History 231
Modern German History
Instructor: Helmut Walser Smith
Benson 112
Office hours: wed:1-4
Email: Helmut.W.Smith@Vanderbilt.edu
This course is an introduction to modern German history from the Enlightenment to the present. It addresses social, cultural, and political aspects of Germany’s vexed path to modernity, and tries to understand the origins of the “German catastrophe.” The course also focuses on a number of specific themes central to modern German history, such as war and peace, intellectuals and politics, and the relation of non-Jewish to Jewish Germans.
1/14 Introduction
1/16 Fragmentation and Unity in German History
Read: Fulbrook, A Concise History of Germany,1-69 (Hereafter Fulbrook)
James J. Sheehan, “”What is German History? Reflections on the Role of the Nation in German History and Historiography,”
The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 53, No. 1. (Mar., 1981), pp. 1-23.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2801%28198103%2953%3A1%3C1%3AWIGHRO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J
1/19 German Society in the Eighteenth Century
1/21 The Enlightenment in Germany
1/23 Discussion
Read: Immanuel Kant, “What is Enlightenment,?”
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/CCREAD/etscc/kant.html
Immanuel Kant, “On Perpetual Peace.”
http://www.constitution.org/kant/perpeace.htm
1/26 The Impact of Napoleon
1/28 The Peace of Vienna and Metternich’s Vision of a World in Balance
1/30 Discussion
Read: Carl von Clausewitz, “What is War?”. Chapter one of On War.
http://www.clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/On_War/BK1ch01.html
Henry A. Kissinger, “The Congress of Vienna: A Reappraisal, World Politics, Vol. 8, No. 2. (Jan., 1956), pp. 264-280.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0043-8871%28195601%298%3A2%3C264%3ATCOVAR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3
2/2 Romanticism
2/4 German Nationalism
2/6 Discussion
Read: Johann Gottlieb Fichte, “Addresses to the German Nation,” Thirteenth Address: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/history/courses/europe1/weeks/ficht.htm
George S. Williamson, “What Killed August Von Kotzebue? The Temptations of Virtue and the Political Ideology of German Nationalism, 1789-1819,” Journal of Modern History, 72, no. 4 (2000): 890-943.
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdlink?index=0&did=000000068618038&SrchMode=1&sid=2&Fmt=6&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1069014965&clientId=2335
2/9 Coming Unhinged. A Social and Economic History of the German Lands
2/11 German Liberalism and the Revolution of 1848
2/13 Discussion:
Read: Fulbrook, 105-122
Friedrich Engels, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/germany/
2/16 The Bismarckian Revolution and the Unification of Germany
2/18 Culture Wars
2/20 Discussion:
Read: Fulbrook, 122-136
Otto Pflanze, “Bismarck and German Nationalism,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 60, No. 3. (Apr., 1955), pp. 548-566.Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-762%28195504%2960%3A3%3C548%3ABAGN%3E2.0.CO%3B2-%23
Margaret Lavinia Anderson; Kenneth Barkin,
“The Myth of the Puttkamer Purge and the Reality of the Kulturkampf: Some Reflections on the Historiography of Imperial Germany”
The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 54, No. 4. (Dec., 1982), pp. 647-686.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2801%28198212%2954%3A4%3C647%3ATMOTPP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A
2/23 The New Politics
2/25 The Origins of World War I
2/27 Discussion
Read: Fulbrook, 137-154
German Social Democracy’s Erfurt Plan, 1891
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1891erfurt.html
Margaret Lavinia Anderson , “Voter, Junker, Landrat, Priest: The Old Authorities and the New Franchise in Imperial Germany,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 98, No. 5. (Dec., 1993), pp. 1448-1474.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762%28199312%2998%3A5%3C1448%3AVJLPTO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L
Carl E. Schorske “Politics in a New Key: An Austrian Triptych,” The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 39, No. 4. (Dec., 1967), pp. 343-386. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2801%28196712%2939%3A4%3C343%3APIANKA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T
3/1 World War I
3/3 Mid Term (including section on “Strunk and White.”)
Spring Break
3/15 Germans and Jews in the Nineteenth Century
3/17 Between Assimilation and Anti-Semitism
3/19 Discussion
Read:Peter Gay, Freud, Jews and other Germans. Masters and Victms in Modernist Culture. New York, 1978, 1-188
3/22 The Fragile Republic of Weimar
3/24 Intellectuals and Politics
3/26 Discussion
Read: Fulbrook, 155-171
Joseph Roth, What I Saw. Reports from Berlin, 1920-1933.
3/29 The Suicide of a Democracy
3/31 The Brown Revolution
4/2 Discussion
Read: Fulbrook, 178-203
Marion A. Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (New York, 1998)
4/5 The Eastern Front of the Second World War
4/7 The Holocaust
4/9 Discussion:
Read: Imre Kertesz, Fateless.
4/12 Post war Germany
4/14 The Burden on the Past. Nurenberg, de-Nazification and Silence
4/16 Discussion
Read. Fulbrook, 204-251
Bernhard Schlink, The Reader (New York, 1995)
4/19 The Two Germanies
4/21 The Revolution of 1989
4/23 Slide Show: The Revolution
4/26 Final reflections
Final Exam: Wednesday, May 5, 3:00 p.m. or Friday, April 30, 12:00 noon
Written Work:
There are two five page papers (topics will be given in class), a mid-term and a final examination. Written work should be completed on time. For every day that written work is late, 1/2 of the grade will be taken off (i.e. from B+ to B). Over the course of the semester, you do, however, have a grace period. In other words, one of your essays may be passed in on the date of the following class (i.e. if due on Friday, then it must be passed in on Monday) without incurring a penalty. The papers will be graded with reference to William Strunk and E.B. White, Elements of Style, 4th ed., a book I would like you to purchase, if you do not already have a copy. As part of the mid-term exam, there will be a quiz on this book
Course grading:
Mid-term: 20%
Final: 20%
Papers: 40%
Attendance and Discussion: 20%
The books I recommend you purchase are:
Mary Fulbrook, A Concise History of Germany. Cambridge, 1990.
Peter Gay, Freud, Jews and Other Germans. Masters and Victims in Modernist Culture. New York, 1978.
Marion A. Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany. NewYork, 1998.
Joseph Roth, What I Saw: Reports from Berlin, 1920-1933. New York, 2003.
Imre Kertesz, Fateless, tr. Christopher and Katharina Wilson. New York, 1996..
Bernard Schlink, The Reader. New York, 1998
William Strunk and E.B. White, Elements of Style. 4th ed.
All books, save for “Strunk and White,” are on reserve at Central Library
