Germany: 2000 Years I-II. [antikvár]

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION More than ten years have passed since this book was first published. Although this new edition appears with only minor changes, a few qualifying remarks seem to be in order. While it has been found necessary to revise and supplement the bibliography, both external and personal circumstances make it inadvisable at this time to append another section covering the political and cultural history of Germany during the rise and fall of the Nazi Empire and during and following World War II. This addition is planned, however, for the not too distant future. Moreover, what the author stated in the Preface to the edition of 1949, is still essentially valid: (i) "There is no lack of able (though at times one-sided) presentations of the rise and fall of Germany under National Socialism." (2) "The author is convinced that the most recent phase of German history is [still] too close to the historian's field of vision to allow for a perspective that is duly proportioned and therefore objectively reliable. The author has therefore confined himself to making visible and intelligible certain trends in recent German history which eventually converged in the rise of National Socialism." It remains equally true that even after the passage of more than a decade there is to this date "lacking a comprehensive survey presenting the history of Germany in its entirety, in both its political and cultural aspects and implications." And the author feels as strongly as he did in 1949 that "the attempt to write such a history single-handed is such a formidable undertaking that it might almost appear presumptuous." He has embarked on this venture "fully conscious of the necessarily fragmentary nature of a work of this scope and of certain almost inevitable weaknesses in the intended synthesis. He has approached his task guided by the conviction that political and cultural history are actually inseparable, mutually mirroring and illuminating each other, so that the one cannot really be comprehended and appreciated apart from the other. In trying to integrate both, the author has scrupulously endeavored to avoid shallow popularization on the one hand and the technical intricacies of detailed specialized research on the other." Each section dealing with a particular period in German history opens with a chronological table and a cursory account of the main political currents and events. This is followed by a discussion of the major cultural trends and movements in the several fields of human endeavor and accomplishment: in state and .society; in political, economic, and social theory and practice; in