Sektempfang bei der französischen Pelzmodenschau, Frankfurt a.M., April 1975 (Ausschnitt). Fotografin: Abisag Tüllmann, Quelle: bpk 70371263, /Lizenz: CC BY-NC-ND

1. Einleitung

In den letzten Jahrzehnten ging die Schere zwischen den Reichen und der übrigen Gesellschaft immer weiter auseinander. Dem World Inequality Report von 2022 zufolge, entfielen die Wohlstandszuwächse seit den 1990er-Jahren zu fast 40 Prozent auf die reichsten 1 Prozent der Weltbevölkerung, aber nur zu rund 2 Prozent auf die ärmsten 50 Prozent.[1] Vor diesem Hintergrund wurden Ungleichheit, Armut und Reichtum nicht nur von den Sozialwissenschaften und anderen Disziplinen als Forschungsthemen wiederentdeckt, sondern zuletzt auch von Historiker:innen. Schließlich zeigen die Trends der vergangenen Jahrzehnte, dass soziale Ungleichheit nicht bloß ein gesellschaftliches Problem der Gegenwart darstellt, sondern auf historischen Prozessen und Konstellationen beruht, die teilweise weit in die Geschichte zurückreichen.

Die historischen Dimensionen von „Reichtum“ beginnen damit, wie darüber zu unterschiedlichen Zeiten gedacht und gesprochen wurde. Schon in biblischen, antiken und mittelalterlichen Texten wurde Reichtum ambivalent beurteilt.[2] Zunehmende Kritik zogen die Privilegien der Reichen im Zuge der Aufklärung, der transatlantischen Revolutionen und der „sozialen Frage“ des 19. Jahrhunderts auf sich.[3] Ins 19. Jahrhundert fielen zudem die Anfänge der „Verwissenschaftlichung des Sozialen“ – der Beginn der empirischen Sozialforschung, die während der Nachkriegsjahrzehnte im 20. Jahrhundert zur vollen Entfaltung kam.[4] Durch ökonomische und soziologische Studien, Statistiken und Massenmedien wurde das Phänomen „Reichtum“ seit dieser Zeit deutlich greifbarer.

Doch das zunehmende Wissen offenbarte auch die klaffenden Wissenslücken, die bis in die Gegenwart immer wieder beklagt werden. So stellten britische Ökonomen 1961 fest, dass die Konzentration der hohen Vermögen fast überall auf der Welt von „statistischer Dunkelheit“ umhüllt sei.[5] Heute dagegen können wir Statistiken über „Reichtum“ auf Knopfdruck im Internet abrufen und unsere eigene Position in der Vermögensverteilung z.B. im „Spiegel“-Kalkulator online bestimmen.[6] Die verfügbaren Statistiken regen regelmäßig gesellschaftliche Debatten an – so wie die aktuelle Interpretation, dass gegenwärtig eine Rückkehr zu den extremen sozialen Verhältnissen des 19. Jahrhunderts festzustellen sei.[7]

Nicht nur das Wissen über „Reichtum“ ist historisch gewachsen, auch der Begriff selbst stellt ein kulturelles Konstrukt dar. Dieses Verständnis konnte man schon gegen Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts in einem Konversationslexikon nachlesen: „Reichtum“ sei ein „relativer Begriff, welcher gegenüber den eigenen Bedürfnissen und dem Besitz anderer ein verhältnismäßig großes Vermögen bezeichnet“, ein Begriff, der aber „zeitlich und örtlich wandelbar“ sei.[8] Was „Reichtum“ ausmachte und was Zeitgenoss:innen darüber wussten und dachten, ist also historisch und kulturell variabel. Bei „Reichtum” handelt es sich in diesem Sinne sowohl um einen Quellenbegriff aus vergangenen Zeiten als auch um ein analytisches Konzept, das heutigen geschichtswissenschaftlichen und sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschungen zu diesem Thema zugrunde liegt, wie sie in diesem Artikel vorgestellt werden sollen.

Auf der ersten Ebene definiert sich „Reichtum“ durch zeitgenössische Erfahrungen, Praktiken, Diskurse, Wissensbestände und Sozialstrukturen. Auf der zweiten Ebene orientiert sich die Geschichtswissenschaft bei der Konzeptualisierung von „Reichtum“ vor allem an den Theorieangeboten der Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften, die das Denken über „Reichtum“ seit dem 20. Jahrhundert immer mehr bestimmten und dabei selbst historische Entwicklungen durchliefen. Beim Thema „Reichtum“ drängt sich demnach eine interdisziplinäre Perspektive in doppeltem Sinne auf: Historiker:innen müssen nicht nur die Wissensstände der relevanten Nachbardisziplinen einbeziehen, sondern auch deren eigene Historizität in Rechnung stellen.

„Reichtum“ ist aber nicht nur als gesellschaftliches Konstrukt aufzufassen, sondern zugleich als Teil der materiellen Erfahrungswelt: In Villenvierteln wie Hamburg-Blankenese ist er in Stein gemeißelt, und die gesellschaftlichen Machtpositionen, die mit „Reichtum“ einhergehen, können spürbare Konsequenzen für die Lebensrealitäten der weniger privilegierten Bevölkerung haben.[9] Die materiellen und strukturellen Dimensionen und Entwicklungstrends von Reichtum sind Gegenstand einer umfangreichen sozialwissenschaftlichen, statistischen und sozialgeschichtlichen Forschung, die unter anderem die eingangs zitierten Zahlen hervorgebracht hat. Reichtum ist also sowohl auf einer „realhistorischen“ Ebene zu analysieren als auch auf symbolischen Ebenen mit Blick auf Diskurse und Repräsentationen.[10]

Wie „Reichtum“ historisiert werden kann, skizzieren die folgenden Abschnitte am Beispiel der deutschen Gesellschaft und mit einem Schwerpunkt im 20. Jahrhundert, das nicht nur als Vorgeschichte aktueller Problemlagen besondere Relevanz besitzt, sondern auch die Sichtweisen von Historiker:innen auf das Thema maßgeblich geprägt hat.[11] Der Artikel konzentriert sich dabei auf Ungleichheitsverhältnisse innerhalb der deutschen Gesellschaft (within-country inequality) und geht weniger auf Diskussionen über Ungleichheiten zwischen ganzen Ländern und Weltregionen ein (cross-country inequality / global inequality), die einen eigenen Artikel erfordern würden, auch wenn beide Ebenen eng miteinander verzahnt sind.[12]

2. Definitionen von Reichtum

Die Konstruktion von „Reichtum“ beginnt bereits bei der Definition des Begriffs. Eine „objektive“ Definition von Reichtum existiert bis heute nicht, und keine Definition kann Allgemeingültigkeit beanspruchen, zumal jede auf unterschiedlichen normativen Festlegungen und theoretischen Perspektiven beruhen kann. Aus denselben Gründen sagen alle Definitionen allerdings viel über zugrunde liegende historische Wahrnehmungen und Normen aus – und nicht zuletzt auch über die diversen Akteure, die sich an den Deutungskämpfen beteiligt haben. Die interdisziplinäre Forschung geht schon seit langem davon aus, dass Auseinandersetzungen über die Definitionen von Reichtum als wichtiger „Bestandteil des Ungleichheitsgeschehens“ selbst anzusehen und in die Analyse einzubeziehen sind.[13]

Begriffsgeschichtliche Befunde legen nahe, dass „Reichtum“ fast durchgängig als Fremdzuschreibung verwendet wurde und kaum als Selbstbeschreibung. Hierauf wies Anfang der 1930er-Jahre bereits der Psychologe, Schriftsteller und Politiker Richard Nikolaus Coudenhove-Kalergi hin: „Fast niemand hält sich für reich. Für die meisten Menschen beginnt der Reichtum bei einem Einkommen, das ihr eigenes zehnmal übersteigt.“[14] Daneben ist zu berücksichtigen, dass der Begriff nicht für sich allein steht, sondern von einem größeren semantischen Feld mit Synonymen, Kollokationen und Assoziationen umgeben ist, das seinerseits historisch wandelbar ist. Hierzu zählten häufig Synonym-Begriffe wie Vermögen, Wohlstand, Eigentum oder Kapital, aber auch Begriffe wie Luxus, Privileg, Prestige oder auch Erbe. Als soziale Gruppe werden „die Reichen“ in öffentlichen und wissenschaftlichen Diskursen auch als „Oberschicht“, „Elite“, „Bonzen“ oder als „die oberen Zehntausend“ bezeichnet; alternativ werden noch abstraktere Positionsbestimmungen wie „oben“ oder neuerdings das „obere 1 Prozent“ verwendet.[15]

Ansatzpunkte für begriffsgeschichtliche Analysen bieten historische Wörterbücher und Konversationslexika. Hierin wurde „Reichtum“ bereits zu Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts an Geldbesitz gekoppelt, aber lange recht allgemein als „Überfluss“ beschrieben, bis gegen Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts die Assoziation mit großen Vermögen stärker in den Vordergrund trat.[16] Um Bilder und Semantiken des Reichtums darüber hinaus zu rekonstruieren, ließen sich neben Wörterbüchern noch viele weitere Quellentypen heranziehen, beispielsweise aus den Massenmedien, der Belletristik, den bildenden Künsten oder der Populärkultur.

Im 20. Jahrhundert wurde der Begriff zunehmend von den Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften geprägt, doch blieb die Definition von „Reichtum“ auch in diesen Disziplinen bis heute umstritten. In den Sozialwissenschaften konkurrieren seit langem qualitative und quantitative Ansätze. Aus der Perspektive der quantifizierenden Sozialstrukturanalyse kann „Reichtum“ heute als eine obere soziale Lage mit weit überdurchschnittlichen ökonomischen Ressourcen beschrieben werden.[17] Aus qualitativer Perspektive definiert sich „Reichtum“ nicht allein durch Geld, sondern auch durch nicht-monetäre Komponenten wie z.B. einen bestimmten Habitus und Lebensstil.[18]

Aus wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Sicht wiederum wird die Gruppe der „Reichen“ häufig mit den oberen 1 Prozent oder 10 Prozent in der Einkommens- und Vermögensverteilung gleichgesetzt oder als 200 Prozent bzw. 300 Prozent des Median-Einkommens definiert.[19] Insbesondere die letztgenannte Definition zog allerdings die Kritik auf sich, die Unterschiede zwischen „Wohlhabenden“, „Reichen“ und „Superreichen“ zu verwischen.[20] Wie sich an solchen Definitionsfragen öffentliche Kontroversen entzünden können, zeigte 2018 die Diskussion um den Millionär und CDU-Politiker Friedrich Merz, der sich nicht zur „reichen Oberschicht“ zählte, sondern zur „gehobenen Mittelschicht“.[21] Wie in diesem Fall basieren gesellschaftliche Selbstbeschreibungen und Debatten in der Regel auf Konzepten und Kategorien aus den Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften.[22] Die Geschichte der sozial- und wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Beschäftigung mit dem Thema besitzt für die Historisierung von „Reichtum“ deshalb besondere Relevanz.

3. Interdisziplinäre Forschungen zu Reichtum

3.1 „Reichtum“ als Thema der Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften

In den Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften entwickelte sich eine eigenständige Forschung zu „Reichtum“ erst im späten 20. Jahrhundert, doch kam das Thema als Aspekt der sozialen Ungleichheit zuvor immer wieder zur Sprache. In Marx’ Klassenkampftheorie des 19. Jahrhunderts bildete der Reichtum an Produktionsmitteln das zentrale Kriterium für die Zugehörigkeit zur herrschenden Klasse der Kapitalbesitzer. Zu Fragen von Macht und Lebensstil von Vermögenden erschienen zudem schon im späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert sozialwissenschaftliche Klassiker von Thorstein Veblen, Werner Sombart, Georg Simmel und Max Weber, die spätere Forschungen inspirierten.[23] Allerdings mangelte es jahrzehntelang an empirischen Forschungen und statistischen Daten – auch wenn schon im deutschen Kaiserreich erste Millionärslisten und Steuerstatistiken existierten, auf die frühe Sozialstrukturanalysen zurückgreifen konnten.[24] Zudem lagen die Schwerpunkte der aufkommenden Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften lange woanders. So verzeichnete Charles Booth in seiner einzigartigen Sozialkartographie von London (1902/03) zwar auch die Wohnorte „der Reichen“, doch galt sein Hauptinteresse der Armut.[25] Bei der Analyse der Klassengesellschaft in Großbritannien schienen die Grenzen zur upper class so klar gezogen, dass Fragen zur working class und middle class deutlich mehr Aufmerksamkeit erhielten.[26]

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Die Wissensproduktion zu Fragen von sozialer Ungleichheit nahm vor allem in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts deutlich zu. Durch transnationalen Austausch glichen sich Theorien und Themen dabei zunehmend an, doch folgten die Sozialwissenschaften lange nationalen Entwicklungspfaden, wie das Beispiel der Bundesrepublik zeigt.[27] In der Nachkriegszeit galt das Konzept der Klassengesellschaft zunächst als verpönt, und die westdeutsche Soziologie vernachlässigte die Sozialstrukturanalyse.[28] Zudem galt das Interesse vor allem der „Mitte“ der Gesellschaft und weniger den Rändern.[29] Seit Ende der 1950er-Jahre wurde die Diskussion über „Reichtum“ dann durch wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Studien belebt, welche die hohe Vermögenskonzentration in der Bundesrepublik aufzeigten.[30] Solche Befunde nährten während der 1960er-Jahre die neomarxistische Kritik an der Klassengesellschaft. Einflussreiche Vertreter der kritischen Theorie wie Jürgen Habermas sprachen von latenten „klassenspezifischen Unterschieden“ in der Bundesrepublik, boten jedoch kaum tiefergehende Sozialstrukturanalysen.[31]

In den 1970er-Jahren kehrte die Soziologie zu einer Schichtungstheorie zurück, in der Einkommen und Vermögen nur noch eine neben anderen Ungleichheitsdimensionen darstellten – zu denen nun auch race und gender gezählt wurden.[32] Die Relativierung der ökonomischen Dimension wurde in der Soziologie im Zuge der „kulturalistischen Wende“ seit Mitte der 1980er-Jahre noch weiter geführt, als Lebensstile, Konsumgewohnheiten und andere kulturelle Merkmale als soziale Marker in den Vordergrund traten.[33] Einer der Pioniere auf diesem Feld, der berühmte französische Soziologe Pierre Bourdieu, argumentierte, dass soziale Klassenlagen nicht nur durch akkumuliertes ökonomisches Kapital, sondern auch durch soziales und kulturelles Kapital bestimmt seien. Demnach definierte sich der soziale Status im Frankreich der 1960er-Jahre sowohl durch Geldbesitz als auch durch unterschiedliche Vorlieben beispielsweise für die klassische Oper oder für modernen Jazz.[34] In der Rezeption der Bourdieu’schen Feldtheorie wurde allerdings häufig übersehen, dass Bourdieu das ökonomische Kapital immer noch als die „dominierende Kapitalform“ bezeichnet hatte.[35]

Seit den 1990er-Jahren kam es schließlich zu einer Re-Ökonomisierung der Diskussion: Aufbauend auf einem internationalen Boom der wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Forschung zur Einkommens- und Vermögensungleichheit etablierte sich um die Jahrtausendwende eine eigenständige Forschung zum „Reichtum“.[36] Diese misst „Reichtum“ in erster Linie an hohen Einkommen und Vermögen, fragt aber auch nach qualitativen Aspekten wie den Alltagspraktiken, Beziehungsgeflechten und Machtpositionen „der Reichen“.[37] Dass gesellschaftlicher Einfluss nicht zuletzt durch großen Kapitalbesitz bedingt ist, hob auch die ebenfalls florierende Elitenforschung hervor.[38] In Anbetracht wachsender Vermögensungleichheit rund um den Globus bekräftigte die internationale Soziologie zuletzt wieder die überragende Bedeutung ökonomischen Kapitals.[39] Grundlegend hierfür waren nicht zuletzt die Forschungen führender Ökonomen wie Joseph E. Stiglitz, Anthony B. Atkinson und Thomas Piketty – sie trugen dazu bei, dass der „Reichtum“ der oberen 1 Prozent seit der Finanzkrise von 2008 mehr öffentliche Aufmerksamkeit erhielt als jemals zuvor.[40]

Die statistischen Analysen Thomas Pikettys zeigen einen globalen Trend hin zu einer hyper-inegalitären Wirtschafts- und Sozialordnung: Nachdem „die Reichen“ in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts einen relativen Rückgang ihrer Positionen erlebten, holten sie diesen im Zuge der neoliberalen Wende seit den 1970er/80er-Jahren wieder auf.[41] In manchen Weltregionen kam es zu einem regelrechten Boom der Ungleichheit, wobei die steilen Anstiege der entsprechenden Werte in den USA und Großbritannien noch weit übertroffen wurden von der russischen Entwicklung zu einer hyperlibertären Oligarchie oder den extremen sozialen Verhältnissen in den Golfstaaten.[42]

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Speziell in der Bundesrepublik zeigt sich bei den Spitzeneinkommen der oberen 1 Prozent nicht nur eine große Kontinuität über 1945 hinaus, sondern auch eine besonders hohe Konzentration, die seit den späten 1990er- und 2000er-Jahren weiter anstieg.[43] Statt der vermeintlichen Stabilität der Ungleichheitsverhältnisse, von denen in sozialgeschichtlichen Analysen häufig die Rede war, deuten neuere statistische Studien schon für die Zeit des „Wirtschaftswunders“ auf eine zunehmende Spreizung der Einkommen hin.[44] Bei der Analyse nach Dezilen zeigen sich seit Mitte der 1980er-Jahre erneut überproportionale Einkommenszuwächse bei den reichsten 10 Prozent.[45]

Auch im Hinblick auf die Vermögensungleichheit ist im 20. Jahrhundert in vielen westlichen Gesellschaften zunächst ein relativer Rückgang und seit den 1980er-Jahren ein deutlicher Wiederanstieg zu verzeichnen.[46] Im internationalen Vergleich wies die Bundesrepublik durchgehend eine besonders hohe Vermögenskonzentration auf: 1960 ermittelte der Ökonom Wilhelm Krelle, dass 1,7 Prozent der Bevölkerung ganze 35 Prozent des Produktivvermögens besaßen, und für 2019 ergab der verbesserte SOEP (Sozio-oekonomisches Panel)-Survey für die oberen 1 Prozent wiederum einen Anteil von 35 Prozent, allerdings am Gesamtvermögen.[47] Bei den oberen 1 Prozent handelt es sich überwiegend um Unternehmer und nicht nur in Deutschland disproportional häufig um weiße Männer, wie neue Forschungen gezeigt haben, die mittlerweile für Fragen nach intersektionalen Ungleichheitsverhältnissen sensibilisiert sind.[48]

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Die steigende Tendenz bei der Konzentration der Einkommen und Vermögen hat auch historische Gründe.[49] Hierzu zählen vor allem die ungleichen Wirkungen von Erbschaften, die bestehende Disparitäten durch Prozesse der Vermögensakkumulation langfristig reproduzieren und verstärken.[50] Die Effekte dieser weit zurückreichenden Akkumulationsprozesse sind an Jahr für Jahr steigenden Gesamtvolumina von Erbschaften ablesbar.[51] Dies war freilich eine westdeutsche Entwicklung, während der Vermögensbildung im Staatssozialismus enge Grenzen gesetzt waren, was bis heute eine wichtige historische Ursache für weiter bestehende Ungleichheiten zwischen west- und ostdeutschen Privathaushalten ist.[52] 

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Im Westen wiederum potenzierte das Aufkommen des digitalen Finanzmarktkapitalismus seit den 1970er/80er-Jahren die Möglichkeiten zur Anhäufung von Vermögen.[53] Solche Einsichten unterstreichen nicht nur die überragende Bedeutung von Vermögen als Quelle des Reichtums und die Rolle der Familie, sondern haben in den Sozialwissenschaften auch das Bewusstsein für die Relevanz historischer Prozesse für heutige Ungleichheitsverhältnisse verstärkt – der britische Soziologe Mike Savage zum Beispiel spricht in diesem Zusammenhang vom „Gewicht der Vergangenheit“.[54]

Neben der ökonometrischen Forschung fächerte sich seit den 1990er-Jahren auch die qualitative Reichtumsforschung immer weiter auf.[55] Diese fragt zunächst nach dem heterogenen Sozialprofil und den Sozialbeziehungen der Reichen sowie nach Herkunft, Verwendung und Erhaltung ihres Reichtums.[56] In Hinblick auf ihr Handeln wurde in manchen Studien ihr gesellschaftliches Engagement betont, in anderen ihr klimafeindliches Konsumverhalten.[57] Zur Einbettung in die jeweilige Wirtschafts- und Sozialordnung wurde das Konzept der Reichtumskultur vorgeschlagen – eine historisch wandelbare Matrix sozialer Normen und Konventionen, die bestimmen, wie Reichtum in der Gesellschaft legitimiert und repräsentiert werden kann.[58]

Dass sich Reiche durch demonstrative Lebensstile und Konsumpraktiken distinguieren, zeigen kultursoziologische Forschungen: Dabei orientieren sich die Reichen nicht nur an gesellschaftlichen Normen, sondern können diese auch selbst prägen, insbesondere im Zeitalter von Massenmedien und Social Media.[59] Ein Beispiel für solche Leitbilder sind Selbstinszenierungen bestimmter Körperästhetiken wie gebräunte Haut und gebleichte Zähne, die Gesundheit, Wohlstand und Leistungsfähigkeit demonstrieren sollen.[60] Umgekehrt wird durch Umfrageforschung und Medienanalysen untersucht, wie Reiche in der breiteren Öffentlichkeit wahrgenommen und dargestellt werden.[61] Allerdings liegen bislang vergleichsweise wenige sozialwissenschaftliche Umfragen über die Einstellungen breiterer Bevölkerungsgruppen gegenüber den „Reichen“ vor, was die späte Entwicklung des Forschungsinteresses an diesem Thema widerspiegelt.[62]

Sowohl die Symbolik als auch die Materialität von Reichtum offenbart sich in der Sozialgeografie, in der sich Reiche in Villenvierteln oder Gated Communities abschotten und zunehmend auch den übrigen Wohnungsmarkt als Investoren beherrschen.[63] Nicht nur wegen ihrer Kontrolle über Städte wie London sind „die Superreichen“ als eigene Gruppe in den Fokus der Forschung gerückt.[64] Daneben stellt sich auch die Frage, inwieweit sie ihre ökonomische Macht in politischen Einfluss ummünzen können und damit Demokratien unterlaufen oder das kapitalistische System zu ihren Gunsten verändern.[65]

Die gesellschaftliche Stellung der Reichen und Superreichen basiert laut Thomas Piketty in historischen Ungleichheitsregimen auf veränderbaren Konstellationen in der Eigentumsordnung, dem Steuerregime, dem Bildungssystem und der politischen Kultur.[66] Neben den Bedingungsfaktoren für Reichtum innerhalb von Nationalstaaten werden auch die grenzüberschreitenden Bewegungen, Praktiken und Netzwerke der Reichen untersucht, denen sich im Zuge des Globalisierungsschubs seit den 1990er-Jahren neue Entfaltungsmöglichkeiten eröffneten.[67] Diese werden in engem Zusammenhang mit dem Wachstum des Finanzsektors betrachtet, das mit dem Anstieg der Ungleichheit in vielen Gesellschaften korreliert, auch weil Beschäftigte und Manager im Finanzsektor Spitzeneinkommen kassierten.[68] Inwieweit diese Entwicklungen auch zur Entstehung einer neuen globalen Wirtschaftselite geführt haben, bleibt allerdings umstritten.[69]

3.2 Historische Forschung

Während sich in den Sozialwissenschaften seit den 1990er-Jahren ein eigenes Forschungsfeld zu „Reichtum“ etablierte, blieb eine solche Entwicklung in den Geschichtswissenschaften lange aus. In den historischen Wissenschaften westlicher Staaten entstanden eher kompartmentalisierte nationale und zeitlich versetzte Forschungsinteressen und Zugänge zu dem Thema. Wichtige Impulse gingen dabei von Forschungen in den USA aus, die „Reichtum“ im Rahmen der neu entstandenen „Historical Sociology“ in den 1960er-Jahren als eigenes Thema und als Sozialphänomen entdeckten.[70] In diesem Kontext erschienen nicht nur zahlreiche Studien zu reichen Individuen, Familien oder Dynastien,[71] sondern auch verstärkt interdisziplinäre Reflexionen darüber, welche Rolle Vermögensungleichheit für die Gesellschaft und ihren Zusammenhalt spielte.[72] Arbeiten von Historikern wie Frederic Cople Jaher, Edward Pessen oder historisch arbeitende Ökonomen wie Lee Soltow setzten sich auch aus historischer Perspektive mit Klassenfragen auseinander und verstanden „Reichtum“ in diesem Kontext als zentrales Strukturmerkmal von Gesellschaften, das expliziter erforscht werden sollte.[73]

Angeregt von den Studien in den USA begannen sich dann in den späten 1970er- und verstärkt in den 1980er-Jahren auch europäische Wissenschaftler:innen mit „Reichtum“ intensiver auseinanderzusetzen, insbesondere Sozialhistoriker:innen in Frankreich und Großbritannien. Einen zentralen Beitrag hierzu leistete der aus den USA stammende und dort auch ausgebildete Historiker William D. Rubinstein, der in den 1970er-Jahren zunächst in England, dann Australien, später schließlich in Wales lehrte.[74] Er veröffentlichte nicht nur eigene Studien, die qualitative und quantitative Ansätze verbanden, sondern begann auch vergleichende Perspektiven einzubeziehen und Wissenschaftler:innen aus Frankreich, Italien und den USA ins Gespräch zu bringen.[75]

Eine wichtige Grundlage für diese Forschungen stellten vor allem quantitative Daten wie Reichenlisten, Nachlassakten oder Personenstandsdaten aus öffentlichen Meldeämtern dar. Auch wenn bereits zu dieser Zeit eine problematische Datenlage zu „Reichtum“ beklagt wurde,[76] ließen die Quellen detaillierte Aussagen zu: Sie zeigten die extreme Zunahme von Vermögensbesitz diesseits und jenseits des Atlantiks seit den 1880er-Jahren, die Binnenstrukturen des Vermögens in Großbritannien, vor allem das Verhältnis von Landbesitz und anderen Kapitalsorten, sowie die Sozialstrukturen der vermögenden Klasse. Im Hinblick auf den letzteren Ansatz lag ein besonderer Fokus auf Fragen der Konfession, was sicher auch mit dem akademischen Hintergrund vieler einschlägiger Autor:innen in den Jewish Studies zusammenhing.[77] Ein weiteres Kennzeichen dieser Forschungen war, dass sich viele Studien noch bis in die 1990er-Jahre auf die Epoche zwischen 1870 und 1914 konzentrierten, in der nicht nur in Amerika, sondern auch in Europa die großen Vermögen entstanden waren.[78]

Dieselbe Konzentration auf die Zeit vor 1918 lässt sich auch für die deutsche historische Forschung feststellen, die vereinzelt in den späten 1980er- und dann verstärkt in den 1990er-Jahren an die Forschungen aus Großbritannien und den USA anknüpfte. Wichtige Beiträge entstanden zum großen Teil in der Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte – im Unterschied zu den geschilderten Entwicklungen in den Sozialwissenschaften und der historischen Forschung in den USA und Großbritannien, allerdings kaum im Rahmen eines eigenen Forschungsfelds, sondern eher als beiläufiges Thema in verschiedenen Forschungskontexten. Die historische Wissenschaft überließ das Feld gerade in der Bundesrepublik der 1960er- bis in die 2000er-Jahre eher den Journalisten und Journalistinnen. In anekdotisch geprägten und auf einzelne Biografien zugeschnittenen Porträts veröffentlichten sie zahlreiche Bücher für ein breites Publikum zu Themen, die nun als Quelle einer neuen historischen Reichtumsforschung historisiert werden können.[79] In geschichtswissenschaftlichen Arbeiten war Reichtum vielmehr als Rahmenbedingung personalisierter Geschichten präsent, wie beispielweise in Studien zu Unternehmer:innen, Bürger:innen oder Mitgliedern des Adels, oder als wichtiges Merkmal einer Sozialstruktur im Rahmen von Forschungen zur Wirtschafts- und Gesellschaftsgeschichte.

Einen wichtigen Beitrag hierzu lieferte die Bürgertums- und Adelsforschung, die sich mit der Frage von Elitenbildung beschäftigte und hierbei auch familiensoziologische und mikrohistorische Perspektiven einband.[80] Heinz Reif prägte für die Adelsgeschichte den Begriff einer „Sozialgeschichte von Oben“.[81] Die (kollektiv-)biografiegeschichtlichen Zugriffe auf Individuen, Familien oder Dynastien der Bürgertumsforschung rückten in diesem Kontext Fragen nach dem sozialen Zusammenhalt, der Lebensführung, den gemeinsamen Werten einzelner sozialer Akteursgruppen sowie ihrer Abgrenzung zueinander in den Mittelpunkt.[82]

Die Arbeiten lieferten damit bereits wichtige Perspektiven, auch wenn „Reichtum“ vordergründig als zentrale Differenzierungskategorie zwischen dem Besitz- und dem Bildungsbürgertum sowie dem Adel fungierte und nicht als eigenes Strukturmerkmal in den Blick geriet. Fragen nach Klassenbildung und Sozialstrukturen spielten hierbei keine „nennenswerte Rolle“,[83] und nur selten erweiterten die Arbeiten den Blick auf das 20. Jahrhundert. Ein deutlicher Schwerpunkt lag auf der Sozialstruktur vermögender Unternehmer während der Kaiserzeit.[84] Nicht zuletzt als Erklärungsansatz der viel diskutierten „Sonderwegsthese“ gingen diese Arbeiten der Bedeutung der Feudalisierung des Bürgertums nach und diskutierten in diesem Kontext die Bedeutung ökonomischen Kapitals.[85]

Basis dieser Studien war das von Rudolf Martin 1912 herausgegebene „Jahrbuch des Vermögens und Einkommens der Millionäre in Preußen“.[86] Arbeiten von Hartmut Kaelble,[87] Hartmut Berghoff[88] oder Willi A. Boelcke[89] konnten daran eindrücklich zeigen, dass die reichste Gruppe um 1900 sich aus Unternehmern zusammensetzte, die einen „eigenen Lebensstil“ herausbildeten, der sich sowohl vom klassischen Bürgertum als auch vom Adel unterschied, und die – anders als lange Zeit angenommen – gerade nicht in den Adel strategisch einheirateten. Hartmut Berghoff prägte in diesem Kontext 1995 den Begriff der Vermögenseliten.[90] Nicht die Bürgerlichkeit, sondern den ökonomischen Besitz verstand er hierbei als Kennzeichen einer sozialen Gruppe und verschob damit den Fokus hin zu der Frage, welche Rolle Reichtum und Vermögen für diese Klasse spielten.[91]

Berghoff griff damit ein Thema auf, das schon in der Dissertation von Dolores Augustine eine zentrale Rolle spielte.[92] Obwohl die 1994 erschienene Arbeit Teil eines von Hartmut Kaelble geleiteten Forschungsprojekts zu Millionären war, wurde sie in der Rezeption bezeichnenderweise nicht in den Kontext der Studien aus den USA und Großbritannien aus derselben Zeit eingeordnet und kaum als Beitrag zur Geschichte der Vermögensungleichheit oder sozialen Mobilität gelesen, sondern weiterhin als Beitrag zur Bürgertumsforschung verstanden.[93] Solche frühen systematischen Bemühungen, die auch vergleichend argumentierten und sich an Ergebnissen der internationalen historischen und soziologischen Reichtumsforschung der 1990er-Jahre orientierten, blieben aber die Ausnahme und wurden zudem nicht als Perspektiven der Zeitgeschichte übernommen und methodisch weiterentwickelt.

Reichtum als Strukturmerkmal einer Ungleichheitsgeschichte rückte parallel zu solch einer stark an Akteursgruppen interessierten Forschung ebenfalls in den 1990er-Jahren in den Blick: auf der einen Seite in quantitativen Analysen von Wirtschaftshistoriker:innen zu den Vermögensverhältnissen,[94] auf der anderen Seite als Perspektive einer Gesellschaftsgeschichte, wie sie sich aus der in den 1960er- und 1970er-Jahren entstandenen „Bielefelder Schule“ heraus entwickelt hatte.[95] Reichtum war hierbei Teil eines größeren Ungleichheitsgeschehens, das Reflexionen über gesellschaftliche Positionen und Macht einschloss. Hartmut Kaelble widmete sich in verschiedenen Publikationen diesem Thema, zog auch immer wieder internationale, europäische und transatlantische sowie diachrone Vergleiche. Mit Blick auf Europa beschreibt er die 1950er- bis 1970er-Jahre als eine Zeit abnehmender Ungleichheit, die seit den 1980ern von einer „Ära der Wiederzunahme“ abgelöst wurde.[96] Hans-Ulrich Wehler wiederum hat die stabile und hohe Konzentration der Einkommens- und Vermögensungleichheit in der gesamten Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland betont.[97] In solchen Analysen übernahmen Historiker:innen die von den Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften produzierten Sozialdaten häufig weitgehend unhinterfragt, bis sich in jüngster Zeit eine kritischere Auffassung etablierte (vgl. auch unten, 4.4).[98]

Zusammenfassend lässt sich festhalten, dass sich die deutsche Geschichtswissenschaft lange Zeit aus den in den Sozialwissenschaften geführten Begriffs- und Definitionsdebatten auffällig herausgehalten hat. Dies gilt nicht nur für die Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, sondern insbesondere für die Kulturgeschichte, die Fragen nach sozialen Ungleichheiten als Thema aus ihren Analysen lange Zeit ausgegrenzt hatte.[99] Erst Anfang der 2010er-Jahre setzten Diskussionen über das Sozialphänomen unter Historiker:innen als ein eigenes Forschungsfeld ein. Es wurden Themenhefte[100] und Sammelbände[101] zu Reichtum herausgegeben, Konferenzen[102] und Sektionen beim Historikertag[103] zum Thema veranstaltet, und die sechsten Schweizerischen Geschichtstage 2019 waren sogar explizit diesem Begriff gewidmet.[104] Es entsteht derzeit ein immer vielfältiger werdendes Forschungsfeld, das auch den Dialog zwischen den einzelnen Subdisziplinen der Geschichtswissenschaft sucht und produktiv nutzt. Im Folgenden sollen vier aktuelle Zugänge zu dem Themenfeld „Reichtum“ vorgestellt werden, die für die Geschichtswissenschaften produktive zukünftige Perspektiven eröffnen.

4. Aktuelle Ansätze einer historischen Reichtumsforschung

4.1 Wissen und Wissenschaften

Gesellschaftliche Diskurse über Reichtum bauten insbesondere im 20. Jahrhundert häufig auf Wissensbeständen der Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften auf, die einflussreiche Bilder bestehender Sozialordnungen produzierten.[105] Besondere Bedeutung kam dabei Statistiken über die personelle Einkommens- und Vermögensverteilung zu, die es ermöglichten, Reichtum zu vermessen und sichtbar zu machen. Die produzierten Zahlen wurden indes nicht nur von zeitgenössischen Kommentator:innen aufgegriffen, sondern auch von späteren Historiker:innen, welche die Daten nutzten, um historische Sozialstrukturen zu rekonstruieren.

In jüngster Zeit hat sich indes eine kritischere Auffassung durchgesetzt.[106] Demnach stellen Statistiken keine „objektiven“ Messungen dar, sondern sind komplexe zeitgenössische Konstrukte, die von der jeweiligen Gesellschaft geprägt werden und zugleich das Bild der Gesellschaft von sich selbst prägen (Co-Konstruktion von Statistik und Gesellschaft).[107] Zudem weisen sie häufig Defizite auf, besonders im Bereich des Reichtums, der in freiwilligen Haushalts-Surveys häufig unterschätzt wurde.[108] Solche Einsichten haben Historiker:inen dafür sensibilisiert, dass historische Sozialdaten nicht nur eingehender Quellenkritik bedürfen, sondern mit ganz eigenen interessanten Geschichten verbunden sind und selbst relevante Forschungsgegenstände darstellen.

Hierzu hat sich eine Forschungsperspektive entwickelt, die sich mit Fragen und Methoden der Wissensgeschichte zur Analyse der gesellschaftlichen Produktion und Zirkulation von Wissen über Sozialstrukturen und Ungleichheitsverhältnisse auseinandersetzt.[109] So wurde in einer neuen Studie zu Großbritannien herausgearbeitet, dass die Wissensproduktion über ökonomische Ungleichheit von wandelbaren Wissensregimen abhing: Die Vermessung der Vermögenskonzentration wurde hier erst während der Hochphase sozialdemokratischer Politik in den 1970er-Jahren entschieden vorangetrieben, ab 1979 unter Thatcher aber wieder eingeschränkt.[110] Auch zur deutschen Geschichte liegen bereits Forschungsergebnisse vor. Hier ermöglichte die Einführung von Einkommens- und Vermögensteuern seit dem 19. Jahrhundert nicht nur die Generierung umfassenden Regierungswissens, sondern auch „eine sehr viel präzisere Quantifizierung von Armut und Reichtum als zuvor“; zudem befeuerte das Wissen über die Umverteilungseffekte der Steuerpolitik die öffentlichen Debatten über eine gerechtere Gesellschaftsordnung.[111] Eine ähnliche Wirkung bezweckte der Regierungsbeamte und Publizist Rudolf Martin, als er von 1911 bis 1914 auf der Basis von Steuerstatistiken detaillierte Listen von Millionären veröffentlichte.[112]

In der Bundesrepublik blieb die Zahl der Millionäre lange unbekannt und das Wissen über die Vermögenskonzentration sehr lückenhaft, bis seit den späten 1950er-Jahren detaillierteres Wissen verfügbar wurde und öffentliche Debatten angestoßen worden.[113] Die Hauptquellen, die Einkommens- und Verbrauchsstichproben (seit 1962/63) sowie die Vermögensteuerstatistik, waren jedoch in puncto Reichtum nur begrenzt aussagekräftig, und der Staat investierte zunächst kaum in Verbesserungen.[114] Auch die vorhandenen Statistiken über Vermögenstransfers durch Erbschaften waren „dürftig“, obwohl sie größere Trends wie das ansteigende Erbvolumen anzeigten.[115] Zwar ebbte das öffentliche Interesse an der Vermögensverteilung in den 1970er-Jahren wieder ab, doch wurden in den 1980er-Jahren u.a. mit dem Sozio-oekonomischen Panel (SOEP, ab 1984) wichtige Grundlagen für die heutige Reichtumsforschung geschaffen.[116] Die Debatten um Reichtum wurden also lange von weitreichendem Nichtwissen geprägt – ähnlich wie auf anderen Themenfeldern der sozialen Ungleichheit wie zum Beispiel der gesundheitlichen Ungleichheit, wie weitere Forschungen zeigen.[117]

Image

4.2 Diskurse und Repräsentationen

Viele neuere Studien nehmen massenmediale Repräsentationen und Diskurse in den Blick, die im 20. Jahrhundert eine zentrale Rolle bei der gesellschaftlichen Wahrnehmung von „Reichtum“ spielten. Diese Studien fassen Massenmedien als wichtige meinungsbildende Institutionen auf, welche die sozialen Vorstellungswelten von Reichtum in der Öffentlichkeit nicht nur ausstellten, sondern eben auch aushandelten und darauf zurückwirkten.[118] So konnte die Historikerin Anne Kurr anhand der Debatten um Vermögensverteilung und Vermögenspolitik in der Bundesrepublik zeigen, dass es Phasen intensiver und weniger intensiver Auseinandersetzungen gab und vor allem wie eng dabei die Diskurse in verschiedenen Arenen verbunden waren: Wissenschaftlich generiertes Wissen, massenmediale Repräsentationen und politisches Handeln hingen miteinander zusammen und reagierten aufeinander. Gerade zu Beginn der 1960er-Jahre kam es nach einer verstärkten Berichterstattung zu einer politischen Auseinandersetzung mit Vermögensungleichheit und Reichtum. Das Finanzministerium finanzierte sogar wissenschaftliche Studien, die jedoch nicht zu Gesetzesänderungen führten. Denn die Phase der intensiven Auseinandersetzung endete mit der Wirtschaftskrise 1973/74 – und damit auch das politische Interesse an der Analyse ungleicher Vermögensverhältnisse.[119] Der Historiker Ronny Grundig machte ebenfalls deutlich, dass über die Erbschaftspolitiken in den 1960er- und 1970er-Jahren intensiv öffentlich diskutiert wurde, diese Diskussionen aber ebenfalls nur zu einer „moderaten Anpassung“ in der Steuerpolitik unter der sozialliberalen Koalition führten.[120]

Gerade die Analysen der massenmedialen Diskurse weisen zudem darauf hin, wie zentral die Sichtbarkeit bzw. die Sichtbarmachung von „Reichtum“ und damit die Visualität des Sozialphänomens ist. Georg Simmel und auch Thorstein Veblen betonten bereits Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts, dass Reichtum ein soziales Demonstrationsphänomen sei: Viele aus dieser Gruppe wollten zeigen, dass sie zu den Reichen gehörten.[121] Mit dem Sozialphänomen sind insbesondere bestimmte Konsumpraktiken verbunden, was nicht zuletzt an der Visualität von Reichtum in Fotografien mit Booten, Villen und Autos deutlich wird. Dabei konnten neuere Arbeiten zeigen, dass diese Sichtbarkeit von Reichtum und der darin zum Ausdruck kommende starke Repräsentationswillen gerade in Deutschland nicht selten mit Strategien der Unsichtbarmachung und der Zurückhaltung einhergingen.[122]

Solche Selbstinszenierungen korrespondierten stets mit normativen Fremdwahrnehmungen der „Reichen“ in der übrigen Gesellschaft. Wie neuere Forschungen zeigen, wandelten sich gesellschaftliche Einstellungen zu Reichtum im Lauf der Zeit. Im Mittelalter galt übermäßiger Reichtum oft als moralisch fragwürdig, doch genossen Reiche hohes Ansehen, wenn sie sich großzügig zeigten, insbesondere in Krisenzeiten. Die Bereitschaft reicher Eliten, zum Gemeinwohl beizutragen, habe in der Moderne aber zunehmend abgenommen, wie der Wirtschaftshistoriker Guido Alfani mit Blick auf die Finanzkrise 2008 oder die COVID-19-Pandemie argumentiert.[123] Wie Fremdzuschreibungen und Repräsentationsarbeit als Bestandteile von „Reichtumskulturen“ zusammenwirkten, bedarf weiterer Forschung.[124] Auch liegen bisher wenige Arbeiten dazu vor, die solche Inszenierungen mit Blick auf Geschlecht oder Ethnizität lesen oder die eine Verbindung zur Körpergeschichte explorieren.[125] Dies scheint ein lohnendes Forschungsfeld zu sein, das in Zukunft noch weitere Aufmerksamkeit verdient.

4.3 Alltagspraktiken und Geldpraktiken

An die Diskussionen zur Entwicklung der Einkommens- und Vermögensungleichheit seit dem 19. Jahrhundert, die vor allem der französische Wirtschaftswissenschaftler Thomas Piketty angestoßen hat, schloss sich in den letzten Jahren die Frage an, wie es zu einer solchen Konzentration von Vermögen über Jahrhunderte kommen konnte. Schließlich konnte auch Guido Alfani zeigen, dass die Konzentration von Reichtum bei einer kleinen Elite ein konstantes Muster in der westlichen Geschichte bildete. Es habe zwar vorübergehende Einschnitte gegeben – etwa durch die Pest im Mittelalter oder die beiden Weltkriege –, aber langfristig seien die Reichen stets in der Lage gewesen, ihre Vormachtstellung immer wieder zurückzugewinnen. Die dominierenden Formen des Wohlstands hätten sich im Laufe der Jahrhunderte verändert, von Landbesitz im Mittelalter über Handel und Industrie in der Moderne bis hin zu Technologie- und Finanzwirtschaft in der Gegenwart. Die Frage, wie es gelang, Vermögenswerte über lange Zeiträume und Umbruchphasen hinweg zu erhalten, lenkt den Blick auf die Praktiken und Mechanismen der Vermögensbewahrung. Während die Juristin Katharina Pistor die Rolle des Rechts bei der Vermögenssicherung betont und danach fragt, inwieweit juristische Akteure entscheidenden Anteil daran hatten,[126] wiesen andere in ihren Studien auf die Bedeutung von Erbschaften hin.[127]

Erbschaft ist zweifelsohne ein wichtiger Motor von Ungleichheit und widerspricht zudem in besonderer Weise dem Leistungsideal der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft.[128] Derzeit entwickeln sich unterschiedliche Perspektiven auf dieses Thema auch in der Geschichtswissenschaft. In den Blick geraten Fragen nach Steuerpolitiken genauso wie Praktiken der Erbregelung sowie quantitative Analysen zur Verteilung von Erbschaften im Verlauf des 20. Jahrhunderts. Erbschaft wird hierbei ganz gezielt nicht als ein kurzer Zeitraum von Vermögensübertragung verstanden, sondern auch als langfristiger Prozess der Vermögenssicherung. Dabei scheint besonders interessant, dass Vermögende offenbar einen deutlich größeren Handlungsspielraum hatten und sich in ihren Erbübertragungen deutlich von anderen Gesellschaftsteilen unterschieden. Während etwa die untere Hälfte der Bevölkerung bis heute ohnehin kaum über nennenswerte Vermögen verfügt, unterschieden sich die Vermögensportfolios reicher Personen zum einen in ihrer Zusammensetzung und den enthaltenen Vermögensformen. Zum anderen verfügen Reiche auch über die nötigen Mittel, um Dienstleistungen spezialisierter Rechtsanwält:innen und Berater:innen in Anspruch zu nehmen, so dass sie vielfältige Strategien entwickeln konnten, um ihr Vermögen zu bewahren und eine möglichst verlustlose Weitergabe zu gewährleisten, zum Beispiel durch Stiftungen, Trusts und Nachlassplanungen.[129]

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Die Historikerin Simone Derix nahm das Vermögenshandeln der Familie Thyssen in den Blick und konnte daran exemplarisch zeigen, wie es diesen auf der einen Seite durch internationale Vernetzung, auf der anderen Seite durch professionelle Hilfe von „Hidden Helpers“,[130] d.h. einer Vorform von Vermögensberatern, gelang, über die Zäsuren des 20. Jahrhunderts hinweg Vermögen zu akkumulieren und zu bewahren. Solche Formen von strategischen Erbschafts- und Vermögenspraktiken zeigten sich auch für weniger exponierte Familien, die Steuergesetze steuervermeidend auslegen konnten und nicht zuletzt von der Internationalisierung der Finanzindustrie im 20. Jahrhundert profitierten.[131] Solche Befunde scheinen besonders interessant, da große Erbschaftsreformen in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts größtenteils ausblieben, auch wenn es Gesetzesmodifikationen durch einen Wandel des Familienverständnisses gab.[132] Inwiefern solche Geldpraktiken der Vermögenssicherung auch Normen und Vorstellungen über Reichtum selbst prägen, sind Fragen, die zukünftig ergiebige Forschungsperspektiven für die Zeitgeschichte eröffnen.[133]

Ein zweiter Fokus jüngerer Forschung liegt auf den Alltagspraktiken und den Lebenswelten meist einzelner vermögender Familien. Hierbei wird nicht nur die Mobilität der Reichen in den Blick genommen, sei es durch internationalen Immobilienbesitz, saisonale Aufenthaltsorte[134] oder die Bewegungsmittel,[135] sondern auch das lokale Handeln und damit verbundene Distinktionsprozesse.[136] Besonders interessant ist, dass einige Studien dabei auch den Blick über demokratische und kapitalistische Gesellschaften hinaus erweitern. So liegen bereits erste Ergebnisse zu den deutschen Diktaturen vor, die den kulturell konstruierten Charakter von „Reichtum“ in besonderer Weise unter Beweis stellen und dieses Sozialphänomen damit nicht nur als eine Form von ökonomischem Besitz, sondern auch als Handlungs- und Gestaltungsmacht verstehen.[137] Trotz der Betonung von Unterschieden beim Konsum oder bei den gesellschaftlichen und politischen Legitimitätsvorstellungen konnten solche Arbeiten ebenfalls die sozialen Schließungsmechanismen dieser sozialen Gruppe aufzeigen, die sich an historisch gewachsenen Praktiken des „bürgerlichen Wertehimmels“ orientierten.[138]

4.4 Sozialdaten und Sozialstrukturen

Mit der Analyse materieller Lebenswelten verbinden sich Fragen nach materiellen Ungleichheitsverhältnissen und Sozialstrukturen. Hierzu ist die Forschung auf historische Sozialdaten angewiesen, bei denen es sich, wie bereits dargelegt, um kulturelle Konstrukte der jeweiligen Zeit handelt. Während es in der oben diskutierten Forschung (4.1) vor allem darum geht, die Genealogien und diskursiven Wirkungen dieser Konstrukte zu analysieren, geht es bei der historischen Sozialstrukturanalyse um die materiellen, also die quasi „realen“ sozialen Verhältnisse. Schließlich gehen Historiker:innen davon aus, dass historische Statistiken trotz ihres Konstruktionscharakters einen gewissen „Realitätsgehalt“ besitzen und für sozial- und wirtschaftsgeschichtliche Analysen vergangener Sozialstrukturen unverzichtbar bleiben.[139] So wurde festgestellt, dass historische Vermögensteuerstatistiken „ein erhebliches Erkenntnispotential“ bieten, um die langfristige Entwicklung von Reichtum, Vermögensformen und das Sozialprofil der Reichen im 20. Jahrhundert zu analysieren.[140] Mit ähnlichen administrativen Datenquellen rekonstruierte die Sozialhistorikerin Sonja Niederacher die Vermögensverhältnisse der reichen Minderheit unter der jüdischen Bevölkerung Wiens in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts.[141]

Insbesondere die detaillierten Täterdokumente der nationalsozialistischen Enteignungspolitik ab 1938 bieten eine große Datenfülle, die auch genderspezifische Muster der Vermögensakkumulation erkennbar werden lässt und gleichzeitig antisemitische Klischees widerlegt. Zuletzt wurden auch bislang ungenutzte Erbschaftsteuerakten vermehrt verwendet, um neue Einblicke in die Vermögensverteilung in diversen Gesellschaften zu gewinnen.[142] Weitere aktuelle Forschungen zu sozialen Ungleichheiten stützten sich auf Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP), das auch für die historische Reichtumsforschung genutzt werden könnte.[143] Für diese bietet das anhaltende Forschungsinteresse an historischen Sozialdaten vielfältige Anschlussmöglichkeiten.[144]

Daneben floriert eine rege Forschung an der Schnittstelle von Wirtschaftsgeschichte und Wirtschaftswissenschaften zu strukturellen Trends in der ökonomischen Ungleichheit, die große Berührungspunkte mit dem neuen Forschungsinteresse an Reichtum aufweist. Hierzu zählt u.a. die Forschung von Thilo Albers, Charlotte Bartels und Moritz Schularick, die Trends in der Vermögenskonzentration in Deutschland im 20./21. Jahrhundert untersucht haben.[145] Ihre Analyse zeigt eine Abmilderung der Vermögensungleichheit in der Zeit vom Ersten Weltkrieg bis in die frühe Nachkriegszeit nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, bevor es zu einem deutlichen Wiederanstieg der Vermögenskonzentration seit den 1990er-Jahren kam. Die Entwicklungen auf der materiellen Ebene mit der Geschichte kultureller Praktiken und Diskurse in Verbindung zu bringen, wäre eine Aufgabe für die künftige historische Forschung.

5. Schluss

Bis in die jüngste Zeit spielte „Reichtum“ in der Geschichtswissenschaft eine eher beiläufige Rolle. Reiche tauchten zwar immer wieder in Gestalt von Herrschern oder Unternehmern auf, doch ihr Reichtum stand nicht im Zentrum des geschichtswissenschaftlichen Interesses. Mit Aufkommen der modernen Sozialgeschichte entwickelte sich ein verstärktes Forschungsinteresse an Fragen der sozialen Ungleichheit, das auch den Blick auf die Spitzen der Einkommens- und Vermögenspyramiden lenkte, allerdings beschränkte sich der Fokus weitgehend auf sozialstrukturelle Perspektiven. Seit den 2010er-Jahren haben Historiker:innen die soziale Ungleichheit schließlich auch als kulturhistorisches Thema wiederentdeckt, und damit zugleich die Geschichte des Reichtums.

Die neue kulturhistorische Forschung zu sozialer Ungleichheit und Reichtum lehnt sich eng an sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungen an; zugleich gehört die Historisierung der sozialwissenschaftlichen Wissensproduktion zum Forschungsprogramm, das auf der Prämisse aufbaut, dass „Reichtum“ ein kulturelles Konstrukt darstellt. Dementsprechend kombiniert die neue historische Reichtumsforschung wissensgeschichtliche, diskursgeschichtliche, praxeologische und sozialgeschichtliche Ansätze. Sie historisiert das sozialwissenschaftliche und statistische Wissen, durch das Reichtum sichtbar gemacht wurde oder bei fehlendem Wissen unsichtbar blieb; sie rekonstruiert die kulturellen Images von Reichtum sowie die politischen Diskurse, durch die Reichtum legitimiert oder in Frage gestellt werden konnte; sie beleuchtet die Lebenswelten und die Praktiken, die reiche Eliten anwandten, um ihren Reichtum und Einfluss zu erhalten und auszubauen. Damit wird zugleich deutlich, dass Reichtum nicht nur auf symbolischen Ebenen zu untersuchen ist, sondern auch auf materiellen Ebenen: Die strukturellen Trends in der Entwicklung von Reichtum sind Gegenstand aktueller sozialhistorischer, wirtschaftsgeschichtlicher und ökonomischer Forschungen.

Diese verschiedenen Ansätze weiterzuentwickeln und miteinander in Verbindung zu bringen, wäre Aufgabe künftiger Forschungen. Dabei gilt es, verschiedene regionale, nationale, transnationale und globale Skalen in den Blick zu nehmen. Zugleich müsste die Forschung auch intersektionale Perspektiven einnehmen, indem sie Reichtum nach class, race und gender sowie weiteren möglichen kategorialen Ungleichheiten wie disabiliy, age, sex untersucht. Die historische Forschung kann dabei wichtige Beiträge zum Verständnis vergangener und gegenwärtiger Gesellschaften erbringen. Den starken Anstieg der ökonomischen Ungleichheit und den Aufstieg der Superreichen in vielen Gesellschaften seit den 1980er/90er-Jahren aus historischen Perspektiven zu untersuchen, kann wichtige Prozesse in der Vorgeschichte der Gegenwart erhellen.

Durch das Phänomen der „Emissions Inequality“ – also die breit dokumentierte Tatsache, dass Reiche für gewöhnlich viel mehr Energie konsumieren und Emissionen produzieren als weniger wohlhabende Haushalte und Individuen – ist Reichtum zugleich mit einem der drängendsten Probleme der heutigen Welt eng verknüpft, der Klimakrise.[146] Schließlich kann die neue historische Reichtumsforschung auch die gesellschaftlichen und politischen Einflussmöglichkeiten beleuchten, die sich aus hohem ökonomischen Kapital ergeben. In einer Zeit, in der ökonomische Macht zunehmende Bedeutung erlangt hat, kann es zur gesellschaftlichen Relevanz der Zeitgeschichte als Disziplin beitragen, wenn sie Reichtum konzeptionell und empirisch noch stärker bedenkt.

Anmerkungen

[1] Lucas Chancel u.a., World Inequality Report 2022, https://wir2022.wid.world/ [05.02.2025].

[2] Vgl. Petra Schulte/Peter Hesse (Hrsg.), Reichtum im späten Mittelalter. Politische Theorie – Ethische Norm – Soziale Akzeptanz, Stuttgart 2015.

[3] Siehe dazu u.a. Pierre Rosanvallon, The Society of Equals, Cambridge, Mass./London 2013.

[4] Vgl. Lutz Raphael, Die Verwissenschaftlichung des Sozialen als methodische und konzeptionelle Herausforderung für eine Sozialgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts, in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 22 (1996), S. 165-193, hier S. 168, 177; Christian Neuhäuser, Reichtum als moralisches Problem, Berlin 2018, S. 17f. Siehe auch Hagen Krämer, Reichtum in der ökonomischen Theorie, in: Nikolaus Dimmel/Julia Hofmann/Martin Schenk/Martin Schürz (Hrsg.), Handbuch Reichtum. Neue Erkenntnisse aus der Ungleichheitsforschung, Innsbruck 2017, S. 118-138, hier S. 119.

[5] Harold Lydall/D.G. Tipping, The Distribution of Personal Wealth in Britain, in: Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 23 (1961), S. 83-104, hier S. 83.

[6] Siehe den „Spiegel“-Gehaltsrechner, https://interactive.spiegel.de/int/pub/ressort/wirtschaft/tools/iw-obere-10-prozent/v0/index.html [25.02.2025]; siehe auch die viel genutzte World Inequality Database (seit 2011), https://wid.world/wid-world/ [25.02.2025].

[7] Thomas Piketty, Capital and Ideology, Cambridge, Mass./London 2020.

[8] Meyers Konversationslexikon. Eine Encyklopädie des allgemeinen Wissens, 4. Aufl., Bd. 13, Leipzig/Wien 1890, S. 689. Eine ähnliche Formulierung findet sich noch im Jahr 1907: Meyers Großes Konversationslexikon, 16. Band Leipzig 1907, S. 746. Vereinzelt wird zur Jahrhundertwende auch das Adverb erfasst; siehe beispielsweise: Moritz Heyne, Deutsches Wörterbuch, Zweiter Band, Leipzig 1906, S. 67: „Reich: mächtig, viel besitzend“.

[9] Vgl. Christoph Weischer, Stabile UnGleichheiten. Eine praxeologische Sozialstrukturanalyse, Wiesbaden 2022, S. 561.

[10] Vgl. Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Die neue Umverteilung. Soziale Ungleichheit in Deutschland, München 2013, S. 39f.

[11] Vgl. Hans Günter Hockerts, Zeitgeschichte in Deutschland. Begriff, Methoden, Themenfelder, in: Historisches Jahrbuch 113 (1993), S. 98-127, hier S. 124, online unter https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/4659/1/4659.pdf [25.05.2025].

[12] Vgl. Branko Milanovic, Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalisation, Cambridge/Mass. 2016; Weischer, Stabile UnGleichheiten.

[13] Eva Barlösius, Kämpfe um soziale Ungleichheit. Machttheoretische Perspektiven, Wiesbaden 2004, S. 10. Weiterführend: dies., Die Macht der Repräsentation: Common Sense über soziale Ungleichheiten, Wiesbaden 2005.

[14] Richard Nikolaus Coudenhove, Los vom Materialismus!, Wien/Leipzig 1931, S. 138-143, hier S. 138.

[15] Siehe auch das Themenheft der Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung: Oben – Mitte – Unten. Zur Vermessung der Gesellschaft, Bonn 2015, https://www.bpb.de/system/files/dokument_pdf/1576_Oben_Mitte_Unten_ba.pdf [25.02.2025].

[16] „Wer nun mehr hat, als er wahrscheinlich braucht, der ist reich, folglich bestehet der Reichthum in einem Uberflusse.“ Johann Heinrich Zedler, Großes vollständiges Universal-Lexicon aller Wissenschaften und Zünfte, Leipzig/Halle 1739, S. 198, online unter https://www.zedler-lexikon.de/. Reichthum 1. „Der Zustand, da etwas in Menge, in Überfluß vorhanden ist.“ Joachim Heinrich Lampe, Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, Braunschweig 1809, S. 797, online unter https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_pJREAAAAcAAJ/page/1/mode/2up. Siehe auch Heinrich August Pierer, Universal­Lexikon der Gegenwart und Vergangenheit oder neuestes enzyklopädisches Wörterbuch der Wissenschaften, Künste und Gewerbe, Bd. 24, Altenburg 1844, S. 400, online unter https://archive.org/details/universallexiko02piergoog [alle 25.05.2025]. Sowie schon sehr früh bei: Johann Heinrich Zedler, Grosses vollständiges Universal­lexicon aller Wissenschaften und Künste, Leipzig/Halle 1732-1754, Bd. 31, Art. Reichthum, S. 198-212.

[17] Siehe Weischer, Stabile UnGleichheiten, S. 1ff., 561-564.

[18] So Wolfgang Lauterbach/Miriam Ströing, Wohlhabend, Reich und Vermögend – Was heißt das eigentlich?, in: Thomas Druyen u.a. (Hrsg.), Reichtum und Vermögen. Zur gesellschaftlichen Bedeutung der Reichtums- und Vermögensforschung, Wiesbaden 2009, S. 13-28, hier S. 24.

[19] Siehe z.B. Piketty, Capital and Ideology, S. 670ff. Die letztgenannte Definition wird z.B. in den Armuts- und Reichtumsberichten der Bundesregierung verwendet; https://www.armuts-und-reichtumsbericht.de/DE/Indikatoren/Reichtum/Einkommensreichtum/einkommensreichtum.html [25.02.2025].

[20] Vgl. Christoph Butterwegge, Umverteilung des Reichtums, Köln 2024.

[21] „Im Bild-Talk bestätigt: Merz ist Millionär“, in: Bild, 14.11.2018; https://www.bild.de/politik/inland/politik-inland/friedrich-merz-der-millionaer-der-sich-zur-oberen-mittelschicht-zaehlt-58420590.bild.html [25.02.2025].

[22] Vgl. Christiane Reinecke/Thomas Mergel (Hrsg.), Das Soziale ordnen. Sozialwissenschaften und gesellschaftliche Ungleichheit im 20. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt a.M. 2012.

[23] Vgl. Otto Penz, Zur ästhetischen Symbolisierung von Reichtum, in: Dimmel u.a. (Hrsg.), Handbuch Reichtum, S. 468-480.

[24] Vgl. u.a. Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte. Bd. 5: Bundesrepublik und DDR 1949-1990, München 2008, S. 111f.

[25] Thames & Hudson Ltd. in Kooperation mit der London School of Economics and Political Science, Charles Booth’s London Poverty Maps, London 2009.

[26] Vgl. Mike Savage u.a., Social Class in the 21^st Century, London 2015, S. 31f.

[27] Vgl. Christiane Reinecke/Thomas Mergel, Das Soziale vorstellen, darstellen, herstellen: Sozialwissenschaften und gesellschaftliche Ungleichheit im 20. Jahrhundert, in: dies. (Hrsg.), Das Soziale ordnen, S. 7-30, hier S. 26-30.

[28] Vgl. u.a. Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte Bd. 5, S. 112f.

[29] Vgl. Reinecke/Mergel, Das Soziale vorstellen, darstellen, herstellen, S. 16f.

[30] Vgl. dazu Anne Kurr, Verteilungsfragen. Wahrnehmung und Wissen von Reichtum in der Bundesrepublik (1960-1990), Frankfurt a.M. 2022, S. 86ff., 98ff.

[31] Vgl. Christoph Butterwegge, Die zerrissene Republik: wirtschaftliche, soziale und politische Ungleichheit in Deutschland, Weinheim 2020, S. 95ff., 101; Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte Bd. 5, S. 112.

[32] Vgl. Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte Bd. 5, S. 112f.

[33] Vgl. ebd., S. 113f.

[34] Vgl. Savage, Social Class in the 21^st Century, S. 46ff.

[35] Vgl. Christoph Butterwegge, Ungleichheit in der Klassengesellschaft, Köln 2020, S. 52.

[36] Vgl. Druyen u.a. (Hrsg.), Reichtum und Vermögen; Dorothee Spannagel, Reichtum in Deutschland – sozialwissenschaftliche Perspektiven, in: Eva Gajek/Anne Kurr/Lu Seegers (Hrsg.), Reichtum in Deutschland. Akteure, Räume und Lebenswelten im 20. Jahrhundert, Göttingen 2019, S. 348-362, hier S. 351f.

[37] Vgl. ebd., S. 356; siehe u.a. auch Nicole Burzan/Berthold Vogel, Reichtum. Ein Forschungsessay, in: Soziopolis. Gesellschaft beobachten, 13.7.2023, S. 2, online unter https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/88487/sopolis-reichtum.pdf?sequence=-1&isAllowed=y&lnkname=sopolis-reichtum.pdf [25.02.2025].

[38] Vgl. u.a. Butterwegge, Ungleichheit, S. 62f.

[39] Siehe dazu Mike Savage, The Return of Inequality. Social Change and the Weight of the Past, Cambridge, Mass./London 2021, S. 67.

[40] Vgl. Pedro Ramos Pinto, Inequality by Numbers: The Making of a Global Political Issue?, in: Christian Olaf Christiansen/Steven L.B. Jensen (Hrsg.), Histories of Global Inequality. New Perspectives, Basingstoke 2019, S. 107-128.

[41] Piketty, Capital and Ideology, S. 420f.

[42] Vgl. die Länderstudien bei Piketty, Capital and Ideology.

[43] Vgl. Charlotte Bartels, Top Incomes in Germany, 1871-2014, in: The Journal of Economic History 79 (2019) 3, S. 669-707, online unter https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/222930/1/2019Bartels%20Top%20incomes%20in%20Germany%201871-2014%20AV.pdf [25.02.2025].

[44] Vgl. Charlotte Bartels/Theresa Neef, Die Einkommens- und Vermögensverteilung in Deutschland, in: Wirtschaftsdienst 104 (2024), Heft 7, S. 441-447, online unter https://www.wirtschaftsdienst.eu/inhalt/jahr/2024/heft/7/beitrag/die-einkommens-und-vermoegensverteilung-in-deutschland.html [25.02.2025].

[45] Vgl. Weischer, UnGleichheiten, S. 541, 545. Wehler ging in seiner Gesellschaftsgeschichte noch von weitgehender Stabilität auf hohem Niveau bis in die 1990er-Jahre aus; Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte Bd. 5, S. 119-124.

[46] Vgl. Piketty, Capital and Ideology, S. 423.

[47] Vgl. Kurr, Verteilungsfragen, S. 103; Carsten Schröder u.a., MillionärInnen unter dem Mikroskop: Datenlücke bei sehr hohen Vermögen geschlossen – Konzentration höher als bisher ausgewiesen, DIW Wochenbericht 29 (2020), S. 511-521, https://www.diw.de/de/diw_01.c.793802.de/publikationen/wochenberichte/2020_29_1/millionaerinnen_unter_dem_mikroskop__datenluecke_bei_sehr_ho___geschlossen______konzentration_hoeher_als_bisher_ausgewiesen.html [25.02.2025]. Beim Sozio-oekonomischen Panel (SOEP) handelt es sich um eine seit 1984 durchgeführte Langzeitstudie, die neben der Einkommens- und Verbrauchsstichprobe (EVS) des Statistischen Bundesamts als wichtigster Haushaltssurvey und Hauptquelle für soziale Trends in der Bundesrepublik gilt: https://www.diw.de/de/diw_01.c.412809.de/sozio-oekonomisches_panel__soep.html [25.02.2025].

[48] Vgl. Bartels, Top Incomes, S. 700; Savage, Return of Inequality, S. 199; Céline Bessière/Sibylle Gollac, The Gender of Capital. How Families Perpetuate Wealth Inequality, Cambridge., Mass./London 2023.

[49] Vgl. Markus M. Grabka/Christoph Halbmeier, Vermögensungleichheit in Deutschland bleibt trotz deutlich steigender Nettovermögen anhaltend hoch, DIW Wochenbericht 40 (2019), S. 735-745, https://www.diw.de/de/diw_01.c.679909.de/publikationen/wochenberichte/2019_40_1/vermoegensungleichheit_in_deutschland_bleibt_trotz_deutlich_steigender_nettovermoegen_anhaltend_hoch.html#section2 [25.02.2025].

[50] Vgl. Jürgen Dinkel, Alles bleibt in der Familie. Erbe und Eigentum in Deutschland, Russland und den USA seit dem 19. Jahrhundert, Köln 2023; Jens Beckert, Erben in der Leistungsgesellschaft, Frankfurt a.M. 2013, S. 221f.

[51] Vgl. Anita Tiefensee/Markus Grabka, Das Erbvolumen in Deutschland dürfte um gut ein Viertel größer sein als bisher angenommen, DIW Wochenbericht 27 (2017), https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.560982.de/17-27-3.pdf [25.02.2025].

[52] Christoph Lorke, Von alten und neuen Ungleichheiten. „Armut“ in der Vereinigungsgesellschaft, in: Thomas Großbölting/Christoph Lorke (Hrsg.), Deutschland seit 1990. Wege in die Vereinigungsgesellschaft, Stuttgart 2017, S. 271-294; Grabka/Halbmeier, Vermögensungleichheit.

[53] Vgl. Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge, Mass./London 2014; Philip Mader u.a. (Hrsg.), The Routledge International Handbook of Financialization, London 2020.

[54] Vgl. Savage, Return of Inequality, S. 98f.

[55] Vgl. Dimmel u.a. (Hrsg.), Handbuch Reichtum.

[56] Vgl. Burzan/Vogel, Reichtum; Wolfgang Lauterbach/Thomas Druyen/Matthias Grundmann (Hrsg.), Vermögen in Deutschland. Heterogenität und Verantwortung, Wiesbaden 2011.

[57] Vgl. Thomas Druyen (Hrsg.), Vermögenskultur. Verantwortung im 21. Jahrhundert, Wiesbaden 2011; Sighard Neckel, Zerstörerischer Reichtum. Wie eine globale Verschmutzerelite das Klima ruiniert, in: Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 68 (2023), 4, S. 47-56, online unter https://www.blaetter.de/ausgabe/2023/april/zerstoererischer-reichtum [25.02.2025].

[58] Vgl. Alexander Ebner/Jens Becker, Reichtumskulturen. Eine wirtschaftssoziologische Perspektive (2011), https://silo.tips/download/reichtumskulturen-eine-wirtschaftssoziologische-perspektive [25.02.2025].

[59] Vgl. Penz, Symbolisierung von Reichtum.

[60] Ebd.

[61] Siehe Hanna Lierse/Patrick Sachweh/Nora Waitkus (Hrsg.), Special Issue on Wealth, Inequality and Redistribution in Capitalist Societies, in: Social Justice Research 35 (2022), H. 4.

[62] Vgl. u.a. Frank Trentmann, Out of the Darkness. The Germans 1942-2022, London 2023, S. 614.

[63] Vgl. Cornelia Dlabaja, Abschottung von oben: die Hierarchisierung der Stadt, in: Dimmel u.a. (Hrsg.), Handbuch Reichtum, S. 481-495.

[64] So u.a. Rowland Atkinson, Alpha City. How London was Captured by the Super-Rich, London 2020.

[65] Vgl. Harald Trabold, Reichtum macht Politik, in: Dimmel u.a. (Hrsg.), Handbuch Reichtum, S. 402-415; Sighard Neckel, The Refeudalization of Modern Capitalism, in: Journal of Sociology 56 (2020), H. 3, S. 472-486; Hans Lukas Richard Arndt, Linking Wealth and Power. Unity and Political Action of the World's Wealthiest Capitalist Families and the Corporate Elite, Köln 2023, online unter https://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/70612/1/Dissertation.pdf [25.02.2025].

[66] Piketty, Capital and Ideology, S. 1-4.

[67] Siehe u.a. Savage, Return of Inequality, S. 117ff.; Peter A. Berger/Anja Weiß (Hrsg.), Transnationalisierung sozialer Ungleichheit, Wiesbaden 2008.

[68] Vgl. Olivier Godechot, Financialization and the Increase in Inequality, in: Mader u.a. (Hrsg.), Handbook of Financialization, S. 413-424.

[69] Vgl. Morten Reitmayer, Eliten, Version: 2.0, in: Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte, 18.02.2022; http://docupedia.de/zg/Reitmayer_eliten_v2_de_2022 [25.02.2025], hier Fußnote 38 und 39.

[70] Ein früher Beitrag ist die Arbeit von Pitirim Sorokin, auf welche die späteren Arbeiten auch stets referierten: Pitirim Sorokin, American Millionaires and Multi-Millionaires; A Comparative Statistical Study, in: Journal of Social Forces 3 (1925), H. 4, S. 627-640.

[71] So u.a. Edward Pessen, Jacksonian America: Society, Personality and Politics, Champaign 1985 [zuerst 1969]; Joseph J. Thorndike, The Very Rich. A History of Wealth, New York 1976.

[72] Frühe Beispiele: Sidney W. Ratner, New Light on the History of Great American Fortunes, New York 1953, online unter https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3899407&seq=25 [25.02.2025]; Edward Pessen, The Egalitarian Myth and the American Social Reality: Wealth, Mobility and Equality in the „Era of the Common Man“, in: The American Historical Review 76 (1971), H. 4, S. 989-1034; Stanley Lebergott, Are The Rich Getting Richer? Trends in U.S. Wealth Concentration, in: The Journal of Economic History 36 (1976), H. 1, S. 147-162; Michael Hout, Review: Hard Data on the Rich and the Super Rich, in: Contemporary Sociology 11 (1982), H. 6, S. 656-658.

[73] Lee Soltow (Hrsg.), Six Papers on the Size Distribution of Wealth and Income, New York/London 1969, online unter https://www.nber.org/books-and-chapters/six-papers-size-distribution-wealth-and-income [25.02.2025]; ders., Men and Wealth in the United States 1850-1870, New Haven 1975; ders., Distribution of Wealth and Income in the United States in 1798, Pittsburgh 1989; Edward Pessen, Riches, Class and Power. America before the Civil War, Lexington 1973; Frederic Cople Jaher, The Rich, the Well Born, and the Powerful: Elites and Upper Classes in History, Illinois 1975; ders., The Urban Establishment. Upper Strata in Boston, New York, Charleston, Chicago and Los Angeles, New York 1982.

[74] William D. Rubinstein, Occupations among British Millionaires, 1857-1969, in: Review of Income and Wealth 17 (1971), H. 4, S. 375-378, online unter https://www.roiw.org/1971/375.pdf [25.02.2025]; ders., Men of Property: The Very Wealthy in Britain since the Industrial Revolution, New Brunswick 1981; ders., Britain’s Elites in the Inter-War Period, 1918-1939: Decline or Continued Ascendancy?, in: British Scholar 3 (2010), H. 1, S. 5-23.

[75] William D. Rubinstein, Wealth and The Wealthy in the Modern World, London 1980.

[76] Vgl. William D. Rubinstein, New Men of Wealth and the Purchase of Land in Nineteenth-Century Britain, in: Past & Present 92 (1981), S. 125-147, online unter https://ia601402.us.archive.org/12/items/rubinstein-w-d-j-auth-new-men-of-wealth-and-the-purchase-of-land/Rubinstein%2C_W_D_j_auth_New_Men_of_Wealth_and_the_Purchase_of_Land.pdf [25.02.2025]; ders., Who Were the Rich?, Vol. 1-5, Brighton 2017ff.; Philip Beresford/William D. Rubinstein, The Richest of the Rich. The Wealthiest 250 People in Britain since 1066, Petersfield 2011.

[77] William D. Rubinstein, Jewish Top Wealth-Holders in Britain, 1809-1909, in: Jewish Historical Studies 37 (2001), S. 133-161; Rubinstein, Britain’s Elites; Werner Eugen Mosse, The German-Jewish Economic Élite 1820-1935. A Socio-Cultural Profile, Oxford/New York 1989.

[78] Vgl. Dolores Augustine, Patricians and Parvenus: Wealth and High Society in Wilhelmine Germany, Oxford/Providence 1994; siehe auch dies., The Business Elites of Hamburg and Berlin, in: Central European History 24 (1991), H. 2, S. 132-146; dies., Arriving in the Upper Class. The Wealthy Business Elite of Wilhelmine Germany, in: David Blackbourn/Richard J. Evans (Hrsg.), The German Bourgeoisie (Routledge Revivals). Essays on the Social History of the German Middle Class from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Century, London 2014, S. 46-86.

[79] So zum Beispiel: Michael Jungblut, Die Reichen und die Superreichen in Deutschland, Frankfurt a.M. 1971; Eva Maria Gajek, Reichtum und Reiche in der Bundesrepublik der 1960er Jahre. Eine Dialektik von Sichtbarkeit und Unsichtbarkeit, in: Werkstatt Geschichte 73 (2017): Themenheft: Reichtum, hg. v. Winfried Süß/Jochen Johrendt, S. 51-70, online unter https://werkstattgeschichte.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/WG73_051-070_GAJEK_REICHTUM.pdf [25.02.2025].

[80] Siehe hierzu auch die Arbeiten aus der Reihe „Elitenwandel in der Moderne“: Gabriele Clemens/Dietlind Hüchtker/Martin Kohlrausch/Stephan Malinowski/Malte Rolf (Hrsg.), Elitenwandel in der Moderne/Elites and Modernity, Oldenbourg, die bisher 26 Bände umfasst; Heinz Reif (Hrsg.), Adel und Bürgertum in Deutschland; Bd. 1: Entwicklungslinien und Wendepunkte im 19. Jahrhundert, Berlin 2000; ders. (Hrsg.), Adel und Bürgertum in Deutschland; Bd. 2: Entwicklungslinien und Wendepunkte im 20. Jahrhundert, Berlin 2001; ders., Adel. Aristokratie, Elite. Sozialgeschichte von Oben, Berlin 2016. Als mikrohistorische Studie ausgesprochen anregend: Heinz Reif, Das Tiergartenviertel. Geselligkeit und Gesellschaft in Berlins „Neuem Westen“ um 1900, in: ders., Adel, Aristokratie, Elite, S.149-179; Stephan Malinowski, Vom König zum Führer. Deutscher Adel und Nationalsozialismus, Frankfurt a.M. 2004.

[81] Reif, Adel, Aristokratie, Elite.

[82] Siehe Morten Reitmayer, Bankiers im Kaiserreich. Sozialprofil und Habitus der deutschen Hochfinanz, Göttingen 1999; Heinz Reif, Metropolenkultur und Elitenbildung, in: ders., Adel, Aristokratie, Elite, S. 179-228; Andreas Fahrmeir, Das Bürgertum des „bürgerlichen Jahrhunderts“. Fakt oder Fiktion?, in: Heinz Bude/Joachim Fischer/Bernd Kauffmann (Hrsg.), Bürgerlichkeit ohne Bürgertum. In welchem Land leben wir?, Paderborn 2010, S. 23-32; Werner Plumpe/Jörg Lesczenski (Hrsg.), Bürgertum und Bürgerlichkeit zwischen Kaiserreich und Nationalsozialismus, Mainz 2009.

[83] Friedrich Lenger/Dietmar Süß, Soziale Ungleichheit in der Geschichte moderner Industriegesellschaften, in: Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 54 (2014), S. 3-24, hier S. 11, online unter https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/afs/bd54/afs-54-2014-01-lenger-suess.pdf [25.02.2025].

[84] Siehe z.B. Hans Pohl/Werner Eugen Mosse (Hrsg.), Jüdische Unternehmer in Deutschland im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte Beiheft 64, Stuttgart 1992.

[85] Vgl. Hartmut Berghoff, Aristokratisierung des Bürgertums? Zur Sozialgeschichte der Nobilitierung von Unternehmern in Preußen und Großbritannien 1870 bis 1918, in: Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (VSWG) 81 (1994), H. 2, S. 178-204; ders./Roland Möller, Wirtschaftsbürger in Bremen und Bristol. Ein Beitrag zur komparativen Unternehmerforschung, in: Hans-Jürgen Puhle (Hrsg.), Bürger in der Gesellschaft der Neuzeit. Wirtschaft – Politik – Kultur, Göttingen 1991, S. 156-177.

[86] Vgl. Eva Maria Gajek, Sichtbarmachung von Reichtum: Das Jahrbuch des Vermögens und Einkommens der Millionäre in Preußen, in: Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 54 (2014), S. 79-108, online unter https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/afs/bd54/afs-54-2014-04-gajek.pdf [25.02.2025].

[87] Hartmut Kaelble, Wie feudal waren die deutschen Unternehmer im Kaiserreich? Ein Zwischenbericht, in: Richard Tilly (Hrsg.), Beiträge zur quantitativen vergleichenden Unternehmensgeschichte, Stuttgart 1985, S. 148-171, online unter https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/34074/ssoar-1985-kaelble-Wie_feudal_waren_die_deutschen.pdf [25.02.2025].

[88] Berghoff, Vermögenseliten. Siehe auch: Berghoff, Adel und Industriekapitalismus.

[89] Willi A. Boelcke, Millionäre in Württemberg. Herkunft – Aufstieg – Traditionen, Stuttgart 1997.

[90] Berghoff, Vermögenseliten.

[91] Hartmut Kaelble, Eine europäische Gesellschaft? Beiträge zur Sozialgeschichte Europas vom 19. bis ins 21. Jahrhundert, Göttingen 2020, S. 61.

[92] Augustine, Patricians.

[93] Siehe beispielsweise die Rezensionen von Thomas Rohkrämer: ders., Reviews: Dolores L. Augustine, Patricians and Parvenus: Wealth and High Society in Wilhelmine Germany, in: European Historical Quarterly 27 (1994), H. 2, S. 268-270; sowie die von Michael Epkenhans, in: Militärische Zeitschrift 58 (1999), H. 1, S. 256f.

[94] Siehe Toni Pierenkemper, Einkommens- und Vermögensverteilung, in: Gerold Ambrosius/Dietmar Petzina/Werner Plumpe (Hrsg.), Moderne Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Eine Einführung für Historiker und Ökonomen, München 2006, S. 257-281; Toni Pierenkemper, Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Eine Einführung – oder: wie wir reich wurden, München/Wien 2005.

[95] So z.B. Y. S. Brenner/Hartmut Kaelble/Mark Thomas (Hrsg.), Income Distribution in Historical Perspective, Cambridge/New York 1991.

[96] Hartmut Kaelble, Mehr Reichtum, mehr Armut. Soziale Ungleichheit in Europa vom 20. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, Frankfurt a.M. 2017, S. 103.

[97] Wehler, Die neue Umverteilung.

[98] So Rüdiger Graf/Kim Christian Priemel, Zeitgeschichte in der Welt der Sozialwissenschaften. Legitimität und Originalität einer Disziplin, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 59 (2011), H. 4, S. 479-508, online unter https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1524/vfzg.2011.0026/html [25.02.2025].

[99] Vgl. Lenger/Süß, Soziale Ungleichheit, S. 14; Thomas Mergel, Gleichheit und Ungleichheit als zeithistorisches und soziologisches Problem, in: Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History, Online-Ausgabe, 10 (2013), H. 2, https://zeithistorische-forschungen.de/2-2013/4598 [03.03.2025].

[100] Siehe beispielsweise: Werkstatt Geschichte 73 (2017): Reichtum, https://werkstattgeschichte.de/editorial/reichtum/?highlight=reichtum [25.02.2025]; Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht (GWU) 70 (2019), H. 11/12: Reichtumsgeschichte.

[101] Gajek/Kurr/Seegers (Hrsg.), Reichtum; Eva Maria Gajek/Christoph Lorke (Hrsg.), Soziale Ungleichheit im Visier: Wahrnehmung und Deutung von Armut und Reichtum seit 1945, Frankfurt a.M. 2016; Petra Schulte/Peter Hesse (Hrsg.), Reichtum im späten Mittelalter. Politische Theorie – Ethische Norm – Soziale Akzeptanz, Stuttgart 2015; Ernst Bruckmüller (Hrsg.), Armut und Reichtum in der Geschichte Österreichs, Wien 2010.

[102] Siehe hier beispielsweise die Konferenzen: Universität Münster: Soziale Ungleichheit im Visier. Images von „Armut“ und „Reichtum“ in West und Ost nach 1945, 27/28.11.2014; Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg, 18./19.02.2016: Reichtum in Deutschland – Akteure, Netzwerke und Lebenswelten im 20. Jahrhundert; DFG-Netzwerk „Erbfälle und Eigentumsordnungen seit 1800“ an der Universität Leipzig, 15.-17.03.2023: Das Wissen vom Erben und Vererben. Perspektiven und Quellen seit 1800; Institut für Europäische Kulturgeschichte der Universität Augsburg, 05.10.2023: Reich werden – und bleiben?! Strategien nachhaltigen Investierens in epochen- und disziplinenübergreifender Perspektive.

[103] Historikertag 2021: Deutungskämpfe über Reichtum im 20. Jahrhundert: Die feinen Unterschiede der feinen Leute, Sektionsleitung: Eva Maria Gajek/Alexandra Przyrembel; Historikertag 2018: The Global Knowledge of Divided Societies. Sektionsleitung: Christoph Lorke/Felix Römer; Historikertag 2014: Reichtum. Zur Geschichte einer umstrittenen Sozialfigur, Sektionsleitung: Winfried Süß und Jochen Johrendt.

[104] 5. Schweizerische Geschichtstage: Reichtum/Richesse, 7.-9.6.2019, Universität Zürich.

[105] Vgl. Reinecke/Mergel, Das Soziale vorstellen, darstellen, herstellen.

[106] Siehe Graf/Priemel, Zeitgeschichte in der Welt der Sozialwissenschaften.

[107] Vgl. Ann Rudinow Sætnan/Heidi Mork Lomell/Svein Hammer (Hrsg.), The Mutual Construction of Statistics and Society, New York 2010.

[108] Vgl. Spannagel, Reichtum, S. 358f.

[109] Pedro Ramos Pinto/Poornima Paidipaty, Themenheft: Measuring Matters, in: History of Political Economy 52 (2020), H. 3.

[110] Römer, Inequality Knowledge: Felix Römer, Inequality Knowledge. The Making of the Numbers about the Gap between Rich and Poor in Contemporary Britain, Berlin/Boston 2024.

[111] Vgl. Marc Buggeln, Das Versprechen der Gleichheit. Steuern und soziale Ungleichheit in Deutschland von 1871 bis heute, Berlin 2022, S. 23ff., 887ff.

[112] Vgl. Gajek, Sichtbarmachung von Reichtum.

[113] Vgl. Kurr, Verteilungsfragen, S. 81ff.

[114] Vgl. Kurr, Verteilungsfragen, S. 251ff, 261ff.

[115] Vgl. Ronny Grundig, Vermögen vererben. Politiken und Praktiken in der Bundesrepublik und Großbritannien 1945-1990, Göttingen 2022, S. 112f.

[116] Vgl. Kurr, Verteilungsfragen, S. 261ff., 266ff.

[117] Siehe dazu Eva Gajeks abgeschlossenes Habilitationsprojekt: „Auf der Suche nach den Reichen. Eine Wissens- und Wahrnehmungsgeschichte von Reichtum im langen 20. Jahrhundert in Deutschland“, https://www.mpifg.de/1152724/gajek-das-obere-1-prozent [25.02.2025]; vgl. Felix Römer, Soziale Ungleichheit in der Pandemie. Warum Deutsche weniger darüber wissen als Briten, in: Geschichte der Gegenwart, 03.03.2021, https://geschichtedergegenwart.ch/soziale-ungleichheit-in-der-pandemie-armutsstatistiken-in-deutschland-und-grossbritannien/ [25.02.2025].

[118] Siehe Lorke/Gajek, Soziale Ungleichheit im Visier.

[119] Vgl. Kurr, Verteilungsfragen.

[120] Grundig, Vermögen vererben.

[121] Georg Simmel, Philosophie des Geldes, Frankfurt a.M. 1989 [zuerst 1900], online unter https://archive.org/details/philosophiedesg00simmgoog/mode/2up [25.02.22025]; Thorstein Veblen, Theorie der feinen Leute. Eine ökonomische Untersuchung der Institutionen, Frankfurt a.M. 1997 [zuerst 1899].

[122] Vgl. Gajek, Reichtum.

[123] Guido Alfani, As Gods Among Men: A History of the Rich in the West, Princeton 2023.

[124] Siehe dazu Eva Maria Gajek, Die feinen Unterschiede der Emigration. Begegnung von Reichtumskulturen in den USA der 1930er und 1940er-Jahre, in: GWU 70 (2019), H. 11/12, S. 642-660.

[125] Besonders hervorzuheben ist Martin Lüthe, Bedrooms, Bathrooms, and Beyond? MTV Cribs, Hip Hop und Reichtumsperformanzen im privaten Kabelfernsehen in den 2000er Jahre, in: Gajek/Kurr/Seegers (Hrsg.), Reichtum, S. 272-288.

[126] Katharina Pistor, The Code of Capital. How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality, Princeton 2019.

[127] Siehe u.a. Jens Beckert, Durable Wealth: Institutions, Mechanisms, and Practices of Wealth Perpetuation, in: Annual Review of Sociology 48 (2022), S. 233-255; Daria Tisch/Emma Ischinsky, Top Wealth and its Historical Origins: Identifying Entrenched Fortunes by Linking Rich Lists over 100 Years, in: Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 9 (2023), S. 1-15, online unter https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/23780231231192774 [25.02.2025].

[128] Siehe hierzu den Forschungsüberblick und methodische Perspektiven: Dirk van Laak, Was bleibt? Erben und Vererben als Themen zeithistorischer Forschung, in: Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History 13 (2016), H. 1, S. 136-150, https://zeithistorische-forschungen.de/1-2016/5334 [25.02.2025].

[129] Vgl. Dinkel, Alles bleibt in der Familie, S. 414.

[130] Simone Derix, Hidden Helpers. Biographical Insights into Early and Mid-Twentieth Century Legal and Financial Advisors, in: European History Yearbook 16 (2015), S. 47-62, online unter  https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110415162-004/html?srsltid=AfmBOorC4SU5a2rChpXTHfWqVlgWvDrowZlr_dhzuKVfpbY-7One_Cys [25.02.2025].

[131] Vgl. Grundig, Vermögen vererben; Korinna Schönhärl, How to Create a Taxpaying Spirit. A Transnational Examination of an US American and a Western German Tax Education Film in and after World War II, in: dies./Gisela Hürlimann/Dagmar Rohde (Hrsg.), Histories of Tax Evasion, Avoidance and Resistance, London, 2023, S. 154-167, online unter https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003333197/histories-tax-evasion-avoidance-resistance-korinna-sch%C3%B6nh%C3%A4rl-gisela-h%C3%BCrlimann-dorothea-rohde [25.02.2025].

[132] Dies betraf zum einen die Stärkung des Ehepartners und auf der anderen Seite die Rolle der unehelichen Kinder, die in den Erbgang zwar eingeschlossen wurden, aber weiterhin schlechter gestellt blieben. Vgl. Grundig, Vermögen vererben.

[133] Siehe Simone Derix, Gelddinge. Doing Money in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts, in: Historische Anthropologie 27 (2019), S. 104-124, online unter https://zeithistorische-forschungen.de/sites/default/files/medien/material/2016-3/Derix_2019.pdf [25.02.2025]; Korinna Schönhärl/Frederike Schotter/Guido Thiemeyer (Hrsg), Reden über Geld. Themenheft Werkstatt Geschichte 88 (2023), online unter https://werkstattgeschichte.de/alle_ausgaben/reden-ueber-geld/ [25.02.2025].

[134] Vgl. Simone Derix, Grenzenloses Vermögen. Räumliche Mobilität und die Infrastrukturen des Reichtums als Zugänge einer Erforschung des „einen Prozents“, in: Gajek/Kurr/Seegers (Hrsg.), Reichtum, S. 164-181.

[135] Vgl. Michael Schellenberger, Ein fließender Kulturraum. Reichtum und Mäzenatentum in Hamburg und New York um 1900, in: Gajek/Kurr/Seegers (Hrsg.), Reichtum, S. 123-143.

[136] Vgl. Anne Kurr, Reichtum ausstellen. Kunstmäzenatentum als Repräsentation im öffentlichen Raum am Beispiel des Museums Ludwig in Köln (1969-1986), in: Gajek/Kurr/Seegers (Hrsg.), Reichtum, S. 227-247.

[137] Siehe Jürgen Finger, Reiche Lebenswelten in NS-Deutschland. Gestaltungschancen vermögender Unternehmerfamilien am Beispiel Dr. Oetker/Richard Kaselowski, in: Gajek/Kurr/Seegers (Hrsg.), Reichtum, S. 77-97; Martin Reimer, Zwischen Diskontinuität und Kontinuität. Praktiken des Reichtums in Dresden der Nachkriegszeit. Eine Spurensuche, in: ebd., S. 98-122; Jens Gieseke, Gab es Reichtum in der DDR? Zu Strukturen, Selbstdarstellungen und kollektiven Wahrnehmungen im Staatssozialismus, in: ebd., S. 329-347; ders., Die egalitäre DDR? Staatssozialistische Intersektionalität und der lange Schatten des Intershops, in: Gajek/Lorke (Hrsg.), Soziale Ungleichheit im Visier, S. 163-180.

[138] Siehe z.B. Manfred Hettling/Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann (Hrsg.), Der bürgerliche Wertehimmel. Innenansichten des 19. Jahrhunderts, Göttingen 2000.

[139] Vgl. Andreas Gestrich, Soziale Ungleichheit und Geschichte der Moderne, in: Christian Marx/Morten Reitmayer (Hrsg.), Die offene Moderne. Gesellschaften im 20. Jahrhundert, Göttingen 2020, S. 32-58, hier S. 35; Lutz Raphael, Jenseits von Kohle und Stahl. Eine Gesellschaftsgeschichte Westeuropas nach dem Boom, Berlin 2019, S. 92ff.

[140] Ralf Banken, Durch Weltwirtschaftskrise und Rüstungsboom. Die Entwicklung der großen Vermögen 1928-1940 in Deutschland, in: Gajek/Kurr/Seegers (Hrsg.), Reichtum in Deutschland, S. 289-312.

[141] Sonja Niederacher, Das Vermögen jüdischer Frauen und Männer in Wien in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts, in: Gajek/Kurr/Seegers (Hrsg.), Reichtum in Deutschland, S. 313-328.

[142] Dinkel, Alles bleibt in der Familie; Grundig, Vermögen vererben; Ronny Grundig, Reiche im Sozialismus? Erbschaftssteuerakten als Schlüssel zur Erforschung von Vermögensverhältnissen in der DDR, in: Schweizerisches Jahrbuch für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte 36 (2021), S. 115-127, online unter https://www.e-periodica.ch/digbib/view?pid=sgw-002:2021:36::302#119 [25.05.2025].

[143] Workshop „Sozialdaten der Ungleichheit in historischer Perspektive“, Arbeitskreis Sozialdaten und Zeitgeschichte, Bad Homburg, 6./7.11.2023.

[144] Themenheft Geschichte und Gesellschaft 48 (2022), H. 1: Sozialdaten als Quellen der Zeitgeschichte.

[145] Thilo Albers/Charlotte Bartels/Moritz Schularick, Wealth and its Distribution in Germany, 1895-2018, CESifo Working Paper No. 9739, 10 May 2022, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4103952 [25.02.2025].

[146] Piketty, Capital and Ideology, S. 661-670.

size comparison, ca. 1898-1900. source: Library of Congress, public domain, https://www.loc.gov/item/2016649824/ [02.04.2024]

Historical comparison has changed considerably over the past forty years,[1] both in terms of its status within historical studies and its application in research practice, the fields and periods of comparison, the topics of historical comparison, and the methods and impetuses from other academic disciplines. This article begins with definitions of historical comparison, then outlines the debates on historical comparison and thereafter deals with the changes in historical comparison over the past decades.

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1. What is Historical Comparison?

In the early days, historical comparison was understood to mean the systematic comparison of two or more historical units (places, regions, nations or civilisations, including historical personalities) in order to explore similarities and differences, convergences and divergences. From the outset, the aim was not only to describe typologies, but also to explain and develop them. Practitioners of such comparisons did not adopt John Stuart Mill’s fundamental separation between the method of difference and the method of correspondence, i.e. the analysis of differences or parallels and similarities; both approaches were included in historical comparisons.[2]

However, for a long time, historical comparison was often put into practice via differences. Major debates among historians about American exceptionalism, the exception française, the special development of Great Britain, the peculiarities of the Japanese economy or the German Sonderweg centred entirely on differences. Sometimes, observers have even concluded that historical comparison is by its very nature centred on differences. Recent developments, however, have shifted the emphasis away from differences and towards similarities. The interest in global history, as well as the intra-European comparison in the course of Europeanisation, have contributed to this. The two major books on the global history of the long 19th century – by Jürgen Osterhammel and Christopher A. Bayly – are impressive examples of the comparative search for both differences and similarities. The latest volumes on Franco-German history, for example, are far less focused on national differences than the research of thirty years ago. Even in the numerous syntheses on European history, historians tend to concentrate on European similarities alongside intra-European differences at the national and regional levels.[3]

Historical comparison is not uniform and includes a wide variety of approaches. Historical comparison can be used to analyse cases from the same epoch, as well as from different historical periods. It can be used to compare international spaces, or regions, places, families or individuals within a country. Historical comparison can be limited to cases from the same culture, as the old master of historical comparison Marc Bloch demanded, but it can also juxtapose cases from completely different civilisations, as in the debate about the rise of Europe and the lagging development of China in the 18th and 19th centuries.[4] Comparative cases can be examined with equal intensity, or one case can be placed at the centre in an asymmetrical comparison, while historians can only take brief comparative glances at other cases. Historical comparison can only deal with two cases or a larger number of cases, although this is usually limited by the fact that historians endeavour to place each comparative case in its historical context. When embarking on a comparative historical project, it is important to realise the diversity of options.

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There have been attempts to typologise differences between historical comparisons. The intentions of historical comparisons can be categorised into three types: analytical comparison, which helps to develop explanations for a historical phenomenon through the comparative analysis of different cases; contrastive, enlightening comparison, which can deal with the development of democracy or human rights, for example, and contrasts their historical implementation in some countries with their historical failure in other countries; understanding and simultaneously distancing comparison, through which other countries are better understood in historical comparison with the historian’s own country; at the same time, this method can facilitate a different perspective on the historical self-understanding of one’s own country, which can lead to revisions of such self-concepts.[5]

Another typology is based on the fundamental contrast between the individualising comparison, which focuses on the individual case and is pursued by most historians, and the generalising comparison, which is concerned with general developments. The social scientist Charles Tilly distinguished four types of comparison in his now classic, oft-cited typology: the individualising comparison, which works out the particularities of two or fewer cases; the inclusive comparison, which compares parts of a larger whole, such as the colonies of an empire; the variation comparison, which concentrates on the variants of a general universal process, such as urbanisation or demographic transition; and finally the generalising comparison, which is concerned with identifying general rules.[6]

The classical definition of historical comparison was in need of supplementation and has been amended in various ways. Three particularly important openings should be mentioned here.

First, there has been intensive discussion in recent years about opening up historical comparison to include the history of relationships between case studies, i.e. a closer look at transnational transfers, international interdependencies, images of the own and the other. Today, the relationships between the comparative cases analysed are generally included in the definition of comparison. The mere confrontation of the cases appears to have become too narrow, as will be discussed later.

Second, one long-existing, yet hardly discussed, application of historical comparison is to the comparison between successive epochs of a territorial unit. Historians often apply this mode of historical comparison, but they do not usually refer to it as a comparison. At first glance, the difference to comparison seems difficult to comprehend, because it involves similar methods of analysis to historical comparison. What is explored as upheavals between epochs, for example, bears a strong resemblance to the identification of differences between comparative cases; similarly, what historians see as continuity between epochs is very similar to the apperception of similarities between comparative cases.

Nevertheless, historians do not count such inter-epochal comparisons as historical comparisons because historical development on the time axis has a fundamentally different character than the juxtaposition of two spatially and perhaps also temporally separate cases. Historical development creates a dense relationship of causalities, experiences and memories between successive epochs within the same country or the same place, which is inconceivable when comparing different places or countries of the same epoch. Nevertheless, the boundaries for comparison are fluid. Comparisons between instances of the same continent, country or place that are far apart in time, such as between the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917, or between Charles V and Napoleon I, or between Paris in the Roman Empire and Paris in the Second Empire, tend to be regarded as historical comparisons. The question of what makes a comparison between epochs different from a historical comparison, leads to interesting new considerations.

A third method that is also rarely discussed yet often used by historians is the historical depiction of international developments, which deals with many countries that are often very different in character. With the growing interest in global history and in the history of Europe, historians have applied this mode of historial comparison more frequently, both in the form of syntheses and in the form of monographs on international processes, institutions or ideas. Such studies are usually not comparative in the strict sense, because they are primarily concerned with common trends, and they usually address differences in an unsystematic way, in a synthesis of European history or Latin American or African or Southeast Asian history, as well as in global studies of civil rights or women's movements or educational opportunities, to name just a few topics. It is not possible to compare the multitude of countries in the same depth as two individual countries in a binational comparison. But even in such syntheses and analyses, historians make comparisons, albeit using different methods and with a different proximity to the sources. Ultimately, they are also part of historical comparison.

2. Debates about Historical Comparison

Since the 1990s, a whole series of debates have ignited around the classical historical comparison, especially between French, American and German comparative historians and literature specialists. These methodological debates, which were not always encouraging for younger historians, have since died down again, but today's historical comparison is difficult to understand without these productive debates, which we will review here in abbreviated form. These debates did not simply follow research practice; they sometimes preceded it, and they sometimes lagged behind it.

In the 1990s, the French literature specialist Michel Espagne, an expert on Franco-German relations, criticised historical comparison because it forced researchers to construct artificially homogeneous national units, thereby not only overlooking the diversity within each country, but also taking us back to the age of the often detrimental attachment of historical studies to national identities. Furthermore, according to Michel Espagne, historical comparison can only be used for structural analyses and ignores the experiences and actions of the individual. He therefore argued in favour of replacing historical comparison with historical transfer studies, i.e. the study of the transfer of ideas and values, the exchange of goods and the migration of people from one society to another, which would open up historical studies to international cultural interdependencies and the cultural history of experiences and practices.[7] Espagne was not the only scholar to lodge this critique.

Another objection to historical comparison came from global historians. They argued that the historical comparison with non-European countries over-emphasised the superiority of Europe, especially the Europeanisation of the non-European world, and the backwardness of non-European regions since the late 18th century. This neglects the notion of ‘shared history’ or ‘entangled history’, i.e. the influence of the non-European world on Europe not only indirectly through the non-European experiences of Europeans, but also directly through intercontinental transfers of non-European goods, plants, music, humanities and technological knowledge to Europe. Some global historians therefore also place such transfers at the centre of their studies. Others want to focus entirely on global institutions, movements, public spheres, conflicts and upheavals. They are less interested in units smaller than the world as a whole, and are thus hardly interested in historical comparisons.[8] For Sebastian Conrad, a leading global historian, however, comparative history provides important inspiration.[9]

A third challenge for historical comparison arose from transnational history, which gained momentum in the 2000s and early 2010s. This field was primarily understood as a departure from purely national history and as an internationalisation of research topics, without a single sophisticated concept or even a theory behind it. Impulses for transnational history came from very different directions: particularly clearly from global history;[10] from diplomatic history, which is more interested in the broad social and cultural context of international relations; from non-European history, which broke away from the concept of regional studies and sought to work more closely with historians from other regions of the world; from post-colonial history; from social and cultural history, which became more internationalised; from historians of European integration, who wanted to expand the purely political history of decision-making.

What was decisive for historical comparison here was that in the new programmatic texts on transnational history, historical comparison was usually not attacked at all; on the contrary, it was mostly ignored, as in the case of Akira Iriye and Pierre-Yves Saunier, who by transnational history primarily mean interrelationships and transfers of ideas, people and goods across national borders.[11] Only gradually did a connection emerge between historical comparison and transnational history.[12] The historian Margrit Pernau saw in her synthesis of transnational history an approach towards a changed historical comparison.[13]

The concept of ‘histoire croisée’ (crossed history) by Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann offered a synthesis of these debates. On the one hand, they recognised historical comparison as an indispensable method of historical scholarship, but on the other hand they called for a fundamental change in historical comparison as well as in transfer research: for continuous reflection on and empathy with the other compared culture, and constant examination of the image of one's own culture, as early as in the formulation of questions and research design.[14]

The impact of these debates on research practice should not be overestimated. They were conducted in publications between a small number of historians. However, these historians were almost always not pure methodological theorists, but usually made comparisons themselves. These debates were therefore read by other comparative historians, had an impact on the practice of historical comparison, or at least reflected the changes in historical comparison.

3. Changes in Comparison

Classical historical comparison changed in six dimensions. First, it became normal. Second, it changed methodologically and included transnational exchange in the comparison. Third, it expanded thematically and was applied in all subject areas of historical studies, no longer primarily in specific fields. Fourth, its geography expanded. Fifth, it opened up new time periods: The period after 1945 became a new Eldorado of historical comparison, a period in which the nation state looked fundamentally different than before 1914 or in the interwar period. Sixth, the connection to fundamental theorems changed. The significance of neighbouring sciences, from which many ideas for comparison were taken, shifted.

The first change can be described as normalisation. The classical historical comparison of the 1970s and 1980s possessed a relatively high level of prestige in historical studies, and was even described as the ‘royal road’. Historical comparison had long roots not only in historical sociology, above all Max Weber, but also in historians such as Marc Bloch, Henri Pirenne, Otto Hintze and, in some cases, Karl Lamprecht.[15] Comparativists sometimes saw themselves as pioneers of an international opening of historical studies, which could be thematically much more comprehensive and diverse than the history of diplomacy or the international history of ideas. But historical comparison was only practised by a small group, with only a few comparisons being published each year. Historical comparison was considered risky for dissertations and post-doctoral theses.

In recent decades, historical comparison has moved on from this marginalised position. It has become a normal method used by historians in a discipline in which more methods are practised than in the 1970s. Historical comparison lost its pioneering character, including the glamour of the new, as more and more historians began working from a comparative perspective. The writing of comparative dissertations and post-doctoral theses was no longer a rare event. Historical comparisons continued to increase, particularly in Germany and France, right up to the present day. In the USA, their number remained at least at a stable level; today, historical comparisons can draw on a broad pool of several hundred historical studies without anyone really having counted them. Normalisation also means that this development was not linear. After an initial upswing in the 1970s and 1980s, the number stopped increasing in the 1990s and 2000s against the backdrop of the aforementioned debates and even decreased. Only since the end of the 2000s has the number of comparisons practised in the new contexts increased again.[16]

This growth in comparative work did not occur in a vacuum. Historians who chose this method encountered increasingly favourable financial conditions, as historical comparison was promoted by international research centers and conferences, institutes abroad, international networks, and foundations such as the European Research Council. These circumstances coincided with the recognition that comparative publications improved career opportunities, as one's own expertise extended to several countries and thus made it possible to apply for different chairs. The method of historical comparison also reflected the internationalisation of everyday life in Europe through travel, international educational and working stays, migration and the numerous private and international connections that arose as a result.

Historical comparison was not just a passing fashion. It became an established method in historical studies because the society in which historians today work thinks intensively in terms of comparisons. In the increasingly intensive personal encounters and experiences with other European and non-European cultures, comparisons are constantly being made and judgements passed. In this encounter and dialogue with others, assistance or critique from comparative historians is often helpful. The use of international comparison is not new in politics; it has been on the rise since the 1990s in the European Union with the open method of coordination and in international organisations, for example with the regular PISA studies of the OECD since 2000, as well as in countless international rankings of countries, cities, companies, scholars and artists.[17] To abandon historical comparisons would therefore mean no longer facing up to an important responsibility of historical scholarship.

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However, this normalisation of historical comparison, as well as the effect of the aforementioned debates, has led historians to become more aware of the problems of comparison: the danger of bias in national ways of thinking and mere self-affirmation through historical comparison; the overstatement of the developments that prevailed in the end and the understatement of the alternatives that remained weak; the neglect of the internal diversity of the comparative cases that complicated the comparison; the dependence of the selection of comparative cases on available sources and on the language skills of the comparative historian; the often unspoken assumptions about the normality or even superiority of one of the comparative cases, sometimes of one's own country, sometimes of other countries.

The second change in historical comparison is a methodological expansion: the opening of the comparison to the history of relationships between the compared cases, i.e. to transfers, to interdependencies, and to images of the self and the other. This broadening of the approach has become widely accepted because historians have recently not been content in general with the juxtaposition of individual cases in historical comparisons. They are also more often interested in the influence the compared cases had on each other, how strongly they were intertwined, and how contemporaries perceived the differences or similarities between the cases being compared. Whether a transnational historical study emphasises comparisons or transfers, interdependencies or reciprocal images, or whether it treats all these approaches equally, depends above all on the research question, the characteristics of the chosen comparison, the sources available for the respective project, and the intellectual currents that prevail at the time. This methodological expansion has improved the comparison.

However, there were also disappointments. The inclusion of the history of relationships in the practice of comparison led to new experiences. Transfers, interdependencies and images ‘of the other’ are not equally dense and comprehensible everywhere; sometimes, such evidence is disappointingly thin. Even between neighbouring and closely intertwined countries such as France and Germany, transfers between political or cultural public spheres have decreased in some cases since 1945. There is even talk of the paradox of declining transfers between countries that are close intertwined both economically and politically.[18]

Moreover, in the early days, it was primarily countries that were politically and culturally on an equal footing with each other for which the demand for more relationship history was realised in historical comparisons. Relations between France and Germany were often the inspiration for these demands. However, equality is not the rule. Historical comparisons are often made between countries that are positioned very differently in the international hierarchy or are even dependent on each other. This applies not only to comparisons between the northern and southern hemispheres, but often also to historical comparisons within Europe. Transfers to lower-positioned or dominated societies tend to be overestimated, while transfers to better-positioned or dominant societies tend to be underestimated. Therefore, including transfers in the comparison also means analysing transfers between unequally positioned countries more closely.

Finally, the inclusion of the history of relations in the historical comparison between many cases looks fundamentally different from the usual historical comparison between two or three cases. These comparisons between several cases have been neglected thus far. Transfers between many countries often become hybrid transfers in which the contributions of individual countries are difficult to recognise and which therefore need to be examined differently. Interdependencies between many countries could look very different. They range from ‘spider webs’ in which one country or one actor played a central role, to interlinkages in which each country has an equal weight. Even in the case of interdependencies, untested assumptions can lead to dead ends. Reciprocal images cannot be analysed for all pairs of countries in comparisons with many countries. Taking up a history of relations in historical comparison therefore often requires different research designs.[19]

However, this expansion of historical comparison was also facilitated by the fact that the undeniable methodological problems that historians have to deal with when using the method of historical comparison often exist in the history of relationships as well. For transfer and entanglement studies, too, the units between which transfers or entanglements exist must be constructed or contemporary constructions must be sought out – and are then perhaps overestimated. Moreover, just like historical comparison, transfer studies have a dark history. They could also be used as a component of ‘enemy sciences’: for example, “Westforschung” (research on the West) during the period of Nazi rule about alleged Germanic transfers to northern Belgium and France, the thesis of the older European colonial sciences of the primarily beneficial Europeanisation of the colonial populations, or some of the theses developed during the Cold War about the complete Sovietisation of Eastern Central Europe.[20]

The third change in historical comparison is the greater diversity of topics. The classical comparison focussed on a few fields of historical studies, on social and economic history, as in the case of Germany or the USA, and on cultural history, as in the case of France. Thematically, the use of comparison was concentrated in a few subject areas such as the welfare state, family, workers, the middle class, social protests and revolutions, industrialisation and enterprises. This changed. Historical comparison was increasingly used in all subject areas of historical research, no longer just in specific fields: in structural history as well as in the history of experience and ideas, in cultural and political history as well as in social and economic history.

In addition to comparisons between two or just a few countries, international synthesis with numerous comparisons in many subject areas has increased, in the history of capitalism and in the history of social inequality, in the history of civil rights and in the history of intellectuals, in the history of empires and colonies and in environmental history, in the history of opera and theatre as well as in the history of women and gender, to name just a few subject areas. Thematically, there were no longer any recognisable barriers to comparison.

The fourth change was the expansion of the areas of comparison and gradual disengagement from a Eurocentric focus. The area of classical historical comparison was Europe, sometimes also the West, including the USA, as the benchmark of modernity. In Europe, the comparison largely focussed on France, Great Britain and Germany, with occasional glances at Sweden or Switzerland as particularly modern countries, or at Italy and Eastern Europe as less modern parts of the continent. Comparisons with non-European countries were rarely made. However, French research was a significant exception. In France, historical comparison was initially driven primarily by experts from non-European countries. For this reason, non-European countries were initially included in comparisons more frequently than elsewhere. Unlike in Germany or the USA, comparisons were not necessarily made with the author’s own country, i.e. France.[21]

In recent decades, the Europe-centred nature of comparison has weakened somewhat. The comparison with non-European countries beyond the USA, on the other hand, increased, especially the comparison with East Asia.[22] The changed global political situation, the end of the Cold War, and the emergence of a world with several centres of power, also began to have an impact on historical comparison. European experts of non-European countries now played an important role in the gradual global opening of historical comparison, and not only in France. At the same time, scholars in France also turned more towards Europe and compared their own country with other, mostly European countries.[23] On the whole, however, European historical comparison remained and remains strongly focussed on Europe. Comparisons with the neighbouring Arab and African world are still just as rare as with other, more distant regions of the world, such as Latin America, South Asia or Southeast Asia.

A fifth change concerns the connection to theories. The most important, if not the only, theoretical link to classical historical comparison was modernisation theories, but not in a simple sense. Historical comparison did not simply mean classifying the compared cases into different degrees of modernisation; it also meant working out different paths of modernisation or pointing out contradictions between political and economic modernisation. The attraction of using historical comparison as a method in research usually lay not simply in the proof of modernisation, but also in the discussion of the obstacles and contradictions of historical development in relation to modernisation theories. In this sense, industrialisation, enterprises, literacy, family and demographic transition, social classes, social conflicts and revolutions, education systems, welfare states, urban planning, political parties and constitutions were compared.

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In recent decades, however, the modernisation paradigm of both non-Marxist and Marxist origin has lost some of its influence on historical comparison. Historical comparison no longer merely served to classify modernising developments; it also facilitated a better understanding of the other and often also the self. More often, comparison meant wanting to understand the other better and no longer just pursuing the realisation of modernity. For this better understanding of the other, the precise comparison between the self and the other helped. Not only does it make it possible to show more precisely how the self differed from the other, where transfers and interdependencies were dense or were fended off, but in addition to reflections on one's own unexpected and overlooked similarities, convergences and interdependencies can also be revealed.

In this context, the seventh change, which arose due to impulses from other disciplines, can be identified. For the classical, still rather rare, historical comparison, particularly important impulses came from American historical social scientists such as Charles Tilly, Karl Deutsch, Reinhard Bendix and Barrington Moore, but also from European historical social scientists such as Stein Rokkan and Peter Flora.[24] The early comparative historians were often in direct personal contact with these scholars. This gradually changed.[25] Relationships with American comparative social science remained important, but American research lost its reference character for European historical comparison, since comparison became strongly established in Europe and political science in Europe became a discipline with particularly intensive comparative research, even more so than sociology. However, this gave rise to other interdisciplinary relationships. In the presentation of these comparative studies in political science textbooks, historical comparison has only played a minor role in recent times. Interdisciplinary links with historians were therefore rather rare. At the same time, a whole series of political scientists, such as Peter Katzenstein, Maurizio Cotta, Bertrand Badie, Ivan Krastev, Stephan Leibfried, Wolfgang Merkel and Herfried Münkler, to name just seven leading names, have made significant historical comparisons that have had an impact on historical studies; however, they have rarely written about the methodology of historical comparison.[26]

4. Summary

All in all, historical comparison today is not an obsolete, earlier stage of international history, one that contained too much national history and that was subsumed first by transfer studies and then by transnational history, as some have posited in exaggerated fashion. Over the past forty years, historical comparison has established itself as a mature method of historical studies that increasingly finds both regular and frequent expression, building on significant predecessors among historians and social scientists in the first half of the 20th century.

At the same time, historical comparison has changed considerably in recent decades. Its application has become routinised and standardised in research practice. In the process, its pioneering aura and with it the glamour of the new has been lost, but this has led to it being used in a more self-critical and reflective way. Since its establishment as a historical method, it has often been combined with other approaches such as the study of transfer, the study of entanglements or the study of historical representations of the self and the other, yet it is not simply absorbed into these other approaches. It has somewhat expanded its areas of comparison and is somewhat less centred on Europe than before. Its application has been extended to many topics and is now present in all historical topics. Comparativists have turned more strongly to contemporary history since 1945, which in turn has also changed the method, because this epoch leads to other focal points than the former Eldorado of historical comparison, the long 19th century. The method of historical comparison has loosened its originally close ties to the American historical social sciences and modernisation theories and is no longer exclusively an instrument for classification in modernity, but has also become a method for a more precise understanding of the other.

Historical comparison was intensively discussed and criticised, especially in the 1990s and 2000s. It was misunderstood as soon as it was seen exclusively as a rigid construction of national characteristics or even as a breeding ground for national prejudices. There were certainly historical comparisons of this kind, especially in times of international tension and war, when research on other countries was conducted as ‘enemy science’, i.e. as science about the enemy, and often consisted of historical speculation rather than serious research.

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Empirically demanding historical comparison, on the other hand, today usually gives historians the opportunity to familiarise themselves intensively with the other country being compared, its historical research, its language and way of thinking, its institutions and norms, and its historical memories. Comparison almost inevitably internationalises the researcher. Today, historical comparison is therefore part of transnational history and thus also part of the liberation of historical science from the corset of pure national history.

However, historical comparison is still strongly focussed on Europe and the West and does not deal enough with Africa, the Arab countries, Latin America, South Asia and Southeast Asia. Within Europe, it concentrates too much on the large countries, on Great Britain, France and Germany. It still compares too many nation states, too few regions and places and at the same time too few world regions.[27] International exchange between comparative historians even seems to be declining recently. Despite changes and improvements to the method, historical comparison is not chiseled in stone. Future generations of historians will continue to adapt it as they see fit.

German Version: Hartmut Kaelble, Historischer Vergleich, Version: 2, in: Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte, 22.04.2024, https://docupedia.de/zg/kaelble_historischer_vergleich_v2_de_2024

References

[1] Overviews of historical comparison: Heinz-Gerhard Haupt/Jürgen Kocka (eds.), Geschichte und Vergleich. Ansätze und Ergebnisse international vergleichender Geschichtsschreibung (Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus Verlag, 1996); Marcel Detienne, Comparer l'incomparable, Paris 2000, online at https://archive.org/details/comparerlincompa0000deti [06.11.2024]; Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, “Comparative History,” in: International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioural Sciences (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2001), vol. 4, pp. 2397–2403; Jürgen Kocka, “Comparison and Beyond,” in: History and Theory 42 (2003), pp. 39–44; Heinz-Gerhard Haupt/Jürgen Kocka (eds.), Comparative and Transnational History. Central European Approaches and new Perspectives (New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2009), online at https://archive.org/details/comparativetrans0000unse_y9v4 [06.11.2024]; Jürgen Kocka, “Comparative History: Methodology and Ethos,” in: Benjamin Z. Kedar (ed.), Explorations in Comparative History (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnes Pres, 2009), pp. 29–36; James Mahoney/Dietrich Rueschemeyer (eds.), Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003); Hannes Siegrist, “Comparative History of Cultures and Societies. From Cross-Societal Analysis to the Study of Intercultural Interdependencies,” in: Comparative Education 42 (2006), pp. 377–404; Thomas Welskopp, “Comparative History,” in: European History Online (EGO), 12.03.2010, http://ieg-ego.eu/en/threads/theories-and-methods/comparative-history/thomas-welskopp-comparative-history [06.11.2024]; James Mahoney/Kathleen Thelen (eds.), Advances in Comparative-Historical Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Hartmut Kaelble, Historisch Vergleichen. Eine Einführung, (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2021) (revised new edition of: Historical Comparison. Eine Einführung zum 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt: Campus Fachbuch, 1999); Hartmut Kaelble, “Der historische Vergleich,” in: Stefan Haas (ed.), Handbuch Methoden der Geschichtswissenschaft (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2023), http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-27798-7_13-1 [06.11.2024].

[2] John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive. Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence, and the Methods of Scientific Investigation (London: John W. Parker, 1843).

[3] Cf. Jürgen Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt. Eine Geschichte des 19.Jahrhunderts (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2009); Christopher A. Bayly, Die Geburt der modernen Welt. Eine Globalgeschichte 1780–1914 (Frankfurt /New York: Campus Verlag, 2006). The different approach to the Franco-German comparison becomes particularly clear in: Hélène Miard-Delacroix, Deutsch-französische Geschichte. 1963 bis zur Gegenwart (Darmstadt: wbg, 2011).

[4] Marc Bloch, “Pour une histoire comparée des sociétés européennes (1928),” in: Mélanges historiques, ed. by Charles-Edmond Perrin (Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N, 1963), pp. 16–40; Osterhammel, ch. 12.

[5] Cf. Haupt, “Comparative History;” Kaelble, Historisch Vergleichen, pp. 49c.; important for historical explanation: Jürgen Osterhammel, “Explanation: The Limits of Narrativism in Global History,” in: Stefanie Gänger/Jürgen Osterhammel (eds.) Rethinking Global History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024), online at https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009444002 [06.11.2024).

[6] Charles Tilly, Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1984), pp. 82c., 145c.

[7] Michel Espagne, Les transferts culturels franco-allemands, (Paris: PUF, 1999).

[8] Sebastian Conrad/Shalini Randeria (eds.), Jenseits des Eurozentrismus. Postkoloniale Perspektiven in den Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften (Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus, 2002); Shalini Randeria, “Geteilte Geschichte und verwobenen Moderne,” in: Jörn Rüsen et al. (eds.), Zukunftsentwürfe. Ideen für eine Kultur der Veränderung (Frankfurt/New York: Campus 1999), pp. 87–96; broad approach including comparison: Dominic Sachsenmaier, “Global History,” Version: 1.0, in: Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte, 11.02.2010, http://docupedia.de/zg/sachsenmaier_global_history_v1_en_2010 [06.11.2024]; Gänger/Osterhammel (eds.) Rethinking Global History.

[9] Sebastian Conrad, Globalgeschichte. Eine Einführung (München: C.H. Beck, 2013), p. 70.

[10] Cf. Conrad, Globalgeschichte; Alessandro Stanziani, Tensions of Social History: Sources, Data, Actors and Models in Global Perspective (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023); Patrick Boucheron/Stéphane Gerson, France in the World. A New Global History (New York: Other Press, 2019).

[11] Akira Iriye/Pierre-Yves Saunier (eds.), The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History. From the mid–19th Century to the Present Day (Houndmills/New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), p. VIII.

[12] Cf. Johannes Paulmann, “Internationaler Vergleich und interkultureller Transfer. Zwei Forschungsansätze zur europäischen Geschichte des 18. bis 20. Jahrhunderts,” in: Historische Zeitschrift 267 (1998), pp. 649–685; Alexander C.T. Geppert/Andreas Mai, “Vergleich und Transfer im Vergleich,” in: Comparativ 10 (2000), pp. 95–111, online at https://www.comparativ.net/v2/article/view/1181/2596 [06.11.2024]; Matthias Middell, “Kulturtransfer und Historische Komparatistik – Thesen zu ihrem Verhältnis,” in: Comparativ 10 (2000), pp. 7-41, online at https://www.comparativ.net/v2/article/view/1177/1041 [06.11.2024]; Wilfried Loth/Jürgen Osterhammel (eds.), Internationale Geschichte. Themen – Ergebnisse – Aussichten (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2000); Albert Wirz, “Für eine transnationale Gesellschaftsgeschichte,” in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 27 (2001), pp. 489–498; Hartmut Kaelble, “Die interdisziplinären Debatten über Vergleich und Transfer,” in: id./Jürgen Schriewer (eds.), Vergleich und Transfer. Komparatistik in den Sozial-, Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften (Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag, 2003), pp.469–494; Christiane Eisenberg, “Kulturtransfer als historischer Prozess,” in: Kaelble/Schriewer (eds.), Vergleich und Transfer, pp. 399–417; Jürgen Osterhammel, “Transferanalyse und Vergleich im Fernverhältnis,” in: Kaelble/Schriewer (eds.), Vergleich und Transfer, pp. 439–466; Hannes Siegrist, “Perspektiven der vergleichenden Geschichtswissenschaft. Gesellschaft, Kultur, Raum,” in: Kaelble/Schriewer (eds.), Vergleich und Transfer, pp. 263-297; Patricia Clavin, “Defining Transnationalism,” in: Contemporary European History 14 (2005), pp. 421–439; Hannes Siegrist, “Transnationale Geschichte als Herausforderung der wissenschaftlichen Historiographie,” in: Connections, 16.02.2005, online at https://www.connections.clio-online.net/debate/id/fddebate-132113 [06.11.2024]; Hartmut Kaelble, “Die Debatte über Vergleich und Transfer und was jetzt?” in: Connections, 08.02.2005, online at http://www.connections.clio-online.net/debate/id/fddebate-132112 [06.11.2024]; Gunilla Budde/Sebastian Conrad/Oliver Janz (eds.), Transnationale Geschichte. Themen, Tendenzen und Theorien (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006); Ian Tyrrell, What is Transnational History? published on the website of Ian Tyrrell 2007, http://iantyrrell.wordpress.com/what-is-transnational-history/ [06.11.2024]; Kiran Klaus Patel, “Transnationale Geschichte,” in: Europäische Geschichte Online (EGO), Mainz, 03.12.2010, http://ieg-ego.eu/de/threads/theorien-und-methoden/transnationale-geschichte/klaus-kiran-patel-transnationale-geschichte [06.11.2024]; Konrad H. Jarausch, “Reflections on Transnational History,” in: H-German, 20.01.2006, https://lists.h-net.org/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-german&month=0601&week=c&msg=LPkNHirCm1xgSZQKHOGRXQ&user=&pw= [06.11.2024]; Madeleine Herren/Martin Rüesch/Christiane Sibille, Transcultural History. Theories, Methods, Sources (Heidelberg/Berlin: Springer, 2012); Margrit Pernau, Transnationale Geschichte (Göttingen: UTB, 2011); also: Wolfram Kaiser, “Brussels calling. Die Geschichte der Europäischen Union und die Gesellschaftsgeschichte Europas,” in: Arnd Bauerkämper/Hartmut Kaelble (eds.), Gesellschaft in der europäischen Integration seit den 1950er Jahren. Migration – Konsum – Sozialpolitik – Repräsentationen, (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2012), pp. 43–62; Philipp Gassert, “Transnationale Geschichte,” Version: 2.0, in: Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte, 29.10.2012, http://docupedia.de/zg/gassert_transnationale_geschichte_v2_de_2012 [06.11.2024]; Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink, Interkulturelle Kommunikation. Interaktion, Fremdwahrnehmung, Kulturtransfer, 4th ed., (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 2016); Kaelble, Historisch Vergleichen, pp.103–126.

[13] Pernau, Transnationale Geschichte, p. 53c.

[14] Michael Werner/Bénédicte Zimmermann, “Vergleich, Transfer, Verflechtung. Der Ansatz der Histoire croisée und die Herausforderung des Transnationalen,” in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 28 (2002), pp. 607–636.

[15] Cf. Bloch, “Pour une histoire comparée des sociétés européennes (1928);” Otto Hintze, Soziologie und Geschichte. Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur Soziologie, Politik und Theorie der Geschichte, vol. 2, 2nd ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964), p. 251. Cf. as an example of a classic sociological comparison of Max Weber: Hinnerk Bruhns/Wilfried Nippel (eds.), Max Weber und die Stadt im Kulturvergleich (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000).

[16] Cf. Kaelble, Historisch Vergleichen, pp. 167c.

[17] Cf. Willibald Steinmetz (ed.), The Force of Comparison. A new Perspective on Modern European History and the Contemporary World (New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2019); Angelika Epple/Walter Erhart (eds.), Die Welt beobachten. Praktiken des Vergleichens, (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2015).

[18] Cf. Jörn Leonhard, “Nationen und Emotionen nach dem Zeitalter der Extreme – Deutschland und Frankreich im 20. Jahrhundert,” in: id. (ed.), Vergleich und Verflechtung. Deutschland und Frankreich im 20. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 2015), pp. 7–25, online at https://freidok.uni-freiburg.de/data/12790 [06.11.2024].

[19] Cf. for many examples of studies: Kaelble, Historisch Vergleichen, pp. 103c.

[20] Cf. Peter Schöttler, “Die deutsche ‘Westforschung’ der 1930er Jahre zwischen ‘Abwehrkampf’ und territorialer Offensive,” in: id. (ed.), Geschichtsschreibung als Legitimationswissenschaft 1918-1945 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1997), pp. 204–226; Karl Ditt, “Die Kulturraumforschung zwischen Wissenschaft und Politik. Das Beispiel Franz Petri (1903-1993),” in: Westfälische Forschungen 46 (1996), pp. 73–176; Konrad H. Jarausch/Hannes Siegrist (eds.), Amerikanisierung und Sowjetisierung in Deutschland 1945–1970, (Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag, 1997).

[21] Kaelble, Historisch Vergleichen, pp. 172c.

[22] In addition to world-historical syntheses mentioned above, cf. some further examples: Dominic Sachsenmaier, Global Perspectives on Global History. Theories and Approaches in a Connected World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Isabella Löhr, Die Globalisierung geistiger Eigentumsrechte. Neue Strukturen internationaler Zusammenarbeit 1886–1952 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010); Andreas Weiß, Asiaten in Europa, Begegnungen zwischen Asiaten und Europäern 1880–1914 (Paderborn: Brill Schöningh, 2016); Kristin Meißner, Strategische Experten. Die imperialpolitische Rolle von ausländischen Beratern in Meiji-Japan (1868–1912) (Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag, 2018); Jürgen Osterhammel, Unfabling the East: The Enlightenment's Encounter with Asia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018); Christian Methfessel, Kontroverse Gewalt. Die imperiale Expansion in der englischen und deutschen Presse vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg (Vienna/Cologne/Weimar: Böhlau, 2019); Christof Dejung/David Motadel/Jürgen Osterhammel (eds.), The Global Bourgeoisie: The Rise of the Middle Classes in the Age of Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019); Andrew B. Liu, Tea War: A History of Capitalism in China and India (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2020).

[23] See, among others, Nicolas Delalande/Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel/Pierre Singaravélou/Marie-Bénédicte Vincent (eds.), Dictionnaire historique de la comparaison (Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2020). Christophe Charle, the French historical comparatist with the most publications, has published several European comparative studies on intellectuals, empires, theatre and cultures since the 1990s (cf. ibid., p. 302).

[24] Cf. Reinhard Bendix, Herrschaft und Industriearbeit. Untersuchungen über Liberalismus und Autokratie in der Geschichte der Industrialisierung (Frankfurt: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1960); Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966); Tilly, Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons; Stein Rokkan, Vergleichende Sozialwissenschaft: Die Entwicklung der inter-kulturellen, inter-gesellschaftlichen und inter-nationalen Forschung. Hauptströmungen der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1972); Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); Peter Flora (ed.), Stein Rokkan: Staat, Nation und Demokratie in Europa. Die Theorie Stein Rokkans aus seinen gesammelten Werken rekonstruiert und eingeleitet von Peter Flora (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 2000).

[25] Cf. Dominic Sachsenmaier, Global Perspectives on Global History. Theories and Approaches in a Connected World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 59c., here 110c., 122c.

[26] Cf. Stefan Immerfall, “Europäischer Gesellschaftsvergleich,” in: Maurizio Bach/Barbara Hönig (eds.), Europasoziologie. Handbuch für Wissenschaft und Studium (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2018), pp. 470–478; Klaus von Beyme, Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft (Wiesbaden: VS, 2010); James Mahoney/Kathleen Thelen (eds.), Advances in Comparative-Historical Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

[27] Particularly informative in this regard: Osterhammel, “Transferanalyse und Vergleich im Fernverhältnis,” in: Kaelble/Schriewer (eds.), Vergleich und Transfer; Osterhammel, “Explanation: The Limits of Narrativism in Global History,” in: Gänger/Osterhammel (eds.), Rethinking Global History.

Buchregal in der Bibliothek. Foto: J. Danyel, Potsdam 2010 (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

In this text, I argue for closer cooperation between historical and literary studies, both of which are text-based disciplines that work in ways oriented towards source materials and yet remain critical of the textual foundations on which they stand. History and literary researchers take writing and reading as their subject of inquiry; they collect and organize archives of written records, use these archives as repositories of knowledge, and in turn draw on these holdings, for example in critical examinations of cultural patterns of reflection, or historical perceptions in need of correction. Furthermore, both are based simultaneously on the practices of writing and reading, and thus on the cultural technologies of communication and archiving that also constitute their subject matter. As participants in a scholarly discourse that is predominantly recorded in writing and appropriated through reading, these two disciplines also make a decisive contribution to the analysis of narrative patterns of interpretation as applied to written texts, as well as to the constitution – and interrogation – of these texts’ collective and cultural significance.

When reflecting on the possibilities of interdisciplinary cooperation between historical and literary studies, we cannot help but take a closer look at the object of common interest, namely literature, or, more precisely, literary historical narratives. In this regard it is clear that both disciplines stand in a loose relationship to one another, at least if we take as a criterion the references that historians make to literary studies. Although the relationship of history and literature now belongs to the humanities curriculum, historians (particularly in the Germanophone world) tends to treat literature – a medium that plays a key role in the production of and critical reflection on historical narratives and images – as a marginal subject. Consequently, opportunities to network with literary studies are seldom taken advantage of. The broad neglect of literary historical narratives in contemporary historical research is particularly striking, given that such research could benefit from including literary prose that deals with the same time periods and the same events in the past. However, in recent years we have seen an increase in studies focusing on the history of media, such as the participation of cinema and television narratives on the perpetuation, or infiltration, of dominant political and cultural semantics or narratives.[1] Comparable systematic examinations of literary historical narratives are not found in the field of history (with a few exceptions[2]); such work is being done in literary studies, which is more open to cultural and social history.[3]

As is well known, contemporary historical research refers to a past that at least some of our contemporaries consciously experienced. Following Hans Rothfels, we also understand contemporary history as an era in which we have lived together, one which, more than any other period of time, shapes the thoughts and actions of the present. The historical events of the “catastrophic” twentieth century, and how we deal with them, do not fall solely within the remit of contemporary historical research, painful as this concession may be to contemporary historians; however, this is obvious in terms of contemporary history’s relevance to the present and the associated debates about who holds the prerogative to interpret contemporary history in its political, social and cultural dimensions. The historicization of the recent past is a fiercely contested field, one that does not lie exclusively in the hands of contemporary historians and in which a broad array of actors are actively involved, and this means that the question of which historical images should be valid for the present and future, and in what way, remains extremely relevant for contemporary historical reflection and self-positioning. And it is precisely in this field of historical communication that literature, similar to the medium of film, acts as a social multiplier that should not be underestimated, especially when it comes to dealing with the recent German past. Literature plays a decisive role in the construction and deconstruction of collective patterns of interpretation and stereotypes of memory.[4]

Given this background, there are abundant points of contact for interdisciplinary work between contemporary history and literature studies. The essential interfaces arise from the circumstance that both disciplines are dedicated to researching historical narratives in social- and cultural-historical contexts. As early as 1980, Rolf Grimminger postulated that “literary works of art or philosophical literature can only be understood inadequately, or even incorrectly, without knowledge of the social reality that such works have always processed into contexts of meaning in their linguistic forms”.[5] Around the turn of the millennium, the literary scholar Paul Michael Lützeler pointed out that the culturalist turn in the humanities in particular gave rise to “increased activity at the interfaces between subjects and disciplines”. According to Lützeler, this is reflected not only in the paradigm shifts of the cultural turns[6] and the differentiation of methods and approaches; at least in German studies, there has been an increased reception of the methods and results of historical studies and, in particular, contemporary history research, which we can understand not least as a reaction to the boom in contemporary historical prose.[7]

In this respect, a productive relationship between contemporary historical research and literary studies can unfold in the field of tension that brings the disciplines into relation and that intertwines the textuality of history and the historicity of literary texts. By “historicity of texts,” we mean that texts are always embedded in a socio-cultural, historical environment to which they owe their existence and in which they intervene. They can only be understood from this environment.[8] “Textuality of history” refers to the idea that history is not “directly” accessible, i.e., that there is no “history in itself,” only narratives of it. When history is written, whether in scientific treatises, newspaper articles or chronicles, it is always based on narrative and textual selection patterns that cannot be detached from the narrated material.[9]

In this context, cooperation between historical and literary studies can generate synergy effects which, on the one hand, provide information about the historicity of literary patterns of interpretation, cultural and social inscriptions and coding. On the other hand, the influence of contemporary historical narratives on the “text” of history can become visible, as can the influence of contemporary history or contemporary historical research on literary historical texts. In this way, contemporary history can take advantage of the unique tools offered by literary texts and literary discourses involved in the construction of historical knowledge and images of history. Moreover, scholars of history can examine whether the specific aesthetic qualities of literary historical texts also present additional value for contemporary historical discoveries and insights, insofar as aesthetic procedures – for example in the visualisation of the non-obvious, the polyvalent, the multi-perspectival and the paradoxical – open up a complexity that must often remain hidden from the narratives of historical scholarship, which are primarily aimed at explication. The consideration of linguistic processes of aestheticisation and fictionalisation for processes related to the (re-)construction of the recent past cannot only provide information on how literary language and literary texts shape images of contemporary history, but can also set in motion reflections that inquire into the function of aestheticisation and fictionalisation for contemporary historical, i.e. academic, construction principles and processes.

1. The Textuality of History – The Historicity of Literary Texts

In order to make the various aspects of cooperation between contemporary history and literary studies research more transparent, I would like to introduce an example that illustrates how strong the points of convergence between contemporary history and literary studies are, and how little the public discourse obeys the experts’ desire to leave the reconstruction and research of contemporary history to contemporary historians.

In 2002, Günter Grass initiated a debate with his novel Crabwalk (Im Krebsgang), and we can read this episode as an appeal for a more in-depth examination of contemporary history by means of literature, and for a closer integration between the two fields. In the course of this debate, Grass, holder of the Nobel Prize for Literature, admonished the German public for their supposed failure to deal with a part of German history – and he did so not only at the literary level of the novel, but also via numerous media channels. According to Grass, the disaster of the refugee ship Wilhelm Gustloff, which was sunk by a Soviet submarine in 1945, and the related fate of the Germans affected by flight and expulsion from Eastern and Central Europe during the Second World War, had never been seriously discussed in public discourse, literature, or German historiography. Although this accusation against historians and writers was certainly unjustified, Grass had managed to create the opposite impression in the public eye with his book and his media presence, which is why literary scholars and contemporary historians joined the debate and called for a somewhat more differentiated view of the state of literary and historical reappraisal and public perception.[10]

This controversy exposed the problematic status that academic contemporary historiography has in the public eye. Contemporary history finds itself in a dilemma, as on the one hand it operates at the academic level of specialised expert communication, which obeys academic criteria and therefore remains rather inaccessible to a broader public. On the other hand, however, it claims to contribute to the fiercely contested contemporary historical images of the present and to the constitution of collective and cultural memory, whereby it always sees itself as a critical voice and corrective in public discourse due to its expert position.

1.1 Literature as Contemporary History – Contemporary History as Literature

The provocative statement by the writer and Buchenwald survivor Jorge Semprún – who predicted in 2008 that in a few decades the collective memory of the Shoah would draw its material less from historiographical than from literary works[11] – once again confirms the dilemma facing historical processing of the past: namely that historiographical representations do not have even remotely the same range of public perception as, for example, literary representations.[12] The growing popularity of literary historical narratives in both parts of Germany, from the 1960s to the present day,[13] therefore also seems to be due to the demands of a public interested in history, to whom specialised academic discourse remains rather alien.

The literary treatments of the recent past, undertaken as they are from the perspective of the present, are in no way inferior to contemporary historical studies in their degree of reflection,[14] although literary depictions are far less abstract and therefore more accessible due to the “deepening of the observational standpoint”[15] in the sense that such literature focusses on individual experiences. However, literature’s capacity for articulating contemporary historical narratives makes a decisive contribution to increasing public interest in history and broadening the reception of historical narratives. In this respect, an appeal structure is implicit in the literature, inviting readers to engage with historical events and historical discourses. At the same time, however, literature also invokes historiography, because the allusive horizon of fictional historical narratives can ultimately only be recognised by engaging with the historical contexts to which literary texts refer.[16] In our attempt to determine this historiographical potential of literature, we must ask the important question of which historical contexts are evoked in which style and with which narrative means in literature.

In addition for some years now, literary fictions have not just taken up history as their subject matter; literature has also begun negotiating specialised discourses of historiography and historical theory, as Ansgar Nünning, among others, has worked out.[17] The literature also sheds light on historiographical problems with which modern historical theory and historiography are grappling.[18] Cees Nooteboom’s novel Allerseelen, for example, deals lucidly with the relationship between historiography and fiction. And in his novel Jahrestage, Uwe Johnson reveals the unbridgeable gap between historical reality and the models of historiography, as well as memory and biography research.[19] In this context, diachronic investigations into developments and changes in historical images, historical discourses and theoretical structures, as well as semantics and patterns of interpretation in literature, are a worthwhile field of study for contemporary historical research, as well as for social and cultural studies-oriented literary history.

Furthermore, Semprún’s question of whether literature as imaginary history-writing will replace academic historiography could be posed in a modified form for the sake of a productive exchange between contemporary history and literature: Can fiction complement fact? If we examine history as “the result of a discursive practice,”[20] then academic contemporary history can only improve its “material status” by dealing with fictional accounts of history, meaning that it would take literature seriously as a source. Instead, dealing with fictional drafts that take contemporary history itself as their subject leads to discussions and critiques of the possibilities, limits, and reliability of one’sown methods and results. Faced with literature that uses focalisations of “unreliable narratives” to raise questions about the reliability of historical events and images of history, for example, academic contemporary history research can put its own narrative techniques and its ideas of truth and claims to objectivity to the test. Keeping in mind the literarising level of reflection, and entering into exchange with literary studies research, contemporary history can also arrive at an improved assessment of its own potential and its own impact. This concerns (1) the relationship between – and how to deal with the relationship between – fictionality and factuality, truth and probability; and (2) the question of the significance of the subject or actors of history (or histories) in terms of their connection to social practices and discourses.[21]

Literary concepts of contemporary history, despite their fictionalising procedures, are by no means in pure opposition to reality. Literary texts, through their complex interactions and interconnectedness, are based on sediments of real elements, discourses, and practices. Conversely, reality does not remain insusceptible to the imaginarily produced “realities” of literature.[22] Consequently, literary studies – even if its practitioners assess literary treatments of history first and foremost in their aesthetic aspects of literariness – cannot ignore the conditions, prerequisites and modalities of the social and cultural potentials for meaning and offers of meaning contained and synthesized in these literary products. It is precisely in those branches of literary studies oriented towards social and cultural history that scholars recognise the relevance of sociocultural and historical references to literary texts, as well as the significance of intertextual imbrications of literature and historiography. It is therefore incorrect to assume at a fundamental level that literature produces, delivers and reflects upon images of history that are less true than those considered in academic historiography. Literature only does this, of course, by other means, for example by focussing its attention on the experience of the individual rather than on the history of a group or a collective, as historiography often does. The fact that literature concentrates less on facts than on probabilities is ultimately due to its interest in filling in the gaps and grey areas of the micro-historical perspective, which historiography must inevitably leave behind if it wants to grasp and conceptually sharpen larger contexts of understanding. This is because, to paraphrase Georg Simmel, individual experience is generally below the threshold of historical interest, even though its influence on historical events is by no means insignificant.[23]

On the other hand, my initial assertion that contemporary history assumes no responsibility for individual experience may only be valid to a limited extent. After all, historical biographical research and oral history are increasingly striving to historicise personal experiences by investigating concepts of the subject and identity, and by interviewing contemporary witnesses. However, we must recall that this is ultimately done in order to be able to make statements about collective experiences, such as in generational research. While the historical interest in individual experience is guided by an interest in collective experience, the opposite is true in literature. Here – in the context of historical knowledge of collective experience – individual experiences are constructed which, when integrated into a specific historical context, appear more or less probable and realistic without, however, being verifiable. In this literary context, fictionality ultimately stands less for a freely invented situation than for a (typical or atypical) example of human behaviour, for a pointed depiction in which psychological and physical constitutions take shape.[24] Such literature is also in a position – freed from the obligation to empirical demonstrability – to experimentally discuss and open up for debate the questions left open by historical research, which are by no means insignificant.

These unanswered questions are, at one extreme, those relating to the incomprehensibility and monstrosity of historical events in the twentieth century. History lacks an appropriate instrument for a scholarly approach to the phenomenon of traumatisation resulting from the devastation caused by National Socialism, which, as a consequence of the experience of the erasure of identity and subjectivity, often manifests itself in the inability to cope with these monstrous experiences in language, since history’s field of competence lies primarily in the research of existing documentary material, i.e. what is visible, and not what is missing.[25] However, since neither the historical nor the psychological dimensions of the Holocaust, for example, can be grasped without the knowledge of traumatisation and its unresolved aspects, i.e. the speechless and the concealed, history remains dependent on texts that are capable of modelling and conveying the unspeakable as well as the unsaid and the concealed elements of such experiences. This is ultimately the responsibility of literature, which has developed aestheticising processes that are not available to historians. Working out these literary narrative techniques and placing them within the horizon of their social and cultural context, which also means taking their historicity into account, is in turn the research task of literary studies.

Thus, beyond its original subjects of investigation and lines of questioning, historiography remains dependent on those types of texts that it must exclude from its own field of research because they do not have a documentary character. Because contemporary historiography must ultimately claim to also include such factors and influences that constitute part of historical processes and constellations that remain beyond verifiability,[26] the field has to approach and come to grips with this sphere of influence, even if it is not animated by documentary concerns. This requires, however, gaining insight into the aesthetic possibilities and variations of representation. The historian Wolfgang Hardtwig, for example, has been calling for years for more intensive co-operation between historical and literary studies. It is high time, he writes, “that the relevant disciplines, history and literary studies, now also address the question of how the literary historical narrative presents the past, what characterises its specificity compared to historiographical representation, and what its current boom means for historical consciousness.”[27]

Saul Friedländer – in the second volume of his complete account “The Third Reich and the Jews”, entitled “The Years of Extermination 1939-1945” – demonstrated that aesthetic modes of representation and the application of literary methods can also be highly productive in the historiographical context. By combining traditional modes of historical representation and reflection with the means of literary writing, Friedländer explored an historiography that was extremely well received by the historical profession, as it was precisely through this combination that he succeeded in circumventing the abstractions that usually result when writing about the millions of murders that took place.[28]

1.2 Contemporary History as Literary History

When we ask how and in what way images of history are socially and culturally constituted and sedimented, we begin to examine – at multiple levels and by means of different questions – the nature and conjuncture of literary “contemporary histories”. Ansgar Nünning suggests devoting more attention to a narratology orientated towards cultural history, which he believes can offer opportunities for interdisciplinary research into the correlations between literary textual processes, their functions and their images of history. Forms of literary appropriation of history and its narrative staging should be discussed on both a diachronic and a synchronic level. Aspects of interest for the contemporary historical context include, for example:

- the semantization of spaces, objects and events to illustrate the significance that places and spaces of memory can have for historical consciousness and the transformations of cultural memory;

- the semantization of memory processes, time structures and experiences of time to represent subjectivised, fragmented and de-teleologised history;

- the multi-perspectival fanning out of narrated events and the associated pluralisation of history into stories;

- the meta-reflexive elements of fictional negotiations of history, which are characterised, for example, by the fact that discourses about the conditions of historical knowledge or methods and procedures of historiography are reflected at the literary level of plot.[29]

In addition to the current narratives of contemporary history, contemporary narratives from past decades can also provide illuminating information about this contouring of literary images of history and spaces of memory, including their historicisation. For, as already stated elsewhere, every fictional text incorporates historical experiences and perceptions of a distinctive social, cultural and political situation.[30] Or, to put it differently, literary art is always the art of the society in which it is created. The fact that these artistic objectifications of specific experiences sometimes reflect the colour of the times and patterns of interpretation to a greater extent than the remains of everyday, non-literary speech acts and narratives, for example, can ultimately also provide important insights into the atmosphere, form and contemporary patterns of interpretation of a particular historical period.[31] This provides contemporary historical research with the opportunity to discuss a historiographical approach initiated by literature and made accessible by academic literary history, and at the same time to develop new questions and problems from it.

The decisive importance of historical processes and caesuras and their historiographical construction in Germany since 1945 can also be seen in the orientation of literary studies, which is responsible for the systematisation of literature. Literary-historical epochal categorisations – such as “literature under National Socialism”, “literature of the new beginning after 1945”, “literature of the early Federal Republic” and “GDR literature” – make this clear.[32]

Another important argument in favour of interdisciplinary cooperation between (contemporary) history and literary studies under the banner of “contemporary history as literary history” can be derived from the controversy surrounding Hayden White’s poetological concept of historiography in the 1970s.[33] This debate has heightened awareness within the historical sciences of the symbolic structure of historical cognitive processes. According to White, the relationship to language is established not only at the representational level of historiography, but already at the level of factual observation; this sets in motion the process of generating meaning, which is meant to make the past plausible. This is why historical cognitive processes are genuinely linguistic in nature, i.e. symbolically structured, and historical works emerge from the meaning-creating perspective of “narrating” historians. However – since White’s model of historiography posits that historiography revolves around different interpretations of facts, and not around the facts themselves – the boundary between historical science and literature appears extremely permeable according to White.[34] Even if White’s approach to historical work and literary work has been the subject of extremely controversial debate and can ultimately hardly be generalised, we can still state that the long-held prejudice that facts could be conveyed purely and objectively in a first step of cognition, and then presented in a second, fundamentally separable process, has been largely dispelled within historical scholarship. The greater emphasis on the meaning given by the linguistic form and the constructed character of even fact-saturated historical narratives has heightened awareness of the modes of representation and presentation in historiography.

The fact that academic history can neither escape culturally sedimented semantics nor the omnipresence of interpretations has relativised the claim to objectivity that historiography had asserted up to that point. This development set critical self-reflection in motion, which ultimately led to the establishment of more differentiated methods of historical research and enabled new narrative forms of historiography, which appear, for example, in the works of Natalie Zemon Davis, Carlo Ginzburg, Robert Darnton or even Saul Friedländer.[35] Especially within cultural history, narrative as a cultural technique is increasingly being taken into account.[36] Narratives are not understood solely as the communicative mediation of real or fictional events; narrative is researched as a cultural pattern of order that is fundamental to the structuring of experience and knowledge. Narratives, or their written form in the sense of texts, link events and actors and can thus, for example, capture the temporality of generations and their connection to protagonists.[37] Historical narratives can also be historicised in terms of the changes in their narrative techniques, their narrative modelling and the use of rhetorical figures, and this also makes them a field of investigation for a literary history interested in the development of aesthetic modes of representation and intertextual references.[38]

1.3 Literary History as Contemporary History

Understanding literary history as contemporary history means making an important concession to literary studies: namely, that the moment of contemporary historical observation and discussion is already inherent in literary history’s analysis of contemporary historical literature. On the one hand, this applies to the subject level, at which literary studies seeks to distill the contemporary historical content of the literary and to scrutinise and question it. On the other hand, this takes place at a meta-reflexive level, in which literary studies attempts to place categories of the historical – which are either obviously brought into play or merely evoked by literary contemporary histories – in the context of historical and contemporary discourses.

In this context, however, there is a further reason for historians to draw on literary expertise and to include literary contemporary histories in their own reflections on what lays claim to historical validity as a reference to the real. This has to do with the sometimes problematic mixing and blurring of fiction and fact. For as meaningful as literary texts of the past and present may be for the constitution of historical images and consciousness, they sometimes leave behind ambiguous traces for public discourse, the culture of remembrance and literary history. This is ambivalent insofar as the fictional stories, which do not claim authenticity per se, become referents of real events because they often remain in the memory of the individual and certainly also in cultural memory as a representation of real history, not as fictitious or invented. It is not uncommon for contemporary historians to come across (supposed) contemporary witnesses whose memories, as it turns out, are not based on what they have seen and experienced themselves, but on fictional material such as literature.[39]

The history of remembrance and cultural memory research has for several years proposed discussing this relationship of fictions and facts in the context of “false memory”, thereby opening up a new field of research.[40] However, literary studies have been dealing with this topic for a much longer time, often on the basis of specific cases from literary history.[41] The case of Binjamin Wilkomirski makes the necessity and opportunities of such an exploration clear, and illustrates the interdisciplinary relevance of “false memory” and the synergy effects of an interdisciplinary exchange between contemporary history and literary studies. Wilkomirski published the book “Fragments. From a Childhood 1939–1948” (“Bruchstücke. Aus einer Kindheit 1939–1948”). The publication, written in the style of an autobiography, describes experiences from the life of the first-person narrator during the Nazi era in Latvia and other countries in fragmentary form and mainly from the perspective of a child. “Fragments” was translated into nine languages and was highly praised by critics. The author himself has repeatedly appeared before an interested public and specialist audience as a contemporary witness and expert. In 1998, Binjamin Wilkomirski was unmasked as Bruno Doessekker; his supposed life story turned out to be a forgery and was thus relegated to the realm of fiction.

This case did more than just give cause to scrutinise literary and cultural industry practices. In the context of dealing with National Socialist history and the Holocaust, this case triggered debates surrounding the relevance of traumatisations and the meaning of cultural patterns of reception, as well as questions revolving around the imbrications between historiographical and literary competence.[42] Fragments is therefore extremely interesting from the vantage point of both literary studies and historiography.[43] For although this fabricated life story cannot claim validity as a document of contemporary historical experience of the Holocaust, its genesis can only be understood under the historical conditions and premises of the twentieth century. Furthermore, Fragments is interesting from both disciplinary perspectives for the sole reason that it belongs to the corpus of texts related to the history of remembrance which make the problematisation of fictitious and “true” memory almost unavoidable.[44]

Last but not least, the book’s initially emphatic reception among historians also illlustrates the desire to archive the immediacy of authentic experience, which, however, seems conceivable only outside of the sobriety of historical analyses, either in poeticised or fictitious form. Important questions both for literary studies oriented towards contemporary history and for contemporary history research interested in literary history therefore would be: Which narratives, including fictional narratives, characterise the representation of historical events? Which narrative styles have which reception at which points in time? Or, to put it more precisely, what impact or influence do such narratives have?

Studies of literary and historiographically ambiguous narrative patterns and overlapping narrative styles illustrate just how unreliable the supposedly stable genres of historiography and literature have become. It is difficult to distinguish between a historical and a literary work when historians use literary methods and authors use historicising methods. In addition to Wilkomirski, authors such as Alexander Kluge (Chronicle of Feelings) and Walter Kempowski (Echolot), whose works raise the question of the genre to which their texts belong, stand for such borderline histories, whether fabulism or falsification of memory is intended or not. The deliberate blurring and mixing of the historical and the artistic, of the authentic and the fictional – which can be seen in the aesthetically alienating arrangements and compositions of archive material by these two authors – poses fundamental challenges to the clear demarcation of historiographical and literary writing styles and methods. This is because the blending of genres and the dissolution of their boundaries creates an additional reflexive benefit from both a historical and an aesthetic perspective. We can therefore only nod in agreement when Wolfgang Hardtwig writes: “For the method-conscious historian, the clear distinction between literary and historical questions and methods in the context of modern cultural history is no longer self-evident.”[45]

The realisation that history and stories about history are always based on certain narratives and discursive patterns, both from a historiographical and literary studies perspective, does not necessarily lead to a relativisation or even levelling of the respective individual disciplines; instead, this recognition allows and encourages the further differentiation of research perspectives and the intensification of interdisciplinary networks. However, the investigation of the (re)construction and textuality of (contemporary) history cannot take place solely in the field of contemporary history. For, as we have seen, both historiographical and literary textual procedures and literary reflections constitute the thought pattern of “contemporary history”, whereby historical patterns and concepts are presented and reflected upon quite differently in contemporary historical research than in literature. The fact that academic historiography remains committed to the argument-based and rationally comprehensible substantiation of its statements on reality, and is rather difficult to confuse with fictional literature due to this specific mode of statement and its submission to the “veto right of sources“, is now largely beyond question.[46]

Literary studies has recognised the interdisciplinary potential of its investigations of literarised history on the one hand and its analyses of the interferences between literary and historical procedures and methods on the other. This has inspired discussion and methodological pluralisation within the historical sciences. For the project of (post-)modern historiography – which is aware of the “end of the grand narratives” and therefore also of the problems of historical “master narratives” and should deal with the historicisation of polyphonic and multi-perspective views and descriptions of reality – historiography can consult with its neighbouring discipline: literary studies is very familiar with the reflection on narrative patterns and modes of writing, including their historical genesis, from its work with avant-garde and advanced literary narrative forms in twentieth-century literary history. This involves nothing less than the fundamental question of how a contemporary history characterised by the diversity of its perspectives and voices can be adequately communicated, both as a subject and as a field of research.[47]

1.4 Conclusion

In contrast to the traditional model of a holistic and teleological history, contemporary historical research recognises that history has fragmented into a multitude of stories, which is why objects, events and discourses can no longer necessarily be reconstructed historically in a hierarchical structure or sequence.[48] This pluralisation of history is the hallmark and result of a process of insight in which the differentiation and diversification of the collective singular of history can no longer be ignored. What is circulating under the rubric of the “end of the grand narratives” is therefore the realisation that uniform perspectives are no longer available in history either; instead, how history is told, presented and thus interpreted always depends on the point of view of individual historians, who in turn always take up a position within a social discourse. Since both historical studies and literature (re-)construct history(ies) in and from pluralised perspectives, albeit not with the same means, the possibility and necessity of keeping a comparative eye on their intersections, convergences and divergences is obvious.[49]

Clearly, literary and scientific images of contemporary history cannot ultimately be understood independently of each other. The intersection of fact and fiction in literary and historiographical texts can also generate problematic consequences. Research in contemporary history and literary studies must take up the challenge, together, of approaching the opportunities associated with this disciplinary crossover in a constructive manner. This challenge is also a responsibility, given how influential contemporary histories are for the politics and culture of our societies today.

Translated from German by Lee Holt.

German Version: Katja Stopka, Zeitgeschichte, Literatur und Literaturwissenschaft, Version: 1.0, in: Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte, 11.02.2010

References

[1] As for example in the context of the research field of Cold War culture, see in particular the studies by Thomas Lindenberger, “Looking West: The Cold War and the Making of Two German Cinemas,” in: Karl. C. Führer/Corey Ross (eds.), Screening the Media: Mass Media and Society in 20th Century Germany (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), (pp.) 113–128; Thomas Lindenberger, “Zeitgeschichte am Schneidetisch. Zur Historisierung der DDR in deutschen Spielfilmen,” in: Gerhard Paul (ed.), Visual History. Die Historiker und die Bilder. Ein Studienbuch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006), (pp.) 353–372; Thomas Lindenberger, “Home Sweet Home: Desperately Seeking Heimat in Early DEFA Films,” in: Film History. An International Journal 18 (2006), vol. 1, (pp.) 46–58.

[2] Wolfgang Hardtwig is one of the few German-speaking historians who has continuously addressed the question of the relationship between literature and history, or rather the influence of literature on historical science. See for example Wolfgang Hardtwig, “Fiktive Zeitgeschichte? Literarische Erzählung, Geschichtswissenschaft und Erinnerungskultur in Deutschland,” in: id., Hochkultur des bürgerlichen Zeitalters (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005), (pp.) 114–135.

[3] See also Hansers Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literaturvom 16. Jahrhundert bis in die Gegenwart. Begründet von Rolf Grimminger, München 1980ff., sowie Daniel Fulda/Silvia Serena Tschopp (eds.), Literatur und Geschichte. Ein Kompendium zu ihrem Verhältnis von der Aufklärung bis zur Gegenwart (De Gruyter, Berlin 2002); Hartmut Eggert/Ulrich Profitlich/Klaus R. Scherpe (eds.), Geschichte als Literatur. Formen und Grenzen der Repräsentation von Vergangenheit (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1990); Paul Michael Lützeler, Klio oder Kalliope? Literatur und Geschichte: Sondierung, Analyse, Interpretation (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1997).

[4] See Eggert/Profitlich/Scherpe (eds.), Geschichte als Literatur; Lützeler, Klio oder Kalliope?, (pp.) 11–20.

[5] Rolf Grimminger, “Vorbemerkung,” in: Hansers Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur, Bd. 3: Deutsche Aufklärung bis zur Französischen Revolution. 1680–1789, 1. Teilband, edited by Rolf Grimminger (Munich: Hanser 1980), (pp.) 7–12, here (p.) 7.

[6] See Doris Bachmann-Medick, Cultural turns. Neuorientierung in den Kulturwissenschaften (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 2006).

[7] Paul Michael Lützeler, Bürgerkrieg global. Menschenrechtsethos und deutschsprachiger Gegenwartsroman (Munich: Fink, 2009), (p.) 23. On the cultural-historical orientation of literary studies, see also Eberhard Lämmert, “Das Ende der Germanistik und ihre Zukunft,” in: Jürgen Kolbe (ed.), Ansichten einer künftigen Germanistik (Munich: Hanser, 1969), (pp.) 79–104, here (p.) 92.

[8] See Moritz Baßler (ed.), New Historicism. Literaturgeschichte als Poetik der Kultur (Tübingen: Francke, ²2001).

[9] See Klaus Weimar, “Der Text, den (Literatur)Historiker schreiben,” in: Eggert/Profitlich/Scherpe (eds.), Geschichte als Literatur, (pp.) 29–39, here (p.) 29, as well as Katja Stopka, “Geschichte und Geschichten. Erzählen in der Historie,” in: Alf Mentzer/Ulrich Sonnenschein (eds.), 22 Arten, eine Welt zu schaffen. Erzählen als Universalkompetenz (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 2008), (pp.) 207–224.

[10] On this debate see also Katja Stopka, “Vertriebene Erinnerung. Transgenerationale Nachwirkungen von Flucht und Vertreibung im literarischen Gedächtnis,” in: Wolfgang Hardtwig/Erhard Schütz (eds.), Keiner kommt davon. Zeitgeschichte in der Literatur nach 1945 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008), (pp.) 166–184.

[11] See also Jorge Semprún, “Littell prägt unsere Erinnerung,” in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 07.02.2008.

[12] See also Wolfgang Hardtwig, “Zeitgeschichte in der Literatur 1945–2005. Eine Einleitung,” in: id./Schütz (eds.), Keiner kommt davon, (pp.) 7–25, here (p.) 8, and on the wealth of contemporary historical literature, see: Ralf Schnell, Geschichte in der deutschsprachigen Literatur seit 1945 (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2003).

[13] On this situation see also Ansgar Nünning, Von der fiktionalisierten Geschichte zur metahistoriographischen Fiktion, (p.) 545f., and Hardtwig, Zeitgeschichte in der Literatur 1945–2005, (p.) 8.

[14] See also Ansgar Nünning, “Die Rückkehr des sinnstiftenden Subjekts. Selbstreflexive Inszenierungen von historisierten Subjekten und subjektivierten Geschichten in britischen und postkolonialen historischen Romanen der Gegenwart,” in: Stefan Deines/Stephan Jaeger/Ansgar Nünning (eds.), Historisierende Subjekte – Subjektivierte Historie. Zur Verfügbarkeit und Unverfügbarkeit von Geschichte (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2003), (p.) 240ff.

[15] Dieter Wellershoff, “Das Geschichtliche und Private,” in: Marcel Reich-Ranicki (ed.), Der Kanon. Die deutsche Literatur. Essays (Frankfurt a.M.: Insel, 2006), (pp.) 393–416, here (p.) 396.

[16] See Lützeler, Bürgerkrieg global, p. 22.

[17] See Ansgar Nünning, “Von der fiktionalisierten Geschichte zur metahistoriographischen Fiktion. Bausteine für eine narratologische und funktionsgeschichtliche Theorie, Typologie und Geschichte des postmodernen historischen Romans,” in: Fulda/Tschopp (eds.), Literatur und Geschichte, pp. 541–569; Linda Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism. History, Theory, Fiction (London: Routledge, 1988); Patricia Waugh, Metafiction. The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction (London: Routledg, 1984). Some authors in the literary field make explicit reference to historical studies, as for example in the controversial novel “The Well-Behaved” by Jonathan Littell, in which, according to the author, the studies of Raul Hilberg in particular have been incorporated. See for example the interview between Jonathan Littell and Pierre Nora, 29.01.2010. Hans-Ulrich Treichel's novel “Menschenflug” (Human Flight), which is about coming to terms with flight and expulsion in the broadest sense, also refers to a historical study.

[18] See Nünning, Von der fiktionalisierten Geschichte zur metahistoriographischen Fiktion, (p.) 548.

[19] See ibid. p. 560, and Günter Butzer, “Narration, Erinnerung, Geschichte. Zum Verhältnis von historischer Urteilskraft und literarischer Darstellung,” in: Fulda/Tschopp (eds.), Literatur und Geschichte, pp. 147–169.

[20] Ulrich Kittstein, Mit Geschichte will man etwas. Historisches Erzählen in der Weimarer Republik und im Exil (1918–1945), Würzburg 2006, p. 23.

[21] See also Marian Füssel, “Die Rückkehr des „Subjekts” in der Kulturgeschichte. Beobachtungen aus praxeologischer Perspektive,” in: Deines/Jaeger/Nünning (eds.), Historisierende Subjekte, pp. 141–159.

[22] For more on this, see the section “Literary History as Contemporary History” of this article.

[23] See Georg Simmel, “Das Problem der historischen Zeit (1916),” in: id., Goethe. Deutschlands innere Wandlung. Das Problem der historischen Zeit. Rembrandt, edited by Uta Kösser, Hans-Martin Kruckis und Otthein Rammstedt [GSG 15] (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 2003), (pp.) 305–515; sowie Wellershoff, Das Geschichtliche und Private, (p.) 394ff.

[24] See Ruth Klüger, “Was ist wahr? Kann man „schöne Literatur” über den Holocaust schreiben? Welchen Anspruch erheben die jüngst erschienenen Romane und Erzählungen über KZ und Verfolgung?”, in: Die Zeit 38/1997, p. 64.

[25] See Deines/Jaeger/Ansgar (eds.), Historisierende Subjekte.

[26] See Daniel Fulda/Silvia Serena Tschopp, “Einleitung, in: id. (eds.), Literatur und Geschichte,” Berlin 2002, (pp.) 1–10, here (p.) 3.

[27] Hardtwig, Zeitgeschichte in der Literatur, (pp.) 7– 25, here (p.) 9. On the different literary and historiographic narrative possibilities and forms of the same historical material and their functions, see for example Jurij Striedter, “Erzählformen als Antwort auf den Schrecken in der Geschichte. Or: Wie Dracula überlebte,” in: Eggert/Profitlich/Scherpe (eds.), Geschichte als Literatur, (pp.) 104–127.

[28] See for example Ulrich Herbert, “Die Stimmen der Opfer. Saul Friedländers meisterhafte Gesamtdarstellung des Holocaust zeigt: Die Vernichtung war geplant und gewollt,” in: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 29.09.2006; Klaus-Dietmar Henke, “Die Stimmen der Opfer. Saul Friedländers historiographisches Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas,” in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 04.10.2006.

[29] Nünning, Von der fiktionalisierten Geschichte zur metahistoriographischen Fiktion, (p.) 552ff.

[30] See Baßler (ed.), New Historicism; Hardtwig, Zeitgeschichte in der Literatur 1945–2005, (p.) 22; Lützeler, Bürgerkrieg global, (p.) 16ff.

[31] See Micha Brumlik, Wer Sturm sät. Die Vertreibung der Deutschen (Berlin: Aufbau, 2005), (p.) 137f.

[32] See Hardtwig, Zeitgeschichte in der Literatur1945–2005, (p.) 9.

[33] Hayden White, Auch Klio dichtet oder die Fiktion des Faktischen. Studien zur Tropologie des historischen Diskurses (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1991; original 1978); id., Metahistory. Die historische Einbildungskraft im 19. Jahrhundert in Europa (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1991; original 1973).

[34] See also Hayden White, Die Bedeutung der Form. Erzählstrukturen in der Geschichtsschreibung (Fischer: Frankfurt a.M., 1990; original 1987), (p.) 64 ff.

[35] For example Natalie Zemon Davis, Die wahrhaftige Geschichte von der Wiederkehr des Martin Guerre (München: Piper, 1984; original 1983); Carlo Ginzburg, Der Käse und die Würmer. Die Welt eines Müllers um 1600 (Wagenbach: Berlin, 2007; original 1976); Robert Darnton, Das große Katzenmassaker. Streifzüge durch die französische Kultur vor der Revolution (München: Hanser, 1989; original 1984).

[36] See for example Jan Eckel/Thomas Etzemüller (eds.), Neue Zugänge zur Geschichte der Geschichtswissenschaft (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2007).

[37] See Ute Daniel, Kompendium Kulturgeschichte. Theorien, Praxis, Schlüsselwörter (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, ²2002), (p.) 440ff.; Alexander von Plato/Almut Leh, Ein unglaublicher Frühling. Erfahrene Geschichte im Nachkriegsdeutschland 1945-1948 (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 1997); Moritz Baßler, “Zwischen den Texten der Geschichte. Vorschläge zur methodischen Beerbung des New Historicism,” in: Fulda/Tschopp (eds.), Literatur und Geschichte, (pp.) 87–100.

[38] On the various theoretical aspects of narratology with regard to the convergences and divergences of historical and literary narration, see Dorrit Cohn, “Signposts of Fictionality. A Narratological Perspective,” in: Poetics today II (Winter 1990), vol. 4, (pp.) 775–804.

[39] See Hans J. Markowitsch/Harald Welzer, Das autobiographische Gedächtnis. Hirnorganische Grundlagen und biosoziale Entwicklung (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2005), (p.) 27ff.; and Johannes Fried, Der Schleier der Erinnerung. Grundzüge einer historischen Memorik (Munich: C.H. Beck: 2004). See also the novel “Menschenflug” by Hans Ulrich Treichel, in which the blending of personal experience and fiction is thematized in a literary way.

[40] See Fried, Der Schleier der Erinnerung; Günter Oesterle (ed.), Erinnerung, Gedächtnis, Wissen. Studien zur kulturwissenschaftlichen Gedächtnisforschung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht, 2005); Irene Diekmann/Julius H. Schoeps (ed.), Das Wilkomirski-Syndrom. Eingebildete Erinnerungen oder Von der Sehnsucht, Opfer zu sein (Zürich: Pendo, 2002).

[41] See for example Karl Corino, Außen Marmor, innen Gips. Die Legenden des Stephan Hermlin, Düsseldorf 1996; id. (ed.), Gefälscht! Betrug in Literatur, Kunst, Musik, Wissenschaft und Politik, Nördlingen 1988.

[42] See Alexandra Bauer, My private holocaust – Der Fall Wilkomirski(s), (Januar 2006), http://www.sicetnon.org/content/literatur/My_private_holocaust.pdf [27.01.2010]; see also on the phenomenon of distorted memory, source confusion and source amnesia Markowitsch/Welzer, Das autobiographische Gedächtnis, (p.) 35.

[43] David Oels, “A Real-Life Grimm’s Fairy Tale. Korrekturen, Nachträge, Ergänzungen zum Fall Wilkomirski,” in: Zeitschrift für Germanistik, N.F. Band 14 (2004), vol. 2, (pp.) 373–390.

[44] See Barbara Breysach, “Stellvertretung oder Verdrängung? Jakob Littners Erinnerungen und Wolfgang Koeppens „Roman”,” in: Diekmann/Schoeps (eds.), Das Wilkomirski-Syndrom, (pp.) 236–261, here (p.) 240ff.

[45] Hardtwig, Zeitgeschichte in der Literatur 1945–2005, (p.) 21.

[46] See for example Reinhart Koselleck, “Standortbindung und Zeitlichkeit. Ein Beitrag zur historiographischen Erschließung der geschichtlichen Welt,” in: id., Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Suhrkamp: Frankfurt a.M., 1989), (pp.) 176–207, here (p.) 206, as well as Nünning, Von der fiktionalisierten Geschichte zur metahistoriographischen Fiktion, (p.) 544, and Kittstein, Mit Geschichte will man etwas, (p. 50).

[47] See Birgit Aschmann, “Moderne versus Postmoderne. Gedanken zur Debatte über vergangene, gegenwärtige und künftige Forschungsansätze,” in: Jürgen Elvert/Susanne Krauß (eds.), Historische Debatten und Kontroversen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2003), (pp.) 256–276, as well as Fulda/Tschopp (eds.), Literatur und Geschichte; Konrad Jarausch/Michael Geyer, Shattered Past. Reconstructing German Histories (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2003).

[48] See Stefan Deines/Stephan Jaeger/Ansgar Nünning, “Subjektivierung von Geschichte(n) – Historisierung von Subjekten. Ein Spannungsfeld im gegenwärtigen Theoriediskurs,” in: id. (eds.), Historisierende Subjekte (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2003), (pp.) 1-22, here (p.) 2.

[49] Ibid, (pp.) 1-22; Lützeler, Klio oder Kalliope?, (p.) 170ff.

An archived oral history interview being viewed in the reading room of the Research Centre for Contemporary History in Hamburg, 2022. Photographer: Fabian Hammerl © (cropped)

1. Introduction

Oral histories are something we encounter almost everywhere, be it on television, the radio or the internet, in exhibitions, local history events, memorial contexts, classrooms, or projects investigating historical injustices.[1] Nowadays, trying to teach (and come to terms with) contemporary history without “eyewitnesses” would be almost inconceivable, especially in nonacademic contexts. With audiovisual interviews in which individuals describe past experiences and historical events, we can bring history to life and elicit greater public interest.

While oral history interviews may not be as omnipresent in university lecture halls and departmental specialties as they are in popular history contexts, their importance for historical research and teaching has nonetheless increased over the past forty years, with oral history narratives having proven to be particularly fruitful sources for today’s cultural historians. Oral histories let us shift the focus from larger systemic structures to the individual participants, with their subjective perceptions, experiences, interpretations of the world, behavioral patterns and modes of action. This broadening of perspectives makes the great multiplicity and complexity of historical realities readily apparent, thereby bolstering cultural history’s critique of attempts to recount “history” in the singular. And by seeking out individuals and communities that have left no written materials or have long been marginalized in historiography, we can also answer the call to include “ordinary people” and to write “history from below,” as propounded by Alltagsgeschichte (the history of everyday life).[2]

Back when the cultural history turn was gathering strength, it caused an unease among certain historians, which also manifested as a great skepticism towards orally collected testimonies. As the literary scholar Alessandro Portelli remarked in 1979, oral history was haunting the halls of historical studies like a “specter.”[3] But nowadays, the life history interview is rarely rejected out of hand as a potential historical source. While it might now be used as a matter of course,[4] there are nonetheless differing views on what oral history actually is. A historical subdiscipline? A methodology? Just a category of source material? Or is it actually a research field in its own right?[5]

We will begin our explorations by defining the term, using this as a basis for elucidating the historical development of oral history before going on to outline its theoretical foundations and then describing its concrete practice. In the final section, we will look at the archiving, secondary analysis and digitization of interviews. The main focus here is on oral history in the context of historical scholarship. Oral history in other applications, such as in senior care programs, schools and the media, is often aimed at other goals, such as healing through storytelling or eliciting audience sympathies, which will not be discussed in depth here. Furthermore, our explorations will focus on the debates and developments (along with international influences) seen in West Germany and the reunified country.

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2. What is Oral History?

Originating in the USA, the term “oral history” has since established itself in the German-speaking world as an untranslated English expression. In the early 1980s, Lutz Niethammer described the term as an “unfortunate and ambiguous, yet highly evocative phrase.”[6] To him, translating this into German was problematic, because the literal translation “mündliche Geschichte,” or other labels like “diachronic interview” and “historical memory research,” only partially conveyed the idea of “oral history.” Therefore, he says, it is better to adopt the “name that has been historically elaborated elsewhere.”[7] But what does this polyvalent, overarching term actually mean?

Oral history is first and foremost a methodological toolkit for asking questions about and recording historical experiences. The application of this technique results in source materials, namely audio or video recordings, upon the basis of which history can be written.[8] Oral history is both a source material category and a research field in its own right. It is characterized by a particular understanding of history that starts with individual human beings and not with overarching structures. The historians Julia Obertreis and Anke Stephan put it succinctly: “Oral history is simultaneously a methodology, a type of source material, and an interdisciplinary research field.”[9]

Inspired by diverse disciplines, including (historical) anthropology, sociology, psychology and literary studies,[10] this research field is also practiced around the world.[11] Its wide-ranging interdisciplinarity and internationality has inevitably led to differing emphases, along with diverse interpretations of what oral history is and should be. Furthermore, having been practiced for at least eighty years (in Germany about half that long), oral history has been as prone to historical shifts as any other research field.

For many oral history projects, one basic motivation has been the democratization of historiography. Lutz Niethammer, head of the first major German oral history project LUSIR (Lebensgeschichte und Sozialkultur im Ruhrgebiet 1930–1960, or “Life stories and social culture in the Ruhr region, 1930–1960”), wrote in 1980 that “a democratic future needs a past in which not only the upper classes are heard.”[12] The LUSIR project considered the interviewees to be equal partners. With oral history, the production of source materials would be “more cooperative” and the interpretation of history would be done with “more solidarity.”[13] Even today, oral history is sometimes referred to as a “movement” towards democratizing the production and writing of history,[14] pointing to its anchoring in West Germany’s “new social movements” of the 1980s.[15]

In the struggle to democratize the writing of history, it is no accident that oral history in particular has taken on a key role, since it is uniquely capable of filling in the gaps in written sources that are often fragmentary and largely told from the perspective of the ruling class. Especially in the early years of oral history practice in West Germany, interviews were seen as “democratic counternarratives from below” whose most important function was to critically question the dominant narrative, which was still heavily influenced by the Nazi regime’s production (and elimination) of source materials.[16] But it is not only in postdictatorial states that historians have harnessed oral history’s potential for actively generating source materials that can fill in gaps in the archival record.[17] In the USA, the oldest line of oral history has been primarily concerned with documenting the testimonies of political and economic elites – also as a way to fill in gaps in the sources and to shed more light on political decision-making processes.[18]

Regardless of whether interviewing elite individuals or “ordinary people,” every historian ties their work to a specific investigative focus. While this focus may be specific to a certain project or topical area, we can still identify certain trends and commonalities that are shared by different oral history projects. The lowest common denominator is that these interviews are aimed at uncovering details about what once was. Unlike the interview projects conducted by social scientists or cultural studies researchers, those done by historians are always centered on the past. And, according to Dorothee Wierling, historians cannot and should not be indifferent to “how the narrated remembrance relates to the past happening or experience.”[19]

How narratives, memories, events, “lived experiences” and “integrated experiences” (two terms that will be described below) are interrelated, and what value diachronic interviews have as historical sources,[20] are questions that have weighed on oral history since its inception. However, the answers to these questions have shifted over time. The initial hope of gathering factual historical information through interviews soon gave way to a realization that while life history narratives may not enable direct access to some “definitive” past, they are all the more valuable as source materials for analyzing the subjective interpretation, appropriation and processing of history.[21] In the beginning, interviewers tried to conduct interviews in such a way as to exert minimal influence on the testimony, ostensibly in order to ensure the production of historical evidence, but nowadays it has become accepted that oral history interviews are actually “narratives in conversation form.”[22] Dialogality, orality, subjectivity and narrativity, all once seen as weaknesses of diachronic interviews, are now seen as their strengths.[23] Today, the question is not only what the interviewee actually says, but also why they said it, and how, and to whom. But before we delve deeper oral history’s theoretical foundations and nuancing, let us take a brief look at its historical development.

3. On the History of Oral History

The oral tradition is one of humanity’s oldest cultural practices and has long shaped the writing of history. But with the professionalization of historical studies through the nineteenth century, oral narratives lost their significance to the point that the writing of history became reliant almost exclusively on written source materials.[24] Although discussions of oral history often start with the oral traditions of ancient Greece and various African cultures, the development of “oral history” as it is understood in the West today – namely as one based on recorded interviews about the past – is a twentieth-century phenomenon. This is because its development depended on an important technological achievement: recording devices and storage media, once expensive, delicate and unwieldy, had now become affordable, sturdier and easier to use.

One early example of this is the use of magnetic-wire recording in 1946 by Chicago psychologist David P. Boder, who traveled to displaced-person camps across Europe to interview survivors of Nazi persecution. These interviews are the first known documents in which the voices of survivors of Nazi persecution are recorded for posterity in audible form.[25] The development of Holocaust oral history, which began with this early postwar project and gathered momentum in the 1970s,[26] greatly shaped how oral history is seen in general, especially among non-academics. Great prominence was achieved for example by the Shoah Foundation (founded by Steven Spielberg), which gathered over fifty thousand interviews with survivors of Nazi persecution, recorded from 1994 to 2000.[27] In Germany too, the 1990s saw numerous interviews with survivors of Nazi persecution, especially through the efforts of researchers from concentration camp memorial sites. This formed the basis for several publications that set new standards with their methodological considerations.[28]

But for the early days of oral history, the Holocaust – with the except of the Boder project – did not yet play a major role. American oral history, which has been pioneering in many regards, can be roughly divided into two major streams. Firstly, there were interviews with the elites, as mentioned above. It is in this political history stream that we find the oldest oral history archive, the Columbia Center for Oral History Research, founded in 1948 by the historian and journalist Allan Nevins, who is often called the father of oral history.[29] In contrast to the situation in the German-speaking world, the conducting and collecting of interviews in the USA was primarily done by archives and libraries.[30] Secondly, US oral historians were also interested in communities that had produced hardly any written source materials thus far, and had not been protagonists in historiography, such as formerly enslaved people and indigenous tribes. The goal was – if not to give them their own voice – to at least let them be heard more.[31] This branch of oral history, which was influenced by social history, also emerged in the England of the 1970s, where it was closely tied to labor history.[32]

In non-academic terms, one particularly influential British development was the rise of “history workshops,” in which laypersons wrote local histories that were both critical and sympathetic. This new form of historiography was soon taken up in other countries, as seen for example in the history workshops of West Germany.[33] This interest in making visible the experiences and narratives of previously ignored social groups, and in drawing our attention back to things that had been forgotten, was a central aspect of Alltagsgeschichte, which became established in the 1980s.[34] In West Germany, the development of oral history was closely tied to Alltagsgeschichte, as interviews were seen as particularly suited for recording the experiences and sensibilities of everyday life.[35]

In East Germany, oral history took a rather different trajectory. Historical eyewitnesses with politically acceptable testimonies became institutionally established and were much heard at schools, state-run enterprises and memorial sites. At the same time, it was nearly impossible to critically engage with their testimonies or to question them in any way, especially since state-regulated eyewitnesses themselves were heavily restricted by political controls.[36] In contrast, interviews about everyday life were undesirable, requiring an official application and approval first.[37] And while interviews were certainly a matter of course in the journalistic context, they did not necessarily result in life history narratives.

Furthermore, any interviews conducted still suffered from a hard economic reality: blank tape was hard to get. This meant that any interviews recorded still had to be deleted after transcription so that the tape could be used again.[38] Interviews also played an important role in East Germany’s Dokumentarliteratur and Protokollliteratur (“documentary literature” and “transcript literature”), with the corresponding publications being widely read.[39] During the late 1980s, with the country’s tentative steps towards political and social transformation, it became more and more possible to voice life stories outside of ideological constraints and political service.[40] The very particular political constellation of those years also enabled an interview project to be conducted by West German historians at several locations across East Germany shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall.[41]

In West Germany too, oral history gained a foothold much later than in the USA, the UK and other Western nations. It began with just a few historians who made this method known in West Germany during the late 1970s, inspired by their contacts with oral historians in other countries; this also points to the importance of personal cross-border networks for the development of oral history. Besides Lutz Niethammer, who traveled to the USA in 1975 specifically to familiarize himself with this research technique,[42] there was also the feminist historian Annemarie Tröger. She had learned about oral history in the early 1970s under the historian and civil rights activist Lawrence Goodwyn at Duke University in North Carolina. When she began her research work at West Berlin’s Free University in 1976, she experimented with this technique and conducted one of Germany’s first oral history projects.[43]

Annemarie Tröger was in close contact with various pioneers of oral history, including Paul Thompson in England, Laura Passerini in Italy, Ronald Grele in the USA, and Daniel and Isabelle Bertaux-Wiame in France, and was on the advisory board at the International Journal of Oral History. Like Lutz Niethammer, she also took part in the international oral history conferences that have taken place around the world every two years since 1976, and from which the International Oral History Association (IOHA) officially emerged in 1996. These international exchanges were quite important for the early oral historians, especially in the face of the great skepticism and criticism they met at home—including in West Germany.[44]

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The relatively late emergence of oral history in West Germany also had to do with the country’s Nazi past. In denazification proceedings and postwar personal testimonies, memories of the Nazi period were often distorted by subconscious repression, apologist arguments and even outright lies, causing West German historians to reject narrated memories for decades, as seemingly unreliable sources.[45] It was in 1979, with the Geschichtswettbewerb des Bundespräsidenten or “Federal President’s history competition,” that oral history and the history of the everyday received a strong boost when sympathetic historians began pushing for “the interviewing of contemporaries” as one possible tool for competition entries, and as a remedy against repressing and forgetting past experiences.[46]

It was during this period that Germany’s first major academic oral history undertaking took place: the aforementioned LUSIR project. Under the leadership of Lutz Niethammer, a new generation of young left-wing historians set out to interview workers in the industrial Ruhr region about their life stories. When asking about the Nazi period, the interviewers expected stories of resistance and oppression, but instead, they mostly heard narratives of consensus and conformity. This experience of interviewees overturning researchers’ preconceptions was called by Niethammer and his team the “anti-typecasting shock.” Historical grand narratives of “the working class,” of revolt and class struggle, fell apart in the face of these interviews, making space for other explanatory accounts: a history of apolitical life among workers and housewives who had adapted to the dictatorial system.[47]

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This project’s grappling with unexpected histories had a lasting impact on the direction of contemporary history research, not only in terms of content, exposing unknown continuities and ruptures in German history, but also in terms of methodology, offering fruitful new impulses for the ongoing development of oral history practices in Germany.[48] LUSIR also had an impact on the later institutionalization of oral history in West Germany. Detlev Peukert, who had been involved with the project at the start, went on to found the Workshop of Memory (Werkstatt der Erinnerung) in 1990, when he was the head of what is now the Research Centre for Contemporary History in Hamburg.[49]

Among the oral history centers and archives in Germany, the Workshop of Memory is one of the oldest and largest; another is the German Memory Archive (Archiv Deutsches Gedächtnis, at the University of Hagen’s Institute for History and Biography), founded in 1993 by Alexander von Plato, another former team member of the LUSIR project. With connections around the world through the IOHA, he and his team have been shaping the discussion of oral history and its methodologies for decades, including through their publication of the journal BIOS.[50] Alexander von Plato also participated in interviews conducted under rather adventurous conditions in East Germany shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall.[51] Today, there are several places holding a great many interviews about life in East Germany and the personal experience of its final upheavals.[52]

The institutions mentioned here, along with others from across the German-speaking world, maintain frequent contact with each other and are also members of an oral history network that was founded in 2014.[53] Furthermore, they are collaborating on the building of a unified online archive at Oral-History.Digital.[54] Recent years have seen more and more domestic cooperative projects emerging in addition to the field’s broader international exchanges, such as those cultivated through lively discussions at IOHA conferences and through the Oral History Network of the European Social Science History Conference. There is always a great deal to discuss, due the great complexity of oral narratives as a source material.

4. Theoretical Foundations and Dimensions of Interview Analysis

In the ideal model of an oral history interview, a person exists at a particular biographical moment in their life within a historically specific present and recalls—with a view towards an anticipated future – their experiences of the past. The person tells of their own experiences and those of others, expresses opinions and interpretations of the self and the world, and links the individual episodes through narrative means into a coherent whole. This does not happen in a vacuum but in the physical presence of another person, who is in turn a biographically, socially and culturally anchored being. Through their shared conversation, stories about the past are formulated and images of the self are negotiated, both interactively and performatively.

Furthermore, the things that can be heard and seen on the recording go far beyond the actual words. Equally meaningful are the tones of voice, speech rhythms, pauses, nonverbal vocalizations, gestures, facial expressions, and so on. In short, oral history interviews feature an overlapping of different time layers (past, present and future) and an inextricable mixing of the individual with the social. The remembered experiences are narratively constructed and represent the visible/audible expression of a communicative relationship. On top of that, aspects of personal identity are also being formed and negotiated through the life history narrative. In order to avoid a hasty equivalence between narrated account and historical incident, or between an individual’s remark and an unchanging identity, oral historians began to search early on for theoretical underpinnings that would help them better understand the resulting source materials. To do so, they often borrowed from adjacent disciplines.[55]

In looking to comprehend the complex interplay between the time of speaking and the time being spoken about, as well as the relationship between the individual and the collective, oral historians have taken frequent inspiration since the early 1990s from theories of memory developed by cultural studies and the social sciences. Here, the core insight is that memories are socially and culturally conditioned, and thus changeable. As individuals move through different social environments, their memories change accordingly, along with their images and conceptions of the past.[56] Remembered details recounted in oral history interviews are therefore socially shaped communicative constructions.

Not only are memories both individual and collective, they are also both backward-looking and forward-looking. In the recounting, the interviewee draws a connection between the selves of the present, past and future. In doing so, the individual constructs a self that is always recognized as “me” despite any physical (or nonphysical) changes over time. The fact that narrative coherence is sometimes lacking cannot be explored here in depth, but only briefly mentioned. Traumatic experiences in particular can be hard to integrate into the narrative, resulting in interviews with discontinuities, gaps and fragmentation.[57] This calling up of the past in the present—beyond its function in forming identity—also serves to temporalize subjective realities.[58]^.

The sequencing of events as constructed in an oral history interview always reflects a narrative structure. Narration can be seen as the main linguistic method for the temporal organization of experiences. According to the classical Aristotelian definition, narratives have a structure of beginning, middle and end within which the sequence of events unfolds.[59] The field of narratology can thus provide interesting theoretical insights for oral history. For example, there is analytical potential in the idea that the act of narration gives meaning to what has been experienced. This makes life-history interviews excellent source materials for looking at how individuals explain their world to themselves and endow historical events with meaning. In doing so, oral history interviews not only semanticize the past, but also restructure, aestheticize and fictionalize it. Narrators make use of their culture’s plot paradigms and fill gaps in the chain of events with creative imagination. They place their remembered experiences into a newly created temporal sequence while deciding which life episodes they want to present and which they do not.

Nonetheless, life history narratives are generally not substantially fictionalized, let alone pure fiction.[60] Unlike literary texts, they do claim to address real experiences. They could be described as “reality narratives” that are both historically based and constructive in nature.[61] This is why oral historians need to go beyond the what of a narration’s content in order to also consider the how of its telling, in terms of form, language, narrative structure and personal interactions.

However, the process of historical analysis cannot be satisfied with just looking at a narrative’s internal workings. For historians, it is also important to track down references outside the text, and to ask how the narrated experience relates to the lived one, and to what extent this is historiographically relevant. For this, it is helpful to take a closer look at the idea of Erfahrung or “integrated experience.” According to Alfred Schütz and Thomas Luckmann, an integrated experience can be defined as an Erlebnis or “lived experience” that has been interpreted by the self. A lived experience becomes an integrated one when an individual deals with it internally, placing it in an interpretive framework alongside other integrated experiences. Besides these personally lived experiences, other reference points for the interview include socially mediated explanatory accounts such as films and other cultural artifacts.[62] As noted by Ulrike Jureit, an oral history interview can thus be seen as a “synthesis of experiences” in that it is both individual and collective and also interweaves the “today” with the “back then.”[63]

While it is not possible to analytically disentangle the temporal layering of this experiential synthesis, we can say that today’s presentations of the past always point back to experiences and discourses that are not rooted in the present.[64] But these experiences and discourses never exist as unchanged objects and are accessible only within a subjective framework of appropriation and interpretation, colored by integrated experience. And this is precisely where the real strengths of the oral interview lie. According to Alexander von Plato, if we understand oral history as an “Erfahrungswissenschaft” or “science of integrated experiences,” then this allows us to investigate “the processing of history and the aftereffects of past experiences on present-day attitudes and behaviors.”[65]

To write oral history as a history of personal experiences and interpretations, it is necessary to contextualize each audio/video narrative within its biographical, conversational and historical frameworks. While the biographical specificities and production situation can be analyzed on the level of the individual interview, pinpointing its historical references requires a comparison with other sources (such as personal documents, newspaper articles, archival materials, etc.). The primary aim of such a comparison is not to check the truthfulness of a life history narrative, but to map out its individuality and subjectivity.[66] In order to better understand how subjective meaning is constructed, oral historians have been increasingly investigating narrative structures for some time now.[67] This is because, as described above, oral history interviews present experiences to us only as narratives.

Another analytical approach that was propounded decades ago, but which is rarely pursued in a systematic way, is to also utilize the sense of hearing. After all, oral histories are spoken sources, and thus ones to be heard.[68] The oral aspects in particular, such as tone of voice, dialectical usages, intonation and nonlinguistic utterances, are significant carriers of meaning. In the case of video interviews, the same applies to physical expressions and demeanor.[69] Since these cannot be adequately transcribed (no matter how sophisticated the transcription system), it is the recording itself that represents the actual source.[70] This is why we strongly advocate a close viewing and listening. Especially with emotional undertones and conversational dynamics, it is much easier to see/hear these things than to read them. The relationship between the interview’s participants has a decisive impact on the shaping of the life history narrative, as has now become general knowledge among historians. According to the widely held consensus, every interview must be seen as a cooperative endeavor. The “creative role” of the interviewer thus also needs to be taken into account, as well as the evolving – and possibly reversing – relationship and power dynamics between the conversation partners over time.[71]

For many years now, the practice of oral history has been accompanied by questions about who gets to shape the interview and determine its interpretation. Even as early as the LUSIR project, with its intention that the interviewees act as the empowered subjects of their own stories, there were attempts at a collaborative historiography. However, the writing of history “from below,” i.e. in collaboration with the historical actors, proved to be extremely difficult: according to Lutz Niethammer, it was simply not possible to resolve the tensions between the interviewees’ interpretations and those of historians.[72] In the end, it was generally the interviewer who ultimately got the last word in the scholarly practice of oral history, in terms of analysis, interpretation and publication.[73]

It was with the concept of “shared authority” that the push for more collaborative approaches picked up again in the 1990s. This term was put forward by American oral historian Michael Frisch, who applied it mainly to the communicative level during the interview situation and to the subsequent editing of the transcript.[74] The idea of sharing control and authorship has been taken up many times since then, and with even greater collaborative involvement.[75] But for a long time, egalitarian cooperative research, with interviewees involved from the initial planning stage to the final analysis phase, was done mostly in the context of more activist-inspired projects, which sought to empower marginalized groups by amplifying their voices.[76]

The sharing of authority remains relatively unproblematic as long as the project participants do not develop conflicting interpretations. However, historians should not relinquish their intellectual control if historical revisionist, antidemocratic, racist, misogynist or similar interpretations are being inserted into the writing of history. Furthermore, we cannot sacrifice the core values of the historian’s work, which include the balanced consideration of different voices and perspectives as well as the “veto power of the sources” (Reinhart Koselleck). The limits of a shared authority must therefore be constantly kept in mind and openly stated.

Today, projects based on collaborative history production, whereby interviewers and interviewees work together on an equal footing and present a shared result, are becoming more common in academia as well.[77] These are often projects in which interviews and other source materials are collected through common effort. More recent research endeavors, especially those concerning exile, migration and postcolonial issues, point to new forms of cooperation that go far beyond traditional understandings of historical research.[78] But projects that strive towards a more open participation in source production and/or interpretation also need to carefully consider what they are promising to the participants. Maintaining the basic principles of research ethics, as formulated by Almut Leh some twenty years ago, is all the more important here. In particular, the form and limits of the collaborative framework, along with the levels of control, need to be communicated transparently.[79] Such projects offer a great opportunity for honing the concept of shared authorship and authority, for example in the context of participative research endeavors; after all, new theoretical insights in oral history always come from its real-world practice.[80]

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5. Doing Oral History: Practical Field Tips for Conducting Interviews

Oral history is a research practice characterized by differing regional approaches, diverse interdisciplinary influences and great methodological variation. There are no fixed rules on how to conduct an oral history interview. Between the desire to interview as efficiently as possible (for example under time pressure) and as productively as possible (for example to build up an archive), it is the biographical narrative method that has proven most worthwhile. The narrative interview allows the interviewee to convey what is most important to them while also allowing the interviewer to pursue specific research questions. Influenced by sociology’s biographical research work as well as the tradition of folklore studies, this method has been broadened through many years of experience by historians.[81] Regardless of whether the focus is on a narrowly defined situation or on drawing out a more comprehensive narrative about the interviewee’s life story, it is important for the interviewer to encourage a free narrative.[82] Oral history interviews thus arise from the active interest of a questioning person whose most important skill should be attentive listening.[83]

Ideally, the narrative interview begins with a question that is open-ended in terms of time and scope, which elicits a narrative response. As much as possible, this opening narrative should remain uninterrupted by questions. When the interviewee signals the end of their report, the interviewer then asks subsequent questions intended to generate further narratives, as a way to better understand and deepen what has been said so far. Finally come the questions relating to aspects that have not yet been addressed, and that relate to the research project’s specific focus.[84] At every stage of the interview, there have to be moments where the interviewer stays silent for a while, in order to actively listen and give the interviewee a chance to say whatever is important to them.

It is in the German-speaking world that the method of the life history narrative has become particularly popular. But here too, we can also profit from the English-speaking world’s insights into the conducting of interviews, with tips that are both pragmatic and wide-ranging, and that span from the preparatory phase to the final analysis.[85]

The preparatory phase includes the question of who should be interviewed and why, so that the project’s intentions can be openly and definitively communicated to the respondent. While advance research into the interviewee and the historic event’s context are essential, this should not be used to constrict the narratives during the interview itself. Getting familiar with the recording equipment before the interview is just as important as settling the question of where and how the interviews are to be archived after the project is finished. To allow for long-term archival preservation, the recording should be of high quality. It is also important to prepare a release form that outlines the relevant usage rights and privacy protections.[86]

It is helpful to keep a research diary during every phase of the interview process, from preparation and implementation to postproduction and evaluation.[87] Information about the interview’s genesis and implementation is indispensable not only for one’s own evaluation process, but also for a secondary analysis by other scholars. While having a transcription is helpful, it is no substitute for viewing or listening to the recording, because, as stated above, this is the actual source material. Last but not least, research ethics must also be kept in mind. This is because interviews are sensitive materials containing personal data, thus requiring extra protection. One must therefore be transparent in informing the interviewee about the reason and goal behind the interview, as well as its future archiving and potential uses. They should also have a chance to inspect the interview after it is done, with the possibility of restricting access to particular passages.[88]

6. Archiving, Secondary Analysis and Digitization

For a long time, interviews were seen as the private property of the interviewer, and after the project’s completion, have rarely been made available as source materials for other researchers. There were often good reasons for this reluctance: insufficient resources for a proper archiving, issues left unresolved, missing release forms and poor-quality recordings, in addition to the interviewer’s own potential desire to avoid outside scrutiny. This problem was further exacerbated by unclear or nonexistent guidelines for the archiving of interviews. All this led to a serious and practical consequence: these oral source materials could not be called up for inspection.

On the other hand, there were also early examples of interviews being placed in archives and made available for use beyond the original interview project, although the source materials might not have always fulfilled today’s methodological expectations. In many cases, it was only transcripts of interviews that were archived. This applies to a collection assembled during the early days of Munich’s Institute for Contemporary History, the “Zeugenschrifttum” (literally “witness writings”), whose very name pushes orality into the background.[89]

Similarly, at the Research Center for Hamburg’s History from 1933 to 1945 (later the Research Centre for Contemporary History in Hamburg), the archives hold only transcripts of the interviews conducted in 1949 with various functionaries and several victims of the Nazi regime.[90] There are also a few early examples of state archives collecting interviews as well. One is the Hüttenberger Collection at the State Archive of North Rhine-Westphalia, comprising 155 conversations with civil servants and politicians during the 1960s and 70s.[91] The early 1990s saw the creation of archives specifically dedicated to interviews, such as the Workshop of Memory (Werkstatt der Erinnerung, 1990, part of the Research Centre for Contemporary History in Hamburg), which began mostly with the voices of individuals persecuted by the Nazis, as well as the German Memory Archive (Archiv deutsches Gedächtnis, 1993), which took in the interviews from the LUSIR project. Meanwhile, the more narrowly focused Archive of Memory (Archiv der Erinnerung, 1995–98) comprises video interviews with Holocaust survivors living in Berlin and Brandenburg. Since 1990, the Documentation Center and Museum on Migration in Germany (Dokumentationszentrum und Museum über die Migration nach Deutschland) has also been collecting personal accounts, including interviews.

The names of these variously conceived institutions are clear reflections of their historical focus and commemorative priorities. Interviews were conducted with historiographically marginalized persons while previously collected materials were professionally archived and made accessible for subsequent research purposes. With the increasing distance to the events of the Nazi period and the resulting medialization of the eyewitnesses, people began discovering archived interviews as a resource for educational efforts, museums and other cultural products such as films. In the new millennium, it is digitally accessible interview collections that have become increasingly important. For example, the Center for Digital Systems at Berlin’s Free University has been providing access since 2006 to interviews addressing Nazism, the Holocaust and other contemporary history topics.[92]

For a long time, there was little theoretical reflection on how interviews are archived and utilized. As is so often the case, it was first in the English-speaking world that we saw debates concerning the significance and consequences of reusing oral history source materials.[93] Joanna Bornat, for example, gave a concrete example of the ethical problems stemming from secondary analysis: Is it okay to take interviews on the topic of housework and examine them for racist content if the female interviewees may not have consented to this particular area of inquiry?[94] One potential solution would be a release form that permits scholarly investigation beyond the original project; another would be an anonymization of the sources. With the increasing attention paid to oral history, the German-speaking world has also seen a growing interest in archived interviews, thereby putting the spotlight on secondary analysis as a new research strategy needing further deliberation in terms of inquiry focus, methodology and research ethics.[95]

Here, secondary analysis is to be understood as the analysis of interviews conceived of and conducted by others, where the original production framework and investigative interests may not match one’s own. One trailblazing discussion of this was presented by the sociologist Brigitte Halbmayr, using the example of interviews conducted with female survivors of Mauthausen Concentration Camp.[96] Meanwhile, debates concerning a seeming disappearance of voices about the Nazi era and its aftermath inspired historians Julia Paulus and Matthias Frese, with their regionally focused project on wartime and post-war societies in the period 1938–48, to reflect on the secondary use of archived interviews.[97]

There have also been many discussions about how historians should deal with the huge number of interviews collected so far, what experiences they have had in this regard, and what conditions need to be met before interviews can be used (in a critically aware manner) by outside parties. Here, Almut Leh underlines some basic preconditions: the interviews need to be properly archived and catalogued so that they can be researched, and they need to be viewable by researchers and known to them.[98]

Furthermore, when an oral source is to be archived, there is the question of what it will consist of. In addition to the recording, the interview material should ideally include a transcript as well, alongside a release form in which the participants specify the recording’s permitted uses. If possible, there should also be information about the original production framework, which can help with contextualizing the interview.[99] This might include supplementary notes, for example on different existing formats (e.g. an original tape or a digitized copy) or transcript versions (e.g. whether edited, corrected, anonymized, etc.).

Notwithstanding various lesser pitfalls, secondary analysis does offer a great deal of potential. Narrative interviews can be extremely rich sources. Oral history archives, well-established for a good many years now, have reduced the barriers to interview analysis endeavors. But like any other historical source material, they also need to be scrutinized through the lens of source criticism. Here, several aspects differentiating interviews from other source materials have to be kept in mind.[100] These relate above all to the interview situation’s particular dynamics, in which an intense interaction occurs between interviewer and interviewee at a particular moment in time, producing a dynamic constellation that can be difficult for outsiders to grasp. What at first glance might seem to be unprofessional behavior by the interviewer needs to be carefully contextualized. For example, it is important to recognize the state of scholarship back then and the potential limits to what could openly be said; these also need to be accounted for in the analysis. This is how secondary analysis is broadening the spotlight to include the interviewers, mostly ignored until now, with their own investigative interests, styles of communication and ways of seeing the world.[101]

The use of interviews for secondary analysis in other topical contexts and disciplines has been strongly affected by accelerating processes of digitization.[102] Analog recordings on outdated storage media – from magnetic tape to MiniDisc – had long been inaccessible for later users, due to reasons of conservation and/or practicality. These interviews have now been largely digitized, which not only enables their easy availability, but also means that these audio/video recordings can now get the analytical attention they deserve. This accessibility is further enhanced through online portals. Countless interviews are now available with just a few clicks and can be pieced together from widely scattered collections into new research samples. Data analysis tools like ATLAS.ti and MAXQDA are making it easier than ever to analyze interviews in bulk. There are currently experiments on also using AI to analyze large corpora.[103] Digitization’s revolutionary potential underlines once again how the development of oral history practice is strongly shaped by technology and media. Since its beginnings, it has always shifted according to new trends and possibilities in terms of recording, storage and dissemination.[104]

Archival practices are similarly shaped by digital innovations. The aforementioned online portal Oral-History.Digital, a cooperative project currently under construction, helps repositories and researchers with the archiving, cataloging and digital dissemination of collected interviews, thereby setting new standards in this area.[105] As time goes on – and this is anything but a shortcoming – archived interviews will lose their status as source materials for the writing of “contemporary” history. Furthermore, when treated as important and preservation-worthy “research data” – itself a concept that has played only a minor role until now in the hermeneutically oriented humanities – these archived interviews can come into question not only for historical researchers, but also for those in other fields of inquiry.

The current great interest in interviews will be further supported by a planned nationwide research data infrastructure for Germany, which is motivated by both scholarly and economic arguments.[106] The turning of narrative life-history interviews into audiovisual research data, now much easier to call up through digital infrastructures, presents both advantages and disadvantages. Easier availability with savings in both time and money is one advantage; improved collaboration in terms of shared access and discussion is another. This also makes it easier to combine different interview collections and to analyze these with a new investigative lens. But, among the concomitant challenges, there is the potential question of what it could mean if samples of almost unlimited size can now be assembled. Does easier access to large numbers of preexisting interviews make it harder to limit the number of sources included? Will the increasing ease of software-assisted analysis lead to a greater emphasis on quantitative analysis? There are many questions about source criticism in the digital age that have yet to be resolved.

From a research perspective, we need to ask what this standardized digital corpus, nearly limitless in size, will do to the interview as a unique and “unruly” source material. Will it be robbed of its potential for vexing and contradicting the accepted narratives of the past? Will a bulk analysis of interview data necessarily result in an unacceptable decontextualization of “wayward” narratives, erasing their specificities in terms of history, biography, conversational situation and audible/visible characteristics? An oral history practice that accounts for all these contextual details can be very fruitful, but it also means a lot of work. Fortunately, there are many who remain undeterred and are committed to working with a method that demands a certain “extra” from the researcher, in terms of theoretical reflection, social dexterity, and – that rarest of commodities – time.

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7. Looking Ahead

Oral history has long since arrived in the mainstream of the historical sciences. What was formerly viewed with skepticism, a method whose proponents were taken only somewhat seriously by other scholars, has now become a vital and integral component of contemporary history research. Where it was once difficult to argue for the use of oral sources, the opposite can sometimes hold true today. Nowadays, if a contemporary history research project ignores the voices of those who were there, it is asking for criticism. According to the new imperative: if eyewitnesses are available, they have to be interviewed. While a welcome development, there are also risks here – especially if there is only a passing awareness of the decades of developments in oral history, with its many refinements and insights in both theory and methodology.

As both a method and a research field in its own right, oral history ultimately remains very time-consuming and can be meaningfully applied only if the investigation aims above all at the interviewees’ own interpretations of the self, the world and the past, and/or at analyzing their experiences. Understood as a particular way of seeing and approaching history, it allows us to leverage oral sources in researching the most diverse array of subject matters, going far beyond “traditional” oral history topics (for example, the Nazi period or the everyday history of “ordinary people,” as frequently studied in Germany). The occasionally highlighted fears that later generations, whose life experiences are marked more by prosperity and progress than by dictatorship and violence, might have nothing historiographically significant to recount, can be quickly dispelled[107] – quite apart from the fact that experiences of war, violence and pandemics are certainly not restricted to the first half of the twentieth century. Current topics being intensively researched today through oral history include migration history and postcolonial studies, as well as the histories of gender and sexuality. Similarly important in the current practice of historical research are projects examining historical injustices like the abuse experienced in Catholic and Protestant church settings, at residential schools and in other situations of coercive “care.”

After decades of archival accumulation, the temporal horizons are also shifting: even if the eyewitnesses themselves have died, their narratives still remain available to us. This means that oral history research can also be practiced beyond the epoch of the currently living. And for some time now, the field of oral history has been also historicizing itself in an inspiring way.[108] With the reappraisal of archived interviews, more scrutiny has been turning to the interviewers themselves. Their questions, their investigative interests and their conversational comments are being analyzed within their historiographic context, which also helps us write a history of science and a history of knowledge for the field of oral history. The outlook for the future of oral history is therefore quite encouraging, with its methodological and topical diversity ensuring that it remains a lively and disputatious research field.

Translated from German by Wayne Yung.

German Version: Andrea Althaus, Linde Apel, Oral History, Version: 1.0, in: Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte, 28.03.2023

References

[1] For their very helpful feedback, we would like to thank the Docupedia team, the anonymous reviewers and our colloquium colleagues at the Research Centre for Contemporary History in Hamburg.

[2] See Ute Daniel, Kompendium Kulturgeschichte: Theorien, Praxis, Schlüsselwörter, 4th ed. (Frankfurt: 2004, first published 2001), 306–7.

[3] Alessandro Portelli, “What Makes Oral History Different,” in The Oral History Reader, eds. Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, 3rd ed. (Abingdon: 2016, first published 1998), 48–57, here 49; in the German context, a critical view was found for example in Hans-Ulrich Wehler, “Alltagsgeschichte: Königsweg zu neuen Ufern oder Irrgarten der Illusionen?,” in Aus der Geschichte lernen? Essays, ed. Hans-Ulrich Wehler (Munich: 1987), 130–51.

[4] See for example Benno Gammerl, Anders fühlen: Schwules und lesbisches Leben in der Bundesrepublik; Eine Emotionsgeschichte (Munich: 2021); Grit Lemke, Kinder von Hoy: Freiheit, Glück und Terror (Berlin: 2021); Christina von Hodenberg, Das andere Achtundsechzig: Gesellschaftsgeschichte einer Revolte (Munich: 2018).

[5] See Lynn Abrams, Oral History Theory (London: 2010), 2–3. For a discussion of this question during the early days of German oral history, see Alexander C.T. Geppert, “Forschungstechnik oder historische Disziplin? Methodische Probleme der Oral History,” Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 45, no. 5 (1994), 303–23, available online at https://www.academia.edu/326617/Forschungstechnik_oder_historische_Disziplin_Methodische_Probleme_der_Oral_History, accessed March 20, 2023.

[6] Lutz Niethammer, introduction to Lebenserfahrung und kollektives Gedächtnis: Die Praxis der “Oral History”, ed. Lutz Niethammer (Frankfurt: 1985, first published 1980), 7–33, here 26.

[7] Ibid., 27; similarly Herwart Vorländer, “Mündliches Erfragen von Geschichte,” in Oral History: Mündlich erfragte Geschichte, ed. Herwart Vorländer (Göttingen: 1990), 7–28, here 7. On the North American terminological debate, see Alexander Freund, Kristina R. Llewellyn, and Nolan Reilly, introduction to The Canadian Oral History Reader, eds. Alexander Freund, Kristina R. Llewellyn, and Nolan Reilly (Montreal: 2015), 3–24, here 7; Louis M. Starr, “Oral History in den USA: Probleme und Perspektiven,” in Niethammer, Lebenserfahrung, 37–74.

[8] On the importance of the original recording, see Andrea Althaus, Linde Apel, Lina Nikou, and Janine Schemmer, “Ein Interview, zwei Gesprächspartner, drei Fragehorizonte, vier Mithörerinnen: Deutungsmöglichkeiten einer archivierten Audioaufnahme,” in Erinnern, erzählen, Geschichte schreiben: Oral History im 21. Jahrhundert, ed. Linde Apel (Berlin: 2022), 81–117, available online at https://www.zeitgeschichte-hamburg.de/contao/files/fzh/pdf/apel_erinnern_ebook_offen.pdf, accessed March 20, 2023.

[9] Julia Obertreis and Anke Stephan, “Erinnerung, Identität und ‘Fakten’: Die Methodik der Oral History und die Erforschung (post)sozialistischer Gesellschaften,” in Erinnerungen nach der Wende: Oral History und (post)sozialistische Gesellschaften, eds. Julia Obertreis and Anke Stephan (Essen: 2009), 9–36, here 9.

[10] On oral history’s interdisciplinary context, see Ulrike Jureit, Erinnerungsmuster: Zur Methodik lebensgeschichtlicher Interviews mit Überlebenden der Konzentrations- und Vernichtungslager (Hamburg: 1999).

[11] On oral history’s international development, as well as its various cultural forms and influences outside of the industrialized West, see Paul Thompson and Joanna Bornat, The Voice of the Past: Oral History, 4th ed. (New York: 2017, first published 1978), 52–108.

[12] Niethammer, introduction, 7; see also Ulrike Jureit, “Die Entdeckung des Zeitzeugen: Faschismus- und Nachkriegserfahrungen im Ruhrgebiet,” in 50 Klassiker der Zeitgeschichte, eds. Jürgen Danyel, Jan-Holger Kirsch, and Martin Sabrow (Göttingen: 2007), 174–77.

[13] Franka Maubach, “‘Mehr Geschichte wagen!’ LUSIR und die ganze Geschichte der Arbeiter im Ruhrgebiet vor, während und nach dem Nationalsozialismus,” Sprache und Literatur 47, no. 1 (2018), 29–57, available online at https://brill.com/view/journals/sul/47/1/article-p29_29.xml?language=de, accessed March 20, 2023; see also Lutz Niethammer, ed., Lebensgeschichte und Sozialkultur im Ruhrgebiet 1930-1960, 3 vols. (Bonn: 1983–85).

[14] See for example Freund, Llewellyn, and Reilly, introduction, 3.

[15] See Adelheid von Saldern, “‘Schwere Geburten’: Neue Forschungsrichtungen in der bundesrepublikanischen Geschichtswissenschaft (1960–2000),” WerkstattGeschichte 40, no. 2 (2005), 5–30.

[16] See Martin Sabrow, “Der Zeitzeuge als Wanderer zwischen zwei Welten,” in Die Geburt des Zeitzeugen nach 1945, eds. Martin Sabrow and Norbert Frei (Göttingen: 2012), 13–32, here 21–22. Not every interview project pursued this critical view, as shown by Maik Ullmann, Oral History von rechts: Einstige Eliten der “Stadt des KdF-Wagens” im Gespräch mit Bernhard Gericke (Hannover: 2022).

[17] On the significance of oral history in post-socialist states, see Obertreis and Stephan, Erinnerungen.

[18] See Donald A. Ritchie, Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide, 3rd ed. (New York: 2015, first published 1994); on the development of American oral history and the effect of archives frequently relying on private financial support, see Lutz Niethammer, “Oral History in USA: Zur Entwicklung und Problematik diachroner Befragungen,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 18 (1978), 457–501, here 465–66, available online at https://library.fes.de/afs/pdf/afs-1978-457.pdf, accessed March 3, 2023.

[19] Dorothee Wierling, “Oral History,” in Neue Themen und Methoden der Geschichtswissenschaft (vol. 7 of Aufriß der Historischen Wissenschaften), ed. Michael Maurer (Stuttgart: 2003), 81–151, here 87.

[20] For a more detailed look, see Andrea Althaus, Vom Glück in der Schweiz? Weibliche Arbeitsmigration aus Deutschland und Österreich (1920–1965) (Frankfurt: 2017), 35–51.

[21] See Roswitha Breckner, “Von den ‘Zeitzeugen’ zu den ‘Biographen’: Methoden der Erhebung und Auswertung lebensgeschichtlicher Interviews,” in Alltagskultur, Subjektivität und Geschichte, ed. Berliner Geschichtswerkstatt (Münster: 1994), 199–222.

[22] Ronald J. Grele, “Ziellose Bewegung: Methodologische und theoretische Probleme der Oral History,” in Niethammer, Lebenserfahrung, 195–220, here 205.

[23] Portelli, “What Makes”; on the shift from a facts-oriented oral history to an interpretation-focused one, see Abrams, Oral, 5; see also Harald Welzer, “Das Interview als Artefakt: Zur Kritik der Zeitzeugenforschung,” BIOS: Zeitschrift für Biographieforschung und Oral History 13, no. 1 (2000), 51–63.

[24] See Thompson and Bornat, The Voice, 23–50.

[25] These interviews are available online at https://voices.library.iit.edu, accessed March 20, 2023; see also Daniel Schuch, Transformationen der Zeugenschaft: Von David P. Boders frühen Audiointerviews zur Wiederbefragung als Holocaust Testimony (Göttingen: 2021) as well as the University of Jena’s website Fragen an Displaced Persons, 1946 und heute: Die Interviews von David P. Boder, at https://www.dp-boder-1946.uni-jena.de, accessed March 20, 2023.

[26] Although the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann was key in shaping the public’s perception and recognition of subjective statements by Holocaust survivors, it had no direct impact on oral history. See Jan Taubitz, Holocaust Oral History und das lange Ende der Zeitzeugenschaft (Göttingen: 2016), esp. 65; see Gerda Klingenböck, “‘Stimmen aus der Vergangenheit’: Interviews von Überlebenden des Nationalsozialismus in systematischen Sammlungen von 1945 bis heute,” in “Ich bin die Stimme der sechs Millionen”: Das Videoarchiv im Ort der Information, ed. Daniel Baranowski (Berlin: 2009), 27–40.

[27] See USC Shoah Foundation, https://sfi.usc.edu, accessed March 20, 2023; see also Linde Apel, “‘You are participating in history’: Das Visual History Archive der Shoah Foundation,” Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History 5, online edition, no. 3 (2008), 438–45, https://zeithistorische-forschungen.de/3-2008/4392, accessed March 20, 2023.

[28] See Ulrike Jureit and Karin Orth, Überlebensgeschichten: Gespräche mit Überlebenden des KZ-Neuengamme (Hamburg: 1994); see Jureit, Erinnerungsmuster; see Alexander von Plato, Almut Leh, and Christoph Thonfeld, eds., Hitlers Sklaven: Lebensgeschichtliche Analysen zur Zwangsarbeit im internationalen Vergleich (Vienna: 2008). These interviews are available online at https://www.zwangsarbeit-archiv.de/index.html, accessed March 20, 2023.

[29] See Julia Obertreis, “Oral History: Geschichte und Konzeptionen,” in Oral History: Basistexte, ed. Julia Obertreis (Stuttgart: 2012), 7–30, here 7–8; see Columbia Center for Oral History Research, https://www.ccohr.incite.columbia.edu, accessed March 20, 2023.

[30] See for example Nancy MacKay, Curating Oral Histories: From Interview to Archive (Walnut Creek: 2016).

[31] See Rebecca Sharpless, “The History of Oral History,” in Handbook of Oral History: Foundations and Methodology, eds. Thomas L. Charlton, Lois E. Myers, and Rebecca Sharpless (Lanham: 2007), 9–32; see Wierling, Oral History, 83–93.

[32] See Thompson and Bornat, The Voice, 16–17 and 61–70.

[33] On comparable developments in Austria, see Gerhard Botz and Josef Weidenholzer, eds., Mündliche Geschichte und Arbeiterbewegung: Eine Einführung in Arbeitsweisen und Themenbereiche der Geschichte “geschichtsloser” Sozialgruppen (Vienna: 1984).

[34] See Dirk van Laak, “Alltagsgeschichte,” in Maurer, Neue Themen, 14–80.

[35] See Niethammer, introduction, 11.

[36] See Silke Satjukow, “‘Zeitzeugen der ersten Stunde’: Erinnerungen an den Nationalsozialismus in der DDR,” in Sabrow and Frei, Geburt, 201–23; Petra Clemens, “The State of Oral History in the GDR,” BIOS: Zeitschrift für Biographieforschung und Oral History, special issue (1990), 107–14.

[37] On the ideological reasons behind the rejection of oral history in East Germany, see Lutz Niethammer, “Glasnost privat 1987,” in Die volkseigene Erfahrung: Eine Archäologie des Lebens in der Industrieprovinz der DDR; 30 biographische Eröffnungen, eds. Lutz Niethammer, Alexander von Plato, and Dorothee Wierling (Berlin: 1991), 9–73, here 10.

[38] See ibid., 23.

[39] For a more comprehensive look, see Hans Joachim Schröder, Interviewliteratur zum Leben in der DDR: Zur literarischen, biographischen und sozialgeschichtlichen Bedeutung einer dokumentarischen Gattung (Berlin: 2001).

[40] Drawing upon her own experiences, see Annette Leo, “Oral History in der DDR: Eine sehr persönliche Rückschau,” in Es gilt das gesprochene Wort: Oral History und Zeitgeschichte heute, eds. Knud Andresen, Linde Apel, and Kirsten Heinsohn (Göttingen: 2015), 130–43; see also Lutz Niethammer, “Oral History,” in Paradigmen deutscher Geschichtswissenschaft: Ringvorlesung an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, ed. Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk (Berlin: 1994), 189–210, here 194–95.

[41] Niethammer, Plato, and Wierling, Die volkseigene Erfahrung. This project also encouraged networking and discussions of oral history in East Germany during its final years and after reunification.

[42] Lutz Niethammer, Ego-Histoire? Und andere Erinnerungs-Versuche (Vienna: 2002), 141.

[43] Annemarie Tröger, Lore Kleiber, and Ingrid Wittmann, “Mündliche Geschichte: Ein Charlottenburger Kiez in der Weimarer Republik und im Nationalsozialismus (1982),” in Kampf um feministische Geschichten: Texte und Kontexte 1970–1990, eds. Regine Othmer, Dagmar Reese, and Carola Sachse (Göttingen: 2021), 177–203, available online at https://www.gwi-boell.de/sites/default/files/2021-07/troeger_feministische%20geschichten_inhalt_Einleitung2.pdf, accessed March 20, 2023.

[44] On the professionalization and propagation of oral history practices through international exchanges (against a backdrop of domestic marginalization), see Annette Leo and Franka Maubach, eds., Den Unterdrückten eine Stimme geben? Die International Oral History Association zwischen politischer Bewegung und wissenschaftlichem Netzwerk (Göttingen: 2013), esp. 14, as well as Agnès Arp, “Nationale Grenzüberschreitungen mit Rückkopplung: Die Internationalität des Netzwerks,” in Leo and Maubach, Den Unterdrückten, 160–94; see also International Oral History Association at https://www.ioha.org, accessed March 20, 2023.

[45] Niethammer, introduction, 11–12.

[46] Axel Schildt, “Avantgarde der Alltagsgeschichte: Der Schülerwettbewerb Deutsche Geschichte von den 1970er bis zu den 1990er Jahren,” in Andresen, Apel, and Heinsohn, Es gilt das gesprochene Wort, 195–209, here 202; see also Michael Sauer, Spurensucher: Ein Praxisbuch für historische Projektarbeit (Hamburg: 2014). The year 1979 is generally seen as a turning point in the cultivation of remembrance in West Germany, with the broadcast of the American TV series Holocaust greatly raising public awareness of the Nazi persecution and extermination of the Jews, see Taubitz, Holocaust, 54.

[47] See Franka Maubach, “Freie Erinnerung und mitlaufende Quellenkritik: Zur Ambivalenz der Interviewmethoden in der westdeutschen Oral History um 1980,” BIOS: Zeitschrift für Biographieforschung, Oral History und Lebensverlaufsanalysen 26, no. 1 (2013), 28–52, here 31, available online at https://elibrary.utb.de/doi/epdf/10.3224/bios.v26i1.16895, accessed March 20, 2023.

[48] One result was a methodological essay that became foundational and is still widely read today: Lutz Niethammer, “Fragen – Antworten – Fragen: Methodische Erfahrungen und Erwägungen zur Oral History,” in “Wir kriegen jetzt andere Zeiten”: Auf der Suche nach der Erfahrung des Volkes in nachfaschistischen Ländern (vol. 3 of Lebensgeschichte und Sozialkultur im Ruhrgebiet), eds. Lutz Niethammer and Alexander von Plato (Bonn: 1985), 392–445.

[49] On Peukert’s foundational concept for the Workshop of Memory, see Linde Apel, “Ein besonderes Gedächtnis der Stadt? Eine Bestandsaufnahme zum 30-jährigen Jubiläum der Werkstatt der Erinnerung,” in Apel, Erinnern, 49–80; see also the website of the Research Centre for Contemporary History in Hamburg, https://www.zeitgeschichte-hamburg.de, accessed March 20, 2023.

[50] Begun in 1988 as BIOS: Zeitschrift für Biographieforschung und Oral History, then renamed in 2001 as BIOS: Zeitschrift für Biographieforschung, Oral History und Lebensverlaufsanalysen. See also the website of the Institut für Geschichte und Biographie, https://www.fernuni-hagen.de/geschichteundbiographie, accessed March 20, 2023.

[51] Niethammer, Plato, and Wierling, Die volkseigene Erfahrung.

[52] For example at the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History in Potsdam, see https://zzf-potsdam.de/de/zeitgeschichte-digital/online-sammlung-oral-history, accessed March 20, 2023. A new center for eastern Germany’s oral history is emerging with the recent founding of the Oral History-Forschungsstelle at the University of Erfurt, see https://www.uni-erfurt.de/philosophische-fakultaet/seminare-professuren/historisches-seminar/professuren/neuere-und-zeitgeschichte-und-geschichtsdidaktik/oral-history-forschungsstelle, accessed March 20, 2023.

[53] See Alexander Weidle, “Neuntes Netzwerktreffen Oral History, 29.4.–30.4.2021 (digital): Tagungsbericht,” uploaded to H-Soz-Kult on June 25, 2021, https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/fdkn-127543, accessed March 20, 2023.

[54] See the website of the Oral-History.Digital project, https://www.oral-history.digital, accessed March 20, 2023. Switzerland’s oral historians are networked through Oralhistory.ch. National oral history associations can also be found in Poland, the Czech Republic, Israel, the UK, the US, Canada and many other countries.

[55] Lynn Abrams dates oral history’s “theoretical turn” to the 1970s, see Lynn Abrams, “Transforming Oral History through Theory,” in Thompson and Bornat, The Voice, 132–39, here 133. On theoretical tools from other disciplines, see foundational study by Jureit, Erinnerungsmuster.

[56] See Maurice Halbwachs, Das kollektive Gedächtnis (Stuttgart: 1967; originally published as La mémoire collective in 1939), 59. On the link between communication and memories, see Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (Munich: 1999, originally published 1992), 36–37.

[57] See Michael Pollak, Die Grenzen des Sagbaren: Lebensgeschichten von KZ-Überlebenden als Augenzeugenberichte und als Identitätsarbeit (Frankfurt: 1988; revised expanded edition Vienna: 2016); see also Donald E. Miller and Lorna Touryan Miller, Survivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide (Berkeley: 1999).

[58] See Carlos Kölbl and Jürgen Straub, “Erinnerung,” in Neues Handbuch philosophischer Grundbegriffe, eds. Petra Kolmer and Armin Wildfeuer (Freiburg: 2011), 668–88, here 669.

[59] See Jürgen Straub, “Erzähltheorie/Narration,” in Handbuch qualitative Forschung in der Psychologie, eds. Günter Mey and Katja Mruck (Wiesbaden: 2010), 133–46, here 137; see also the theoretical work of Jörn Rüsen, for whom historical narration, as a means of organizing the experience of time, functions to create meaning and outlook, as described for example in his Zeit und Sinn: Strategien historischen Denkens, rev. ed. (Frankfurt: 2012, first edition 1990).

[60] A widely discussed example of a fictional Holocaust biography, initially published as an autobiography, is the book Bruchstücke: Aus einer Kindheit 1938-1949 by Benjamin Wilkomirski (Frankfurt: 1995; published in English as Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood). Cf. Stefan Mächler, Der Fall Wilkomirski: Über die Wahrheit einer Biographie (Zurich: 2000), as well as Gregor Spuhler, “Der Fall Wilkomirski als Herausforderung für die Oral History,” in Lebenskunst: Erkundungen zu Biographie, Lebenswelt und Erinnerung, eds. Konrad J. Kuhn, Katrin Sonntag, and Walter Leimgruber (Cologne: 2017), 540–49.

[61] Christian Klein and Matías Martínez, introduction to Wirklichkeitserzählungen: Felder, Formen und Funktionen nicht-literarischen Erzählens, eds. Christian Klein and Matías Martínez (Stuttgart: 2009), 1–13, here 1.

[62] See Alfred Schütz and Thomas Luckmann, Strukturen der Lebenswelt (Konstanz: 2003, originally published 1979/1984), 449–48.

[63] Jureit, Erinnerungsmuster, 27.

[64] See Straub, “Erzähltheorie,” 137.

[65] Alexander von Plato, “Oral History und Biografie-Forschung als ‘Verhaltens- und Erfahrungsgeschichte’: Eine wissenschaftsgeschichtliche Skizze,” Mitteilungsblatt des Instituts für soziale Bewegungen, no. 45 (2011), 37–49, emphasis in the original.

[66] See Jureit, Erinnerungsmuster, 33. The category of “true” (as the binary counterpart of “false”) is not very useful when dealing with interviews. For a more useful conception of truthfulness, see Gabriele Rosenthal, “Die erzählte Lebensgeschichte als historisch-soziale Realität: Methodologische Implikationen für die Analyse biographischer Texte,” in Berliner Geschichtswerkstatt, Alltagskultur, 125–38, here 129–30.

[67] See for example Mary Chamberlain and Paul Thompson, eds., Narrative and Genre (London: 1998).

[68] Portelli, “What Makes,” 49.

[69] On the importance of situational and corporeal aspects when analyzing audiovisual interviews, see Albert Lichtblau, “Opening Up Memory Space: The Challenges of Audiovisual History,” in The Oxford Handbook of Oral History, ed. Donald A. Ritchie (Oxford: 2012), 277–84; on the advantages and disadvantages of video as opposed to audio recordings, see Katja Krause, “Interview mit Albert Lichtblau: Oral History – Interviewführung und Interviewinterpretation,” Berlin, August 31, 2012, available at the Zwangsarbeit 1939-1945 interview archive, https://www.zwangsarbeit-archiv.de/projekt/experteninterviews/lichtblau/index.html, accessed March 20, 2023; see also the chapter “Doing Video Oral History,” in Ritchie, Doing, 137–60.

[70] See Portelli, “What Makes,” 50; see also Vorländer, “Mündliches,” 24; see Alfred Fleßner, “Hören statt lesen: Zur Auswertung offener Interviews im Wege einfühlenden Nachvollziehens,” Sozialer Sinn 2, no. 2 (2001), 349–58, here 351–52. It should be noted that even a recording offers only a fragmentary view of the actual interview situation. See Niethammer, “Fragen,” 405–6.

[71] See Grele, “Ziellose Bewegung,” 205–6; Vorländer, Oral History, 16–20; Welzer, “Interview als Artefakt”; Dorothee Wierling, “Zeitgeschichte ohne Zeitzeugen: Vom kommunikativen zum kulturellen Gedächtnis – drei Geschichten und zwölf Thesen,” BIOS: Zeitschrift für Biographieforschung, Oral History und Lebensverlaufsanalysen 21, no. 1 (2008), 28–36, available online at https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/handle/document/27020, accessed March 20, 2023.

[72] See Niethammer, Lebenserfahrung, iii.

[73] A counterexample is discussed in Linde Apel, “Jung interviewt Alt: Ein Lehrstück des Scheiterns,” BIOS: Zeitschrift für Biographieforschung, Oral History und Lebensverlaufsanalysen 25, no. 2 (2012), 296–316, available online at https://elibrary.utb.de/doi/pdf/10.3224/bios.v25i2.08, accessed March 20, 2023.

[74] Michael Frisch, A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History (New York: 1990).

[75] See Linda Shopes, “Sharing Authority,” The Oral History Review 30, no. 1 (2003), 103–10; see Daniel Kerr, “‘We Know What the Problem Is’: Using Video and Radio Oral History to Develop Collaborative Analysis of Homelessness,” in Perks and Thomson, Oral History Reader, 626–35.

[76] See Abrams, Oral, 174.

[77] See for example Kerstin Brückweh, Clemens Villinger, and Kathrin Zöller, eds., Die lange Geschichte der “Wende”: Geschichtswissenschaft im Dialog (Berlin: 2020).

[78] See for example Kate Reed and Marcia C. Schenck, “The Right to Research: Historical Narratives by Refugee and Global South Researchers” (Montreal: 2023); see also the BMBF project Interkulturelles Digitales Erinnerungsarchiv: Migrantinnengeschichte als Teilhabe, which ran 2019–22, https://heridea.de, and the currently running project Ostdeutsche Migrationsgesellschaft selbst erzählen, http://lernen-aus-der-geschichte.de/Lernen-und-Lehren/content/15330, both accessed March 20, 2023.

[79] See Almut Leh, “Forschungsethische Probleme in der Zeitzeugenforschung,” BIOS: Zeitschrift für Biographieforschung und Oral History 13, no. 1 (2000), 64–76; see also Wierling, “Zeitgeschichte.”

[80] See Vorländer, Oral History, 25; see Abrams, “Transforming,” 132.

[81] See Fritz Schütze, Die Technik des narrativen Interviews in Interaktionsfeldstudien (vol. 1 of Arbeitsberichte und Forschungsmaterialien, Faculty of Sociology at the University of Bielefeld, 1977); Albrecht Lehmann, Erzählstruktur und Lebenslauf: Autobiographische Untersuchungen (Frankfurt: 1983); Alexander von Plato, “Interview-Richtlinien,” in von Plato, Leh, and Thonfeld, Hitlers Sklaven, 443–50.

[82] See Breckner, “Von den ‘Zeitzeugen,’” 202–9.

[83] See Studs Terkel and Tony Parker, “Interviewing an Interviewer,” in Perks and Thomson, Oral History Reader, 147–52, here 148.

[84] See Leh, “Forschungsethische Probleme,” 69; Alexander von Plato argues for a fourth phase enabling critical discussion of the narration’s content. See Plato, “Interview-Richtlinien,” 446–48.

[85] See for example the “Best Practices” guidelines of the Oral History Association at https://www.oralhistory.org/best-practices, accessed March 20, 2023; see also Valerie R. Yow, “Interviewing Techniques and Strategies,” in Perks and Thomson, Oral History Reader, 153–78; Valerie R. Yow, Recording Oral History: A Guide for the Humanities and Social Sciences (Walnut Creek: 2005).

[86] Release forms from various different projects can be found at https://www.oral-history.digital/dokumente/index.html, accessed March 20, 2023.

[87] See Frieder Stöckle, “Zum praktischen Umgang mit Oral History,” in Vorländer, Oral History, 131–58, here 137–38.

[88] See OHA Statement on Ethics, https://www.oralhistory.org/oha-statement-on-ethics; see Leh, “Forschungsethische Probleme.”

[89] See archive section at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/das-archiv/ueber-das-archiv/bestaende/zeugenschrifttum, accessed March 20, 2023.

[90] See Linde Apel, “Gesammelte Erzählungen: Mündliche Quellen in der Werkstatt der Erinnerung,” in Linde Apel, Klaus David, and Stefanie Schüler-Springorum, eds., Aus Hamburg in alle Welt: Lebensgeschichten jüdischer Verfolgter aus der Werkstatt der Erinnerung (Hamburg: 2011), 201–18, here 202–3; similarly, it was a long time before the archive at the Columbia Center for Oral History Research included more than just interview transcriptions.

[91] See Peter Hüttenberger, “Zur Technik der zeitgeschichtlichen Befragungen,” in Mündliche Geschichte im Rheinland, ed. Landschaftsverband Rheinland (Cologne: 1991), 63–73 (first published in Der Archivar 22 (1969) 167–76), available online at https://afz.lvr.de/media/archive_im_rheinland/publikationen/archivhefte/LVR_Archivheft22.pdf, accessed March 20, 2023; Peter Hüttenberger, “Zeitgeschichtliche Befragung: ein Nachtrag, Juli 1990” in Landschaftsverband Rheinland, Mündliche, 75–82.

[92] See this article’s sidebar for the web addresses of the most important interview archives mentioned here.

[93] See Paul Thompson, “Re-Using Qualitative Research Data: A Personal Account,” Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research 1, no. 3 (2000), article 27, available online at https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-1.3.1044, accessed March 20, 2023; James E. Fogerty, “Oral History and Archives: Documenting Context,” in Thomas L. Charlton, Lois E. Myers, and Rebecca Sharpless, eds., Handbook of Oral History (Lanham: 2006), 207–29.

[94] Joanna Bornat, “A Second Take: Revisiting Interviews with a Different Purpose,” Oral History 31, no. 1 (2003), 47–53.

[95] An example of secondary analysis avant la lettre is Christian Geulen and Karoline Tschuggnall, eds., Aus einem deutschen Leben: Lesarten eines biographischen Interviews (Tübingen, 2000), which presents seven different analyses of the same interview through the lens of various disciplines.

[96] Brigitte Halbmayr, “Sekundäranalyse qualitativer Daten aus lebensgeschichtlichen Interviews: Reflexionen zu einigen zentralen Herausforderungen,” BIOS: Zeitschrift für Biographieforschung, Oral History und Lebensverlaufsanalysen 21, no. 2 (2008), 256–67, available online at https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/handle/document/27027, accessed March 20, 2023.

[97] Matthias Frese and Julia Paulus, “Zeitzeugenschaft und mündliche Erinnerung: Zur Sekundäranalyse von Oral-History-Interviews; Einführung und Fragestellungen,” Westfälische Forschungen 65 (2015), 237–42.

[98] Almut Leh, “Vierzig Jahre Oral History in Deutschland: Beitrag zu einer Gegenwartsdiagnose von Zeitzeugenarchiven am Beispiel des Archivs ‘Deutsches Gedächtnis,’” Westfälische Forschungen 65 (2015), 256–68, here 265-68.

[99] See Linde Apel, “Oral History reloaded: Zur Zweitauswertung von mündlichen Quellen,” Westfälische Forschungen 65 (2015), 243–54, here 248–53.

[100] On applying source criticism to interviews, see Jureit, Erinnerungsmuster, 28–35.

[101] See Linde Apel, “Auf der Suche nach der Erinnerung: Interviews mit deutschen Juden im lokalhistorischen Kontext,” in Stefanie Fischer, Nathanael Riemer, and Stefanie Schüler-Springorum, eds., Juden und Nicht-Juden nach der Shoah: Begegnungen in Deutschland (Munich: 2019), 195–209, available online at https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110570083-014/html?lang=de, accessed March 20, 2023.

[102] See the special focus on “digital humanities and biographical research” edited by Almut Leh and Eva Ochs for BIOS: Zeitschrift für Biographieforschung, Oral History und Lebensverlaufsanalysen 30, no. 1/2 (2017), 3–129; see also Douglas Boyd and Mary Larson, Oral History and Digital Humanities: Voice, Access and Engagement (New York: 2014).

[103] The Haus der Geschichte Foundation and the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems are currently exploring the possibilities and limits of using AI for interview analysis: https://www.hdg.de/stiftung/projekte, accessed March 20, 2023.

[104] See Douglas Boyd, “Achieving the Promise of Oral History in a Digital Age,” in Ritchie, The Oxford Handbook, 285–302; also Judith Keilbach, “Mikrofon, Videotape, Datenbank: Überlegungen zu einer Mediengeschichte der Zeitzeugen,” in Sabrow and Frei, Geburt, 281–99, available online at https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/330348, accessed March 20, 2023.

[105] See Almut Leh, Cord Pagenstecher, and Linde Apel, “Oral History im digitalen Wandel: Interviews als Forschungsdaten,” in Apel, Erinnern, 193–222; see also https://www.oral-history.digital, accessed March 20, 2023.

[106] See the plans of NFDI4Memory, a consortium of historically engaged disciplines that is working on building a shared, long-term and sustainable research data infrastructure in Germany, described at https://4memory.de, accessed March 20, 2023.

[107] See Knud Andresen, Linde Apel, and Kirsten Heinsohn, introduction to Andresen, Apel, and Heinsohn, Es gilt das gesprochene Wort, 7–23.

[108] See Miroslav Vanek, Around the Globe: Rethinking Oral History with its Protagonists (Prague: 2013); Leo and Maubach, Den Unterdrückten; Alexander von Plato, Dorothee Wierling, and Linde Apel, “Zur Geschichte, Gegenwart und Zukunft der Oral History,” in Apel, Erinnern, 19–47.