On Germany – Roy Zunder in Haaretz:

‘ The request to interview Hedwig Richter, a leading German historian, drew a polite response tinged with apprehension: “I am pleased with the interest in my theses, as long as it actually deals with that and not with its distortion,” she replied initially. Her concern is understandable. Recently, intellectuals and cultural figures in her country have come under attack for daring to criticize German-Israeli relations, and particularly for criticizing the role played by Holocaust remembrance in transforming Germany into a Western power that’s at the forefront when it comes to espousing liberal values. Richter herself is treading a fine line between these two volatile issues, but despite being subjected to virulent attacks, her public standing is only growing stronger.
Richter, 49, grew up in a pious Protestant family in Bad Urach, a historic spa town south of Stuttgart. After graduating high school, in 1993, she spent a year in Israel, volunteering as an aide in the home of an elderly woman in Jerusalem. She went on to study history, German literature and philosophy at German universities and in Belfast, Northern Ireland, receiving her doctorate in 2008 from the University of Cologne.
In 2020 Richter was appointed professor of modern and contemporary history at the University of the Bundeswehr (the German armed forces) in Munich. That year also saw the publication of her book “Democracy. A German Affair” (in German), which generated a furor among academics and the public. After 40 years in which disputes between German historians were out of the limelight, Richter managed to spur local citizens, scholars and media outlets alike to take a renewed interest in the character of the German Empire.
The book sets out to demonstrate that Germany’s involvement with democratic practices did not begin following the defeat of the Third Reich in 1945, but much earlier – around the time when the Kaiserreich, the German Empire, came into being, in 1871. Using as a springboard the historical romance Prof. Richter found between Germany and democracy, she was able to compare the contemporary Federal German Republic with other liberal democracies that achieved “Western” maturity far more rapidly and with far less bloodshed.’

(…)

‘Richter’s penchant for calling historical conventions into question has drawn fire from leading academics. Prof. Eckart Conze, from the University of Marburg, maintains that Richter is downplaying the saliently authoritarian nature of the German Empire. Prof. Ulrich Herbert, from the University of Freiburg, says the way she locates the Third Reich along a continuum of democratic tradition has devalued the concept of democracy. And Prof. Andreas Wirsching, from the University of Munich, contends that Richter has not only failed in assessing the threat posed to liberal democracy today by the New Right – a political movement based on cultural and national pride that seeks an ethnically pure and hegemonic Europe: She also provided that movement with ideological underpinnings that blur the antidemocratic tradition of the German Empire.
Other academic as well as influential media figures, though, have lauded the 2020 book and Richter’s fertile approach to investigating Germany’s past. “I have pity on my discipline,” tweeted Patrick Bahners, a commentator for the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Richter rises above all her mediocre colleagues.” Additional positive reviews praised Richter’s tightly interconnected combination of passion and sharp historical analysis. Her advocates see her as a “breath of fresh air” in a masculine academic milieu that is conservative and stagnant. One of her supporters is none other than the president of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who often incorporates her in academic projects produced under his auspices.’

(…)

‘Richter’s best-known article, “The Angst About the Volk,” co-authored with Bernd Ulrich, associate editor of Die Zeit, was published last year in that newspaper. The two argue that the German elites are entrenching themselves in a historically misguided conception of “the special way” (Sonderweg). According to this idea, Germans’ unconscious nature leads them to march toward barbaric regimes. Nowadays elites draw on that trait as a means to control the inherent dangers associated with the masses. Thus, they describe German policy as a “pacifism of broken tanks,” explaining that the state is wasting a fortune on building an immense military force that is bound to stay hysterically strangled and paralyzed at any given time. The authors added that this specific method of self-flagellation over Nazi crimes hinders Germany from coping correctly with the complex geopolitical challenges confronting it, and also has implications for its ability to function as an independent state and for its relations with the great powers, notably the United States.
In contrast to other academics, you are also actively trying to influence Germany’s foreign and defense policy.
“We start the article by stating that Germany remembers the Holocaust. There is absolutely no doubt that Germany bears an ongoing responsibility for the Holocaust, which is a unique crime against humanity. But then we state that we should not take this remembering as a means to say: ‘Don’t do anything bad to the Germans, because then the Nazis will spring up from them again.’ We need to remember this and say that now we have a special responsibility.
“Like most Germans, I think the Holocaust has bestowed on us a special responsibility, one that does not mean that we should not do anything and just keep calm – because then Germans will become Nazis again. On the contrary: We need to take responsibility for the environment, for refugees, take responsibility in foreign affairs and so on.”’

Read the article here.

Both Weimar and Germany between 1870 and 1914 were more ambiguous and nuanced than some people would like to believe.

And Weimar might have been not doomed from the beginning.

What is interesting about Richter’s approach is that she rejects German’s exceptionalism, which seems plausible to me.

A movie like ‘The White Ribbon’ by Haneke suggests the connection between fascism and the (German) father as dictator at home, maybe, but of course as explanation it’s not enough. I loved the movie by the way.

And Richter is right when she stresses that the idea that democracy is a weak and sick animal that might die any moment is not strengthening it but destroying it.

Richter is just one example that German’s relationship with the Third Reich is changing and for that reason Germany will become a different country.