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German Refugee Historians and Friedrich Meinecke Studies in Central European Histories German Refugee Historians and Friedrich Meinecke Studies in Central European Histories Edited by Th omas A. Brady, Jr., University of California, Berkeley Roger Chickering, Georgetown University Editorial Board Steven Beller, Washington, D.C. Atina Grossmann, Columbia University Peter Hayes, Northwestern University Susan Karant-Nunn, University of Arizona Mary Lindemann, University of Miami David M. Luebke, University of Oregon H. C. Erik Midelfort, University of Virginia David Sabean, University of California, Los Angeles Jonathan Sperber, University of Missouri Jan de Vries, University of California, Berkeley VOLUME XLIX German Refugee Historians and Friedrich Meinecke Letters and Documents, 1910–1977 By Gerhard A. Ritter Translated by Alex Skinner LEIDEN • BOSTON 2010 Th is book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Friedrich Meinecke. English. German refugee historians and Friedrich Meinecke : letters and documents, 1910– 1977 / [introduced and edited by] by Gerhard A. Ritter ; translated by Alex Skinner. p. cm. — (Studies in Central European histories ; v. 49) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-18404-6 (hbk. : alk. paper) 1. Meinecke, Friedrich, 1862–1954—Relations with students. 2. Meinecke, Friedrich, 1862–1954— Correspondence. 3. Meinecke, Friedrich, 1862–1954—Archives. 4. Historians— Germany—Correspondence. 5. Historians—Germany—Archives. 6. History teachers—Germany— Corr espondence. 7. Historians—United States— Correspondence. 8. Historians—United States—Archives. 9. Historiography— Germany—History—20th century—Sources. 10. Historiography—United States— History—20th century—Sources. I. Meinecke, Friedrich, 1862–1954. II. Ritter, Gerhard Albert. III. Title. IV. Series. DD86.7.M43F7513 2010 907.2’02—dc22 2010000467 Friedrich Meinecke. Akademischer Lehrer und emigrierte Schüler. Briefe und Aufzeichnungen 1910–1977. Eingeleitet und bearbeitet von Gerhard A. Ritter. © 2006 by Oldenbourg Wissenschaft sverlag GmbH, München, and Institut für Zeitgeschichte, München-Berlin. Geisteswissenschaft en International—Translation Funding for Humanities and Social Sciences from Germany. A joint initiative of the Fritz Th yssen Foundation, the German Federal Foreign Offi ce, and the German Publishers & Booksellers Association. ISBN 978 90 04 18404 6 ISSN 1547-1217 Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, Th e Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to Th e Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands CONTENTS Foreword to the English Edition ...................................................... vii Introduction: Friedrich Meinecke and his émigré students ........ 1 I. Meinecke as historian and political contemporary ............ 3 II. Meinecke as academic teacher ............................................... 18 III. Meinecke’s émigré students ................................................... 23 1. Hans Rothfels .................................................................... 23 2. Dietrich Gerhard .............................................................. 32 3. Gerhard Masur ................................................................. 36 4. Hajo Holborn ................................................................... 40 5. Felix Gilbert ...................................................................... 51 6. Hans Baron ....................................................................... 56 7. Helene Wieruszowski ...................................................... 61 8. Hans Rosenberg ............................................................... 65 9. Hedwig Hintze .................................................................. 79 10. Eckart Kehr ....................................................................... 91 11. Hanns Günther Reissner ................................................ 97 12. Gustav Mayer .................................................................... 98 IV. Meinecke, his émigré students and relations between the discipline of history in Germany and the United States ............................................................................ 107 Documents List of Documents .............................................................................. 117 I. Hans Rothfels ........................................................................... 128 II. Dietrich Gerhard ..................................................................... 173 III. Gerhard Masur ......................................................................... 208 IV. Hajo Holborn ........................................................................... 237 V. Felix Gilbert .............................................................................. 272 VI. Hans Baron ............................................................................... 286 VII. Helene Wieruszowski .............................................................. 320 VIII. Hans Rosenberg ....................................................................... 330 IX. Hedwig Hintze .......................................................................... 448 vi contents X. Eckart Kehr ................................................................................. 470 XI. Hanns Günther Reissner .......................................................... 490 XII. Gustav Mayer ............................................................................. 492 Sources and bibliography .................................................................. 529 Index of names .................................................................................... 549 FOREWORD TO THE ENGLISH EDITION Th e initial impetus for this book, which for the present editor increas- ingly became a labour of love, came from an invitation from the Land of Saxony-Anhalt, in which Meinecke’s birthplace of Salzwedel is located, to give a talk in February 2004 at an event marking the 50th anniversary of his death. It was suggested to me that I might draw on some of my own memories of Meinecke. I grew up two houses away from his house in Dahlem. Meinecke ultimately suff ered from severely impaired vision, and I used to read to him from academic works, which naturally gave rise to numerous conversations. I was even bet- ter acquainted with his wife, who survived him by seventeen years and continued to maintain close contact with most of his American students aft er his death. I quickly came to realize that personal recollections would form an inadequate basis for a talk. At the same time, as I re-read Meinecke’s major works and reviewed many of the books and articles written about him, I became aware of the deafening silence now surrounding a man who, during the time of the Weimar Republic and the fi rst few years aft er the Second World War—in West Germany and probably even more in other Western countries—was regarded as the leading representative of the discipline of history in Germany. His approach to research, a subtle history of ideas focussing on the leading thinkers of a given era, was considered obsolete in Germany—to a greater extent than in other countries, where it was developed further—because it neglected not only the reality of economic and social life, but also political structures and processes. Th e task of coming to terms with National Socialism, which Meinecke had already begun in 1946, with- out access to source materials, in his book Th e German Catastrophe, developed into a highly sophisticated, specialized fi eld of history draw- ing on a wide range of source materials. At the same time, however, it became clear that Meinecke’s students oft en played a decisive role in shift ing the focus of interest to new areas, deploying new methods, drawn particularly from the related social sciences, and disseminating the results of Anglo-Saxon research produced aft er 1933 in West Germany. I thus began to ask myself whether Meinecke’s most enduring impact—the impact of a man who viii foreword to the english edition never founded a school in the narrow sense of the term—did not in fact lie in his activities as an academic teacher. My study of Meinecke’s papers in the Secret State Archive (Geheimes Staatsarchiv) of Prussia in Berlin-Dah lem, a voluminous and as yet far from adequately evaluated source, then revealed that Meinecke’s students who were compelled to emigrate because of their Jewish descent or political views—particularly Hans Rothfels, Dietrich Gerhard, Gerhard Masur, Hajo Holborn, Felix Gilbert, Helene Wieruszowski and Hans Rosenberg—resumed contact with Meinecke very quickly aft er the war, supplying him with CARE packages and medicine and thus keeping him alive. In many cases, the old teacher-student rela- tionship was revived and his students provided Meinecke with detailed accounts not only of their lives in the United States, but also of their scholarly plans, though these oft en involved an extensive—and some- times conscious—process of their
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