Wolfgang Mommsen
Encyclopedia
Wolfgang Justin Mommsen was a German historian. He was the twin brother of Hans Mommsen
.
, the son of the historian Wilhelm Mommsen. He was educated at the University of Marburg, University of Cologne
and University of Leeds
between 1951–1959. He served as professor at the University of Cologne
(1959–1967), University of Düsseldorf (1967–1978) and finally as director of the German Historical Institute
in London
between 1978–1985. In 1965, he abandoned his first wife to marry one of his graduate students, Sabine von Schalburg, with whom he had four children.
Mommsen first rose to fame through a biography of Max Weber
in 1959. His main areas of expertise were in 19th century-20th century British
and German history
. His interests were wide-ranging and he wrote about diplomatic
, social
, intellectual
, and economic history
. Mommsen championed a Sonderweg
("special path") interpretation of German history. Echoing the views of Hans-Ulrich Wehler
and Fritz Fischer
, he argued that 19th century Germany
was only partially modernized. Economic modernization was not accompanied by political modernization. Much of Mommsen's comparative studies of British and German history concern why, in his view, the British had both a political and economic modernization while the Germans had only the latter. An Anglophile, Mommsen very much enjoyed teaching and living in Britain
.
In Mommsen's view, the foreign policy of the Second Reich
was driven by domestic concerns as the German elite sought distractions abroad to hold off demands for democracy
at home. This argument places Mommsen in the Primat der Innenpolitik (primacy of domestic politics) school against the traditional Primat der Aussenpolitik (primacy of foreign politics) school as an explanation for foreign policy. For Mommsen, the major responsibility for the outbreak of the First World War
rests on Germany's shoulders. Furthermore, the November Revolution
of 1918 did not go far enough and allowed the pre-1918 elite to continue to dominate German life, thus leading inevitably to the Third Reich
. Mommsen has written books condemning appeasement
.
In the Historikerstreit
(historians' dispute), Mommsen took the position that the Holocaust was a uniquely evil event that should not be compared to Stalinist terror in the Soviet Union
. In an article entitled "Neither Denial nor Forgetfulness Will Free Us" first published in the Frankfurter Rundschau on December 1, 1986, Mommsen argued that Historikerstreit was a result of the failures of modern society Mommsen argued that the in the prosperous 1950s-60s, most Germans were happy to forget about their recent past, and looked forward to a brighter future Starting with the oil shock of the early 1970s and the rise of fundamentalist Islam in the late 1970s, Mommsen argued that the idea of a progressively better future was discredited, leading to a pessimistic public mood, and the a renewed interest in history This had occurred in tandem in a period when German historians had started to make a more critical examination of their recent past As a result at the precise mood when public demanded a past that could make them feel good about being Germans, German historians came under attack for not writing the sort of history the public wanted Mommsen argued that the work of those like Ernst Nolte
was intended to provide the sort of history that would allow Germans feel good about being Germans by engaging in “…an explanatory strategy that…will be seen as a justification of National Socialist crimes by all those who are still under the influence of the extreme anti-Soviet propaganda of National Socialism" Mommsen charged that Ernst Nolte
was attempting to egregiously whitewash the German past. Mommsen argued that Nolte was attempting a "justification" of Nazi crimes and making "inappropriate" comparisons of the Holocaust with other genocides. Mommsen wrote about Andreas Hillgruber
's demands that historians identified with the “justified” German defence of the Eastern Front that:
, and Germans should accept the “burden” of the past as way of inspiring them to do better in the future
In 1998, several younger German historians criticized Mommsen for not denouncing the Nazi past of his mentors while a university student in the 1950s.
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...
.
Biography
He was born in MarburgMarburg
Marburg is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany, on the River Lahn. It is the main town of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district and its population, as of March 2010, was 79,911.- Founding and early history :...
, the son of the historian Wilhelm Mommsen. He was educated at the University of Marburg, University of Cologne
University of Cologne
The University of Cologne is one of the oldest universities in Europe and, with over 44,000 students, one of the largest universities in Germany. The university is part of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, an association of Germany's leading research universities...
and University of Leeds
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
between 1951–1959. He served as professor at the University of Cologne
University of Cologne
The University of Cologne is one of the oldest universities in Europe and, with over 44,000 students, one of the largest universities in Germany. The university is part of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, an association of Germany's leading research universities...
(1959–1967), University of Düsseldorf (1967–1978) and finally as director of the German Historical Institute
German Historical Institute
German Historical Institute are five independent academic research institutes situated in Rome, London, Washington, D.C., Warsaw and Moscow, dedicated to the study of historical relations between Germany and the host countries in which they are based, along with four other institutions, in Paris,...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
between 1978–1985. In 1965, he abandoned his first wife to marry one of his graduate students, Sabine von Schalburg, with whom he had four children.
Mommsen first rose to fame through a biography of 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...
in 1959. His main areas of expertise were in 19th century-20th century British
History of the United Kingdom
The history of the United Kingdom as a unified sovereign state began with the political union of the kingdoms of England, which included Wales, and Scotland on 1 May 1707 in accordance with the Treaty of Union, as ratified by the Acts of Union 1707...
and 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...
. His interests were wide-ranging and he wrote about diplomatic
Diplomatic history
Diplomatic history deals with the history of international relations between states. Diplomatic history can be different from international relations in that the former can concern itself with the foreign policy of one state while the latter deals with relations between two or more states...
, social
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...
, intellectual
Intellectual history
Note: this article concerns the discipline of intellectual history, and not its object, the whole span of human thought since the invention of writing. For clarifications about the latter topic, please consult the writings of the intellectual historians listed here and entries on individual...
, and economic history
Economic history
Economic history is the study of economies or economic phenomena in the past. Analysis in economic history is undertaken using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and by applying economic theory to historical situations and institutions...
. Mommsen championed a 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...
("special path") interpretation of German history. Echoing the views of 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 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...
, he argued that 19th century 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...
was only partially modernized. Economic modernization was not accompanied by political modernization. Much of Mommsen's comparative studies of British and German history concern why, in his view, the British had both a political and economic modernization while the Germans had only the latter. An Anglophile, Mommsen very much enjoyed teaching and living in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
In Mommsen's view, the foreign policy 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...
was driven by domestic concerns as the German elite sought distractions abroad to hold off demands for 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...
at home. This argument places Mommsen in the Primat der Innenpolitik (primacy of domestic politics) school against the traditional Primat der Aussenpolitik (primacy of foreign politics) school as an explanation for foreign policy. For Mommsen, the major responsibility for the outbreak of 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...
rests on Germany's shoulders. Furthermore, the November Revolution
German Revolution
The German Revolution was the politically-driven civil conflict in Germany at the end of World War I, which resulted in the replacement of Germany's imperial government with a republic...
of 1918 did not go far enough and allowed the pre-1918 elite to continue to dominate German life, thus leading inevitably to the Third Reich
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...
. Mommsen has written books condemning appeasement
Appeasement
The term appeasement is commonly understood to refer to a diplomatic policy aimed at avoiding war by making concessions to another power. Historian Paul Kennedy defines it as "the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and...
.
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"...
(historians' dispute), Mommsen took the position that the Holocaust was a uniquely evil event that should not be compared to Stalinist terror in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. In an article entitled "Neither Denial nor Forgetfulness Will Free Us" first published in the Frankfurter Rundschau on December 1, 1986, Mommsen argued that Historikerstreit was a result of the failures of modern society Mommsen argued that the in the prosperous 1950s-60s, most Germans were happy to forget about their recent past, and looked forward to a brighter future Starting with the oil shock of the early 1970s and the rise of fundamentalist Islam in the late 1970s, Mommsen argued that the idea of a progressively better future was discredited, leading to a pessimistic public mood, and the a renewed interest in history This had occurred in tandem in a period when German historians had started to make a more critical examination of their recent past As a result at the precise mood when public demanded a past that could make them feel good about being Germans, German historians came under attack for not writing the sort of history the public wanted Mommsen argued that the work of those like 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...
was intended to provide the sort of history that would allow Germans feel good about being Germans by engaging in “…an explanatory strategy that…will be seen as a justification of National Socialist crimes by all those who are still under the influence of the extreme anti-Soviet propaganda of National Socialism" Mommsen charged that 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...
was attempting to egregiously whitewash the German past. Mommsen argued that Nolte was attempting a "justification" of Nazi crimes and making "inappropriate" comparisons of the Holocaust with other genocides. Mommsen wrote about Andreas Hillgruber
Andreas Hillgruber
Andreas Fritz Hillgruber was a conservative German historian. Hillgruber was influential as a military and diplomatic historian.At his death in 1989, the American historian Francis L...
's demands that historians identified with the “justified” German defence of the Eastern Front that:
“Andreas Hillgruber recently attempted to accord a relative historical justification to the Wehrmacht campaign in the East and the desperate resistance of the army in th East after the summer of 1944. He argued that the goal was to prevent the German civilian population from falling into the hands of the Red Army. However, the chief reason, he argued, was that the defense of German cities in the East had become tantamount to defending Western civilization. In light of the Allied war goals, which independent of Stalin’s final plans, envisioned breaking up Prussia, and destroying the defensive position of a strong, Prussian-led Central European state that could serve as a bulwark against Bolshevism, the continuation of the war in the East was justified from the viewpoint of those involved. It was, as Hillgruber’s argument would have it, also justified even from today’s standpoint, despite the fact that prolonging the war in the East mean that the gigantic murder machinery of the Holocaust would be allowed to continue to run. All this, the essay argued, was justified as long as the fronts held. Hillgruber’s essay is extremely problematic when viewed from the perspective of a democratically constituted community that orients itself towards Western moral and political standards.Mommsen ended his essay by writing that the Federal Republic marked the end of the Sonderweg
There is no getting around the bitter truth that the defeat of National Socialist Germany was not only in the interest of the peoples who were bulldozed by Hitler’s war and of the peoples who were selected by his henchmen for annihilation or oppression or exploitation-it was also in the interest of the Germans. According, parts of the gigantic scenery of the Second World War were, at least as far as we were concerned, totally senseless, even self-destructive. We cannot escape this bitter truth by assigning partial responsibility to other partners who took part in the war”
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...
, and Germans should accept the “burden” of the past as way of inspiring them to do better in the future
In 1998, several younger German historians criticized Mommsen for not denouncing the Nazi past of his mentors while a university student in the 1950s.
Work
- Max Weber und die deutsche Politik, 1890-1920, 1959.
- "The Debate on German War Aims" pages 47–74 from Journal of Contemporary History, Volume 1, 1966.
- "Die latente Krise des Deutschen Reiches, 1909-1914" from Handbuch der deutschen Geschichte, Volume 4: Deutsche Geschichte der neuesten Zeit von Bismarcks Entlassung bis zur Gegenwart, 1973.
- The Age of Bureaucracy: Perspectives on the Political Sociology of Max Weber, 1974.
- Imperialismustheorien, 1977.
- Der europäische Imperialismus. Aufsätze und Abhandlungen, 1979.
- The Emergence of the Welfare State in Britain and Germany, 1850-1950 co-edited with Wolfgang Mock, 1981.
- Sozialprotest, Gewalt, Terror: Gewaltanwendung durch politische und gesellschaftliche Randgruppen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, 1982.
- The Fascist Challenge and the Policy of Appeasement, co-edited with Lothar Kettenacker, 1983.
- The Development of Trade Unionism in Great Britain and Germany, 1880-1914, co-edited with Hans-Gerhard Husung, 1985.
- “Neither Denial nor Forgetfulness Will Free Us From the Past: Harmonizing Our Understanding of History Endangers Freedom” pages 202-215 from Forever In The Shadow Of Hitler? edited by Ernst Piper, Atlantic Highlands, N.J. : Humanities Press, 1993.
- Imperialism and After: Continuities and Discontinuities co-edited with Jürgen Osterhammel, 1986.
- Bismarck, Europe, and Africa: The Berlin Africa Conference, 1884–1885, and the Onset of Partition, co-edited with Stig Förster and Ronald Robinson, 1988.
- The Political and Social Theory of Max Weber: Collected Essays, 1989.
- Der Autoritäre Nationalstaat, 1990 translated by Richard Deveson into English as Imperial Germany 1867-1918 : politics, culture, and society in an authoritarian state, 1995.
- Intellektuelle im Deutschen Kaiserreich, co-edited with Gangolf Hubinger, 1993.
External links
- Obituary Wolfgang Mommsen by Richard J. EvansRichard J. EvansRichard 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...
- Versailles Treaty-From The German POV
- German Army's Advance into Belgium