Thomas Nipperdey

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Thomas Nipperdey (born October 27, 1927 in Cologne , † June 14, 1992 in Munich ) was a German historian and university professor. His three-volume work German History 1800–1918 (published 1983–1992) is considered the standard work of modern history.

Life

Thomas Nipperdey came as the third child of the law professor Hans Carl Nipperdey and his wife Hildegard (1903–1990), born. Eesser to the world. He had two older brothers and two younger sisters, including the theologian Dorothee Sölle . Nipperdey grew up in the Cologne district of Marienburg in an educated middle-class situation in which his musical interests were promoted, for example through piano and cello lessons. Nipperdey attended a Protestant elementary school until 1937, then he switched to the Kreuzgasse grammar school , which at that time was called the German Oberschule . While still in high school, he was drafted as an anti-aircraft helper in World War II in 1943. From autumn 1944 to spring 1945 he did labor service . After a six-month special course, he passed the Abitur at the Kreuzgasse grammar school in 1946.

From 1946 Nipperdey studied philosophy and history at the universities of Cologne , Göttingen and Cambridge . In Cologne he received his doctorate in 1953 with the philosopher Bruno Liebrucks with the unpublished work Positivity and Christianity in Hegel's Youth Writings . The following year he passed the state examination, but without aiming to become a teacher. Under the influence of Theodor Schier , who was one of his father's acquaintances and who played house music with Nipperdey, he turned entirely to history. Through Scherer's mediation, he received a scholarship from the Commission for the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties , which enabled him to research the history of German political parties before 1918. In 1957 he was employed as an assistant at the Max Planck Institute for History in Göttingen , which was headed by Hermann Heimpel . There Nipperdey worked in the Department of Modern History, which was headed by Richard Nürnberger until 1961 , then Dietrich Gerhard . There he completed his work The Organization of German Parties before 1918 , with which he completed his habilitation in 1961 in Göttingen (reviewers were Nürnberger and Heimpel) and which was published that same year.

As a private lecturer , Nipperdey worked for two years at the Göttingen Institute, interrupted in 1962 by a substitute chair in Gießen , until he was appointed to the Technical University of Karlsruhe in 1963 as the successor to Walther Peter Fuchs . Franz Schnabel held the chair for history there until 1936 . In addition, Nipperdey worked as a lecturer at the University of Heidelberg , where he came into contact with Werner Conze and his new approaches to social and conceptual history . In 1967 Nipperdey turned down an offer at the University of Bochum and instead moved to the Free University of Berlin for the winter semester 1967/68 to the former chair of Hans Herzfeld . In July 1969 he was elected Dean of the Philosophical Faculty there. During his years in Berlin, he turned down calls at the Universities of Kiel , Hamburg and Cologne . In the 1971/72 winter semester, however, Nipperdey moved to the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich as Walter Bußmann's successor , and returned to the former chair of Franz Schnabel. There he taught until his death in 1992. In 1980, he turned down an offer to Heidelberg. From 1979 to 1981 he was dean of his faculty. Research stays took him to Princeton in 1970/71, 1978/79 and 1984/85 , to Oxford in 1974/75 and to Stanford in 1988/89 . Adolf M. Birke , Wolfgang Hardtwig , Leonid Luks and Manfred Rauh completed their habilitation at Nipperdey, while Horst Möller , Karl Heinz Metz , Karl-Joseph Hummel , Stefan Fisch , Martin Baumeister and Dirk Schumann earned their doctorates .

The Berlin and the first years in Munich were shaped by Nipperdey's strong political commitment. Like other professors of his generation who see themselves as reformers, such as his friends Wilhelm Hennis and Hermann Lübbe , Nipperdey felt politically closest to social democracy and joined the SPD in April 1968 ; Like others, he developed a political stance in dealing with the 68ers , which is described as liberal-conservative in research on the history of ideas . He sharply criticized the forms of protest of the Berlin students, especially in the radio lecture on the situation at the Free University , which was broadcast on March 25, 1969 in the SFB . His parallelization of the students' methods with those of the National Socialists before 1933 earned him the hostility of the student movement , which was reflected in lecture disruptions and a paint job on Nipperdey's car. Against this background, Nipperdey was one of the founders of the Emergency Community for a Free University (NoFU) and the Federal Freedom of Science (BFW) in 1970 . From September 1973 to 1980 he was one of the three chairmen of the BFW, initially with Hatto H. Schmitt and Michael Zöller , from 1976 with Clemens Christians and Jürgen Domes . Afterwards he was a member of the extended board as an assessor. In terms of educational policy, Nipperdey came out with a detailed report that he had prepared on behalf of the Hessian Parents' Association and in which he took a stand against the Hessian framework guidelines for the subject of social studies . The report was even published as a book in 1974. Nipperdey resigned from the SPD in 1985.

Nipperdey's political activities retreated in the late 1970s as the plan matured into a major book project. Since his stay in Princeton in 1978/79, he worked specifically on the manuscript that was published by CH Beck in 1983 as Deutsche Geschichte 1800–1866 . The decision he then made to continue the work until 1918 meant that the 1980s were entirely devoted to work on his magnum opus. In the so-called historians' dispute since 1986, he only participated with one article, which appeared on October 17, 1986 with the title Under the rule of suspicion in time . In it, he complained about the style of the debate, criticized Jürgen Habermas for his moralizing position towards the attacked colleagues, but did not comment on the core content of the dispute and thus avoided personally distancing himself from Ernst Nolte , whose contentious thesis he rejected. In October 1988, Nipperdey had to undergo cancer surgery for the first time , and in the late summer of 1990 it became clear that the disease was life-threatening. At this point in time the first part of his German history 1866–1918 had already appeared. Work on the final volume was accelerated with the help of the assistants Andreas W. Daum , Christiane frisch and Wilfried Rudloff. The manuscript was completed in November 1991 and Nipperdey was awarded the “3. Afterword dated October 1991, the day of German unity ”. The book was published in August 1992; the author died of cancer in June at the age of 64.

Thomas Nipperdey had been married to Vigdis Nipperdey since 1969 . The couple had four children, two sons and two daughters. Five days after Nipperdey's death, on June 19, 1992, the funeral service was celebrated in the Ickingen Church of the Resurrection, at which the Munich colleague and friend Trutz Rendtorff preached. Then Nipperdey was buried in the forest cemetery in Icking.

Since 1985, Nipperdey was an honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . He had been a full member of the historical commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences since 1969, and in 1990 he was appointed a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In 1984 he received the City of Münster's Historians Prize for his work . In 1989 he was honored with the Federal Cross of Merit and in 1992 with the Bavarian Order of Merit . In March of the same year he was awarded the Prize of the Historisches Kolleg , which is known as the German Historians Prize; the award was made posthumously in a ceremony on November 19, 1992. On the first anniversary of Nipperdey's death, June 14, 1993, the Ludwig Maximilians University organized an academic commemoration at which Wolfgang Hardtwig paid tribute to Nipperdey's complete work, Sten Nadolny , a PhD student in Nipperdey Berlin, which characterized the language of the historian, and Hermann Lübbe spoke about his political commitment. A commemorative publication planned for Nipperdey's 65th birthday was published in 1993 as a commemorative publication.

Scientific work

Nipperdey's most extensive and probably most important work is his three-volume German history, which spans the period from 1800 to 1918 and which he worked on during the years of his Munich professorship from 1972. Important earlier essays with which Nipperdey advanced research are the National Idea and National Monument in Germany in the 19th Century (1968), Elementary School and Revolution in Vormärz (1968) and the Association as a Social Structure in Germany in the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries ( 1972). After completing his habilitation thesis, Nipperdey never visited the archives again, but preferred the large-format historical synthesis. Its German history claims to be total history, that is, to describe all areas of human life and not just the political development that is often in the foreground. At the time of its publication there was not yet such a detailed description of this extensive epoch that was comparable in terms of substance and accuracy of the analysis, even though works by Franz Schnabel , Heinrich von Treitschke and Golo Mann could serve as models. The opening sentence, borrowed from the Bible, “In the beginning was Napoleon” of the first volume Bürgerwelt und starker Staat , which was later modified by many important historians, became famous; Hans-Ulrich Wehler later wrote at the beginning of his five-volume German history of society, “In the beginning there was no revolution”, and Heinrich August Winkler introduced his two-volume German story The Long Way West with the words “In the beginning was the Reich”.

Above all, Nipperdey campaigned for a reassessment of 19th century German history. In particular, he refused to view the Kaiserreich primarily as a prehistory of the “ Third Reich ”, as is common among the proponents of the thesis of a German Sonderweg . Nipperdey saw lines of continuity from 1871/1918 not only after 1933, but also after 1949.

Nipperdey mockingly referred to the historians, who interpreted history exclusively from the present, as “relevant people”. His criticism was in particular of the scientific work of Hans-Ulrich Wehler , a main representative of the Bielefeld School . In contrast to their sociological working method, which became the predominant method in the 1960s, Nipperdey was committed to a historical-anthropological approach. Nipperdey sought to show people's worlds of experience and insights. The 19th century should not be presented as a pre- or post-history of or to anything else, but according to the famous phrase of Leopold von Rankes, as it were, “directly to God”, as an era in its own right. The influences of historicism on Nipperdey's style and working method can not be denied . Anecdotes and comparisons are seldom found in his presentation, provocative theses are not found. Thomas Nipperdey always strived for objectivity in his historiography. Nevertheless, he was accused of having represented too pro-German a point of view on the question of war guilt, for example, and of having been generally too mildly judging and uncritical. Indeed, there is a repeated saying in his work that justice should be done to great-grandfathers.

Fonts

  • Positivity and Christianity in Hegel's Youth Writings . Cologne 1953, DNB 480415706 (Dissertation University of Cologne, Philosophical Faculty, October 24, 1953, II, 174 pages).
  • The organization of the German parties before 1918 (= contributions to the history of parliamentarism and political parties . Volume 18). Droste, Düsseldorf 1961, DNB 481047409 (Habilitation Göttingen, Philosophical Faculty, 1961, 454 pages).
  • (with Ludwig Schmugge ) 50 years of research funding in Germany. An outline of the history of the German research community 1920–1970 . Bad Godesberg 1970.
  • Reformation, revolution, utopia. 16th Century Studies . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1975.
  • Society, culture, theory. Collected essays on modern history . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1976.
  • Thinking about German history. Essays . CH Beck, Munich 1986.
  • Religion in transition. Germany 1870-1918 . CH Beck, Munich 1988.
  • Religion and society. Germany around 1900 (= writings of the Historisches Kolleg. Documentations , 5). Munich 1988 ( digitized version ).
  • German history 1800–1918 . CH Beck, Munich 1998, new edition Munich 2013. Previously published separately as:
    • German history 1800–1866. Citizen world and strong state . CH Beck, Munich 1983.
    • German history 1866–1918. [Volume I:] The world of work and civic spirit . CH Beck, Munich 1990.
    • German history 1866–1918. [Volume II:] Power state before democracy . CH Beck, Munich 1992.
  • How the bourgeoisie found modernity . Siedler, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-88680-334-1 ; Reclam, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-15-017014-1 .
  • Can history be objective? Historical essays. Published by Paul Nolte . CH Beck, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-65377-3 .

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Thomas Nipperdey: A Bourgeois Youth (1927-1945). In: Thomas Nipperdey: Can history be objective? Historical essays. Munich 2013, pp. 7–24, here: pp. 10 f. and p. 21.
  2. ↑ Paul Nolte (Ed.): Thomas Nipperdey. Can history be objective? Historical essays. Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-65377-3 , p. 23.
  3. ↑ Paul Nolte: Life's work. Thomas Nipperdey's German History. Biography of a book. Munich 2018, p. 30 (the date of the Abitur examination is written here).
  4. ↑ Paul Nolte: Life's work. Thomas Nipperdey's German History. Biography of a book. Munich 2018, pp. 34–39.
  5. ↑ Wolfgang J. Mommsen : Review of: Thomas Nipperdey: The Organization of German Parties to 1918. In: Historische Zeitschrift Vol. 199, 1964, pp. 627-632, the habilitation thesis was very positive: “The sovereign evaluation of one from widely scattered Areas of compiled large source material and the methodological achievement of N. [ipperdey] s deserves the highest praise. ”(Ibid., P. 632).
  6. ^ Hermann Holzbauer (ed.): Thomas Nipperdey. Bibliography of his publications 1953-1992. Munich 1993, p. 13.
  7. ^ Address by the dean of the Philosophical Faculty for History and Art, Prof. Dr. Hans Günter Hockerts . In: In Memoriam Thomas Nipperdey. Speeches held on June 14, 1993 at the academic commemoration of the Philosophical Faculty for History and Art Studies at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. Munich 1994, pp. 10-14, here: p. 11.
  8. ^ Horst Möller: On the historiographical work of Thomas Nipperdeys. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 40 (1992), pp. 469–482, here: p. 472.
  9. ↑ Paul Nolte: Life's work. Thomas Nipperdey's German History. Biography of a book. Munich 2018, pp. 40, 43, 45, 48.
  10. ^ Hermann Holzbauer (ed.): Thomas Nipperdey. Bibliography of his publications 1953-1992. Munich 1993, p. 14.
  11. ^ Gerhard A. Ritter :  Nipperdey, Thomas. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , pp. 282-284 ( digitized version ).
  12. ^ Hermann Holzbauer (ed.): Thomas Nipperdey. Bibliography of his publications 1953-1992. Munich 1993, pp. 69–76 (list of dissertations and habilitations).
  13. ^ So Jens Hacke : Philosophy of Bourgeoisie. The liberal-conservative justification of the Federal Republic. Göttingen 2006, explicitly on Nipperdey: pp. 25, 34, 108.
  14. ↑ Paul Nolte: Life's work. Thomas Nipperdey's German History. Biography of a book. Munich 2018, pp. 43–46.
  15. ^ Website of the Federal Freedom of Science, accessed on January 13, 2017.
  16. ↑ Thomas Nipperdey: Conflict - the only truth of society? To the criticism of the Hessian framework guidelines. Osnabrück 1974.
  17. ↑ Paul Nolte: Life's work. Thomas Nipperdey's German History. Biography of a book. Munich 2018, p. 118 with note 32 on p. 329.
  18. ↑ Thomas Nipperdey: Under the rule of suspicion. Scientific statements must not be measured by their political function. In: Die Zeit , October 17, 1986: "Colleagues with moral integrity are brought into the, albeit fatal, neighborhood of Nazi apologists."
  19. ↑ Paul Nolte: Life's work. Thomas Nipperdey's German History. Biography of a book. Munich 2018, p. 212.
  20. ↑ Paul Nolte: Life's work. Thomas Nipperdey's German History. Biography of a book. Munich 2018, pp. 219–222.
  21. ↑ Paul Nolte: Life's work. Thomas Nipperdey's German History. Biography of a book. Munich 2018, p. 233.
  22. ↑ Paul Nolte: Life's work. Thomas Nipperdey's German History. Biography of a book. Munich 2018, p. 266.
  23. ↑ Paul Nolte: Life's work. Thomas Nipperdey's German History. Biography of a book. Munich 2018, p. 280.
  24. ^ Grave of Thomas Nipperdey on knerger.de.
  25. ↑ Paul Nolte: Life's work. Thomas Nipperdey's German History. Biography of a book. Munich 2018, p. 264 f.
  26. ^ In Memoriam Thomas Nipperdey. Speeches held on June 14, 1993 at the academic commemoration of the Philosophical Faculty for History and Art Studies at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. Munich 1994.
  27. ↑ Wolfgang Hardtwig / Harm-Hinrich Brandt : Germany's way into the modern age. Politics, Society and Culture in the 19th Century. Munich 1993.
  28. ^ Martin Baumeister : Thomas Nipperdey (1927-1992). In: Katharina Weigand (ed.): Munich historian between politics and science. 150 years of historical seminar (= contributions to the history of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. Vol. 5). Utz, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-8316-0969-7 , pp. 309–328, here p. 309.
  29. ^ Thomas Nipperdey: National idea and national monument in Germany in the 19th century. In: Thomas Nipperdey (Ed.): Society, Culture, Theory. Collected essays on modern history. Göttingen 1976, pp. 133-137 ( online )
  30. ^ Horst Möller : On the historiographical work of Thomas Nipperdeys. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte . 40th year 1992, 4th issue ( online as PDF file , accessed on May 6, 2016), pp. 469–482, here p. 477.
  31. ^ Martin Baumeister : Thomas Nipperdey (1927-1992). In: Katharina Weigand (ed.): Munich historian between politics and science. 150 years of historical seminar (= contributions to the history of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. Vol. 5). Utz, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-8316-0969-7 , pp. 309–328, here p. 315.
  32. ↑ Thomas Nipperdey: German History 1866-1918. ( Volume 2: Power state before democracy. ) CH Beck, 3rd edition 1995, p. 903.
  33. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck. Thomas Nipperdey's “German History 1800–1866”: A masterpiece of historical synthesis . In: Die Zeit, 1983 ( online , accessed May 6, 2016.)
  34. ↑ Thomas Nipperdey: German History 1800–1866. Citizens' world and strong state ( Volume 2: Power state before democracy. ) CH Beck, Munich 2012, p. 11.
  35. ^ Heinrich August Winkler : The long way to the west. Volume 1: German history from the end of the Old Reich to the fall of the Weimar Republic. Seventh, revised edition, Munich 2010, p. 5.
  36. ↑ Thomas Nipperdey: German History 1866-1918. ( Volume 2: Power state before democracy. ) CH Beck, Munich, 3rd edition 1995, p. 880.
  37. ^ Horst Möller: On the historiographical work of Thomas Nipperdeys. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte . 40th year 1992, 4th issue ( online as PDF file , accessed on May 6, 2016), pp. 469–482. Here p. 470.
  38. ↑ Thomas Nipperdey: Wehler's "Empire". A critical discussion. In: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 1 (1975), pp. 539-560.
  39. ↑ Paul Nolte (Ed.): Thomas Nipperdey. Can history be objective? Historical essays. Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-65377-3 , p. 317.
  40. ↑ Paul Nolte (Ed.): Thomas Nipperdey. Can history be objective? Historical essays. Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-65377-3 , pp. 24, 279 and 318.
  41. ↑ Paul Nolte (Ed.): Thomas Nipperdey. Can history be objective? Historical essays. Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-65377-3 , p. 318.
  42. ↑ Volker Ullrich : Ambivalences of normality. The third volume of Thomas Nipperdey's great trilogy on German history from 1800 to 1918. In: Die Zeit , October 2, 1992, accessed on May 6, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Nipperdey, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH October 27, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH June 14, 1992
Place of death Munich