Michael Stürmer
Encyclopedia
Michael Stürmer is a right-wing German historian best known for his role in the Historikerstreit
of the 1980s, for his geographical interpretation of German history and for an admiring 2008 biography of the Russian leader Vladimir Putin
.
Born in Kassel
, Germany
, Stürmer received his education in history, philosophy and languages at the University of Marburg, the Free University of Berlin
and the London School of Economics
. From 1973 to 2003, he held a professorship at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg
and at various times has been a guest lecturer at the Sorbonne
, Harvard University
, and the Institute for Advanced Study
. In the 1980s, Stürmer worked as an advisor and speech-writer to the West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
. At present, Stürmer is chief correspondent for the newspaper Die Welt
, published by the Axel Springer AG
publishing group.
Stürmer's specializes in the history of the Second Reich
. Stürmer began his career on the left in the 1960s, but during the course of the 1970s, he moved to the right. The turning point in Stürmer's politics occurred in 1974 when the SPD
Landes government of Hesse
attempted to abolish history as subject in the Hesse educational system with the replacement being "social studies". Stürmer played a major role in campaigning for the defeat of SPD government in the 1974 elections. Starting in the early 1980s Stürmer became a well known figure in the Federal Republic with frequent contributions to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
newspaper, his editorship of a series of popular book series entitled "The Germans and their Nation" and holding a series of lectures to the general public. Stürmer argues that "the future is won by those who coin concepts and interpret the past". In a series of his essays published in book form in 1986 as Dissonanzen des Fortschritts (The Dissonances of Progress), Stürmer claimed that democracy in West Germany can not be taken for granted; that though Germany does have a democratic past, the present system of the Federal Republic was created in response to past totalitarian experiences of both left and right; that geography
has played a key role in limiting the options of German governments; and that given the Cold War
, the ideas of neutrality for the Federal Republic or reunification with East Germany were not realistic.
Stürmer is best known for his advocacy of a geographical interpretation of German history
. In a geographical variant of the Sonderweg
theory, Stürmer has argued that what he regards as Germany’s precarious geographical situation in Central Europe
has been the deciding factor in the course of German history, and that to cope with this matter has left successive German rulers no other choice but to engage in authoritarian
government. In Stürmer's opinion, the "belligerence" of the Reich was due to a complex interplay of Germany's location in the "middle of Europe" surrounded by enemies and "democratic" forces in the domestic sphere. Stürmer has asserted that confronted with dangers from a revanchist
France
and aggressive Russia
that Germany as the "country in the middle" could not afford the luxury of democracy. Stürmer has argued that Imperial Germany
was more democratic and less "Bonapartist" as historians such as Hans-Ulrich Wehler
have claimed, and that these democratic tendencies came to the fore during the Revolution of 1918-1919. In Stürmer's view, it was too much democracy
rather than too little that led to the end of the Kaiserreich as the "restless Reich" collapsed because of its internal contradictions under the stress of World War I
.
In the mid-1980s, Stürmer sat on a committee together with Thomas Nipperdey and Klaus Hildebrand
in charge of vetting the publications issued by the Research Office of the West German Ministry of Defense. The committee attracted some controversy when it refused to publish a hostile biography of Gustav Noske
.
During the late 1980s, Stürmer played a prominent role in the Historikerstreit
, and was much criticized by left-wing historians for an essay he wrote entitled "Land Without History" published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
on April 25, 1986, in which Stürmer claimed that Germans lacked a history to be proud of, and called for a positive evaluation of German history as a way of building national pride. Stürmer argued that Germans were suffering from a "loss of orientation" caused by the lack of a positive view of their history In Stürmer's view, the fall of the Weimar Republic was caused by "loss of orientation" caused by the secularization of a previously religious country. Stürmer argued that West Germany had an important role in the world to play, could not play that role because the lack of a past to be proud of was " ...seriouly damaging the political culture of the country" and wrote that it was "morally legitimate and politically necessary" for Germans to have a positive view of their history In Stürmer's view, what was needed was a campaign by the government, the media and historians to create a "positive view" of German history.
In Stürmer's opinion, the Third Reich was a major block towards a positive view of the German past, and what was needed was a focus on the broad sweep of German history as opposed to the 12 years of Nazi Germany
as a way of creating a national identity that all Germans could take pride in. Stürmer wrote the "loss of orientation" caused by the absence of a German national identity led to a "search for identity". In Stürmer's opinion, this search was crucial because of West Germany was "now once more a focal point in the global civil war waged against democracy by the Soviet Union". Because of the "loss of orientation", Stürmer argued that West Germans were not standing up well to the "campaign of fear and hate carried into the Federal Republic from the East and welcomed within like a drug". Stürmer claimed that Konrad Adenauer
's policy in the 1950s of not prosecuting those responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes during the Third Reich was a wise one, and that it was a huge mistake to begin prosecutions in the 1970s as it destroyed any prospect of positive feelings about the German past. Writing in 1986, Stürmer complained that recent opinion polls showed 80% of Americans were proud of being American, that 50% of the British were proud of being British, and 20% of West Germans were proud of being German, and argued until national pride could be restored, West Germany could not play an effective part in the Cold War.
At the 1986 Römerberg Colloquia (a gathering of intellectuals held annually in Frankfurt
), Stürmer argued that Germans had a destructive "obsession with their guilt", which he complained led to a lack of a positive sense of German national identity. Likewise, Stürmer argued that the legacy of 1960s radicalism was an over-emphasis on the Nazi period in German history. Stürmer called for Sinnstiftung, to give German history a meaning that would allow for a positive national identity. At the colloquia, Stürmer stated: "We cannot live by making our past...into a permanent source of endless guilt feelings". At the same gathering, Stürmer spoke of "the deadly idiocies of the victors of 1918", which led to a loss of a German national identity, and led to the collapse of the Weimar Republic
as Germans confronted with the crises of modernity without a positive national identity, opted for the Nazi solution. At the same time, Stürmer complained that the Allies had the same mistake after 1945 as they had in 1918, laying a burden of guilt on Germans that prevented Germans from having positive feelings about their past. Stürmer complained that "as Stalin's men sat in judgment in Nuremberg" proved that what he regards as the self-destructive German obsession with Nazi guilt was the work of outsiders serving their own aims. During the same session, Stürmer attacked those historians who argued that Germany started World War I
in 1914, and instead blamed France and Russia for the First World War. Moreover, Stürmer argued that whatever Germany did to start the First World War was only a defensive reaction imposed by geography.
The sessions of the 1986 Römerberg Colloquia involving Stürmer were stormy When it become time to print the proceedings of the Colloquia, Stürmer refused to allow his contributions to be published, complaining of the "defamations and denunciations" he alleged to had been subjected to When Stürmer's contribution, the essay "Weder verdrängen noch bewältigen: Geschichte und Gegenwartsbewusstein der Deutschen" was published in the Swiss journal Schweizer Monatshefte, it was heavily edited by Stürmer to remove many of his more controversial statements about the need for Germans to forget about Nazi crimes in order to feel good about their past Despite his editing of his essay, Stürmer refused to allow it to be published in an anthology about the Historikerstreit out of the concern it might damage his reputation as a historian Stürmer's critic, the British historian Richard J. Evans
stated that the remarks he quoted Stürmer as making at the 1986 Römerberg Colloquia came from a tape-recorded record at the Colloquia, and not from the edited version provided by Stürmer
Jürgen Habermas
began his article “A Kind of Settlement of Damages” in the Die Zeit
newspaper on July 11, 1986 with an attack on Stürmer. Habermas took Stürmer to task for his statement that history served the purpose of integrating the individual into the wider community, and as such history had the needed to provide a “higher meaning” to create the proper national consciousness in the individual, who otherwise would lack this national consciousness Habermas accuse Stürmer on marching to a “geopolitical
drumbeat” with his depiction of German history determined by geographical factors requiring authoritarian government Habermas wrote Stürmer was trying to create a "vicarious religion" in German history intended to serve as a "...kind of NATO philosophy colored with German nationalism"
In response to Habermas’s essay, Stürmer in a letter to the editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published on August 16, 1986 wrote that Habermas was confusing the “national question” with the “German question”, and argued that the German predicament was due to Germany’s geographical situation in the heart of Europe Stürmer denied seeking to “endow” history with a “higher meaning”, and accused Habermas of seeking to do that Stürmer charged that Habermas had created an “indictment that even fabricates its own sources” Stürmer ended his letter with the remark about Habermas "It's a shame about this man who once had something to say"
Repying to Stürmer, Habermas in his "Note" of February 23, 1987 accused Stürmer of having the "chutzpah" to deny his own views when he wrote that he was not seeking to "endow" history with a "higher meaning" Habermas quoted from Stürmer's book Dissonanzen des Fortschritts to support his contention" In response to Habermas, Stürmer in his "Postscript" of April 25, 1987 accused Habermas of being a Marxist who was responsible for "the invention of fact-free scholarship" Stürmer claimed that Habermas had played an "obscene role" in the West German election of 1987 by labeling anyone he disliked as a Nazi, and that the reasons for Habermas's attack on him were help the SPD in the election Stürmer charged that Habermas was guilty of misquotation, and of making confusing statement such as his claim that he was working to create a "NATO philosophy" while seeking to close Germany to the West
Many of Stürmer's critics in the Historikerstreit such as Hans-Ulrich Wehler
and Jürgen Kocka
accused Stürmer of attempting to white-wash the Nazi past, a charge Stürmer vehemently rejected. In response to Stürmer's geographical theories about how Germany's "land in the middle" status had forced authoritarianism on the Germans, Kocka argued in an essay entitled "Hitler Should Not Be Repressed by Stalin and Pol Pot" published in the Frankfurter Rundschau on September 23, 1986 that “Geography is not destiny” Kocka wrote that both Switzerland
and Poland
were also "lands in the middle", and yet neither country went in the same authoritarian direction as Germany Martin Broszat
accused Stürmer of attempting to create an "ersatz religion" in German history that Broszat argued was more appropriate for the pre-modern era then 1986 Hans Mommsen
wrote Stürmer's attempts to create a national consensus on a version of German history that all Germans could take pride in was a reflection that the German rightists could not stomach modern German history, and were now looking to create a version of the German past that German rightists could enjoy Mommsen charged that to find the "lost history", Stürmer was working towards "relativizing" Nazi crimes to give Germans a history they could be proud of However, Mommsen argued that even modern right-wing German historians might have difficulty with Stürmer's "technocratic instrumentalization" of German history, which Mommsen claimed was Stürmer's way of "relativizing" Nazi crimes In another essay, Mommsen argued that Stürmer's assertion that he who controls the past also controls the future, his work as a co-editor with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper which had been publishing articles by Ernst Nolte
and Joachim Fest
denying the “singularity” of the Holcaust, and his work as an advisor to Chancellor Kohl should cause "concern" with historians
Stürmer was attacked by Habermas and Wehler for writing the following:
Habermas accused Stürmer of believing that "a pluralism of values and interests leads, when there is no longer any common ground...sooner or later to social civil war". Hans-Ulrich Wehler
called Stürmer's work "a strident declaration of war against a key element of the consensus upon which the socio-political life of this second republic has rested heretofore". Stürmer's defenders such as the American historian Jerry Muller argued that Wehler and Habermas were guilty of misquoting Stürmer, and of unjustly linking him with Ernst Nolte
as a sort of guilt by association argument.
In response to his critics, Stürmer in an essay entitled "How Much History Weights" published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on November 26, 1986 wrote that France
was a major power in the world because the French had a history to be proud of, and claimed that West Germany could only play the same role in the world if only they had the same national consensus about pride in their history as did the French Stürmer used as the example of the sort of history that he want to see written in Germany Fernand Braudel
's The Identity of France volumes Stürmer wrote that Braudel and the other historians of the Annales School
had made geography the central of their studies of French and European history while at the same time promoting a sense of French identity that gave the French a history to be proud of Stürmer went to argue that the German people had not had a really positive view of their past since the end of the First Reich, and this lack of a German identity to be proud of was responsible for all of the disasters of German history since then Stürmer asserted "All of our interpretations of Germany had collapsed" As a result, Stürmer claimed that at present, the German people were living in historical "rubble", and that the Federal Republic was doomed unless the Germans once again had a sense of history that provided the necessary sense of national identity and pride
The classicist Christian Meier, who was president of the German Historical Association in 1986 wrote that Stürmer was seeking to make history serve his conservative politics by arguing that Germans needed a history capable of creating a national identity that would allow Germans to face the challenge of the Cold War with pride and confidence in their future Meier argued that Habermas was correct in expressing his concerns about Stürmer’s work, but asserted that Habermas had wrongly accused the Atlanticist Stürmer of seeking to revive the original concept of the Sonderweg
, that of Germany as a great Central European power that was neither of the West nor of the East That aside, Meier felt that Stürmer’s claim that the future belonged to those who controlled the past, and that it was the duty of German historians to ensure the right sort of future by writing the right sort of history was troubling Imanuel Geiss
wrote that Stürmer was acting within his rights in expressing his right-wing views, and arguing against Habermas claimed there was nothing wrong in claiming that geography was a factor in German history
The British historian, Richard J. Evans
who was one of Stürmer's fiercer critics accused Stürmer in his 1989 book In Hitler's Shadow of being an apparent believer that:
Along the same lines, Evans criticized Stürmer for his emphasis on the modernity and totalitarianism of National Socialism, the role of Hitler, and the discontinuities between the Imperial, Weimar and Nazi periods. In Evans's view, the exact opposite was the case with National Socialism as a badly disorganized, anti-modern movement with deep roots in the German past, and the role of Hitler much smaller than one Stürmer credited him with. Evans accused Stürmer of having no real interest in the collapse of Weimar, and only using the Nazi Machtergreifung
as a way of making contemporary political points. Evans denounced Stürmer for writing a laudatory biography of Otto von Bismarck
, which he felt marked a regression to the Great man theory
of history and an excessive focus on political history
. In Evans's opinion, a social historical
approach with the emphasis on society was a better way of understanding the German past. In his 1989 book about the Historikerstreit, In Hitler's Shadow, Evans stated that he believed that the exchanges during the Historikerstreit had destroyed Stürmer's reputation as a serious historian.
Much of Stürmer's work since the Historikerstreit has been concerned with creating the sense of national identity he feels Germans are missing. In his 1992 book, Die Grenzen der Macht, Stürmer suggested that German history be viewed in the long-term starting from the 17th century to the 20th century to find the "national and trans-national traditions and patterns worth cherishing". Stürmer argued that traditions were tolerance for religious minorities, civic values, federalism and striking the fine balance between the peripheries and the center. In a July 1992 interview, Stürmer called his historical work a "bid to prevent Hitler remaining the final, unavoidable object of German history, or indeed its one and only starting point".
Starting in 2004, Stürmer has been an founding member of the Valdai International Discussion Club
. Stürmer's latest book is a biography of the Russian Prime Minister and former President Vladimir Putin
published in 2008. A British reviewer praised Stürmer for his refusal to hold Putin's KGB background against him and his willingness to accept Putin for who he was Much of Stürmer's biography was based upon his interviews with Putin during the annual meetings of the Valdai group.
Historikerstreit
The Historikerstreit was an intellectual and political controversy in late 20th-century West Germany about the historical interpretation of the Holocaust. The German word Streit translates variously as "quarrel", "dispute", or "conflict"...
of the 1980s, for his geographical interpretation of German history and for an admiring 2008 biography of the Russian leader Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
.
Born in Kassel
Kassel
Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Stürmer received his education in history, philosophy and languages at the University of Marburg, the Free University of Berlin
Free University of Berlin
Freie Universität Berlin is one of the leading and most prestigious research universities in Germany and continental Europe. It distinguishes itself through its modern and international character. It is the largest of the four universities in Berlin. Research at the university is focused on the...
and the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
. From 1973 to 2003, he held a professorship at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg
Friedrich-Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nuremberg
The Universität Erlangen Nürnberg is a university in the cities of Erlangen and Nuremberg in Bavaria, Germany. It is the second largest state university in Bavaria, having five Schools, 308 chairs, and 12,000 employees. There are 28,735 students enrolled at the university, of which about 2/3 are...
and at various times has been a guest lecturer at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
, Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, and the Institute for Advanced Study
Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...
. In the 1980s, Stürmer worked as an advisor and speech-writer to the West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1973 to 1998...
. At present, Stürmer is chief correspondent for the newspaper Die Welt
Die Welt
Die Welt is a German national daily newspaper published by the Axel Springer AG company.It was founded in Hamburg in 1946 by the British occupying forces, aiming to provide a "quality newspaper" modelled on The Times...
, published by the Axel Springer AG
Axel Springer AG
Axel Springer AG is one of the largest multimedia companies in Europe, with more than 11,500 employees and with annual revenues of about €2.9 billion. The Company is active in a total of 36 countries, including Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Russia and Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland...
publishing group.
Stürmer's specializes in the history of the Second Reich
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...
. Stürmer began his career on the left in the 1960s, but during the course of the 1970s, he moved to the right. The turning point in Stürmer's politics occurred in 1974 when the SPD
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
Landes government of Hesse
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
attempted to abolish history as subject in the Hesse educational system with the replacement being "social studies". Stürmer played a major role in campaigning for the defeat of SPD government in the 1974 elections. Starting in the early 1980s Stürmer became a well known figure in the Federal Republic with frequent contributions to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , short F.A.Z., also known as the FAZ, is a national German newspaper, founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt am Main. The Sunday edition is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung .F.A.Z...
newspaper, his editorship of a series of popular book series entitled "The Germans and their Nation" and holding a series of lectures to the general public. Stürmer argues that "the future is won by those who coin concepts and interpret the past". In a series of his essays published in book form in 1986 as Dissonanzen des Fortschritts (The Dissonances of Progress), Stürmer claimed that democracy in West Germany can not be taken for granted; that though Germany does have a democratic past, the present system of the Federal Republic was created in response to past totalitarian experiences of both left and right; that geography
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
has played a key role in limiting the options of German governments; and that given the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, the ideas of neutrality for the Federal Republic or reunification with East Germany were not realistic.
Stürmer is best known for his advocacy of a geographical interpretation 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...
. In a geographical variant of 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...
theory, Stürmer has argued that what he regards as Germany’s precarious geographical situation 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...
has been the deciding factor in the course of German history, and that to cope with this matter has left successive German rulers no other choice but to engage in authoritarian
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
government. In Stürmer's opinion, the "belligerence" of the Reich was due to a complex interplay of Germany's location in the "middle of Europe" surrounded by enemies and "democratic" forces in the domestic sphere. Stürmer has asserted that confronted with dangers from a revanchist
Revanchism
Revanchism is a term used since the 1870s to describe a political manifestation of the will to reverse territorial losses incurred by a country, often following a war or social movement. Revanchism draws its strength from patriotic and retributionist thought and is often motivated by economic or...
France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and aggressive Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
that Germany as the "country in the middle" could not afford the luxury of democracy. Stürmer has argued that Imperial Germany
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...
was more democratic and less "Bonapartist" as historians such as Hans-Ulrich Wehler
Hans-Ulrich Wehler
Hans-Ulrich Wehler is a German historian known for his role in promoting social history through the "Bielefeld School", and for his critical studies of 19th century Germany.-Career:...
have claimed, and that these democratic tendencies came to the fore during the Revolution of 1918-1919. In Stürmer's view, it was too much 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...
rather than too little that led to the end of the Kaiserreich as the "restless Reich" collapsed because of its internal contradictions under the stress of World War I
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...
.
In the mid-1980s, Stürmer sat on a committee together with Thomas Nipperdey and Klaus Hildebrand
Klaus Hildebrand
Klaus Hildebrand is a German conservative historian whose area of expertise is 19th-20th century German political and military history.- Biography :...
in charge of vetting the publications issued by the Research Office of the West German Ministry of Defense. The committee attracted some controversy when it refused to publish a hostile biography of Gustav Noske
Gustav Noske
Gustav Noske was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany . He served as the first Minister of Defence of Germany between 1919 and 1920.-Biography:...
.
During the late 1980s, Stürmer played a prominent role in the Historikerstreit
Historikerstreit
The Historikerstreit was an intellectual and political controversy in late 20th-century West Germany about the historical interpretation of the Holocaust. The German word Streit translates variously as "quarrel", "dispute", or "conflict"...
, and was much criticized by left-wing historians for an essay he wrote entitled "Land Without History" published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , short F.A.Z., also known as the FAZ, is a national German newspaper, founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt am Main. The Sunday edition is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung .F.A.Z...
on April 25, 1986, in which Stürmer claimed that Germans lacked a history to be proud of, and called for a positive evaluation of German history as a way of building national pride. Stürmer argued that Germans were suffering from a "loss of orientation" caused by the lack of a positive view of their history In Stürmer's view, the fall of the Weimar Republic was caused by "loss of orientation" caused by the secularization of a previously religious country. Stürmer argued that West Germany had an important role in the world to play, could not play that role because the lack of a past to be proud of was " ...seriouly damaging the political culture of the country" and wrote that it was "morally legitimate and politically necessary" for Germans to have a positive view of their history In Stürmer's view, what was needed was a campaign by the government, the media and historians to create a "positive view" of German history.
In Stürmer's opinion, the Third Reich was a major block towards a positive view of the German past, and what was needed was a focus on the broad sweep of German history as opposed to the 12 years of 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...
as a way of creating a national identity that all Germans could take pride in. Stürmer wrote the "loss of orientation" caused by the absence of a German national identity led to a "search for identity". In Stürmer's opinion, this search was crucial because of West Germany was "now once more a focal point in the global civil war waged against democracy by the Soviet Union". Because of the "loss of orientation", Stürmer argued that West Germans were not standing up well to the "campaign of fear and hate carried into the Federal Republic from the East and welcomed within like a drug". Stürmer claimed that Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was a German statesman. He was the chancellor of the West Germany from 1949 to 1963. He is widely recognised as a person who led his country from the ruins of World War II to a powerful and prosperous nation that had forged close relations with old enemies France,...
's policy in the 1950s of not prosecuting those responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes during the Third Reich was a wise one, and that it was a huge mistake to begin prosecutions in the 1970s as it destroyed any prospect of positive feelings about the German past. Writing in 1986, Stürmer complained that recent opinion polls showed 80% of Americans were proud of being American, that 50% of the British were proud of being British, and 20% of West Germans were proud of being German, and argued until national pride could be restored, West Germany could not play an effective part in the Cold War.
At the 1986 Römerberg Colloquia (a gathering of intellectuals held annually in Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
), Stürmer argued that Germans had a destructive "obsession with their guilt", which he complained led to a lack of a positive sense of German national identity. Likewise, Stürmer argued that the legacy of 1960s radicalism was an over-emphasis on the Nazi period in German history. Stürmer called for Sinnstiftung, to give German history a meaning that would allow for a positive national identity. At the colloquia, Stürmer stated: "We cannot live by making our past...into a permanent source of endless guilt feelings". At the same gathering, Stürmer spoke of "the deadly idiocies of the victors of 1918", which led to a loss of a German national identity, and led to the collapse of 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...
as Germans confronted with the crises of modernity without a positive national identity, opted for the Nazi solution. At the same time, Stürmer complained that the Allies had the same mistake after 1945 as they had in 1918, laying a burden of guilt on Germans that prevented Germans from having positive feelings about their past. Stürmer complained that "as Stalin's men sat in judgment in Nuremberg" proved that what he regards as the self-destructive German obsession with Nazi guilt was the work of outsiders serving their own aims. During the same session, Stürmer attacked those historians who argued that Germany started World War I
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...
in 1914, and instead blamed France and Russia for the First World War. Moreover, Stürmer argued that whatever Germany did to start the First World War was only a defensive reaction imposed by geography.
The sessions of the 1986 Römerberg Colloquia involving Stürmer were stormy When it become time to print the proceedings of the Colloquia, Stürmer refused to allow his contributions to be published, complaining of the "defamations and denunciations" he alleged to had been subjected to When Stürmer's contribution, the essay "Weder verdrängen noch bewältigen: Geschichte und Gegenwartsbewusstein der Deutschen" was published in the Swiss journal Schweizer Monatshefte, it was heavily edited by Stürmer to remove many of his more controversial statements about the need for Germans to forget about Nazi crimes in order to feel good about their past Despite his editing of his essay, Stürmer refused to allow it to be published in an anthology about the Historikerstreit out of the concern it might damage his reputation as a historian Stürmer's critic, the British historian Richard J. Evans
Richard J. Evans
Richard John Evans is a British academic and historian, prominently known for his history of Germany.-Life:Evans was born in London, of Welsh parentage, and is now Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge and President of Wolfson College...
stated that the remarks he quoted Stürmer as making at the 1986 Römerberg Colloquia came from a tape-recorded record at the Colloquia, and not from the edited version provided by Stürmer
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...
began his article “A Kind of Settlement of Damages” in the Die Zeit
Die Zeit
Die Zeit is a German nationwide weekly newspaper that is highly respected for its quality journalism.With a circulation of 488,036 and an estimated readership of slightly above 2 million, it is the most widely read German weekly newspaper...
newspaper on July 11, 1986 with an attack on Stürmer. Habermas took Stürmer to task for his statement that history served the purpose of integrating the individual into the wider community, and as such history had the needed to provide a “higher meaning” to create the proper national consciousness in the individual, who otherwise would lack this national consciousness Habermas accuse Stürmer on marching to a “geopolitical
Geopolitics
Geopolitics, from Greek Γη and Πολιτική in broad terms, is a theory that describes the relation between politics and territory whether on local or international scale....
drumbeat” with his depiction of German history determined by geographical factors requiring authoritarian government Habermas wrote Stürmer was trying to create a "vicarious religion" in German history intended to serve as a "...kind of NATO philosophy colored with German nationalism"
In response to Habermas’s essay, Stürmer in a letter to the editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published on August 16, 1986 wrote that Habermas was confusing the “national question” with the “German question”, and argued that the German predicament was due to Germany’s geographical situation in the heart of Europe Stürmer denied seeking to “endow” history with a “higher meaning”, and accused Habermas of seeking to do that Stürmer charged that Habermas had created an “indictment that even fabricates its own sources” Stürmer ended his letter with the remark about Habermas "It's a shame about this man who once had something to say"
Repying to Stürmer, Habermas in his "Note" of February 23, 1987 accused Stürmer of having the "chutzpah" to deny his own views when he wrote that he was not seeking to "endow" history with a "higher meaning" Habermas quoted from Stürmer's book Dissonanzen des Fortschritts to support his contention" In response to Habermas, Stürmer in his "Postscript" of April 25, 1987 accused Habermas of being a Marxist who was responsible for "the invention of fact-free scholarship" Stürmer claimed that Habermas had played an "obscene role" in the West German election of 1987 by labeling anyone he disliked as a Nazi, and that the reasons for Habermas's attack on him were help the SPD in the election Stürmer charged that Habermas was guilty of misquotation, and of making confusing statement such as his claim that he was working to create a "NATO philosophy" while seeking to close Germany to the West
Many of Stürmer's critics in the Historikerstreit such as Hans-Ulrich Wehler
Hans-Ulrich Wehler
Hans-Ulrich Wehler is a German historian known for his role in promoting social history through the "Bielefeld School", and for his critical studies of 19th century Germany.-Career:...
and Jürgen Kocka
Jürgen Kocka
Jürgen Kocka is a German historian.A university professor and former president of the Social Science Research Center Berlin , Kocka is a major figure in the new Social History, especially as represented by the Bielefeld School...
accused Stürmer of attempting to white-wash the Nazi past, a charge Stürmer vehemently rejected. In response to Stürmer's geographical theories about how Germany's "land in the middle" status had forced authoritarianism on the Germans, Kocka argued in an essay entitled "Hitler Should Not Be Repressed by Stalin and Pol Pot" published in the Frankfurter Rundschau on September 23, 1986 that “Geography is not destiny” Kocka wrote that both Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
and Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
were also "lands in the middle", and yet neither country went in the same authoritarian direction as Germany Martin Broszat
Martin Broszat
Martin Broszat was a German historian specializing in modern German social history whose work has been described by The Encyclopedia of Historians as indispensable for any serious study of the Third Reich. Broszat was born in Leipzig, Germany and studied history at the University of Leipzig and...
accused Stürmer of attempting to create an "ersatz religion" in German history that Broszat argued was more appropriate for the pre-modern era then 1986 Hans Mommsen
Hans Mommsen
Hans Mommsen is a left-wing German historian. He is the twin brother of the late Wolfgang Mommsen.-Biography:He was born in Marburg, the son of the historian Wilhelm Mommsen and great-grandson of the Roman historian Theodor Mommsen. He studied German, history and philosophy at the University of...
wrote Stürmer's attempts to create a national consensus on a version of German history that all Germans could take pride in was a reflection that the German rightists could not stomach modern German history, and were now looking to create a version of the German past that German rightists could enjoy Mommsen charged that to find the "lost history", Stürmer was working towards "relativizing" Nazi crimes to give Germans a history they could be proud of However, Mommsen argued that even modern right-wing German historians might have difficulty with Stürmer's "technocratic instrumentalization" of German history, which Mommsen claimed was Stürmer's way of "relativizing" Nazi crimes In another essay, Mommsen argued that Stürmer's assertion that he who controls the past also controls the future, his work as a co-editor with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper which had been publishing articles by Ernst Nolte
Ernst Nolte
Ernst Nolte is a German historian and philosopher. Nolte’s major interest is the comparative studies of Fascism and Communism. He is Professor Emeritus of Modern History at the Free University of Berlin, where he taught from 1973 to 1991. He was previously a Professor at the University of Marburg...
and Joachim Fest
Joachim Fest
Joachim Clemens Fest was a German historian, journalist, critic and editor, best known for his writings and public commentary on Nazi Germany, including an important biography of Adolf Hitler and books about Albert Speer and the German Resistance...
denying the “singularity” of the Holcaust, and his work as an advisor to Chancellor Kohl should cause "concern" with historians
Stürmer was attacked by Habermas and Wehler for writing the following:
Habermas accused Stürmer of believing that "a pluralism of values and interests leads, when there is no longer any common ground...sooner or later to social civil war". Hans-Ulrich Wehler
Hans-Ulrich Wehler
Hans-Ulrich Wehler is a German historian known for his role in promoting social history through the "Bielefeld School", and for his critical studies of 19th century Germany.-Career:...
called Stürmer's work "a strident declaration of war against a key element of the consensus upon which the socio-political life of this second republic has rested heretofore". Stürmer's defenders such as the American historian Jerry Muller argued that Wehler and Habermas were guilty of misquoting Stürmer, and of unjustly linking him with Ernst Nolte
Ernst Nolte
Ernst Nolte is a German historian and philosopher. Nolte’s major interest is the comparative studies of Fascism and Communism. He is Professor Emeritus of Modern History at the Free University of Berlin, where he taught from 1973 to 1991. He was previously a Professor at the University of Marburg...
as a sort of guilt by association argument.
In response to his critics, Stürmer in an essay entitled "How Much History Weights" published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on November 26, 1986 wrote that France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
was a major power in the world because the French had a history to be proud of, and claimed that West Germany could only play the same role in the world if only they had the same national consensus about pride in their history as did the French Stürmer used as the example of the sort of history that he want to see written in Germany Fernand Braudel
Fernand Braudel
Fernand Braudel was a French historian and a leader of the Annales School. His scholarship focused on three main projects, each representing several decades of intense study: The Mediterranean , Civilization and Capitalism , and the unfinished Identity of France...
's The Identity of France volumes Stürmer wrote that Braudel and the other historians of the Annales School
Annales School
The Annales School is a group of historians associated with a style of historiography developed by French historians in the 20th century. It is named after its scholarly journal Annales d'histoire économique et sociale, which remains the main source of scholarship, along with many books and...
had made geography the central of their studies of French and European history while at the same time promoting a sense of French identity that gave the French a history to be proud of Stürmer went to argue that the German people had not had a really positive view of their past since the end of the First Reich, and this lack of a German identity to be proud of was responsible for all of the disasters of German history since then Stürmer asserted "All of our interpretations of Germany had collapsed" As a result, Stürmer claimed that at present, the German people were living in historical "rubble", and that the Federal Republic was doomed unless the Germans once again had a sense of history that provided the necessary sense of national identity and pride
The classicist Christian Meier, who was president of the German Historical Association in 1986 wrote that Stürmer was seeking to make history serve his conservative politics by arguing that Germans needed a history capable of creating a national identity that would allow Germans to face the challenge of the Cold War with pride and confidence in their future Meier argued that Habermas was correct in expressing his concerns about Stürmer’s work, but asserted that Habermas had wrongly accused the Atlanticist Stürmer of seeking to revive the original concept of 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...
, that of Germany as a great Central European power that was neither of the West nor of the East That aside, Meier felt that Stürmer’s claim that the future belonged to those who controlled the past, and that it was the duty of German historians to ensure the right sort of future by writing the right sort of history was troubling Imanuel Geiss
Imanuel Geiss
Imanuel Geiss is a German historian.- Life :Imanuel Geiss was born as the youngest of 5 children to a working class family affected by the economic crisis. The unemployed father had to raise the children alone as the mother suffered from Meningitis...
wrote that Stürmer was acting within his rights in expressing his right-wing views, and arguing against Habermas claimed there was nothing wrong in claiming that geography was a factor in German history
The British historian, Richard J. Evans
Richard J. Evans
Richard John Evans is a British academic and historian, prominently known for his history of Germany.-Life:Evans was born in London, of Welsh parentage, and is now Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge and President of Wolfson College...
who was one of Stürmer's fiercer critics accused Stürmer in his 1989 book In Hitler's Shadow of being an apparent believer that:
Along the same lines, Evans criticized Stürmer for his emphasis on the modernity and totalitarianism of National Socialism, the role of Hitler, and the discontinuities between the Imperial, Weimar and Nazi periods. In Evans's view, the exact opposite was the case with National Socialism as a badly disorganized, anti-modern movement with deep roots in the German past, and the role of Hitler much smaller than one Stürmer credited him with. Evans accused Stürmer of having no real interest in the collapse of Weimar, and only using the Nazi Machtergreifung
Machtergreifung
Machtergreifung is a German word meaning "seizure of power". It is normally used specifically to refer to the Nazi takeover of power in the democratic Weimar Republic on 30 January 1933, the day Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, turning it into the Nazi German dictatorship.-Term:The...
as a way of making contemporary political points. Evans denounced Stürmer for writing a laudatory biography of 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...
, which he felt marked a regression to the Great man theory
Great man theory
The Great Man Theory was a popular 19th century idea according to which history can be largely explained by the impact of "great men", or heroes: highly influential individuals who, due to either their personal charisma, intelligence, wisdom, or Machiavellianism utilized their power in a way that...
of history and an excessive focus on political history
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...
. In Evans's opinion, a social historical
Social history
Social history, often called the new social history, is a branch of History that includes history of ordinary people and their strategies of coping with life. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in history departments...
approach with the emphasis on society was a better way of understanding the German past. In his 1989 book about the Historikerstreit, In Hitler's Shadow, Evans stated that he believed that the exchanges during the Historikerstreit had destroyed Stürmer's reputation as a serious historian.
Much of Stürmer's work since the Historikerstreit has been concerned with creating the sense of national identity he feels Germans are missing. In his 1992 book, Die Grenzen der Macht, Stürmer suggested that German history be viewed in the long-term starting from the 17th century to the 20th century to find the "national and trans-national traditions and patterns worth cherishing". Stürmer argued that traditions were tolerance for religious minorities, civic values, federalism and striking the fine balance between the peripheries and the center. In a July 1992 interview, Stürmer called his historical work a "bid to prevent Hitler remaining the final, unavoidable object of German history, or indeed its one and only starting point".
Starting in 2004, Stürmer has been an founding member of the Valdai International Discussion Club
Valdai International Discussion Club
The Valdai International Discussion Club is an international framework for the leading experts from around the world to debate on Russia and its role in the world...
. Stürmer's latest book is a biography of the Russian Prime Minister and former President Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
published in 2008. A British reviewer praised Stürmer for his refusal to hold Putin's KGB background against him and his willingness to accept Putin for who he was Much of Stürmer's biography was based upon his interviews with Putin during the annual meetings of the Valdai group.
Work
- Putin And The Rise Of Russia The Country That Came In From The Cold, London: Orion 2008 ISBN 9780297855095
- "Balance from Beyond the Sea" pages 145-153 from The Washington Quarterly, Volume 24, Number 3, Summer 2001
- The German Empire, 1870-1918, New York : Random House, 2000 ISBN 0679640908.
- (Editor) The German Century London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1999 ISBN 0297825240.
- Co-edited with Robert D. Blackwill Allies Divided : Transatlantic Policies for the Greater Middle East, Cambridge, Mass. ; London : MIT Press, 1997 ISBN 0262522446.
- Contributor to For the Friends of Nature and Art : the Garden Kingdom of Prince Franz von Anhalt-Dessau in Age of Enlightenment, Ostfildern-Ruit : G. Hatje ; New York : Distribution in the US DAP, Distributed Art Publishers, 1997 ISBN 3775707158.
- "History In a Land Without History" pages 16–17; “Letter to the Editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 16, 1986” pages 61–62; "How Much History Weighs" pages 196-197; and "Postscript, April 25, 1987" pages 266-267 from Forever In The Shadow of Hitler? edited by Ernst Piper, Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1993.
- Dissonanzen des Fortschritts, Piper Verleg, Munich, 1986.
- Die Reichsgründung : deutscher Nationalstaat und europäisches Gleichgewicht im Zeitalter Bismarcks, München : Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1984 ISBN 3423045043.
- Review of Meisterwerke Fränkischer Möbelkunst: Carl Maximilian Mattern by Hans-Peter Trenschel & Wolf Christian von der Mülbe pages 565-567 from Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 47 Bd., H. 4, 1984.
- Review of Les Meubles Français du XVIIIe siècle by Pierre Verlet pages 573-576 from Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 47 Bd., H. 4, 1984.
- Review of Gebrauchssilber des 16. bis 19. Jahrhunderts by Alain Gruber pages 289-291 from Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 47 Bd., H. 2 1984.
- Review of Artists and Artisans in Delft. A Socio-Economic Study of the Seventeenth Century by John Michael Montias pages 614-615 from The Business History Review, Volume 57, No. 4, Winter, 1983.
- Das ruhelose Reich : Deutschland 1866-1918, Berlin : Severin und Siedler, 1983 ISBN 3886800512.
- Die Weimarer Republik : belagerte Civitas, Königstein/Ts. : Verlagsgruppe Athenäum, Hain, Scriptor, Hanstein, 1980 ISBN 3445120641.
- “An Economy of Delight: Court Artisans of the Eighteenth Century” pages 496-528 from The Business History Review, Volume 53, No. 4 Winter 1979.
- “'Bois des Indes' and the Economics of Luxury Furniture in the Time of David Roentgen” pages 799-807 from The Burlington Magazine, Volume 120, No. 909, December 1978.
- Review of Industrialisierung und Aussenpolitik: Preussen-Deutschland und das Zarenreich von 1860 bis 1890 by Horst Müller-Link pages 775-776 from The Journal of Modern History, Volume 50, No. 4, December 1978.
- “Caesar's Laurel Crown--the Case for a Comparative Concept” pages 203-207 from The Journal of Modern History, Volume 49, No. 2 June 1977.
- Regierung und Reichstag im Bismarckstaat 1871-1880 : Cäsarismus oder Parlamentarismus, Düsseldorf : Droste, 1974
- Bismarck und die preussisch-deutsche Politik, 1871-1890, München : Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1970.
- (Editor) Das kaiserliche Deutschland; Politik und Gesellschaft, 1870-1918, Düsseldorf, Droste 1970.
External links
- GERMANY: THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST
- Profile of Michael Stürmer
- Behind the scenes of the Russian revival Review of Putin and the Rise of Russia by Michael Stürmer
- 'Putin in Shades of Gray', review of Putin and the Rise of Russia in the Oxonian Review