The historian’s problem with morality
An historical and philosophical approach to the question of
morality in historiographical debate
Casper Vuurmans 0582808
MA Wijsbegeerte van een bepaald wetenschapsgebied MA History: Duitslandstudies University of Amsterdam Supervisors: Dr. Jacques Bos & Dr. Krijn Thijs 18th of August, 2015
The historian’s problem with morality
An historical and philosophical approach to the question of morality in
historiographical debate
Contents
Introduction 1
Part I. A reconstruction of UHV history
1. Background to the foundation of the UHV 5
1.1. A short survey of historiography in the GDR 5
1.2. Six biographies of UHV members 11
2. The emergence of the UHV after the Friedliche Revolution 14
2.1. The foundation of the UHV 15
2.2. Stepping into the limelight 23
3. The UHV after German reunification 30
3.1. The Abwicklungen 30
3.2. The ‘FAZ-Debatte’ 33
Part II. The problem of morality in historiographical practice
Introduction 44
1. Epistemic virtues and the scholarly persona 47
2. The UHV and critical theory 54
3. Objectivism in recent historiography 59
4. The Historikerstreit and internal realism 65
Conclusion 72
Sources and literature 74
Introduction
“Es geht um die Wiederherstellung der Würde eines Berufsstandes.”1 With this moral appeal historians Armin Mitter and Stefan Wolle ended their ‘Aufruf zur Bildung einer Arbeitsgruppe unabhängiger Historiker in der DDR’, three months after the Friedliche Revolution had torn down the wall that had divided Germany for almost thirty years. Having been historians in the GDR, they hoped that the end of SED-regime would lead to a radical change in the pursuit of history, that is, from its deplorable state as a
‘Legitimiationswissenschaft’ into a free, democratic and pluralistic discipline. They founded the Unabhängige Historiker-Verband (UHV), a small association of East German historians who felt the same way. Their objective was to undo the damage of moral corruption that the GDR had inflicted on its historians and they pleaded their case in strongly moralizing terms during the ensuing discussion on the unification of the East and West German historiographies, which lasted well into the 1990s.
Usually, historians like to keep facts and values strictly separated, as they fear that the expression of any normative statement will decrease the academic standing of their work or debate; they consider moral statements to belong to the realm of politics. The German debate in the early nineties showed that this is not necessarily always the case. The sudden collapse of the GDR was followed by its rapid Historisierung and the wish for thorough Aufarbeitung (partly due to the memory of the situation after World War II, which was characterized by a negligence of the traumatic past). In light of the fact that historians from the GDR were now writing about their own past, the independent
historians of the UHV established the question of who could do so as the central issue of the debate, in the firm belief that the answer to this question, formulated in moral criteria, would benefit the academic credibility and justification of historiographical knowledge.
This particular history then is interesting for at least two reasons: it tells the story of an extraordinary historiographical debate and it challenges our intuitions about
morality in the field of history. The aim of this thesis is therefore twofold: on the one hand it examines the role of morality in the debate on German historiography after the 1 Armin Mitter and Stefan Wolle, ‘Aufruf zur Bildung einer Arbeitsgruppe unabhängiger Historiker in der DDR’ in: Rainer Eckert, Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk and Isolde Stark eds., Hure oder Muse? Klio in der DDR
end of the GDR from the perspective of the UHV, while on the other hand it seeks for a conception of historiography that allows for moral statements in the realm of history. In order to answer these questions, I will devote one part to the concrete historical case and another part to the philosophical perspective on this, with implicit or explicit cross-references adding to the structural integrity of the thesis as a whole. Moreover, the conclusion is meant to synthesize the different answers in a broader outlook on both history and philosophy of history.
With regard to the outline of this thesis, the first part is laid out chronologically. It starts with a short overview of historiography in the GDR, specifically in the period of the seventies and eighties, as this formed the backdrop against which the independent historians developed as historians. Next, six short biographies of members of the core group of the UHV serve to place them in this context, while at the same time showing the heterogeneity of its members’ backgrounds. The second chapter describes the emergence of the UHV during the Umbruchsjahr of 1990 from its first conception and its foundation until the reunification of Germany. Pleading for radical change, the independent
historians found far more continuity than they had hoped for. The third chapter jumps from the end of 1990 to the late summer of 1993, as the UHV, meanwhile established as a nuisance towards historians from East and West Germany alike, engaged in a crucial debate over the question of which former East German historians had the moral right to write GDR history after the revolution.
In the second part I analyse different conceptions from philosophy of history that deal – or sometimes do not deal – with the problem of morality in historiography, while relating them to the case from the first part every now and then. All perspectives
approach historiography as a (social) practice in which the historian functions as the actor. Moreover, they all derive their respective answers to the morality question from their respective answers to the epistemological objectivity question. First up is the virtue-epistemological approach by Herman Paul; he provides philosophers of history with a conceptual language to describe what it takes to be a good historian. Subsequently, I try to expand this language of virtues from the perspective of critical theory, particularly that of Adorno, linking it to the UHV’s perspective. In the third chapter, I examine
view on American historiography. Finally, I discuss Chris Lorenz’ analysis of the Historikerstreit, which suggests a third way, beyond objectivism and realism, to include moral statements in historiographical debate.
The origins of the philosophical literature used for this thesis differ in terms of time and place because the theme of morality is scarcely discussed – in general, I think, philosophy of history has neglected the problem of morality in favour of purely
epistemological or methodological questions. Although postmodern thought since the 1960s has drawn attention either to the implicit normative functions of historiographical discourse or to its narrative, literary and therefore subjective character,2 neither of these views elucidates the workings of actual historiographical debate in the production of knowledge. Over the last twenty to twenty-five years however, interest in
historiographical practice has increased and the role of the historian not only as an author, but also as an historical agent has come to the foreground. Rather than ignoring the existence of the morality problem or not seeing it as a problem at all, to put it simply, the new agent- and practice-based perspective has urged philosophers of history to
acknowledge the problem and come to terms with it. Consequently, there is still a lot of research to be done in this area.
On the topic of the GDR historiography on the other hand, there is already an abundance of literature that has been written since 1990, well beyond the scope of what I could discuss within the limits of this thesis. Roughly, this literature can be divided in three main areas of interest, which are closely intertwined: the history of the GDR, the historiography in the GDR and the historiographical debate in unified Germany. Most of it has been written by German historians who have been involved in the debate itself in one way or another; it is therefore very often if not always a bit coloured. The few Anglosaxon historians who have concerned themselves with the subject (Georg Iggers, Mitchell Ash and Konrad Jarausch, to name a few) had a little more spatial distance, yet were often no less coloured. This, somewhat ironically, underscores the importance of the philosophical question of this thesis.
Furthermore, writing as a historian, I could not easily distinguish between source material and secondary literature, since, simply speaking, they overlap. However,
pragmatically speaking, I like to discern three periods in the historiographical literature since 1990, which may help to establish what counts as primary and as secondary
literature. The first period coincides with the actual debate; it extends from late 1989 until roughly 1995. From then on, the debate slowly became historicized and more objectified during a period of some ten years. During the last ten years, attention has been shifted to the history and historiography of the GDR itself; only recently has there been a renewed interest in the unification debate by a younger generation of historians that has the advantage of temporal distance.
Concerning primary sources, in the first place I rely on the UHV’s publication Hure oder Muse, a collection of articles, documents and lectures from various sources that offers a good representation of the development of the debate, even though the UHV’s perspective is clearly visible through the choice of articles. Another
documentation, Krise – Umbruch – Neubeginn, presents an earlier selection of articles that were part of the debate, with the inclusion of some by established GDR historians. Secondly, I used the personal archives of some of the independent historians as an unpublished source of information, often enriching the image that rises from published sources. Specifically, I got access to the archives of Rainer Eckert, which have been taken up in the collection of the Archiv Bürgerbewgung Leipzig; furthermore, Stefan Wolle provided me with a good amount of documents from his personal archive, as did Isolde Stark with a smaller amount.
Apart from these written sources, I conducted four interviews with five members of the UHV (with Rainer Eckert, Stefan Wolle, Michael S. Cullen and Guntolf Herzberg and Isolde Stark). Although not providing me with additional factual information, they were very useful and inspiring in evoking a lively image of the independent historians’ perception.
Part I. A reconstruction of UHV history
1. Background to the foundation of the UHV
1.1. A short survey of historiography in the GDR
After the end of World War II and during the emergence of two separate German states, it was not apparent right away what would happen to German academic history.3
Although in politics ideological differences were sharply pronounced, in academic circles these did not yet play the role they would play later on. Like before the war, scholars tended to be mainly non-Marxist in their political orientations – on the one hand because the Nazi regime had effectively expelled most left wing scholars, on the other hand because of the prevalent liberal science policy of Bildung as established by Wilhelm von Humboldt.4 The KPD, later the SED, while clearly preferring academics to be Marxist or Marxist-Leninist – especially in such disciplines as history and philosophy – did not yet interfere with university policies.5
This was to change from 1948, just before the split between East and West Germany became constitutionalized and tensions started to rise on an academic level as well. A ‘Sturm auf die Festung Wissenschaft’ was meant to restructure the East-German academic landscape following Soviet example, although according to some authors it was not so much as a ‘Sturm’ but rather a slow process of university reform that took place over the course of the fifties and sixties and that had to cope with an unruly everyday reality.6 The contradictory nature of events was expressed, according to Martin Sabrow, in conflicting statements on whether or not East and West German historiography still shared common ground.7 A clear mark was made when East German historians
3 Alexander Fischer and Günther Heydemann eds., Geschichtswissenschaft in der DDR I (Berlin 1988) 7-8.
4 Ralph Jessen, Akademische Elite und kommunistische Diktatur – die ostdeutsche Hochschullehrerschaft
in der Ulbricht-Ära (Göttingen 1999) 13.
5 Fischer and Heydemann, Geschichtswissenschaft in der DDR, 7-8. 6 Jessen, Akademische Elite, 13 and 51.
7 Martin Sabrow, ‘Der Kalte Krieg der deutsch-deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft 1949-1989’, Geschichte
demonstratively left the Verband der Historiker Deutschland (VHD) after the East German delegation was not allowed on stage during the Deutsche Historikertag in 1958: the SED founded its own Deutsche Gesellschaft (from 1972: Historiker-Gesellschaft der DDR).8 Slowly but surely the dictatorship implemented its policies in the East German historiographical landscape, leading to a rejection of GDR historiography in West. There a growing interest in totalitarianism theory and the refusal to give the idea of one German nation led historians to regard it as completely indoctrinated and pseudo-scientific.9
In this chapter, I will first explore the most prominent features of GDR historiography as they were in the seventies and the eighties, a period of relatively decreasing tensions.10 Thematically yet critically following Alexander Fischer and Günther Heydemann in Geschichtswissenschaft in der DDR, I would like to focus on four defining problem areas: the function of history in state and society, the relation between party and historiography, its focus and methodology and its institutionalization.11 Against this background I will then make a few biographical sketches of some members of the UHV, viz. Stefan Wolle, Rainer Eckert, Bernd Florath, Isolde Stark, Guntolf Herzberg and Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk. These sketches mainly – but not only – focus on their university and academic careers and are largely based on personal accounts from
interviews and (auto-)biographical articles. They serve as an introduction of some of the main characters in the UHV history (all of them were board members at some point) but may also exemplify the careers of most of its members.
East-German historiography was founded on the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which at the same time formed its theoretical framework, its method, even its raison d’être. According to Marx’ philosophy, history unfolds according to certain historical laws and in specific stages of different social-economical relations until the last stage, being that of communism or socialism, is reached – which is where the SED believed the GDR to be. The scientific nature of these developments implies that no human action can interfere with them; they are necessary and inevitable. The only rightfully written history 8 Stefan Berger, ‘Former GDR historians in the reunified Germany: an alternative historical culture and its attempts to come to terms with the GDR past’, Journal of contemporary history 38 (2003) 63-83, spec. 63. 9 Georg Iggers ed., Die DDR-Geschichtswissenschaft als Forschungsproblem (Munich 1998) 10-11. 10 Berger, ‘Former GDR historians’, 63-64.
can and will therefore be the one that acknowledges and follows these laws.12 In other words, good historiography must adhere to the Marxist-Leninist worldview and will thus be able to interpret the past entirely from a contemporary perspective, whilst also being able to predict future developments.13
This of course bore important consequences for the way in which history and historians were understood, specifically in the four areas mentioned earlier. First of all, it meant that history played a key role in the East German society. It could describe and explain the developments in German history that had led to the constitution of the GDR, thus legitimizing its existence.14 For a long time it has been emphasized that GDR historiography was merely a legitimatory science and thus nothing more than an ideological pillar for the party. This view, however, does not leave any room for
differentiation, according to Fischer and Heydemann. They state that it obscures the fact that the historiography of the GDR knew different periods that can only be distinguished if other categories are being taken into account as well.15 These then are the following aspects of East German historiography.
The involvement of the SED in historiography was apparent both in quite a literal, institutional way as well as in a more abstract ideological way. On the one hand for example it is apparent through the fact that most historians were party members. Although no obligation existed to be a member of the party in order to become an historian, very few non-Marxist historians were able to develop a successful academic career – this will be underlined by the biographies in the next part of this chapter. Also, the party decided on, planned and evaluated projects of research, often through its ideological pillar, the Institute for Marxism-Leninism (IML), at which a lot of historians were employed. On the other hand the role of the party became manifest in the use of the term Parteilichkeit:
12 Stefan Wolle, Die heile Welt der Diktatur – Alltag und Herrschaft in der DDR 1949-1969 (Berlin 1998) 131-132.
13 Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk, ‘Die Durchsetzung des Marxismus-Leninismus in der Geschichtswissenschaft der DDR (1945-1961)’ in: Martin Sabrow and Peter Th. Walther eds., Historische Forschung und
Sozialistische Diktatur – Beiträge zur Geschichtswissenschaft der DDR (Leipzig 1995) 31-58, spec. 34.
14 Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk, Legitimation eines neuen Staates: Parteiarbeiter an der historischen Front –
Geschichtswissenschaft in der SBZ/DDR 1945 bis 1961 (Berlin 1997) 16-17.
“Die proletarische Parteilichkeit [fällt] nicht nur mit echter Objektivität
zusammen, sondern bildet geradezu eine Voraussetzung für die wahre Erkenntnis der gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhänge. … Die Entwicklung der
Gesellschaftswissenschaften hat bewiesen, daß nur vom Klassenstandpunkt der Arbeiterklasse aus die Gesellschaftlichen Tatsachen wissenschaftlich erfaßt werden können.”16
This concept could be said to have served as a criterion for truth in historiography and has implicitly already been mentioned in the discussion of Marxism-Leninism – true history is written in accordance with the ideology of the party.
Nevertheless, after Ulbricht had brought history under strict control of the party, during the Honecker Era it could be asserted that on the surface historians were granted a little more freedom. In 1969, a Rat für Geschichtswissenschaft consisting of 32 members was founded that was supposed to consult the SED on the planning of historical
research.17 Thus, a discursive step was added to the process of scientific plan making in GDR historiography. Fischer and Heydemann assert that this change from a top-down relation between party and history to a discursive relation was to be found in and benefited the whole of academic history – a view which seen from today’s perspective seems overly optimistic. While substantiating their claim, they must therefore admit that the party only felt comfortable with a less tight relation to history because it knew that non-Marxist historians were marginalized and that young and upcoming historians, the Nachwuchswissenschaftler, were educated entirely to be Marxist-Leninist historians.18 Furthermore, all members of the Rat für Geschichtswissenschaft were party members, some of them even members of the party’s Central Committee (ZK). In short,
notwithstanding the changing relations between the party and history, this may very well indicate that the SED had been successful in institutionalizing its power in historiography itself, contrary to loosening its grip over it.
Considering the focus of research, the seventies and eighties marked a change as well. Had historiography in the first twenty-odd years of the GDR been occupied with 16 Sachwörterbuch der Geschichte Deutschlands und der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung II (Berlin 1970) 256.
17 Fischer and Heydemann, Geschichtswissenschaft in der DDR, 160. 18 Ibidem, 15-16.
mass movements and revolutions, as they are typical categories of Marxist
historiography, from the seventies onwards the concept of the nation was stressed. The reason for this would be, according to Fischer and Heydemann, that although East-German history had been organized well by this time, it still lacked a convincing
Geschichtsbild from which the country and its people could derive their identity.19 Under Ulbricht, the country had presented itself as a German country or, to be more precise, as one of two German countries, of which the GDR was to be the better one. Still, this claim implied that there was a shared German past. Starting with Honecker, the international acceptance of the GDR grew and relations between East and West Germany improved, prompting the East Germans to push the question of German unity to the background.
As a result, Georg Iggers states that “not language and ethnicity but class and social system [became] the basis of nationhood.”20 In the process, GDR historiography claimed the whole of German history, which became known as heritage or Erbe, as its own. Contrary to earlier depictions this included developments, events and historical actors that from a Marxist-Leninist perspective would be considered ‘bad’. All good, progressive events in history were its Tradition and it was this part of history that would be crucial in shaping the GDR identity.21 In the words of Fischer and Heydemann the transition could be described as one from a selective to an integral historiography.22
This much discussed Erbe-Tradition-Konzeption meant that from the late
seventies onwards, historians did no longer only write about progressive forces in history, but also about bad and reactionary forces. Furthermore the line between these two
morally charged adjectives was not drawn as sharp as it used to be. This meant that certain epochs, notably that of Prussian militarism, says Iggers, were reinterpreted in positive narratives that often ignored its obvious downsides – for example in the case of the Prussian state its antidemocratic attitude. Due to this sometimes seemingly conflicting way of interpreting the German past, historians found more freedom in their conclusions
19 Ibidem, 17.
20 Georg Iggers ed., Marxist historiography in transformation – East German social history in the 1980s (New York and Oxford 1991) 11.
21 Ibidem, 11.
about the past – at least in those research areas that did not touch upon the legitimacy of the GDR directly. 23
Some institutions of GDR historiography have already been mentioned in the previous paragraphs: the Historikergesellschaft der DDR that united East German historians and the Rat für Geschichtswissenschaft that discussed and consulted on research plans. Lastly, I need to discuss two closely related institutional aspects: its strong centralization on the one hand and its separation between research and education on the other hand. Most research in the GDR was centralized in the huge Akademie der Wissenschaften (AdW) that had been established in Berlin in 1946 and was modelled after Soviet example. Here, historical research was centred at the Zentralinstitut für Geschichte (ZIG) and the Zentralinstitut für Alte Geschichte (ZIAG). University education was separated strictly from these research institutes and highly politicized in order to educate students in the Marxist-Leninist tradition as much as possible. University teachers and professors were required to be very linientreu and courses focused mainly on historical issues directly related to the GDR. 24 At the academic institutes, as I mentioned earlier, researchers had more freedom in choosing their topics of research – most UHV members, as I will show in the subsequent paragraphs, had been employed there before 1990.
In summary, in the 1970s and 1980s the SED had institutionalized its politics in academic history to such an extent, that it could slightly loosen its direct grip. If this implies any form of liberalization, it does so only on the surface. The themes and topics of research became broader in the light of a conception of nationhood and identity that was supposed to thoroughly establish the separation from the Bundesrepublik. In this context a new generation of Nachwuchswissenschaftler was being prepared to take over the leading positions from 1990 onwards. Of course, the Friedliche Revolution prevented this power transition from ever happening.
1.2. Six biographies of UHV members
23 Iggers, Marxist historiography in transformation, 11-13. 24 Ibidem, 6-7.
Now that I have delineated the situation of GDR historiography during the Honecker Era, I would like to introduce some of the key figures in the history of the UHV as they tried, often struggling, to develop a career in historiography. These brief biographies serve not only as a backdrop to the development of the UHV, but also to demonstrate the diversity within the core group of its members, comprising some ten to twelve persons – therefore the list is not comprehensive, but rather exemplary. This selection is also based on the amount of information available for the time prior to 1990; this explains the absence of UHV founder Mitter’s biography, about whom very little is known.
The first two are Stefan Wolle (1950) and Rainer Eckert (1950), who were both part of a group of at least sixteen students of history who in 1972 were either
admonished, expelled or even imprisoned for alleged political subversion.25 According to Eckert the allegations were partly true – for the students were indeed opposed to the regime as it was at the time – but they were also used in order to get rid of those students that did not conform to ideological norms.26 Punishments apparently varied from student to student. Wolle, who had started studying in 1971, was sent off to work in a production company for one year in order to gain the required “politische und moralisch Reife zur erfolgreichen Durchführung seines Studiums”.27 Although he was accused of a bourgeois attitude and individualism, the fact that he came from a parteinahe family can serve as an explanation why he was not punished worse. Eckert, though, who actually studied archival sciences since 1969 and only had one year left before graduation, was given a choice: either he would declare that he had left the university by himself, or he would be expelled from it for life. After reluctantly choosing the first option, he was forced to move from Berlin and not allowed back at university. He spent three years working in a construction company, after which he eventually was allowed to graduate in
Fernstudium.28 Eckerts troublesome case was elucidated after 1989, when he found out, while inquiring the 1972 expulsions, that the group was denunciated by fellow students; 25 Personal archive of Stefan Wolle, list of students of history against whom disciplinary measures have been taken, without date.
26 ‘Ohne Vergangenheitsbewältigung gibt es keinen demokratischen Neubeginn. Gespräch mit Rainer Eckert’ in: Eckert, Kowalczuk and Stark, Hure oder Muse?, 115-119.
27 Personal archive Wolle, ‘Aktennotiz von Trzcionka über Abschluß der Angelegenheit Wolle’, 8-3-1972. 28 ‘Ohne Vergangenheitsbewältigung’, 117-118.
and moreover that the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit had a file on him, in which he was declared to be a Staatsfeind.29
In the eighties then, the effects of these expulsions could still be seen. Wolle became research assistant at the ZIG and finished his PhD dissertation in 1984, but did not get the chance to write any significant publications; his area of research was medieval Eastern Europe, situated relatively far from ideological constraints, but therefore also far from any degree of success. Eckert also succeeded in receiving his doctoral degree, but only after his first dissertation, which dealt with the highly politicized subject of the persecution of Jews, had been suspended in 1982. In 1984 his second attempt that
focused on the German occupation policy in Greece was approved. Until that time he had been working as a librarian at the department of documentation at the ZIG. He was only appointed as a researcher in 1988.
Another victim of relegations was Bernd Florath (1954), who was expelled from university for one and a half year in 1976 for supporting Wolf Biermann during the process of his Ausbürgerung. His case shows that the line between subversive and established historians was thin and diffuse. Coming from a similar background as Wolle, he formed a notable exception as being one of the very few convinced Marxists among UHV members, albeit that he was critical of the party. Nevertheless, in 1988 he joined the SED and he obtained a travel allowance, which enabled him to travel to Amsterdam just around the start of the revolution30 – the sort of privilege that was mostly enjoyed by linientreue party members. In a sense, this made him part of the elite; yet his affiliation with dissenting groups, in particular around Robert Havemann, showed him to be otherwise – probably leaving the Stasi agents who shadowed him in the eighties very confused.31
A lot of future UHV members, contrary at least to Eckert and Florath, had been searching for a niche that could be as free as possible from any ideological pressure. They 29 Rainer Eckert, Mechtild Günther and Stefan Wolle, ‘“Klassengegner gelungen einzudringen…” – Fallstudie zur Anatomie politischer Verfolgungskampagnen am Beispiel der Sektion Geschichte der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in den Jahren 1968 bis 1972’, Jahrbuch für historische
Kommunismusforschung 1 (1993) 197-225.
30 Bernd Florath, ‘Das rettende Neue Deutschland’ in: Ursula Balzer, Heiner M. Becker and Jaap Kloosterman eds., Kein Nachruf! Beiträge über und für Götz Langkau (Amsterdam 2003) 43, there 39-40.
often worked at the Zentralinstitut für Alte Geschichte und Archäologie where only one in ten employees were actual party members. One of them was Isolde Stark (1945) who studied history and German language from 1964 until 1969, after which time she spent three years on a doctoral dissertation, while she made fruitless efforts to apply to the ZIAG.32 Her applications were rejected because of her openly non-Marxist convictions, until 1980 when she was finally employed as research assistant.33 Before that time, she worked at a publishing house for children’s books, as assistant in the department of German language at the Humboldt University and as historian at the Institut für Denkmalspflege. Once employed at the ZIAG, she often came into conflict with her superiors for opposing to Marxist interpretations of the Antiquity. On the other hand, though, she found opportunities to reach out to a broader, partly West-German audience through lectures and internationally read journals.34
Guntolf Herzberg (1940), who knew Stark from courses they both attended, graduated in philosophy in 1965, after also studying history and physics. He joined the party and started working at the Zentralinstitut für Philosophie (ZIP) as a research assistant, until he was expelled from the party in 1973 for taking part in a forbidden discussion group.35 Apart from the expulsion he was fired and punished with a Berufs- and Publikationsverbot, thus officially being denied the possibility of an academic career. Still, being self-employed as a translator and editor, he managed to finish a doctoral dissertation in 1976. Furthermore, he got involved in the human rights and peace movements, until in 1985 he was allowed the Ausreise to West-Berlin, where he joined the Green Party and found employment at the philosophical institute at the Freie Universität.
The last biographical sketch is that of Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk (1967), quite probably the youngest member of the UHV. His story up to the time of the revolution is best described in terms of that of a dropout. While he grew up in a very devoted SED-family, his adolescent behaviour was interpreted in political terms.36 Despite an early 32 Herzberg, Guntolf and Klaus Meier, Karrieremuster – Wissenschaftlerporträts (Berlin 1992) 81. 33 Isolde Stark, Die hämische Muse – Spott als soziale und mentale Kontrolle in der Griechischen
Komödie (München 2004) 9.
34 Herzberg, Wissenschaftlerporträts, 85-87. 35 ‘Ohne Vergangenheitsbewältigung’, 117.
36 Mechtild Küpper, Die Humboldt-Universität – Einheitsschmerzen zwischen Abwicklung und
interest in history, he did not get a chance to study. Instead, after an education as a construction worker, he got employed as a porter – the kind of job, in his own words, for people who expected nothing from the state and from whom the state demanded nothing in return.37 At night and during his work shifts, however, he did get the chance to conduct some independent historical research, with documents handed to him by a colleague at the institute where he was employed. “Die DDR behinderte den Historiker Kowalczuk, verhindern konnte sie ihn nicht.”38 Only after the revolution of 1989 did he get the chance to develop a professional career in historiography, that is, after he enrolled at Humboldt University in the first semester of 1990.
These six sketches hopefully show the heterogeneity of the group of people who were the driving force behind the UHV in terms of political engagement, professional development or simply age. This is important to keep in mind, because over the course of the years, the association’s voice, especially in the public debate, would become
identified almost exclusively with the writings of Mitter and Wolle. This unison sound of the UHV concealed the wide spectre of views actually prevalent in its discussions, where members more often that not disagreed with one another – as might be expected from historians.
2. The emergence of the UHV after the Friedliche Revolution
An attempt at a more or less comprehensive reconstruction of the earliest history of the UHV has almost never been undertaken;39 most authors, a lot of them members of the UHV, only refer to three events: the appeal to found the association in January 1990, its actual foundation in April 1990 and Mitter’s renowned performance during the
Historikertag, only days before German reunification. The circumstances leading up to these events and connecting them are not well documented, so that the period seems 37 Interview with Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk, conducted by Krijn Thijs at the conference Das 20. Jahrhundert
Erzählen. Zeiterfahrung und Zeiterforschung im geteilten Deutschland in Jena, 18-1-2013.
38 Küpper, Die Humboldt-Universität, 110.
39 Krijn Thijs, ‘Gebrochene Geschichte – Lebenserfahrung und Historikerbegegnungen nach 1989’ in: Franka Maubach and Christina Morina eds., Das 20. Jahrhundert erzählen – Zeiterfahrung und
overall very fragmented. Then again, this reflects the hectic nature of the period, during which political and societal changes took place very rapidly, prompting short-term thinking and impulsive decisions.
Nevertheless, in this chapter I try to portray the first days of the UHV, depending on a limited amount of written sources as well as on interviews with some of its founding members. While focusing on the key issues of the first months of its existence – getting rid of the GDR’s established historians and founding a research centre40 – I want to show how the UHV managed to gain a lot of attention by provoking both East and West German historians. The chapter ends with the German reunification and with the question of whether the independent historians had by then achieved any of their goals – a
question which they started to ask themselves as well, a year after the Berlin Wall came down.
In advance, I like to give a brief explanation of my use of the concepts of
‘independent’ or ‘oppositional’ versus ‘established’ or ‘elite’ historians. These terms are derived from the writings of UHV members. They are therefore far from politically or morally neutral. Moreover, they are not very well defined in terms of who’s who – especially the concept of establishment is a cause for disagreement, since it can be argued that most UHV-members, despite how they saw themselves, were part of the GDR establishment if only because they were historians. Yet these were the terms used in the debate and therefore they are both useful and relevant, as long as we keep in mind the context in which they were being used.
2.1. The foundation of the UHV
The revolution of October and November 1989 did not involve many historians. Only a few, as a result of Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost and perestroika, had tried to address the apparent crisis of the GDR and its failing historiography during the preceding months. Most of them however were numbed by the long years of oppression and either wrote what the party expected them to write or reserved their criticism for friends and family. 40 Interview with Rainer Eckert, conducted by the author, 20-6-2013.
According to Eckert, historians therefore watched apathetically as the events unrolled, while writers such as Christoph Hein and Christa Wolf acted as critics and reformers of historiography.41
It was the 9th of November of course that definitively ended the rule of the SED over the GDR, including its historians. Institutionally and structurally however nothing much changed; the institutes and their boards remained as they were, and although they were forced to abandon party politics, there was no immediate alternative at hand for the profoundly institutionalized Marxist-Leninist doctrine. This gap thus posed the whole of historiography with the question of what was to happen next. Both official organs, such as the Historikergesellschaft, as well as individual historians like Jürgen John, Wolfgang Küttler and Walter Schmidt, published statements and articles in the days after the fall of the Wall, in which historians were blamed for the crisis of the state and the ensuing crisis of historiography.42 This issue divided the established historians between those who clung to the party ideology and those who were (seemingly) prepared to criticize themselves and to adapt to the new situation; consequently, a discourse arose about the problem of Stalinism in history as well as the ‘weisse Flecken’ in GDR history.
While any form of self-criticism and self-reflection was revolutionary by the standards of the SED, from the perspective of a small group of
Nachwuchs-wissenschaftler, for whom the end of the party-rule promised liberty, this discussion consisted of meaningless and hollow phrases. However, after years of restraint they could now finally have a say in larger societal issues as well as in their own discipline. Indeed, they picked up the question and decided that a radical change in course entailed more than merely self-reflection and adaptation – instead, they set out to get rid of the old elite that had oppressed them for years.43 This of course did not immediately lead to an
obvious solution to the crisis of historiography. Rather, in the vein of the rapid and radical changes of the revolution, the newly acquired freedoms were used impulsively
41 Rainer Eckert, ‘Historische Streit und modern Zeitgeschichte – zwölf Jahre Streit um die zweite deutsche Diktatur – Versuch einer Bilanz’ in: Franz-Joseph Jelich and Stefan Goch eds., Geschichte als
Last und Chance – Festschrift für Bernd Faulenbach (Essen 2003) 107-122, spec. 108.
42 Konrad H. Jarausch, ‘Vom Zusammenbruch zur Erneuerung: Überlegungen zur Krise der ost-deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft’ in: idem ed., Zwischen Parteilichkeit und Professionalität – Bilanz der
Geschichtswissenschaft der DDR (Berlin 1991) 13-32, spec. 17-18.
and on short term. With a fine sense of irony, Wolle has remarked that it was time to put Leninist revolutionary theory, which had been taught to them for so long, into action.44
Some oppositional historians became active in the Bürgerbewegung and quickly joined one or several of the many initiatives that had emerged during the revolution, such as the Neuen Forum, Demokratie Jetzt and Initiative Frieden und Menschenrechte. However, no word on the question of GDR historiography appeared during the last three months of 1989, partly it seems to me because of the fact that while oppositional
historians knew that they wanted to change things, their priority was first and foremost to bring their newfound freedom into practice – it was a “Fest der Demokratie” in the words of Stefan Wolle, and no time to be preoccupied with the petty jobs that they had had for years.
On the 10th of January however this changed. Armin Mitter and Stefan Wolle pinned their ‘Aufruf zur Bildung einer Arbeitsgruppe unabhängiger Historiker in der DDR’45 to the schwarzen Bretter at their institute – since they had little money nor advanced equipment, this was the easiest way to spread the word. The three-page document was a frontal assault on established GDR historiography and was set in rather coarse language, intended to provoke strong reactions. The paper is divided into five paragraphs that on the one hand follow a very clear argumentation scheme but are on the other hand packed with rhetorical devices. Apparently there had not been any direct cause for Mitter and Wolle to write the text other than to stir up things at the institute. Thus, according to Wolle, it was written impulsively and in the heat of the moment, at the time perhaps even without seriously considering the foundation of a club for oppositional historians.
It starts with an accusation of the humanities in the GDR as they were before the revolution. Mitter and Wolle spare no excuses as they condemn the humanities of having been pseudo-scientific and oppressive, producing only lies and half-truths, because of their monolithic Marxist claims to truth. They conclude that historiography was affected the most. In the second paragraph they state that in the current situation nothing has changed. While the debate amongst historians seemingly offers solutions to the crisis of historiography, according to Mitter and Wolle it denies the real problem that GDR history 44 Interview with Stefan Wolle, conducted by author, 26-6-2013.
is facing: the party is again trying to take control over history, in order to make it an instrument of domination.
“Es geht erneut um die Instrumentalisierung der Geschichte zum Zweck der Herrschaftssicherung. Die Legitimation, die ihr das Volk vom ersten Tag ihrer Machtergreifung an verweigerte, versucht die SED durch eine neue
Geschichtsideologie zu ersetzen.”46
This is the central argument of the ‘Aufruf’ and it is quite bold. Not only does it imply that the SED (by the time already renamed SED-PDS) was trying to turn back the effects of the revolution, but also that the historiography debate was merely an
opportunistic guise to implement a new ideology of history. Whether or not Mitter and Wolle really thought that the old system was actually adjusting to the new situation in order to regain control is hard to determine. They were at least being provocative, as is clear from their overall denigrating wording – a case in point being the designation of the discussion from late 1989 as “Gerede”. Yet we must not forget that at the beginning of 1990, it was not clear at all what would happen to the GDR. The text was written during a heavy debate between the Zentralen Runden Tisch and the Modrow administration on the dissolution of the MfS. It was only days before Mitter and Wolle joined the occupation of the MfS headquarters in the Normannenstraße by the Bürgerbewegung, marking the beginning of their involvement in the Stasi-Auflösung.
In the third paragraph the authors explain that the “moral and intellectual
degeneration” of historians is the cause for these new dictatorial threats. Mitter and Wolle argue that after years of lying to their readers as well as to themselves, the moral
standards of most GDR historians have actually become incapable of sustaining a free, pluralist and valid historiography. Furthermore the authors claim in the fourth paragraph that this is the historians’ own responsibility. In an implicit, but quite evident comparison to the aftermath of World War II, East German historians are blamed for building an apologetic “Kollektivschuldlegende” and invoking an “angeblichen Befehlsnotstand”. Mitter and Wolle however refute any such argument, stating that “zumindest in den letzten Jahren niemand gezwungen wurde, die stupiden Phrasen der marxistischen 46 Ibidem.
Geschichtspropaganda öffentlich wiederzukäuen” (note the emphasis on “öffentlich”). The final paragraph serves to make the call mentioned in the title. Because of the corruption, perversion and total stagnation of historiographical institutions and historians themselves, Mitter and Wolle have no hope for a reform from within. Therefore they aim to found an Arbeitgemeinschaft for critical historians that is independent from
institutions, from the party and from degenerate morality. The appeal is concluded by a climactic enumeration of four means to achieve their goals – to join the democratic opposition movement, to work with oppositional journals and editors, to secure the Stasi files and to document the democratic movement: “Es geht um die Brechung auchdes geistigen Machtmonopols der SED. Es geht um die Wiederherstellung der Würde eines Berufsstandes.”
Sadly, the reception of the text is not very well documented. Afterwards it has been justly cited as the real start of the debate on GDR historiography, but at the time it did not seem to have had much of an effect. To be sure, established historians who read the accusations made at them must have felt very insulted, but according to Eckert they did not bother to write any response or defence. Fellow oppositional historians of Mitter and Wolle on the other hand seem to have disapproved of it as well for being too radical and hence not constructive.47 In short, there is no written evidence that the appeal had
much success.
However, exactly one month later Wolle would convince those who were sceptic about the ‘Aufruf’ that there was no alternative than to break radically with GDR
historiography. On the 10th of February the Historiker-Gesellschaft organized an extra
meeting for its members, during which the society was supposed to renew its statutes, choose a new board and set goals for its future in the GDR. Nevertheless, the setting alone – the highly ideological Parteihochschule Karl Marx, directly controlled by the former SED – was not very promising. In fact, it turned out that oppositional historians were side-tracked once again. Questions on oppression were not addressed and the new board consisted entirely of historians from the establishment,48 although for example 47 Interview with Bernd Florath, conducted by Krijn Thijs, 8-5-2013.
48 Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk, ‘Der Unabhängige Historiker-Verband (UHV)’ in: Eckert, Kowalczuk and Stark, Hure oder Muse, 59-75 and Winfried Schulze, ‘Das traurigste Los aber traf die
Geschichtswissenschaft – die DDR-Geschichtswissenschaft nach der “deutschen Revolution”’ in: Rainer Eckert, Wolfgang Küttler en Gustav Seeber eds., Krise – Umbruch – Neubeginn: eine kritische und
Eckert, in an attempt at reform from within, stood as a candidate.49 In this setting Wolle
decided once again to provoke the old elite. He held a speech, in which he compared the meeting to an assembly of prostitutes to found a “Sittlichkeitsverein”; it is needless to say that those whom he addressed did not appreciate this comparison, to say the least. In the following turmoil, where Wolle was amongst other things called a traitor, it was actually suggested that he be banned from speaking, an out-dated sanction that obviously
confirmed the accusations from the Aufruf and the speech. For Eckert and Florath, as for others probably, it thus became clear that any attempts to reform the institutions from inside were futile.50
The next day Eckert sent Wolle a short note, inviting him to a meeting organized by fellow historian Harald Dehne at the Kulturhaus Erich Franz in Prenzlauer Berg. Its purpose would be to bring together several historians who intended to organize an independent movement, in order to exchange ideas.51 Unfortunately, no sources affirm
that the meeting, set for the 27th of February, actually took place or that Wolle joined it.
More importantly however, on the 2nd of March, another meeting – perhaps the first one
was rescheduled – was organized in the Haus der Demokratie at the Friedrichstraße. Notes made by Eckert show that forty persons attended the meeting, sixteen of whom he names because they had a say in the discussion. Amongst the speakers were most members of the association’s first board: Wolle and Mitter of course, but also their colleagues from the ZIG and the ZIAG Wolfram Brandes, Andreas Graf, Jochen Laufer as well as, remarkably, the American historian Michael Cullen. He had been living and working in West-Berlin since the late sixties and had been asked to collect as many documents and other materials on the revolution and its aftermath as he could find. In doing so, he met Mitter and Wolle while they worked in the Haus der Demokratie, probably just a few days before the meeting. During the ensuing conversation, according to Cullen, they agreed that he would be welcome to offer some advice, particularly based on his knowledge of the Western Aufarbeitung of World War II and of the Western structure of historiography.52
selbstkritische Dokumentation der DDR-Geschichtswissenschaft 1989/90 (Stuttgart 1992) 213-227, spec.
217.
49 Interview with Eckert.
50 Interviews with Eckert and Florath.
51 Personal archive Wolle, Telegram from Rainer Eckert to Stefan Wolle, 11-2-90. 52 Interview with Michael S. Cullen, conducted by the author, 5-7-2013.
The header of Eckert’s notes – “Konstituierende Sitzung der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Unabhänigen Historiker” – and its content reveal that the gathering was in fact the informal constitution of the UHV;53 they show discussion about the form the project
should take, its scope and its goals. Although it is naturally impossible to reconstruct what was said, it seems that most attention was paid to resolving and replacing the old establishment and preserving and opening archives – the same themes as those in the ‘Aufruf’, although Wolle apparently admitted, possibly to reassure his fellows, that the text had been somewhat exaggerated (“an einigen Stellen überzogen”54). The political
situation however had changed over the course of January and February. With the elections of the 18th of March in view, the possibility of German reunification became
ever more likely, meaning that the UHV’s relation with Western historiography was to be discussed as well.
Remarkably, in Eckert’s remarks no particular mention is made of the Stasi and its archives. Later on, this would however be a major theme for the UHV. Furthermore, at the time of the meeting, Mitter and Wolle were very occupied with the dissolution of the MfS. A few days after the run on the Stasi headquarters the workgroup on security in service of the Runden Tisch had appointed them as experts to secure the archives. In the two months since then, they had been collecting and taking away documents, in an effort to save them from the ongoing illegal destruction of files by former Stasi employees. On the 13th of March they were thus able for the first time to publish contents of Stasi files.
The volume “Ich liebe euch doch alle” documented the fall of the GDR since early 1989 through top-secret reports and messages.55 The book was an instant hit. Tens of thousands
of copies were sold just in the days following its publication; in total, around 250.000 copies have been sold. It thus helped Mitter and Wolle to gain fame as well as some money, both of which they could use very well in their effort to change GDR
historiography. Therefore the success of the book, although it had nothing to do with the association directly, was an important impulse for what the UHV would come to be.
53 Archiv Bürgerbewegung Leipzig e.V., Eck 7, 2-3-1990. 54 Ibidem.
55 Armin Mitter and Stefan Wolle eds., “Ich liebe euch doch alle” – Befehle und Lageberichte des
Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit der DDR: Januar bis November 1989 (Berlin 1990) and Stefan Wolle,
‘Wir sind das Ärgernis’, Die Welt 29-9-2000, available at http://www.welt.de/print-welt/article535447/Wir-sind-das-Aergernis.html.
In April then, the UHV was officially founded on a Saturday morning in a Klubgaststätte, better known as the Fresswürfel56 at the Karl-Liebknecht-Allee, very
close to the Alexanderplatz. Although no official record exists, apparently some hundred people attended the event.57 Besides many historians and archivists from the different
institutions at the AdW, there was a film crew from West Berlin as well as several prominent and notable guests. From the Bundesrepublik came the president of the VHD, Wolfgang Mommsen, accompanied by a few of its other board members. More
strikingly, some members of the GDR establishment who had been invited, attended the meeting as well, among them the new president of the Historiker-Gesellschaft Günter Vogler – notwithstanding the fact that he left during the lunch break without saying a word.
The program of the gathering, according to an undated invitation,58 consisted in
the first place of two speeches by Wolle and Mitter, respectively on the tasks and goals of the association and on the relations between the two German historiographies. An
unfinished draft of Wolle’s speech probably shows why Vogler left the meeting. Like the Aufruf, the text appealed directly to the responsibility established historians bore to the ‘grotesque’ crisis of historiography. Indeed, it emphasized the paradoxical nature of their opportunistic attitude; those who had been the most parteinah were now the ones to (pretend to) embrace democratic values the most. As much as they had distanced themselves from the SED, they wanted to retain their positions within historiography. Once again Wolle accused East German historians of suffering from moral degeneration, stating that it provided him with the sole explanation “dass diejenigen, die früher den Kapitalismus am lautesten verdammten, den vielgeschmähten Vertretern der
“bürgerlichen Wissenschaft” am eifrigsten die Stiefel lecken.”59
Obviously Wolle neither intended to please the West Germans. First, he pointed out that the leading GDR historians could retain their positions partly because they had been privileged to travel to the West, thus entertaining contacts with the establishment in the Bundesrepublik. Second, in explicit reference to the now certain German
56 Irony dictates that in the present the same building is home to an establishment of the Hofbräuhaus
München, cf. Uwe Aulich, ‘Ein Hofbräuhaus für die Hauptstadt’, Berliner Zeitung (2-3-2011).
57 Schulze, ‘Das traurigste Los’, 214.
58 Personal archive Wolle, invitation to foundational meeting, without date. 59 Personal archive Wolle, unfinished draft for speech, without date.
reunification, Wolle claimed that the East Germans could only settle their problems among themselves. Even in a nominally democratic reunified Germany, the UHV would therefore still be necessary to renew historiography, and thereby help the democratization of society.60 Both issues were intended to show the attending West German historians, who according to Wolle were eager to keep peace, that the UHV was not only necessary, but also that it was more apt to solve the crisis.
After the lunch break, medieval historian Wolfgang Eggert proposed a draft for a statute in which the goals, means and form of the association where to be defined. This consisted mainly of juridical and formal clauses that bore little resemblance to the sharp words of Wolle earlier on the day – possibly as a warrant for the democratic organization of the association, which for the East Germans of course was not self-evident. In general they reflected the UHV’s wish for the democratization of historiography as well as the Aufarbeitung of GDR history. It was for example decided that the plenary session was the highest organ in the association; it was to be held once a year. Daily executive power was in hands of the board which consisted of no more than seven members and which was elected by the plenary session every two years. A separate committee decided on the admission of new members. Most notably, in clause 5 it was determined that anyone with an interest in historiography could join the UHV, thus including laymen and West Germans – to encourage both those who had been denied access to university and those who had fled the GDR to become members. Finally, a first board was chosen. Evidently, Mitter and Wolle became members and besides them, it consisted of the American Cullen, archivist Ulrich Geyer and historians Brandes, Florath, Graf and Laufer. So, a little over three months after the initial call, the UHV was now set to carry out its program.
2.2 Stepping into the limelight
While during the first half year after the Friedliche Revolution very little had changed on the surface of East German historiography – although internally it was suffering from an
existential crisis – during the next half year, up to German reunification, the UHV intended to bring about the changes it desired, namely, removing the old elite and establishing a sound and democratic historiography. This meant that its founders’ words had in some way to be put into practice. However, despite the heavy criticism of the existing academic structures and personnel and a strong wish to restore the historian’s dignity, no practical plans had yet been made. Consequently, during its first meetings, the board had to decide on the one hand which concrete issues to tackle, and on the other hand, how exactly to go about doing this.
The first step in this process seems to have been gaining the attention of the press, because, according to Guntolf Herzberg, no one had yet thought of that.61 Indeed, media
coverage of the UHV’s foundation was not overwhelming, to say the least –
notwithstanding the presence of a camera crew. In Hure oder Muse only one article can be found, relating directly to the event: Herzberg, who had met several times with Wolle and Mitter in early 1990, had done an impromptu interview with Wolfram Brandes. Two weeks later, however, a seminar organized by the history department of the Technische Universität provided the UHV with a stage where its members could speak out. While being one of the first West German conferences on GDR historiography, only members from the AdW establishment had been invited, among them Walter Schmidt, Peter Hübner, Olaf Groehler and Jochen Çerny. It is not clear why no UHV members were invited to represent their newly founded association; nevertheless, they attended the meeting to express their indignation.62 An article in the Tagesspiegel reported that, after a
lecture by Walter Schmidt on the crisis of GDR historiography, they left the seminar after demanding a debate and “personelle Konsequenzen”.63 This was quite contrary to what
Schmidt had pleaded for, that is, speaking in terms of a catharsis rather than bearing responsibility.64 Another article, in the tageszeitung – just as the first one siding with the
UHV – spoke of a heavy argument,65 very probably alike to the dispute that Wolle had 61 Interview with Guntolf Herzberg and Isolde Stark, conducted by the author, 15-7-2013.
62 It is unknown which members attended; it seems very probable that Mitter and Wolle where among them.
63 ‘Existenzkrise der DDR-Historiker’ in: Eckert, Kowalczuk and Stark, Hure oder Muse, 310-311. 64 Walter Schmidt, ‘DDR-Geschichtswissenschaft im Umbruch. Leistungen – Grenze – Probleme’ in: Eckert, Krise – Umbruch – Neubeginn, 175-192, spec. 188-189.
65 Winfried Sträter, ‘In der Zunft der Historiker bewegt sich noch nichts’, Eckert, Kowalczuk and Stark,
evoked in February – only this time with a West German audience.
At the very same time, the first board meetings were organized. An undated, handwritten and unfortunately incomplete protocol by Eckert, probably of one of these meetings, shows that Wolfram Brandes apparently proposed to write an article on the situation of historiography. The text was to stress the need for the resolution of the Historikergesellschaft and the resignation of all professors as well as the academic leadership.66 The resulting text was dated May 1990 and signed by the board, although,
judging by its ironic tone and regular use of metaphors, it was written mainly by Wolle. While the content of the plea had not changed, for the first time a method was proposed how to get rid of the “vielköpfige Hydra der ‘alten Kader’”.67 The solution was that an
objective judgment of the individual members’ performance in the GDR should and would lead to the dismissal or early retirement of the entire establishment.
Shortly after its foundation, the UHV thus found its way into public attention. It had addressed the need to evaluate and reform academic personnel, both in spoken and in written word. Frontal assault and provocation turned out to be useful ways to gain the attention that the association desired – outside professional historiography as well. Clearly the minds of the board members had been pervaded by the thought that this kind of attention could be a powerful tool, for the mentioned protocol by Eckert reads from the lips of Andreas Graf: “auf alle Veranstaltungen allen präsent, z.B. Bochum; immer in Medien präsent.”68
Notwithstanding this initial success, as I think we may call it, during the next two months the UHV did not publish any texts – why exactly is hard to tell, but looking back it clearly was the calm before the storm. With German reunification entering its final stage, it became obvious that the academies and universities of the GDR would be reorganized to West German standards. It was around this time then, according to Konrad Jarausch in 1991, that the “Reformdebatte” changed into an “Überlebensdiskussion”.69
An official statement by the VHD listed several demands according to which GDR historiography was to be restructured. In general this reflected the same wish expressed
66 ABL Eck 7, Unabhängige Historikerverband, handwritten protocol, 23-6-1990.
67 ‘Anmerkungen zur Situation der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften in der DDR’ in Eckert, Kowalczuk and Stark, Hure oder Muse, 33-36.
68 ABL Eck 7, 23-6-1990.
by the UHV board a month earlier. Yet since VHD president Wolfgang Mommsen could not break all ties with the establishment, it was less explicit about who were to be
replaced by whom; besides, it read between the lines that the West Germans would be the ones to take command of the reforms. Correspondence between Mitter, Wolle and
Mommsen shows, according to Christoph Cornelißen, that the UHV members were not in the least satisfied with the text, still feeling disadvantaged vis-à-vis the GDR elite.70
Winfried Schulze, writing in July, remembered attending the assembly on the 21st of
April, but warned that the association stood alone amidst a rapidly changing and confusing academic landscape, leading him to the conclusion that it would be a “vorübergehendes Phänomen”.71
Towards the end of the summer nonetheless, several articles by individual board members showed that the UHV had not given up at all. Indeed, these texts made clear that the reunification was in their eyes not quite leading to an improvement in the conditions for historiography. Its speed on the one hand and the prevalence of West German interest on the other hand – as perceived by the UHV – caused a lot of issues to be unresolved and was an immediate threat to East German Aufarbeitung. In the ‘Aufruf zur Bildung einer Forschungsstätte zur Geschichte der DDR und ihrer
Repressivorgane’,72 Mitter and Wolle warned that a Sperrfrist for the archives according
to FRG law would mean the end of historical research of the East German state, while it had only just begun. Therefore they appealed to found an independent research centre – of course assuming that they, being independent historians, could be leading this
institution. In order to give the paper a greater sense of urgency, Mitter and Wolle signed it both in name of the UHV as well as that of the ‘Arbeitsgruppe zur Aufdeckung der Strukturen und Arbeitsweise des MfS’. Thus they combined the long-term need for historical research on the GDR with the short-term issue of whether or not the aforementioned research team could continue its work after the reunification, as concluded by Ralf-Georg Reuth in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.73
70 Cristoph Cornelißen, ‘“Vereinigungs-Historikertag” in Bochum? Zur Rolle des Verbandes der Historiker Deutschlands (VHD) in den Jahren 1989–1991’, GWU 64 (2013) 187-202, 194. 71 Schulze, ‘Das traurigste Los’, 215.
72 ‘Aufruf zur Bildung einer Forschungsstätte zur Geschichte der DDR und ihrer Repressivorgane’ in: Eckert, Kowalczuk and Stark, Hure oder Muse, 37-38.
73 Ralf-Georg Reuth, ‘“Im wahrsten Sinne Schild und Schwert der Partei”’ in: Eckert, Krise – Umbruch –
The call for this research centre at the end of August marked the first time that the UHV publicly formulated its second specific goal in well-defined terms. The institution’s main tasks should be securing and managing the huge archives of both the Stasi and the SED, in order to make them accessible for both professional and lay researchers. The key issue of Mitter’s and Wolle’s call seems to have been that democracy and Aufarbeitung necessarily implied one another. On the one hand they stated that a scientific debate on recent German history was an unconditional requirement for democracy to function in the reunified country. On the other they underlined the importance of a democratic
organization of the supervision of archives. To achieve this, they proposed to centralize them in the former Stasi headquarters, because these buildings offered enough space and because lots of archives, such as that of the SED, were still located in their original form in the hands of the former GDR establishment.
In the weeks following this statement, the UHV increasingly got the attention of a West German audience through western newspapers. The association reiterated its demands on several occasions; Mitter and Wolle for example both published articles in the same edition of Das Parlament. Mitter repeated in a matter-of-fact manner the wish to centralize the GDR’s archives as a foundation for a research institution.74 Wolle’s
article reflected more elaborately on the question of the moral integrity of GDR
historians, abstracting from his own experiences the types of the opportunistic established professor versus the critical student of history.75 Moreover, the FAZ, as one of Germany’s
leading newspapers, covered the developments extensively, explicitly siding with the UHV – or, to put it otherwise, taking a stance against the SED. This laid the foundation of a somewhat unusual alliance between the independent historians and the conservative newspaper, which would eagerly publish their articles over the years to come. Thus, with German reunification only very few steps away, the UHV had decisively taken position in the public debate – or rather a position towards the lack thereof.
In that atmosphere of heavy tensions and open enmity between East German
secure the existence of the Arbeitsgruppe – it is important to note that he seems to have completely misread the last paragraph of the August Aufruf. Where Reuth quotes them as saying that the “Überleben” of the
Arbeitsgruppe is at stake, Wolle and Mitter in fact state: “Die etablierte Historikerzunft … ist mit dem
eigenen Überleben beschäftigt.”
74 Armin Mitter, ‘Angst und Hilfslosigkeit in den Köpfen. Die DDR-Vergangenheit wird zum Problem der Zukunft’ in: Eckert, Krise – Umbruch – Neubeginn, 107-110.
historians, the biennial Historikertag in Bochum promised to be an event to be remembered – if only because it would be the first one in over thirty years to include attendees from the GDR who were not part of an official delegation.76 Although the
organizers had not intended the conference to be centred around the crisis of East German historiography, its theme – identities in history – its date – only days before actual
reunification as well as its program, that had been modified during the year to keep up with political developments, left no doubt that both the past and the future of GDR historiography would be the real issues at stake.77
Especially the panel discussion “Zur Lage der Geschichtswissenschaft der DDR”, which had been added on rather short notice, had caused worries on the West German side. Reconstructing the preparations for the event, Christoph Cornelißen shows how Wolfgang Mommsen and the discussion’s moderator Christian Meier picked up the idea from Wolle, but struggled to prevent it from becoming neither a provocative act by the young independent historians nor an apologetic performance by SED-historians. They wanted to have both established and UHV historians on the panel, in order to achieve a well-balanced input to the discussion and to focus on current and future developments in (former) East German historiography. However, with the situation being as it was,
inviting one side evidently meant compromising and even provoking the other.78 Evading
the heavyweights of GDR historiography as much as possible, Mommsen and Meier invited four colleagues they deemed to be politically less fraught: Manfred Kossok, Jan Peters, Erich Donnert and Hartmut Zwahr. Representing the UHV was Armin Mitter, who warned Mommsen in August already that he would not allow the established historians to use the debate in their advantage. Looking back Cornelißen concludes that the sensible discussion on the present and future perspectives of GDR historiography as Mommsen had imagined it, seemed doomed.79 Yet no one could have foretold just how
dramatic the evening would be.
The discussion took place on Thursday evening, the second day of the three-day event. Despite a majority of West Germans in the audience, as well as two West German
76 Bericht über die 38. Versammlung deutscher Historiker in Bochum, 26-29 September 1990 (Stuttgart 1991) 6.
77 Cornelißen, ‘“Vereinigungs-Historikertag” in Bochum?’, 187. 78 Ibidem, 195-196.
