Wwi Histiography
1918–1930s
Louis P. Bénézet's map of "Europe As It Should Be" (1918), depicting nations based on ethnic and linguistic criteria. Bénézet's book The World War and What was Behind It (1918) blamed on German aggression combined with perceived threats to the traditional social order from radicals and ethnic nationalists.
Straight after the war Allied historians argued that Germany was solely responsible for the start of the war; a view influenced by the inclusion of 'war guilt' clauses within the Treaty of Versailles. In 1916 Prince Lichnowsky had also circulated his views within Germany on the mishandling of the situation in July 1914.
In 1919, the German diplomat Bernhard von Bülow (not to be confused with his more famous uncle, the former Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow) went through the German archives to suppress any documents that might show that Germany was responsible for the war and to ensure that only documents that were exculpatory might be seen by historians.[1] As a result of Bülow's efforts, between 1923–27 the German Foreign Ministry published forty volumes of documents, which as the German-Canadian historian Holger Herwig noted were carefully edited to promote the idea that the war was not the fault of one nation but were rather the result of the break-down of international relations.[1] Certain documents such as some of the papers of the Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, which did not support this interpretation were destroyed.[1] The few German historians in the 1920s such as Hermann Kantorowicz, who argued that Germany was responsible for the war, found that the Foreign Ministry went out of its way to stop their work from being published and tried to have him fired from his post at Kiel University.[1] After 1933, Kantorowicz who as a Jewish German would have been banned from publishing anyhow, was forced to leave Germany for his "unpatriotic" writings.[1] With the exceptions of the work of scholars such Kantorowicz, Herwig has concluded
Louis P. Bénézet's map of "Europe As It Should Be" (1918), depicting nations based on ethnic and linguistic criteria. Bénézet's book The World War and What was Behind It (1918) blamed on German aggression combined with perceived threats to the traditional social order from radicals and ethnic nationalists.
Straight after the war Allied historians argued that Germany was solely responsible for the start of the war; a view influenced by the inclusion of 'war guilt' clauses within the Treaty of Versailles. In 1916 Prince Lichnowsky had also circulated his views within Germany on the mishandling of the situation in July 1914.
In 1919, the German diplomat Bernhard von Bülow (not to be confused with his more famous uncle, the former Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow) went through the German archives to suppress any documents that might show that Germany was responsible for the war and to ensure that only documents that were exculpatory might be seen by historians.[1] As a result of Bülow's efforts, between 1923–27 the German Foreign Ministry published forty volumes of documents, which as the German-Canadian historian Holger Herwig noted were carefully edited to promote the idea that the war was not the fault of one nation but were rather the result of the break-down of international relations.[1] Certain documents such as some of the papers of the Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, which did not support this interpretation were destroyed.[1] The few German historians in the 1920s such as Hermann Kantorowicz, who argued that Germany was responsible for the war, found that the Foreign Ministry went out of its way to stop their work from being published and tried to have him fired from his post at Kiel University.[1] After 1933, Kantorowicz who as a Jewish German would have been banned from publishing anyhow, was forced to leave Germany for his "unpatriotic" writings.[1] With the exceptions of the work of scholars such Kantorowicz, Herwig has concluded