Hans-Ulrich Wehler

A central pillar of contemporary conspiracy theories is the notion that all modern wars were secretely plotted and instigated by the Federal Reserve Bank. In these circles, the founding of the so called "Creature from Jekyll Island" in 1913 is considered a coup d'état of the international haute finance which enabled the U.S.'s entry into World War One a year later and the building of the American Empire. Also right-wing libertarians critical of U.S. foreign interventions like the U.S. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul have led a long struggle to "End the Fed" (as his 2009 book is called), and signs to "End the Fed" could also be seen at demonstrations of the international Occupy movement leading to heated debates and confrontations. Against these conspiracy theories and drawing on key American historians' debates, this paper scrutinizes the actual historical origins of the 1913 Federal Reserve Act and shows that the founding of the Federal Reserve took place not in a period of defeat but rather the advance of subaltern social forces and that the Federal Reserve Act is an embodiment of a historic compromise between various social classes and class fractions in the political economy of the United States prior to World War One. Drawing on the theoretical tradition of neo-Gramscianism, the paper argues that the emergence of a U.S. variant of a central bank is best understood in terms of Antonio Gramsci's concept of "trasformismo" which, in an historically open-ended process, created the Federal Reserve and a U.S. variant of "social imperialism" as a result of the "law of unintended consequences" of historical social movements. In other words, the American Empire was not the result of a devious plan by an all-powerful American or transnational ruling class, but rather its Making was the consequence of a political process in which subaltern social forces, unable to fundamentally challenge the existing power structure as such, are co-opted, absorbed and inscribe themselves into that very structure.

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In this paper we analyze the oeuvre of Hans-Ulrich Wehler (1931–2014), one of the most influential German contemporary historians. Wehler’s work on establishing a new paradigm of history – history as social science – and the founding of the ‘Bielefeld School’ as a specific (West)German type of social history are presented in the context of the modernization of German historiography and the gradual prevalence of the traditional disciplinary matrix of historism. Besides Wehler’s theoretical and methodological conceptions, particular attention is paid to his voluminous synthesis Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte as well as the place of Wehler and ‘Bielefeld School’ in German historiography.

My case is that current conflicts in the Middle East are not only conflicts between states or a Clash of Civilizations, but that "Glocal Relative Deprivation" has caused a vacuum of power and conflicts between stationary states. To support my argument, I will discuss three paradigms and their ability for explaining the crisis in the Middle East: First, Carl Schmitt’s turn from Westphalian Governance to global lines (of a Nomos of Earth) as spheres of foreign non-interference, which is either used to propose unrealistic international solutions to a transnational crisis or, paradoxically, to back hegemonic interests in the region. Second, I will deconstruct Samuel Huntington’s paradigm of a Clash of Civilizations, which is based on dubious data and references to call for a Western hegemony that already exists beyond the classical imperialist understanding of it as global standards empowered with help of global horizons of comparability. Third, I will extend Hans-Ulrich Wehler’s sketch of reasons for modernization crisis in nation-states that is based on relative deprivation, identity-, participation-, distribution-, penetration-, and (culminating in a) legitimation-crisis, for analyzing conflicts in the Middle East as caused by glocal comparison and competition in world society. In summing, I intend to analyze the unrest in the Middle East as caused by glocal relative deprivation. This perspective enables us to deal with glocal political and social processes rather as represented than caused by global cultural or political conflicts between “civilizations” or states.

Götz Aly, Hans-Ulrich Wehler on Capitalism, Anti-Semitism and ‘Social’ Justice

Götz Aly’s book Europa gegen die Juden 1880-1945 (Europe against the Jews 180-1945) is a sequel to his earlier published treatise Warum die Deutschen? Warum die Juden? Gleichheit, Neid und Rassenhass (Why the Germans? Why the Jews? Equality, Envy, and Racial Hatred).  Both volumes explore the impact of envy on policies of ‘social’ justice and national homogeneity in the interwar period, thereby pointing out the negative aspects of social engineering. As its predecessor, Europa gegen die Juden has been, therefore, criticized by commentators of a more interventionist outlook. One of Aly’s most prominent – and sternest – critics is the historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler. This essay presents a critical assessment of Aly’s argument, the replies of his critics, and Wehler’s views on the market economy, interventionism and ‘social’ justice.

Keywords: Götz Aly, Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Anti-Semitism, capitalism, egalitarism, Eastern Europe, Europe, interventionism, interwar period, nationalism, social engineering, social justice.

To kronikker i Dagbladet fra 1987 og 88 om den såkalte tyske historikerstriden som startet i 1986. Jeg forsvarte min holdning den gang om at det var Andreas Hillgruber og ikke Ernst Nolte som var den mest kritikkverdige av de tyske historikerne som den gang forsøkte å endre historieforståelsen i Tyskland. Men i hans senere bok "Streitpunkte" skjøt mer en generell revisjonistisk instilling fart hos Nolte, noe jeg burde fulgt opp med en artikkel. Likevel: her er noe materiale. Se også engelsk og norsk artikkel om "Storm over German historians" under artiklene om tysk fortidsmestring (Vergangenheitsbewältigung)