Gerhard Ritter
Gerhard Georg Bernhard Ritter (6 April 1888, in
A critic of both
After World War II, Ritter worked to restore German nationalism by attempting to separate it from Nazi ideology and favored pursuit of German national interests, rather than reconciliation with the victims of German aggression. At the end of his career, he argued against theories of the German historian Fritz Fischer. Ritter became an honorary member of the American Historical Association in 1959.
Early life
Ritter was born in Bad Sooden-Allendorf (now in the federal state of Hesse, in Central Germany). His father was a Lutheran clergyman. The young Ritter was educated at a gymnasium in Gütersloh.
University studies
His studies were continued at the Universities of
Ritter's first book was published in 1913: Die preußischen Konservativen und Bismarcks deutsche Politik (The Prussian Conservatives and Bismarck's German Policy). It was his
First World War
Ritter fought as an
He regarded the German defeat of 1918 as a great disaster.[4] Ritter believed that the monarchy had been the best form of government for Germany and that the Weimar Republic was a grave mistake since Germany did not have a tradition of republicanism.[4] Ritter subscribed to the 19th-century view of history as a form of political education for the elite, and contemporary politics were always a pressing concern for him.[4]
Marriage and family
In 1919, he married Gertrud Reichardt with whom he had three children.
Weimar Republic
Ritter worked as a professor at
Biography of Luther
In 1925, Ritter published a sympathetic biography of Martin Luther that made his reputation as a historian. Ritter treated his subject as an excellent example of the "eternal German".[4] Ritter argued against the view of Luther as an opportunist, which was promoted by Ernst Troeltsch and Max Weber, and instead contended that Luther was a man of faith, who possessed the ability to expose what Ritter regarded as grave flaws in the Catholic Church.[4] Ritter argued that Luther had inspired his followers to have the self-confidence to improve the world.[6]
Ritter's Luther biography was written in large part under the impact of the defeat of 1918 and so Ritter went to great lengths to defend what he regarded as the unique German spirit against what Ritter saw as the corrupt materialist spiritual outlook of the West.[7] Throughout his life, Lutheranism was a major influence on Ritter's writings.[8]
In particular, Ritter agreed with Luther's argument that the moral values of Christianity were relevant to only the individual, not the state.
Stein biography
During the last years of the Weimar Republic, Ritter changed his focus from the medieval period to the early modern period to the modern period and from cultural history to biographies of political figures.
Views on eve of Nazi takeover
On 11 February 1933, in a letter to a friend, Ritter described his intentions:
I am planning to write two books. One will be entitled 'What is Liberalism?', and will be the attempt to pave the way for the founding of a large national party of the center, a party which we need today more than ever before. The book will contribute to the drafting of a new liberal national program, which will offer political orientation based on historical reflection.... The second book is to...shed light on the great crises in the political and intellectual history of Germany, and will thus explain the present state of mind of the German people. This second book will serve two purposes. It will develop a new concept of the history of our nation... and it will help deepen the notion of the idea of German nationality and national consciousness after a time which this idea has in public use become unbearably trivial. New tasks are crowding in upon us. In our era the historian acquires a distinctive national function, an educational function. Certainly, for the time being no one wants to listen to him, because everyone is still running after noisy political agitators. But I am confident that a time will come when everyone will be thoroughly fed up with the din of national phrase-making and will long for a pure drink instead of the inebriating potion administered by the Nazis. The historian has to prepare positions for the reserves...".[10]
Already, at mid-day on January 30, 1933, in a fateful step, German President
Nazi regime
Initial support
Initially, Ritter supported the Nazi regime despite severe doubts about the Nazis, particularly over the regime's persecution of the churches.[6] He reconciled himself to refraining from censure of the regime and its foreign policy. In 1940, he stated that "the sword is always more ready to the hand of continental statesman who stands in the midst of the fray of European power interests, and must always be armed to counter an attack before it is too late". He agreed with Benito Mussolini that "might is the precondition of all freedom".[12]
Ritter publicly referred to the Nazi Reich as the "peaceful center of Europe" that would form a "bulwark against Bolshevism", and he praised the German
National conservative
Ritter was a staunch German nationalist and belonged to a political movement generally known to historians as
The deep belief that Ritter had in a Rechtsstaat (a state upheld by law) made him increasingly concerned at Nazi violations of legal codes.[16] In 1935, while remaining very cautious about his public comments on Nazism generally, he attempted to defend his mentor, Oncken, against attacks by Nazis. The party officials had objected to a paper by Oncken, which implied that the Nazi revolution was not the greatest revolution of all time.[17]
Frederick the Great biography
Ritter's 1936 short interpretive biography of Frederick the Great has been described by the American military historian Peter Paret as one of the finest military biographies ever written.[18]
The historian Russell Weigley called it "the best introduction to Frederick the Great and indeed to European warfare in his time".[19] James J. Sheehan says it is the best book in English on the famous king.[20]
Ritter's biography was designed as a challenge to Nazi ideology, which claimed a continuity between Frederick and Hitler. Dorpalen wrote: "The book was indeed a very courageous indictment of Hitler's irrationalism and recklessness, his ideological fanaticism and insatiable lust for power".[21] Dorpalen, nevertheless, criticised Ritter's historiography as apologetic of Prussian militarism, German past and figures like Frederick the Great and Bismarck[22]
Ritter's emphasis on Frederick's limited war aims and willingness to settle for less than he initially sought was seen at the time as a form of oblique criticism of
In March 1936, upon witnessing the
Acts against regime
Ritter was a devout Lutheran and became a member of the Confessing Church, a group of dissenting Lutherans that resisted the Nazi-inspired and Nazi-imposed "Aryan Christianity" during the 1930s.[6]
In 1938, Ritter was the only faculty member at Freiburg to attend the funeral of
Ritter's presence at the funeral of Husserl has been widely interpreted ever since as an act of quiet courage and political protest against the Nazi regime.[26] After the Kristallnacht pogrom, Ritter wrote in a letter to his mother, "What we have experienced over the last two weeks all over the country is the most shameful and most dreadful thing that has happened for a long time".[27]
In 1938, Ritter delivered a series of lectures in Jena attacking Friedrich Nietzsche. The lectures were intended by Ritter to be a form of indirect protest of the Nazi regime.[28]
1938 historicism debate with Meinecke
In 1938, Ritter became involved in a major debate with Friedrich Meinecke over "historism".[29] Meinecke argued in favor of the idea of celebrating the "valuable individual quality" of all the phenomenon of history, which was judged not by universal standards but only in regard to its own values.[29] Ritter attacked that position by arguing that without universal notions of values of good and evil and judging all historical phenomenon by its own standards was to abandon all ideas of morality applicable to all times and places.[29]
Freiburger Kreis
After the 1938
Advisor to Goerdeler
Later, Ritter worked as an advisor to the German conservative politician Carl Goerdeler. Together, they considered a future constitution after the overthrow of the Nazis. Both were involved in the secret plans to take down Hitler (see below).
In a Denkschrift submitted to Goerdeler in January 1943, Ritter wrote, "Hundreds of thousands of human beings have been systematically murdered solely because of their Jewish ancestry".
Book on Machiavelli and utopia
In 1940, Ritter published Machtstaat und Utopie (National Power and Utopia). In this book, Ritter argued that democracy was a luxury that only militarily-secure states could afford.[6] Ritter argued that because Britain is an island, that provides a degree of security that allows democracy.[6] By contrast, Ritter argued that Germany, with its location in Central Europe needed an authoritarian government as the only way of maintaining security.[6]
Ritter also contrasted the utopianism of Sir Thomas More and the realism of Niccolò Machiavelli.[9] Ritter declares that Germany had to follow the realism of Machiavelli because of the security requirements of its geographic position.[9] Ritter describes two sorts of values as generated by two different types of polities: one traditionally Anglo-Saxon and the other continental, as personified by the contrast of More and Machiavelli.[32]
Ritter praised Machiavelli as the ideal thinker who understood the "paradox of power", state power to be effective always involvin the use of or the threat of violence. Accordingly, society could not function without an armed police power to hold it together and a military against foreign threats.[32] Ritter criticised More for refusing to acknowledge the paradox of power. Instead, More seemed to think that morality could function in politics without the threat of and/or use of violence.[33]
Ritter presented traditional Anglo-Saxon thinking about power, which depend on an ineffective legalism, as inferior to continental thinking, which is based on an understanding of the ultimate necessity of some form of violence.[34] The historian Gregory Weeks commented that it is hard to tell how much of Machstaat und Utopie was material that was inserted to allow the book to be passed by the censors and how much was the expression of Ritter's own beliefs. Weeks argued that if Ritter was no Nazi, he was certainly a German nationalist who wished to see Germany as the world's great power.[6]
Ritter appeared to disavow part of his original work of 1940 by the addition of a footnote to the third edition of Machstaat und Utopie that was published in 1943. Ritter praised More for his understanding of "the demoniacal forces of power" against which More had appealed to the strength of
Censored book on military
During World War II, Ritter became involved in work on a study of civilian-military relations in Germany from the 18th century to the 20th century.[36] The original intent behind this work was to offer a critique of the "total war" philosophy of General Ludendorff as a form of indirect protest against Nazi Germany.[36] Censorship prevented the book from being published during the war, and after 1945, Ritter revised his work to publish it as a four-volume study of German militarism.[36]
Assassination plot
Ritter was involved in the 20 July 1944
Ritter, who also belonged to the conservative German opposition to the Nazis, was imprisoned in late 1944 for the rest of the war.[38]
Themes after World War II
Source of Nazi evils
Two major themes of Ritter's writings after 1945 were attempts to prove that the Bismarckian tradition in German life had nothing to do with national socialism and that it was democracy of the masses, rather than aristocratic conservatism, that had caused the Nazi movement.[9] After World War II, Ritter wrote the book Europa und die deutsche Frage (Europe and the German Question), which denied that Nazi Germany was the inevitable product of German history but considered that it was rather in Ritter's view part of a general European drift towards totalitarianism that had been going on since the French Revolution; as such, Germans should not be singled out for criticism.[39]
In Ritter's opinion, the origins of National Socialism went back to
Along the same lines, Ritter wrote that "not any event in German history, but the great French Revolution undermined the firm foundation of Europe's political traditions. It also coined the new concepts and slogans with whose help the modern state of the Volk and the Führer justifies its existence".[42] Ritter argued that throughout the 19th century, there had been worrisome signs in Germany and the rest of Europe caused by the entry of masses into politics but that it was World War I that marked the decisive turning point.[43]
According to Ritter, World War I had caused a general collapse in moral values throughout the West, and it was that moral degeneration that led to the decline of Christianity, the rise of materialism, political corruption, the eclipse of civilization by barbarism and demagogic politics, which, in turn, led to National Socialism.[43] In Ritter's view, the problem with the Weimar Republic was not that it lacked democracy but that it had too much democracy.[42] He argued that the democratic republic had left the German state open to being hijacked by the appeals of rabble-rousing extremists.[42] In Ritter's view, if his much beloved German Empire had continued after 1918, there would have been no Nazi Germany.
Ritter argued that
Rescue of German nationalism
Ritter saw his main task after 1945 of seeking to restore German nationalism against what he regarded as unjust slurs.[41] Ritter argued that Germans needed a positive view of their past but warned against the appeal of "false concepts of honor and national power".[41] He belonged to group of German historians that rejected reconciliation with victim of Nazi aggression but supported Germany its pursuing national interests.[45]
He railed against the fact that the
In his treatment of the
Ecumenical progression
Besides defending German nationalism, Ritter became active in the ecumenical movement after 1945 and urged conservative Catholics and Protestants to come together in the
During the war, as a result of his underground work, Ritter came to know a number of Catholic and Calvinist members of the German opposition, which caused Ritter to abandon his former prejudices against Calvinists and Catholics.[50] Ritter came to the conclusion that whatever differences divided Lutherans, Catholics and Calvinists, member of all three churches had more in common to unite them against the Nazis.[50]
Goerdeler biography
In 1954, Ritter published an acclaimed biography of Carl Goerdeler, a close friend, a conservative politician who was executed by the
German militarism
Ritter specialized in German political, military and cultural history. Ritter always drew a sharp distinction between what he regarded as the Machtpolitik (power politics) of Bismarck in which military policy was subjected to carefully limited political goals and the endless expansionism that was motivated by militarism and bizarre racial theories of the Nazis.[9]
Ritter was well known for his assertions denying that there was a uniquely-aggressive German version of militarism.[44] For Ritter, militarism was the "one-sided determination of political decisions on the basis of technical military considerations" and foreign expansionism, and it had nothing to do with values of a society.[52]
In a paper presented to the German Historical Convention in 1953, "The Problem of Militarism in Germany", Ritter argued traditional Prussian leaders such as Frederick the Great were Machtpolitiker (power politicians), not militarists, since in Ritter's view, Frederick was opposed to "the ruthless sacrifice of all life to the purposes of war" and instead was interested in creating "a lasting order of laws and peace, to further general welfare, and to moderate the conflict of interests".[53]
Ritter maintained that militarism first appeared during the
In Volume 2 of Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk, Ritter commented that it was only after Bismarck's sacking in 1890 that militarism first appeared in Germany. Accordingly, a review of the first years of the 20th century was "not without a sense of psychological shock".[42] Ritter wrote that "the prewar Germany of my own youth, which has for an entire lifetime been illuminated in my memory by the radiant splendor of a sun that seemed to grow dark only after the outbreak of the war of 1914" was "in the evening of my life" darkened by "shadows that were much deeper than my generation-and certainly the generation of my academic teachers-was able to perceive at the time".[42]
For Ritter, it was the radicalizing experience of the First World War that had finally led to the triumph of militarism in Germany, especially after 1916, when Erich Ludendorff established his "silent dictatorship", which Ritter believed was a huge break with Prussian and German traditions.[54] It was the unhappy results of that war that finally led to the "proletarian nationalism" of the Nazis gaining a mass audience and to the "militarism of the National Socialist mass movement" coming to power.[55] Moreover, Ritter placed great emphasis on the "Hitler factor" as an explanation for Nazi Germany. In 1962, Ritter wrote that he found it "almost unbearable" that the "will of a single madman" had unnecessarily caused World War II.[43]
Critical views on German history
Though many regarded Ritter's work as an apologia for German nationalism and conservatism, Ritter was at times critical of aspects of the German past.[42] Though Ritter commented that many nations had bent their knees in submission to false values, "the Germans accepted all of that with special ardor when it was now preached to them by National Socialism, and their nationalism had in general displayed from its beginning a particularly intense, combative quality".[42]
At the first meeting of German historians in 1949, Ritter delivered a speech:
"We constantly run the risk not only of being condemned by the world as nationalists, but actually being misused as expert witnesses by all those circles and tendencies that, in their impatient and blind nationalism, have shut their ears to the teachings of the most recent past. Never was our political responsibility greater, not only to Germany, but also to Europe and the world. And yet never has our path been so dangerously narrow between Scylla and Charybdis as today".[56]
In 1953, Ritter found a copy of the "Great Memorandum" relating to German military planning written by General
Role in Fischer Controversy
Break or continuity?
In his last years, Ritter emerged as the leading critic of the left-wing historian Fritz Fischer, who claimed that there had been powerful lines of continuity between the German Empire and Nazi Germany and that it was Germany that had caused World War I. During the ferocious "Fischer Controversy", which engulfed the West German historical profession in the 1960s, Ritter was the best known of Fischer's critics.[57]
Ritter fiercely rejected Fischer's arguments that Germany had been primarily responsible for the outbreak of war in 1914. The later volumes of Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk were taken up with the goal of rebutting Fischer's arguments.[6] Ritter claimed that Germany had not started a war of aggression in 1914 but admitted that the situation of the German government had required a foreign policy, which contained the immediate risk of war.[6] Against Fischer's thesis, Ritter maintained that the Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg had resisted the demands by General Ludendorff for wide-ranging annexations as a war aim.[6]
Ritter's points against Fischer
As part of his critique of Fischer, Ritter contended that Germany's principal goal in 1914 was to maintain the
Likewise, Ritter felt that Fischer had been dishonest in his portrayal of Austro-German relations in July 1914.[60] Ritter charged that Germany had not pressured a reluctant Austria-Hungary into attacking Serbia.[60] Ritter argued, ironically against Fischer, that the main impetus for war within Austria-Hungary came from domestic politics and was internally driven. There were divisions about the best course to pursue in Vienna and Budapest, but it was not German pressure that led Austria-Hungary to choose war as the best option.[61]
In Ritter's opinion, Germany may be criticized for its mistaken evaluation of the state of European power politics in July 1914.
Ritter felt that in retrospect, it was not necessary for Germany to maintain Austria-Hungary as a great power but claimed that at the time, most Germans regarded the Dual Monarchy as a "brother empire" and viewed the prospect of the Balkans being in the Russian sphere of influence as an unacceptable threat.[61] As opposed to Fischer's claim that Germany was deliberately setting off a war of aggression, Ritter argued that Germany's support for Austria-Hungary's retributive plan to invade Serbia was an ad hoc response to the crisis that was gripping Europe.[62]
Ritter accused Fischer of manufacturing the quote he attributed to German General
Likewise, in reference to the order by Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg to
Contrary to Fischer's interpretation, Ritter maintained that Bethmann Hollweg's warnings to Vienna were sincerely meant to stop a war, rather than not window dressing intended to distract historical attention from Germany's responsibility for the war.[65] Ritter claimed that Fischer's interpretation of Bethmann Hollweg's meeting with British Ambassador Sir Edward Goschen was mistaken since in Ritter's opinion, if Bethmann Hollweg was serious about securing British neutrality, it made no sense to express the German war aims to Goschen that Fischer attributed to him.[66]
Ritter strongly disagreed with Fischer's interpretation of the meeting of Moltke, Bethmann Hollweg and General Erich von Falkenhayn (the Prussian war minister) on 30 July 1914. Rather than a conscious decision to wage an aggressive war, as Fischer argued, Ritter's claim was that news of Russia's mobilisation led the German generals into persuading a reluctant Bethmann Hollweg to activate the Schlieffen Plan.[67]
Ritter was strongly critical of what he regarded as Fischer's "biased" view of Moltke's reaction to the outbreak of the war and argued that Moltke's opposition to the sudden last-minute suggestion of
Ritter argued there were no lines of continuity between the German Empire and Nazi Germany and considered the
In 1964, Ritter successfully lobbied the West German Foreign Ministry to cancel the travel funds that had been allocated for Fischer to visit the United States. In Ritter's opinion, giving Fischer a chance to express his "anti-German" views would be a "national tragedy" and so Fischer should not be allowed to have the government funds for his trip.[70] Writing in 1962, Ritter stated that he felt profound "sadness" over the prospect that Germans may not be as patriotic because of Fischer.[69]
Variety of outcomes
According to Richard J. Evans, the outcome of the Fischer Controversy and of Ritter's role in it "only succeeded in giving Fischer's massive, scholarly and extremely detailed book a national prominence it would probably not otherwise have achieved".[71] Evans notes that after his death, Ritter was usually cast as the "villain of this affair, as Fischer's views, at least in their more moderate forms, gained widespread acceptance among a younger generation of historians".[71]
A history book on Imperial Germany by Hans-Ulrich Wehler was published in 1973 and held that as a result of Fischer's theories, "two opposing schools of thought" formed. The first agreed with Fischer. The second admitted that Fischer showed that much political talk in high circles that sounds quite warlike, but it held that Fischer failed to find the actual political decisions and military actions that he claimed.[72]
Professor Wolfgang Mommsen (1930-2004) was a German historian of Britain and Germany on the 19th and the 20th centuries. His 1990 work credited Fischer's work in part for opening up the discussion. However, Mommsen characterised Fischer's "central notion of Germany's will to power" from 1911 to 1915 as being seriously flawed, as Fischer "has allowed himself to be carried away". The nature of his methodology worked to obscure his perspective, and Fischer's conclusions displayed a neglect of the historical context.[73] According to Mommsen, Fischer blamed Germany alone for a Social Darwinism that was then European.
"Yet there is a fundamental flaw in Fischer's reasoning which too many historians have let pass. It is the assumption that Germany's aims as stated after the war had begun were the same as German aims beforehand." Ferguson then recited how a September 1914 program of German aims "is sometimes portrayed as if it were the first open statement of aims which had existed before the outbreak of war.... But the inescapable fact is that no evidence has ever been found by Fischer and his pupils that these objectives existed before Britain's entry into the war.... All that Fischer can produce are the pre-war pipedreams of a few Pan-Germans and businessmen, none of which had any official status, as well as the occasional bellicose utterances of the Kaiser...".[74]
Ferguson also criticised Fischer for seizing on the notion that right-wing officeholders in Germany used an aggressive foreign policy to gain domestic political advantage over the German left. Such misuse of foreign policy, Ferguson noted, "was hardly the invention of the German Right", which in effect repeated the charge made by Mommsen (see above) that Fischer neglected the historical context. In fact, conservative office holders in Germany were articulate and aware that a European war could lead to the ascendancy of the left whether the war was won or lost.[75]
Honored in America
In 1959, Ritter was elected an honorary member of the American Historical Association in recognition of what the Association described as his struggle with totalitarianism. He was the fifth German historian to be so honored by the AHA, one of the last historians of the traditional German idealist school, which considered history as an art. He concerned himself with an imaginative identification with his subjects, focused on the great men of the times studied and was primarily concerned with political and military events.[76]
Bibliography
- Die preußischen Konservativen und Bismarcks deutsche Politik, 1858 bis 1876, 1913.
- Luther: Gestalt und Symbol, 1925.
- Stein: eine politische Biographie, 1931.
- Friedrich der Große, 1936.
- Berthold Ritter zum Gedächtnis, 1946.
- Machstaat und Utopie: vom Streit um die Dämonie der Macht seit Machiavelli und Morus, 1940, revised as Die Dämonie der Macht: Betrachtungen über Geschichte und Wesen des Machtproblems im politischen Denken der Neuzeit, 1947.
- Europa und die Deutsche Frage: Betrachtungen über die geschichtliche Eigenart des Deutschen Staatsdenkens, 1948.
- Die Neugestaltung Deutschlands und Europas im 16. Jahrhundert., 1950.
- Karl Goerdeler und die Deutsche Widerstandsbewegung, 1954.
- Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk: das Problem des "Militarismus" in Deutschland, 4 volumes, 1954-1968.
- Der Schlieffenplan: Kritik eines Mythos, 1956.
- "Eine neue Kriegsschuldthese?" pages 657-668 from Historische Zeitschrift, Volume 194, June 1962, translated into English as "Anti-Fischer: A New War-Guilt Thesis?" pages 135-142 from The Outbreak of World War One: Causes and Responsibilities, edited by Holger Herwig, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1997.
Notes
- ^ The Quest for the Lost Nation: Writing History in Germany and Japan in the American Century (California World History Library) Sebastian Conrad page 128
- ^ Paths of Continuity: Central European Historiography from the 1930s to the 1950s page 114 by Hartmut Lehmann, James Van Horn Melton
- ^ Schwabe, Klaus "Gerhard Ritter" pages 83-103 from Paths of Continuity Washington, D.C. : German Historical Institute, 1994 page 85.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Weeks, Gregory (1999). "Ritter, Gerhard A." In Kelly Boyd, ed., The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, p. 996.
- ^ a b Schwabe, Klaus (1994)."Gerhard Ritter." In Hartmut Lehmann, ed., Paths of Continuity Washington, D.C.: German Historical Institute, p. 84.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Weeks, Gregory (1999). "Ritter, Gerhard A." In Kelly Boyd, ed., The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, p. 997.
- ^ Levine, Norman (1991). "Ritter, Gerhard" pages 304-306 from Great Historians of the Modern Age edited by Lucan Boia, New York: Greenwood Press, 1991, page 305.
- ^ Schwabe, Klaus (1994)."Gerhard Ritter." In Hartmut Lehmann, ed., Paths of Continuity Washington, D.C.: German Historical Institute, p. 86.
- ^ a b c d e Levine, Norman "Ritter, Gerhard" pages 304-306 from Great Historians of the Modern Age edited by Lucan Boia, New York: Greenwood Press, 1991, page 305.
- ^ Schwabe, Klaus "Gerhard Ritter" pages 83-103 from Paths of Continuity Washington, D.C. : German Historical Institute, 1994 page 83.
- ^ William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon and Schuster 1960) at 187.
- ^ Explaining Auschwitz and Hiroshima: Historians and the Second World War, 1945-1990 Richard J. B. Bosworth, Routledge, page 58
- ^ The Quest for the Lost Nation: Writing History in Germany and Japan in the American Century, Sebastian Conrad, University of California Press, 2010, page 44
- ^ Heidegger and Nazism, edited by Víctor Farías, Joseph Margolis, Tom Rockmore page 161
- ^ Universities Under Dictatorship edited by John Connelly, Michael Grüttner page 97
- ^ a b Schwabe, Klaus "Gerhard Ritter" pages 83-103 from Paths of Continuity Washington, D.C. : German Historical Institute, 1994 page 88.
- ^ Schwabe, Klaus "Gerhard Ritter" pages 83-103 from Paths of Continuity Washington, D.C. : German Historical Institute, 1994 page 91.
- ISBN 0-520-02775-2.
- ISBN 0253217075.
- ISBN 9780198204329.
- ^ Andreas Dorpalen, "Historiography as History: The Work of Gerhard Ritter." Journal of Modern History (1962) (March, 1962), p 9
- ^ German History in Marxist Perspective: The East German Approach By Andreas Dorpalen, Foreword by Georg Iggers page 14, 1985
- ^ Schwabe, Klaus "Gerhard Ritter" pages 83-103 from Paths of Continuity Washington, D.C. : German Historical Institute, 1994 page 95.
- ^ Schwabe, Klaus "Gerhard Ritter" pages 83-103 from Paths of Continuity Washington, D.C. : German Historical Institute, 1994 pages 94-95.
- ^ Stern, Fritz Dreams and Delusions: The Drama of German History, Yale: Yale University Press, 1999 page 176
- ^ Friedländer, Saul Nazi Germany and the Jews, New York: Harper Collins, 1997 page 54.
- ^ a b Friedländer, Saul Nazi Germany and the Jews, New York: Harper Collins, 1997 page 297.
- ^ Schwabe, Klaus "Gerhard Ritter" pages 83-103 from Paths of Continuity Washington, D.C. : German Historical Institute, 1994 pages 91-92.
- ^ a b c Schwabe, Klaus "Gerhard Ritter" pages 83-103 from Paths of Continuity Washington, D.C. : German Historical Institute, 1994 page 93.
- ^ a b Iggers, Georg "Comment: German Historiography" pages 43-48 from Paths of Continuity edited by Hartmut Lehmann & James Van Horn Melton, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994 page 44.
- ^ Cf. Theodore S. Hamerow, On the Road to Wolf' Lair. German resistance to Hitler. (Harvard University 1997) at 182-187, 257-259, 326-329, 383-385, re Goerdeler.
- ^ a b Schwabe, Klaus "Gerhard Ritter" pages 83-103 from Paths of Continuity Washington, D.C. : German Historical Institute, 1994 page 99.
- ^ Schwabe, Klaus "Gerhard Ritter" pages 83-103 from Paths of Continuity Washington, D.C. : German Historical Institute, 1994 pages 99-100.
- ^ Schwabe, Klaus "Gerhard Ritter" pages 83-103 from Paths of Continuity Washington, D.C. : German Historical Institute, 1994 page 100.
- ^ a b Schwabe, Klaus "Gerhard Ritter" pages 83-103 from Paths of Continuity Washington, D.C. : German Historical Institute, 1994 page 101.
- ^ a b c Schwabe, Klaus "Gerhard Ritter" pages 83-103 from Paths of Continuity Washington, D.C. : German Historical Institute, 1994 page 97.
- ^ Explaining Auschwitz and Hiroshima: Historians and the Second World War, 1945-1990 Richard J. B. Bosworth Routledge, page 58
- ^ Weeks, Gregory "Ritter, Gerhard A." pages 996-998 from The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, Volume 2 page 998.
- ^ Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London: Arnold Press, 2000 page 7; Hamerow, Theodore S. "Guilt, Redemption and Writing German History" pages 53-72 from The American Historical Review, Volume 88, February 1983 pages 62-63
- ^ Hamerow, Theodore S. "Guilt, Redemption and Writing German History" pages 53-72 from The American Historical Review, Volume 88, February 1983 page 62.
- ^ a b c Iggers, Georg The German Conception of History, Middletown: Connecticut; Wesleyan University Press, 1968 page 258.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Hamerow, Theodore S. "Guilt, Redemption and Writing German History" pages 53-72 from The American Historical Review, Volume 88, February 1983 page 63.
- ^ a b c Kershaw, Ian The Nazi Dictatorship Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London: Arnold Press, 2000 page 7
- ^ a b Iggers, Georg The German Conception of History, Middletown: Connecticut; Wesleyan University Press, 1968 page 254.
- ^ The German Problem Transformed: Institutions, Politics, and Foreign Policy, 1945-1995 Thomas F. Banchoff University of Michigan Press, 1999 page 82
- ISBN 978-0521880183
- ^ Iggers, Georg The German Conception of History, Middletown: Connecticut; Wesleyan University Press, 1968 pages 258-259.
- ^ a b Iggers, Georg The German Conception of History, Middletown: Connecticut; Wesleyan University Press, 1968 page 259.
- ^ Schwabe, Klaus "Gerhard Ritter" pages 83-103 from Paths of Continuity Washington, D.C. : German Historical Institute, 1994 page 90.
- ^ a b Schwabe, Klaus "Gerhard Ritter" pages 83-103 from Paths of Continuity Washington, D.C. : German Historical Institute, 1994 page 89.
- ISBN 978-0521880183
- ^ Iggers, Georg The German Conception of History, Middletown: Connecticut; Wesleyan University Press, 1968 page 255.
- ^ a b Iggers, Georg The German Conception of History, Middletown: Connecticut; Wesleyan University Press, 1968 page 256.
- ^ a b Iggers, Georg The German Conception of History, Middletown: Connecticut; Wesleyan University Press, 1968 pages 255-256.
- ^ Iggers, Georg The German Conception of History, Middletown: Connecticut; Wesleyan University Press, 1968 pages 255-257.
- ^ Hamerow, Theodore S. "Guilt, Redemption and Writing German History" pages 53-72 from The American Historical Review, Volume 88, February 1983 page 64.
- ^ Ritter, Gerhard "Anti-Fischer" pages 135-142 from The Outbreak of World War I edited by Holger Herwig, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997 page 135.
- ^ Ritter, Gerhard "Anti-Fischer" pages 135-142 from The Outbreak of World War I edited by Holger Herwig, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997 pages 135-136.
- ^ a b Ritter, Gerhard "Anti-Fischer" pages 135-142 from The Outbreak of World War I edited by Holger Herwig, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997 page 136.
- ^ a b Ritter, Gerhard "Anti-Fischer" pages 135-142 from The Outbreak of World War I edited by Holger Herwig, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997 pages 136-137.
- ^ a b c d Ritter, Gerhard "Anti-Fischer" pages 135-142 from The Outbreak of World War I edited by Holger Herwig, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997 page 137.
- ^ a b Ritter, Gerhard "Anti-Fischer" pages 135-142 from The Outbreak of World War I edited by Holger Herwig, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997 page 138.
- ^ Ritter, Gerhard "Anti-Fischer" pages 135-142 from The Outbreak of World War I edited by Holger Herwig, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997 pages 138-139.
- ^ Ritter, Gerhard "Anti-Fischer" pages 135-142 from The Outbreak of World War I edited by Holger Herwig, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997 page 139.
- ^ Ritter, Gerhard "Anti-Fischer" pages 135-142 from The Outbreak of World War I edited by Holger Herwig, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997 pages 139-140.
- ^ Ritter, Gerhard "Anti-Fischer" pages 135-142 from The Outbreak of World War I edited by Holger Herwig, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997 page 140.
- ^ Ritter, Gerhard "Anti-Fischer" pages 135-142 from The Outbreak of World War I edited by Holger Herwig, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997 pages 140-141.
- ^ a b Ritter, Gerhard "Anti-Fischer" pages 135-142 from The Outbreak of World War I edited by Holger Herwig, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997 page 141.
- ^ a b Ritter, Gerhard "Anti-Fischer" pages 135-142 from The Outbreak of World War I edited by Holger Herwig, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997 page 142.
- ^ Herwig, Holger "Patriotic Self-Censorship in Germany" pages 153-159 from The Outbreak of World War I edited by Holger Herwig, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997 page 158.
- ^ a b Richard Evans, 'Reviewed Work: Gerhard Ritter: Geschichtswissenschaft und Politik im 20. Jahrhundert by Christoph Cornelissen', The English Historical Review, Vol. 119, No. 482 (Jun., 2004), pp. 756-759.
- ^ Wehler, The German Empire 1871-1918 (1973; translation 1985) at 196.
- ^ Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Der autoritäre Nationalstaat (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch 1990), translated as Imperial Germany 1867-1918. Politics, culture, and society in an authoritarian state (London: Arnold 1995) at 168-171.
- ^ Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War. Explaining World War I (Harmondsworth: Allen Lane 1998; reprint 1999, Basic Books, New York) at 171-172.
- ^ Ferguson, The Pity of War (1998, 1999) at 27-28; 28, 172.
- ^ Levine, Norman "Ritter, Gerhard" pages 304-306 from Great Historians of the Modern Age edited by Lucan Boia, New York: Greenwood Press, 1991, pages 305-306.
References
- Dorpalen, Andreas "Gerhard Ritter" from Deutsche Historiker, edited by Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973.
- Dorpalen, Andreas "Historiography as History: The Work of Gerhard Ritter" pages 1–18 from the Journal of Modern History, Volume 34, 1962. in JSTOR
- Hamerow, Theodore S. "Guilt, Redemption and Writing German History" pages 53–72 from The American Historical Review, Volume 88, February 1983. in JSTOR
- ISBN 0-340-76928-9.
- Jäckel, Eberhard "Gerhard Ritter, Historiker in seiner Zeit" pages 705-715 from Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, Volume 16, 1967.
- ISBN 0-521-45199-X.
- Levine, Norman "Gerhard Ritter's Weltanschauung" pages 209-227 from Review of Politics, Volume 30, 1968. in JSTOR
- Levine, Norman "Ritter, Gerhard" pages 304-306 from Great Historians of the Modern Age edited by Lucian Boia, Westport, C.T.: Greenwood Press, 1991 ISBN 0-313-27328-6.
- Maehl, William "Gerhard Ritter" from Historians of Modern Europe edited by Hans Schmitt, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971 ISBN 0-8071-0836-7.
- Wolfgang Mommsen, Der autoritäre Nationalstaat (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch 1990), translated as Imperial Germany 1867-1918. Politics, culture, and society in an authoritarian state (London: Arnold 1995).
- Moyn, Samuel, “The First Historian of Human Rights,” American Historical Review 116:1 (2011), 58-79 [critical assessment of Ritter’s writings on the history of human rights in the 1940s and the field of human rights history].
- Mruck, Armin: Review of Carl Goerdeler und die deutsche Widerstandsbewegung pages 268-269 from The Journal of Modern History, Volume 30, Issue # 3, September 1958
- Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Das Deutsche Kaiserreich (Gőttingen: Verlages Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht 1973), translated as The German Empire 1871-1918 (Providence: Berg 1985).
- Ulrich Bayer: Gerhard Ritter (1888-1967). In: Johannes Ehmann (Hrsg.): Lebensbilder aus der evangelischen Kirche in Baden im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Band II: Kirchenpolitische Richtungen. Verlag Regionalkultur, Heidelberg u.a. 2010, S. 391-415, ISBN 978-3-89735-510-1.
- Christoph Cornelißen: Gerhard Ritter. Geschichtswissenschaft und Politik im 20. Jahrhundert. Droste, Düsseldorf 2001, ISBN 3-7700-1612-2.
- Christoph Cornelißen (2003), "Ritter, Gerhard Georg Bernhard", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 21, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 658–660; (full text online)
- Konrad Fuchs (1994). "Gerhard Ritter". In Bautz, Traugott (ed.). Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German). Vol. 8. Herzberg: Bautz. cols. 412–414. ISBN 3-88309-053-0.
- Michael Matthiesen: Verlorene Identität. Der Historiker Arnold Berney und seine Freiburger Kollegen 1923 - 1938. ISBN 3-525-36233-1(Ritter als Unterstützer des ab 1933 als Jude verfolgten Prof. Berney).
- Zur Kritik an Gerhard Ritters politisch-philosophischer Position siehe: 1) Johan Huizinga, In de schaduwen van morgen, Kap. 14 (deutsch: Im Schatten von morgen, in: Ders.: Schriften zur Zeitkritik, Pantheon-Verlag 1948); 2) Julius Ebbinghaus, Philosophie der Freiheit, Bonn 1988, S. 11 ff.
Further reading
- Boyd, Kelly. "Ritter, Gerhard A. 1888–1967 German political and cultural historian." Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing (Routledge, 2019) pp. 996–998.