Not to be confused with Gerhard A. Ritter

Gerhard A. Ritter

Gerhard Albert Ritter is a German historian.- Biography :Ritter grew up in Berlin and studied since 1947 at the University of Tübingen and at the Free University of Berlin.- Honors :...

 (born 1929)

Gerhard Georg Bernhard Ritter (April 6, 1888 in Bad Sooden-Allendorf

Bad Sooden-Allendorf

-Location:The spa town of Bad Sooden-Allendorf lies in the Werra valley near the Hoher Meißner, right on the boundary with Thuringia, almost at Germany’s geographical centre, 33 km east of Kassel.-Neighbouring communities:...

 – July 1, 1967 in Freiburg

Freiburg

Freiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the extreme south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain...

) was a conservative German historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

.

Before the Third Reich

Ritter was born in Bad Sooden-Allendorf

Bad Sooden-Allendorf

-Location:The spa town of Bad Sooden-Allendorf lies in the Werra valley near the Hoher Meißner, right on the boundary with Thuringia, almost at Germany’s geographical centre, 33 km east of Kassel.-Neighbouring communities:...

, the son of a Lutheran

Lutheranism

Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...

 clergyman. He was educated at a gymnasium

Gymnasium (school)

A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

 in Gütersloh

Gütersloh

Gütersloh is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in the area of Westphalia and the administrative region of Detmold. Gütersloh is the administrative centre for a district of the same name and has a population of 96,320 people.- Geography :...

 and at the universities of Munich, Heidelberg, and Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

. While studying at Heidelberg, Ritter was a research assistant to the national-liberal historian Hermann Oncken, who was a major influence on Ritter. Ritter's first book, 1913's Die preussichen Konservativen und Bismarcks deutsche Politik (The Prussian Conservatives and Bismarck's German Policy) was his PhD

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 dissertation completed in 1911 under the supervision of Oncken. Ritter examined the dispute between Otto von Bismarck

Otto von Bismarck

Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...

 and conservative Prussian Junker

Junker

A Junker was a member of the landed nobility of Prussia and eastern Germany. These families were mostly part of the German Uradel and carried on the colonization and Christianization of the northeastern European territories during the medieval Ostsiedlung. The abbreviation of Junker is Jkr...

s who felt that Bismarck's policy was a menace to their traditional privileges in the years 1858-1876. A source of special conflict between Bismarck and the Junkers concerned the latter's opposition to Bismarck's compromises with the southern German states, which were seen as a threat to the traditional powers of Junkerdom. The theme of the extent of one's allegiance to those who hold power would be a recurring subject in Ritter's oeuvre.

From 1912 onwards, Ritter worked as a schoolteacher, and fought as an infantryman in the First World War

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. Though Ritter was strongly committed to a German victory in the First World War, he was privately bothered by what regarded as the crude chauvinist nationalism of the Pan-German League. Ritter regarded the German defeat of 1918 as a great disaster. This was especially the case because Ritter believed that the monarchy had been the best form of government for Germany, and that the Weimar Republic was a huge mistake because Germany did not have a tradition of republican government. Ritter subscribed to the 19th century view of history as a form of political education for the elite, and contemporary politics were always a pressing concern for him. He married Gertrud Reichardt in 1919, with whom he had three children. Ritter worked as a professor at Heidelberg University, (1918–1923), Hamburg University (1923–1925) and Freiburg University (1925–1956). During his time at Heidelberg, Ritter began an official history of the university from the Middle Ages to the present, of which only one volume was ever published.

In 1925, Ritter published a sympathetic biography

Biography

A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...

 of Martin Luther

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...

 that made his reputation as a historian. In his Luther biography, Ritter treated his subject as an excellent example of the "eternal German". Ritter argued against the view of Luther as an opportunist promoted by Ernst Troeltsch

Ernst Troeltsch

Ernst Troeltsch was a German Protestant theologian and writer on philosophy of religion and philosophy of history, and an influential figure in German thought before 1914...

 and Max Weber

Max Weber

Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber was a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself...

, and instead contended that Luther was a man of faith who possessed the ability to expose what Ritter regarded as grave flaws in the Roman Catholic Church

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

. Ritter argued that Luther inspired his followers to have the self-confidence to improve the world. Ritter's Luther biography was written in large part under the impact of the defeat of 1918, and as such, Ritter went to great lengths to defend what he regarded as the unique German spirit against what Ritter saw as the corrupt materialist spiritual outlook of the West. Throughout his life, Lutheranism was a major influence on Ritter's writings.

In particular, Ritter agreed with Luther's argument that the moral values of Christianity were relevant only to the individual, not the state. Citing Luther, Ritter argued that the state had to hold power, and as part of the messy business of politics, could be guided only by the Christian values of its leaders. Taking up of the ideas of Rudolf Kjelléns and Friedrich Patzel, Ritter argued that the state should be regarded as a living entity, which to live successfully required economic and territorial growth. Using this argument, Ritter contended that Frederick the Great

Frederick II of Prussia

Frederick II was a King in Prussia and a King of Prussia from the Hohenzollern dynasty. In his role as a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he was also Elector of Brandenburg. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel...

's invasion of Silesia

Silesia

Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...

 in 1740 was a necessary act to allow the Prussian state to live, regardless of international laws against aggression.

During the last years of the Weimar Republic, Ritter changed his focus from the medieval-early modern periods to the modern period, and from cultural history to biographies of political figures. During this period, Ritter was to write biographies of the Prussian

Kingdom of Prussia

The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...

 statesmen Karl vom Stein

Heinrich Friedrich Karl Reichsfreiherr vom und zum Stein

Heinrich Friedrich Karl Reichsfreiherr vom und zum Stein , commonly known as Baron vom Stein, was a Prussian statesman who introduced the Prussian reforms that paved the way for the unification of Germany...

 and of King Frederick II of Prussia

Frederick II of Prussia

Frederick II was a King in Prussia and a King of Prussia from the Hohenzollern dynasty. In his role as a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he was also Elector of Brandenburg. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel...

. Ritter's 1931 two-volume biography of Stein portrayed him as the total opposite of Bismarck. Ritter argued that Bismarck was the ultimate power politician, and Stein was the ultimate anti-power politician. Ritter argued that Stein's success as a politician was limited by his moralism, but contended that despite his lack of political sense was nonetheless successful because of his strong moral character.

After 1933

On February 11, 1933, in a letter to a friend, Ritter described his intentions as:

"I am planning to write two books. One will be entitled 'What is Liberalism?', and will be the attempt to pave the way for the founding of a large national party of the center, a party which we need today more than ever before. The book will contribute to the drafting of a new liberal national program, which will offer political orientation based on historical reflection...The second book is to...shed light on the great crises in the political and intellectual history of Germany, and will thus explain the present state of mind of the German people. This second book will serve two purposes. It will develop a new concept of the history of our nation...and it will help deepen the notion of the idea of German nationality and national consciousness after a time which this idea has in public use become unbearably trivial. New tasks are crowding in uponous. In our era the historian acquires a distinctive national function, an educational function. Certainly, for the time being no one wants to listen to him, because everyone is still running after noisy political agitators. But I am confident that a time will come when everyone will be thoroughly fed up with the din of national phrase-making and will long for a pure drink instead of the inebriating potion administered by the Nazis. The historian has to prepare positions for the reserves...".

Ritter's 1936 biography

Biography

A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...

 of Frederick the Great has been described by the American military historian Peter Paret

Peter Paret

Peter Paret is American military, cultural & art historian with a particular interest in German history. Paret was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Dr. Hans Paret and Suzanne Aimée Cassirer, who divorced in 1932...

 as one of the finest military biographies ever written. Ritter's emphasis on Frederick's limited war aims, and his willingness to settle for less than he initially sought was seen at the time as a form of oblique criticism of Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

. In addition, the emphasis that Ritter placed on the influence of the Enlightenment

Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...

 and "orderly reason" on Fredrick were intended by Ritter to quietly disprove Hitler's claim to be Frederick's successor. The inspiration behind the Fredrick biography was Ritter's personal reaction to the Day of Potsdam of March 22, 1933 where Hitler had laid claim to the Prussian traditions in a way that Ritter felt was not historically accurate. In March 1936, upon witnessing the Remilitarization of the Rhineland

Remilitarization of the Rhineland

The Remilitarization of the Rhineland by the German Army took place on 7 March 1936 when German military forces entered the Rhineland. This was significant because it violated the terms of the Locarno Treaties and was the first time since the end of World War I that German troops had been in this...

, Ritter wrote in a letter to his mother that for his children "who had never seen German soldiers from close up, this is one of the greatest experiences ever...Truly a great and magnificent experience. May God grant that it does not lead to some international catastrophe".

Ritter was a staunch German nationalist

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

 who belonged to a political movement generally known to historians as National conservatism

National conservatism

National conservatism is a political term used primarily in Europe to describe a variant of conservatism which concentrates more on national interests than standard conservatism as well as upholding cultural and ethnic identity, while not being outspokenly nationalist or supporting a far-right...

. Ritter identified with the idea of an authoritarian government in Germany that would make his country Europe's foremost power. In an article published in early 1933 entitled "Eternal Right and Interests of the State", Ritter argued that the German people needed most was a government "in which a strong authoritarian leadership will gain voluntary popular allegiance because it is willing to respect eternal justice as well as freedom". Despite severe doubts about the Nazis, initially Ritter reconciled himself to approving of the Nazi

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 regime and its foreign policy, but he broke with the Nazis over the persecution of the churches. In addition, as someone who believed in a Rechtsstaat (Law State), Ritter was opposed to the lawless ways of Nazi Germany. In 1935, Ritter attempted to defend his mentor, Hermann Oncken against attacks by the Nazis who objected to a paper by Oncken which implied the Nazi revolution was not the greatest revolution of all time. In 1938, Ritter delivered a series of lectures in Jena attacking Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...

, which were intended by Ritter to be a form of indirect protest against the Nazi regime.

Ritter was a devout Lutheran and was a member of the Confessing Church

Confessing Church

The Confessing Church was a Protestant schismatic church in Nazi Germany that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to nazify the German Protestant church.-Demographics:...

 (a group of dissenting Lutherans who resisted the Nazi-imposed "Aryan Christianity") in the 1930s. Ritter belonged to the conservative

Conservatism

Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...

 opposition to the Nazi regime and was imprisoned in 1944-45. In 1938, Ritter became involved in a major debate with Friedrich Meinecke

Friedrich Meinecke

Friedrich Meinecke was a liberal German historian, probably the most famous German historian of his generation. As a representative of an older tradition still writing after World War II, he was an important figure to the end of his life.-Life:Meinecke was born in Salzwedel in the Province of Saxony...

 over "Historism". Meinecke argued in favor of the idea of celebrating the "valuable individual quality" of all the phenomenon of history, which was judged not by universal standards, but only in regard to its own values. Ritter attacked this position, arguing that without universal notions of values of good and evil and judging all historical phenomenon by its own standards was to abandon all ideas of morality applicable to all times and places.

In 1938, Ritter was the only faculty member at Freiburg to attend the funeral of Edmund Husserl

Edmund Husserl

Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...

; his presence at the funeral was widely interpreted at the time and since as an act of quiet political protest against the Nazi regime. After the Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...

pogrom, Ritter wrote in a letter to his mother: "What we have experienced over the last two weeks all over the country is the most shameful and most dreadful thing that has happened for a long time". After the pogrom, Ritter became a founding member of the Freiburger Kreis (Freiburg Circle), a discussion group of anti-Nazi professors which included Adolf Lampe, Constantin von Dietze, Franz Böhm and Walter Eucken

Walter Eucken

Walter Eucken was a German economist and father of ordoliberalism. His name is closely linked with the development of the "social market economy".-Life:...

. As a result of his underground work, Ritter came to know a number of Catholic and Calvinist members of the German opposition, which caused Ritter to abandon his former prejudices against Calvinists and Catholics. Ritter came to the conclusion that whatever differences divided Lutherans, Catholics and Calvinists, member of three churches had more in common than they did with the Nazis.

In 1940, Ritter published Machtstaat und Utopie (National Power and Utopia). In this book, Ritter argued that democracy

Democracy

Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

 was a luxury that only militarily secure states could afford. Ritter argued that because Great Britain was an island, this provided a degree of security that allow democracy. By contrast, Ritter argued that Germany with its location in Central Europe

Central Europe

Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...

 needed an authoritarian government as the only way of maintaining security. In this book, Ritter drew unfavorable comparisons of the utopianism of Sir Thomas More

Thomas More

Sir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...

 vs. the realism of Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian historian, philosopher, humanist, and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He is one of the main founders of modern political science. He was a diplomat, political philosopher, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic...

. Ritter argued that for geographic reasons, Germany had to follow the realism of Machiavelli. Ritter argued that were two sorts of values, one Anglo-Saxon and the other continental as personified by More and Machiavelli. Ritter praised Machiavelli as the ideal "continental" thinker who understood the "paradox of power"; namely that power to be effective always involved the use of or threat of violence, but no society could function without power to hold it together. Ritter condemned More for refusing to acknowledge the paradox of power, and instead pretending that morality could function in politics without the threat of and/or use of violence. Ritter went to argue that "continental" thinking about power based upon the understanding of the necessity of violence was much superior to "Anglo-Saxon" thinking which was based on an ineffective legalism. The historian Gregory Weeks commented that it is hard to tell who much of Machstaat und Utopie was material inserted to allow the book to be passed by the censors, and how much was the expression of Ritter's own beliefs, but he has argued that if Ritter was no Nazi, he was certainly a German nationalist who wished to see Germany as the world's greatest power. In a lengthy foot-note to the third edition of Machstaat und Utopie published in 1943, Ritter appeared to disavow part of his original work of 1940, when Ritter praised More for his understanding of "the demoniacal forces of power" by appealing to Christian morality, and not reducing all politics to "friend-foe" mentality. The historian Klaus Schwable argues that the Ritter's use of the term "friend-foe" was a veiled criticism of Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt was a German jurist, philosopher, political theorist, and professor of law.Schmitt published several essays, influential in the 20th century and beyond, on the mentalities that surround the effective wielding of political power...

, who had popularized the term, and was hence an indirect form of political protest.

The Freiburg Circle during World War II wrote a "Great Memorandum" for the proposed post-Nazi German government, which also included "Proposals for a Solution of the Jewish Question in Germany". The "Proposals" rejected Nazi racial theoreis, but stated that the overthrow of the Nazis, German Jews would not have their German citizenship restored, would be restricted to living in ghettos and allowed only minimal contact with German Christians, and called for continuing the Nazi ban on marriage and sex between Jews and German Christians. During this period, Ritter worked as an advisor to Goeredeler on a future constitution after the overthrow of the Nazis. In a Denkscrhift submitted to Goerdeler in January 1943, Ritter wrote that "Hundreds of thousands of human beings have been systematically murdered solely because of their Jewish ancestry." Ritter went on in the same memo to urge that in a future post-Nazi government, that though the Holocaust

The Holocaust

The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...

 should be ended, Jews should have no civil rights at all. Ritter was one of the few involved in the July 20 Plot

July 20 Plot

On 20 July 1944, an attempt was made to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of the Third Reich, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia. The plot was the culmination of the efforts of several groups in the German Resistance to overthrow the Nazi-led German government...

 of 1944 who was not liquidated by the Nazis. During World War II, Ritter became involved in work on a study of civilian-military relations in Germany from the 18th century to the 20th century. The original intent behind this work was to offer a critique of the "total war" philosophy of General Erich Ludendorff

Erich Ludendorff

Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff was a German general, victor of Liège and of the Battle of Tannenberg...

 as a form of indirect protest against the Third Reich. Censorship prevented the book from being published during the war, and after 1945, Ritter revised his work to publish it as a four volume study of German militarism.

After the second World War

Two major themes of Ritter's writings after 1945 were attempts to prove that the Bismarckian tradition in German life had nothing to do with National Socialism and it was democracy of the masses rather aristocratic conservatism which caused the Nazi movement. After World War II, Ritter wrote the book Europa und die deutsche Frage (Europe and the German Question), which denied that the Third Reich was the inevitable product of German history, but was rather in Ritter's view part of a general Europe-wide drift towards totalitarianism

Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...

 that had been going on since the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

, and as such, Germans should not be singled out for criticism. In Ritter's opinion, the origins of National Socialism went back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...

's concept of the volonté générale

General will

The general will , made famous by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is a concept in political philosophy referring to the desire or interest of a people as a whole. As used by Rousseau, the "general will" is identical to the rule of law, and to Spinoza's mens una.The notion of the general will is wholly...

 (general will) and the Jacobins

Jacobin Club

The Jacobin Club was the most famous and influential political club in the development of the French Revolution, so-named because of the Dominican convent where they met, located in the Rue St. Jacques , Paris. The club originated as the Club Benthorn, formed at Versailles from a group of Breton...

. Ritter argued that "National Socialism is not an originally German growth, but the German form of a European phenomenon: the one-party or Führer state", which was the result of "modern industrial society with its uniform mass humanity". Along the same lines, Ritter wrote "not any event in German history, but the great French Revolution undermined the firm foundation of Europe's political traditions. It also coined the new concepts and slogans with whose help the modern state of the Volk and the Führer justifies its existence". Ritter argued that throughout the 19th century, there been worrisome signs in Germany and the rest of Europe caused by the entry of masses into politics, but that it was World War I that marked the decisive turning point. In Ritter's opinion, World War I had caused a general collapse in moral values throughout the West, and it was this moral degeneration that led to the decline of Christianity, the rise of materialism, political corruption, the eclipse of civilization by barbarism, and demagogic politics that in turn led to National Socialism. In Ritter's view, the problem with the Weimar Republic

Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

 was not that it lacked democracy

Democracy

Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

, but rather had too much democracy. Ritter argued that the democratic republic left the German state open to being hijacked by the appeals of rabble-rousing extremists. In Ritter's view, had his much beloved German Empire

German Empire

The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...

 continued after 1918, there would have been no Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

. Ritter argued democracy

Democracy

Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

 was the essential precondition of totalitarianism

Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...

 because it created the window of opportunity for a strongman to make himself the personification of the "popular will", leading Ritter to conclude that "the system of 'totalitarian' dictatorship as such is not a specifically German phenomenon" but rather was the natural result of when "the direct rule of the people derived from the 'revolt of the masses' is introduced". Ritter argued that the precursors of Hitler were "neither Frederick the Great, Bismarck nor Wilhelm II, but the demagogues and Caesars of modern history from Danton to Lenin to Mussolini".

Ritter saw his main task after 1945 of seeking to restore German nationalism against what he regarded as unjust slurs. Ritter argued that Germans needed a positive view of their past, but warned against the appeal of "false concepts of honor and national power". In his treatment of the German Resistance

German Resistance

The German resistance was the opposition by individuals and groups in Germany to Adolf Hitler or the National Socialist regime between 1933 and 1945. Some of these engaged in active plans to remove Adolf Hitler from power and overthrow his regime...

, Ritter drew a sharp line between those who worked with foreign powers to defeat Hitler, and those like Goerdeler which sought to overthrow the Nazis while working for Germany. For Ritter, Goerdeler was a patriot while the men and women of the Rote Kapelle spy network were traitors. Ritter wrote that those involved in the Rote Kapelle were not part of the "German Resistance, but stood in the service of the enemy abroad", and fully deserved to be executed. Besides defending German nationalism, Ritter became active in the ecumenical movement after 1945, and urged conservative Catholics and Protestants to come together in the Christian Democratic Union

Christian Democratic Union (Germany)

The Christian Democratic Union of Germany is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. It is regarded as on the centre-right of the German political spectrum...

, arguing that based on his experience in the Third Reich, Christians regardless of their church needed to work together against totalitarianism. In 1954, Ritter published an acclaimed biography of Carl Goerdeler

Carl Friedrich Goerdeler

Carl Friedrich Goerdeler was a monarchist conservative German politician, executive, economist, civil servant and opponent of the Nazi regime...

, a close friend who was executed by the Nazis in 1945. Ritter specialized in German political

Political history

Political history is the narrative and analysis of political events, ideas, movements, and leaders. It is distinct from, but related to, other fields of history such as Diplomatic history, social history, economic history, and military history, as well as constitutional history and public...

, military

Military history

Military history is a humanities discipline within the scope of general historical recording of armed conflict in the history of humanity, and its impact on the societies, their cultures, economies and changing intra and international relationships....

, and cultural history

Cultural history

The term cultural history refers both to an academic discipline and to its subject matter.Cultural history, as a discipline, at least in its common definition since the 1970s, often combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at popular cultural traditions and cultural...

. Ritter always drew a sharp distinction between what he regarded as the Machtpolitik (power politics) of Bismarck where military policy was subjected to carefully limited political goals and the endless expansionism motivated by militarism and bizarre racial theories of the Nazis.

Ritter was well known for his assertions denying that there was a uniquely aggressive German version of militarism

Militarism

Militarism is defined as: the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests....

. For Ritter, militarism was the "one-sided determination of political decisions on the basis of technical military considerations", and foreign expansionism, and had nothing to do with values of a society. In a paper presented to the German Historical Convention in 1953 entitled "The Problem of Militarism in Germany", Ritter argued traditional Prussian leaders such as Frederick the Great were a Machtpolitiker (power politician), not a militarist since in Ritter's view, Frederick was opposed to "...the ruthless sacrifice of all life to the purposes of war" and instead was interested in creating "...a lasting order of laws and peace, to further general welfare, and to moderate the conflict of interests". Ritter maintained that militarism first appeared during the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

, when the revolutionary French state, followed by Napoleon

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...

 began the total moblization of society to seek "the total destruction of the enemy". Likewise, Ritter contended that Otto von Bismarck

Otto von Bismarck

Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...

 was a Kabinettspolitker (Cabinet politician), not a militarist who ensured that political considerations were always placed ahead of military considerations. Ritter was to expand on these views in a four volume study Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk (translated into English as The Sword and the Scepter) published between 1954–1968, in which Ritter examined the development of militarism in Germany between 1890–1918. In Ritter's view, in the years following Bismarck's sacking in 1890, that saw the first appearance of militarism in Germany. In Volume 2 of Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk, Ritter commented that reviewing the first years of the 20th century was "not without a sense of psychological shock". Ritter wrote that "the prewar Germany of my own youth, which has for an entire lifetime been illuminated in my memory by the radiant splendor of a sun that seemed to grow dark only after the outbreak of the war of 1914" was "in the evening of my life" darkened by "shadows that were much deeper than my generation-and certainly the generation of my academic teachers-was able to perceive at the time".

For Ritter, it was the radicalizing experience of the First World War that had finally led to the triumph of militarism in Germany, especially after 1916 when Erich Ludendorff

Erich Ludendorff

Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff was a German general, victor of Liège and of the Battle of Tannenberg...

 established his "silent dictatorship", which in Ritter's view was a huge break with Prussian-German traditions. It was the unhappy results of that war which finally led to the "proletarian nationalism" of the Nazis gaining a mass audience, and led to the "...militarism of the National Socialist mass movement" coming to power. Moreover, Ritter placed great emphasis on the "Hitler factor" as an explanation for Nazi Germany. In 1962, Ritter wrote that he found it "almost unbearable" that the "will of a single madman" had unnecessarily caused World War II.

Through many regarded Ritter's work as an apologia for German nationalism and conservatism, Ritter was at times critical of aspects of the German past. Through Ritter commented that many nations had bent their knees in submission to false values, that "the Germans accepted all of that with special ardor when it was now preached to them by National Socialism, and their nationalism had in general displayed from its beginning a particularly intense, combative quality". At the first meeting of German historians in 1949, Ritter delivered a speech that declared:
"We constantly run the risk not only of being condemned by the world as nationalists, but actually being misused as expert witnesses by all those circles and tendencies that, in their impatient and blind nationalism, have shut their ears to the teachings of the most recent past. Never was our political responsibility greater, not only to Germany, but also to Europe and the world. And yet never has our path been so dangerously narrow between Scylla and Charybdis as today".

In 1953, Ritter found a copy of the "Great Memorandum" relating to German military planning written by General Alfred Graf von Schlieffen

Alfred Graf von Schlieffen

Alfred Graf von Schlieffen, mostly called Count Schlieffen was a German field marshal and strategist who served as Chief of the Imperial German General Staff from 1891 to 1906...

 in 1905. The following year, Ritter published the "Great Memorandum" together with his observations about the Schlieffen Plan

Schlieffen Plan

The Schlieffen Plan was the German General Staff's early 20th century overall strategic plan for victory in a possible future war in which the German Empire might find itself fighting on two fronts: France to the west and Russia to the east...

 as Der Schlieffen-Plan: Kritik Eines Mythos (The Schlieffen Plan: Critique of a Myth).

Ritter and the Fischer-Controversy

In his last years, Ritter emerged as the leading critic of the left-wing historian Fritz Fischer

Fritz Fischer

Fritz Fischer was a German historian best known for his analysis of the causes of World War I. Fischer has been described by The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing as the most important German historian of the 20th century.-Biography:Fischer was born in Ludwigsstadt in Bavaria. His...

, who claimed that there were powerful lines of continuity between the Second Reich and the Third Reich and that it was Germany that caused World War I. During the ferocious "Fischer Controversy" that engulfed the West German historical profession in the 1960s, Ritter was the best known of Fischer's critics. Ritter fiercely rejected Fischer's arguments that Germany was primarily responsible for the outbreak of war in 1914. The later volumes of Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk were taken up with attempts to rebut Fischer's arguments. Ritter claimed that Germany did not start a war of aggression in 1914, but rather the German government had merely carried out a foreign policy that contained a high risk of war. Ritter sought to disprove Fischer's thesis by maintaining that the Chancellor Dr. Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg

Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg

Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg was a German politician and statesman who served as Chancellor of the German Empire from 1909 to 1917.-Origins:...

had attempted to resist the demands by General Ludendorff for wide-ranging annexations as a war aim.

As part of his critique of Fischer, Ritter contended that Germany's principal goal in 1914 was to maintain Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

 as a great power, and thus German foreign policy was largely defensive as opposed to Fischer's claim that it was mostly aggressive. Ritter claimed that the significance that Fischer attached to the highly bellicose advice about waging a "preventive war" in the Balkans offered in July 1914 to the Chief of Cabinet of the Austro-Hungarian foreign ministry, Count Alexander Hoyos

Alexander Hoyos

Alexander Graf von Hoyos, Freiherr zu Stichsenstein , was an Austro-Hungarian diplomat who played a major role during the July Crisis while serving as chef de cabinet of the Foreign Minister at the outbreak of the World War I in 1914...

 by the German journalist Viktor Naumann was unwarranted. Ritter charged that Naumann was speaking as a private individual, and not as Fischer claimed on behalf of the German government. Likewise, Ritter felt that Fischer had been dishonest in his portrayal of Austro-German relations in July 1914. Ritter charged that it was not true that Germany had pressured a reluctant Austria-Hungary into attacking Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

. Ritter argued that the main impetus for war within Austria-Hungary was internally driven, and through there were divisions of opinion about the best course to pursue in Vienna and Budapest, it was not German pressure that led to war being chosen as the best option. In Ritter's opinion, the most Germany can be criticized for in July 1914 was a mistaken evaluation of the state of European power politics. Ritter claimed that the German government had underrated the state of military readiness in Russia and France, falsely assumed that British foreign policy was more pacific than what it really was, overrated the sense of moral outrage caused by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on European opinion, and above all, overestimated the military power and political common sense of Austria-Hungary. Ritter felt that in retrospect it was not necessary from the German point of view to maintain Austria-Hungary as a great power, but claimed that at the time, most Germans regarded the Dual Monarchy as a "brother empire", and viewed the prospect of the Balkans being in the Russian sphere of influence as an unacceptable threat. Ritter argued that though the Germans supported the idea of an Austrian-Hungarian invasion of Serbia, this more of an ad hoc response to the crisis gripping Europe as opposed to Fischer's claim that Germany was deliberately setting off a war of aggression. Ritter accused Fischer of manufacturing the quote he attributed to the German Chief of the General Staff Moltke

Helmuth von Moltke the Younger

Helmuth Johann Ludwig von Moltke , also known as Moltke the Younger, was a nephew of Field Marshal Count Moltke and served as the Chief of the German General Staff from 1906 to 1914. The two are often differentiated as Moltke the Elder and Moltke the Younger...

 during a meeting with the Austro-Hungarian War Minister, Field Marshal Conrad von Hötzendorf about the necessity of a "speedy attack" on Serbia. Ritter claimed that importance that Fischer attached to the report of the German Army's Quartermaster that the Army was "ready" for war in 1914 was mistaken since the Quartermaster always reported every year that the Army was "ready" for war. Likewise, Ritter claimed that the order by Dr. Bethmann Hollweg to the Count Roedern, the State Secretary for Alsace-Lorraine, to put a stop to Francophobic remarks in the German-language press in Alsace was proof of Germany's desire not to have a wider war in 1914, and claimed that Fischer's contrary interpretation of Dr. Bethmann Hollweg's order not to be supported by the facts. Contrary to Fisher's interpretation, Ritter maintained that Bethmann Hollweg's warnings to Vienna were meant to stop a war, and were not window dressing intended to distract historical attention from German responsibility for the war. Ritter claimed that Fisher's interpretation of Bethmann Hollweg's meeting with the British Ambassador Sir Edward Goschen was mistaken since in Ritter's opinion, if Bethmann Hollweg was serious about securing British neutrality it made no sense for expressing the imperialistic war aims to Goschen that Fischer credited him with. Ritter strongly disagreed with Fischer's interpretation of the meeting of Moltke, Bethmann Hollweg and the Prussian War Minister, General Erich von Falkenhayn

Erich von Falkenhayn

Erich von Falkenhayn was a German soldier and Chief of the General Staff during World War I. He became a military writer after World War I.-Early life:...

 on July 30, 1914. Rather than a conscious decision to wage an aggressive war as Fischer argued, Ritter claimed that it was the news of the Russian mobilization that led the generals into persuading a reluctant Bethmann Hollweg to activate the Schlieffen Plan. Ritter was strongly critical of what he regarded as Fischer's "biased" view of Moltke's reaction to the outbreak of the war, and argued that Moltke's opposition to the sudden last minute suggestion of Wilhelm II that the German attack on France be cancelled was due to logistical concerns rather than a desire to provoke a world war. Finally, Ritter complained that Fischer relied too much on the memories of Austro-Hungarian leaders such as the Count István Tisza

István Tisza

Count István Tisza de Borosjenő et Szeged was a Hungarian politician, prime minister, and member of Hungarian Academy of Sciences....

 and Count Ottokar Czernin who sought to shift all of the responsibility for the war on German shoulders.

Furthermore, Ritter argued there were no lines of continuity between the Second and Third Reichs and considered the Sonderweg

Sonderweg

Sonderweg is a controversial theory in German historiography that considers the German-speaking lands, or the country Germany, to have followed a unique course from aristocracy into democracy, distinct from other European countries...

view of German history

History of Germany

The concept of Germany as a distinct region in central Europe can be traced to Roman commander Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania, thus distinguishing it from Gaul , which he had conquered. The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the...

 a myth. Ritter claimed it was not true as argued by Fischer that both world wars were "wars for hegemony" on Germany's part. In 1964, Ritter successfully lobbied the West German Foreign Ministry to cancel the travel funds that had been allocated for Fischer to visit the United States; in Ritter's opinion, giving Fischer a chance to express his "anti-German" views would be a "national tragedy", and it was the best that Fischer not be allowed to have his American trip. Writing in 1962, Ritter stated he felt profound "sadness" over the prospect that the next generation of Germans would not be as nationalistically-minded as previous generations as a result of reading Fischer.

In 1959, Ritter was elected an honorary member of the American Historical Association

American Historical Association

The American Historical Association is the oldest and largest society of historians and professors of history in the United States. Founded in 1884, the association promotes historical studies, the teaching of history, and the preservation of and access to historical materials...

 in recognition of what the A.H.A described as Ritter's struggle with totalitarianism

Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...

. Ritter was the fifth German historian to be so honored by the A.H.A. He died in Freiburg

Freiburg

Freiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the extreme south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain...

. Ritter was one of the last of the traditional German Idealist

German idealism

German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and was closely linked both with romanticism and the revolutionary politics of the Enlightenment...

 historians who saw history as an art, concerned themselves with imaginative identification with their subjects, focused on the great men of the times under the historian's study, and were primarily concerned with political and military events. Despite his numerous books and leading position after World War II, Ritter is almost forgotten in German historiography today, while Fischer's works inspired a new generation of younger German historians.
Work=

• Die preussischen Konservativen und Bismarcks deutsche Politik, 1858 bis 1876, 1913.
• Luther: Gestalt und Symbol, 1925.
• Stein: eine politische Biographie, 1931.
• Friedrich der Grosse, 1936.
• Machstaat und Utopie: vom Streit um die Dämonie der Macht seit Machiavelli und Morus, 1940, revised as Die Dämonie der Macht: Betrachtungen über Geschichte und Wesen des Machtproblems im politischen Denken der Neuzeit, 1947.
• Europa und die Deutsche Frage: Betrachtungen über die geschichtliche Eigenart des Deutschen Staatsdenkens, 1948.
• Die Neugestaltung Deutschlands und Europas im 16. Jahrhundert., 1950
• Karl Goerdeler und die Deutsche Widerstandsbewegung, 1954.
• Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk: das Problem des "Militarismus" in Deutschland, 4 volumes, 1954-1968.
• Der Schlieffenplan: Kritik eines Mythos, 1956.
• "Eine neue Kriegsschuldthese?" pages 657-668 from Historische Zeitschrift, Volume 194, June 1962, translated into English as "Anti-Fischer: A New War-Guilt Thesis?" pages 135-142 from The Outbreak of World War One: : Causes and Responsibilities, edited by Holger Herwig, Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 1997.

Endnotes=