989.« less