Udo Wengst

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Udo Wengst (born July 1, 1947 in Remsfeld ) is a German historian .

Life

Udo Wengst was born in 1947 near Kassel . He graduated from high school in Bonn in 1966. From 1966 to 1972 he studied history, political science and sociology at the universities of Bonn , Cologne and Tübingen . Wengst received his doctorate in 1972 in Tübingen with a thesis supervised by Gerhard Schulz on Count Brockdorff-Rantzau and the foreign policy beginnings of the Weimar Republic . From 1973 to 1979 Wengst was a research assistant (from 1975 to 1979 as a faculty assistant) at the Department of Contemporary History at the University of Tübingen, then until autumn 1992 research assistant at the Commission for the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties in Bonn. During this time he worked on basic source editions. From 1992 to 2012 he was Deputy Director of the Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin . Wengst was a member of the editorial team of the quarterly journal for contemporary history from 1992 to 2012 . In 1996 he was appointed honorary professor for contemporary history at the University of Regensburg . He was also a member of several scientific committees, including the Expert Commission for Advising the Federal Government on Memorial Site Issues, which was chairman from 2008 to 2012. For his 65th birthday he was honored with a festschrift. In 2013 he was awarded the Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Research priorities

His research focus is the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. Wengst is one of the contemporary historians who researched the early history of the Federal Republic most intensively and productively. He carried out pioneering work in the field of the history of German liberalism after 1945. Wengst is one of the leading experts in the FDP history of the first decade of the Federal Republic. He presented an edition of their meeting minutes from 1949 to 1960. He published a biography of Thomas Dehler on his 100th birthday in 1997. Wengst sees Dehler in his balance sheet as a failed politician. In historical studies this biography is regarded as a standard work. In 2003 he gave an introduction to contemporary history with Horst Möller . The presentation is aimed “at everyone who wants to obtain specific and condensed information about the subject and its subject”. Wengst was the editor and editor of Karl Buchheim's memoirs and an annotated selection of the diary entries by his own teacher Gerhard Schulz. Thereby he made important sources accessible. He wrote numerous smaller biographical studies on various politicians. In 2011, Wengst published the anthology "Reform und Revolte". The anthology summarizes the results of a project at the Institute for Contemporary History. The project examined the character of the turning point in 1968 and dealt with the question “whether the events around 1968 were essentially the result of an earlier onset of social change”, or whether it was only the impulses that “triggered a push for reform”.

In the debate about the role of the Tübingen political scientist Theodor Eschenburg in National Socialism , triggered in 2011 by Rainer Eisfeld's finds , Wengst, who himself had studied under Eschenburg, contributed with several studies and a biography published in 2015. Wengst intended with his biography "to brighten up the life of Eschenburg and thus to contribute to the understanding of his thoughts and actions". In the introduction to his biography, Wengst admitted that as a Tübingen student, doctoral candidate and later as a faculty assistant, he was “thoroughly impressed” by Eschenburg. According to Wengst, Eschenburg's non-accession to the NSDAP documents his “political distance from the [NS] regime”. Wengst advocated the thesis that Eschenburg went into internal emigration under National Socialism . Wengst excused the "measures of the regime against numerous Jews who were friends" with the fact that Eschenburg lived "in constant fear of the regime" before 1945 and "showed consideration for the safety of his family". In the professional world his biography was viewed as too uncritical with regard to Eschenburg's role in the Third Reich and was not convincing. His previously published defense of Eschenburg also met with opposition. In it, Wengst had declared Eschenburg to be the political "opponent of the National Socialists". In 2011, Eschenburg's involvement in an Aryanization process became known. According to Wengst, however, Eschenburg was only a marginal figure in the proceedings. Wengst also showed a great deal of understanding for Eschenburg's careless handling of the term dictatorship. In the “Theodor Eschenburg case”, Wengst dealt with the “problem of historical judgment”. According to Wengst, “scientists who politically lean towards the left” tend to “understand the actions of those who“ participated ”in the Nazi dictatorship - in whatever capacity - and who did not deal with it in public in retrospect, based on today's judge and condemn moral standards ”. This is connected with "the accusation of apology to those who embed the respective life in the historical context and refer to its epochs-specific circumstances".

Fonts

Monographs

  • Theodor Eschenburg. Biography of a political figure. 1904-1999. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin et al. 2015, ISBN 3-11-040289-0 .
  • Thomas Dehler. 1897-1967. A political biography. Oldenbourg, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-486-56306-8 .
  • State structure and government practice 1948–1953. On the history of the constitutional organs of the Federal Republic of Germany (= contributions to the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Vol. 74). Droste, Düsseldorf 1984, ISBN 3-7700-5122-X .
  • Count Brockdorff-Rantzau and the beginnings of the Weimar Republic in foreign policy (= Modern History and Politics. Vol. 2). Lang et al., Bern et al. 1973, ISBN 3-261-00880-6 (At the same time: Tübingen, University, dissertation, 1972).

Editorships

  • Reform and revolt. Political and social change in the Federal Republic before and after 1968 (= contemporary history in conversation. Vol. 12). Oldenbourg, Munich 2011, ISBN 3-486-70404-4 .
  • with Horst Möller : Introduction to contemporary history. CH Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-50246-6 .

literature

  • Horst Möller: For Udo Wengst's 70th birthday. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 65 (2017), pp. 447–452.
  • Bastian Hein, Manfred Kittel, Horst Möller (eds.): Faces of Democracy. Portraits of contemporary German history. Oldenbourg, Munich 2012, ISBN 3-486-71512-7 .
  • Andreas Wirsching : Historian of Democracy. To say goodbye to Udo Wengst. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 60 (2012), pp. 635–637.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Horst Möller: For the 70th birthday of Udo Wengst. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 65 (2017), pp. 447–452, here: p. 449.
  2. ↑ See the review by Marie-Luise Recker in: Historische Zeitschrift 267 (1998), pp. 258–260.
  3. ↑ Andreas Wirsching: Historian of Democracy. To say goodbye to Udo Wengst. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 60 (2012), pp. 635–637, here: p. 636.
  4. ↑ Horst Möller, Udo Wengst (ed.): Introduction to contemporary history. Munich 2003, p. 11.
  5. ↑ See Karl Buchheim, Eine Sächsische Lebensgeschichte. Memories (1889–1972). Edited by Udo Wengst and Isabel F. Pantenburg, Munich 1996; Udo Wengst (ed.), Gerhard Schulz: Central German diary. Notes from the early years of the SED dictatorship 1945–1950. Munich 2009.
  6. ↑ Udo Wengst: The shaping of the presidential self-image by Theodor Heuss. In: From Heuss to Herzog. The Federal Presidents in the political system of the Federal Republic. Stuttgart 1999, pp. 65-76 and pp. 213 f .; On the other hand: Heinrich Brüning (1885–1970). In: Michael Fröhlich (Ed.): The Weimar Republic. Portrait of an Era in Biographies. Darmstadt 2002, pp. 282-292; Ders .: Ludwig Erhard in the focus of contemporary historiography. In: Peter Gillies, Daniel Körfer, Udo Wengst (eds.): Ludwig Erhard. Berlin 2010, pp. 73–116.
  7. ↑ Axel Schildt: Overrated? On the power of objective developments and the ineffectiveness of the "68ers". In: Udo Wengst (Ed.): Reform and Revolte. Political and social change in the Federal Republic before and after 1968. Munich 2011, pp. 88–102, here: p. 88.
  8. ^ Theodor Eschenburg. Biography of a leading political figure 1904–1999. Berlin 2015, p. 4.
  9. ^ Theodor Eschenburg. Biography of a leading political figure 1904–1999. Berlin 2015, p. 1.
  10. ^ Theodor Eschenburg. Biography of a leading political figure 1904–1999. Berlin 2015, p. 98, p. 254, p. 259.
  11. ^ Theodor Eschenburg. Biography of a leading political figure 1904–1999. Berlin 2015, p. 133 f.
  12. ^ Theodor Eschenburg. Biography of a leading political figure 1904–1999. Berlin 2015, p. 254.
  13. ↑ Hannah Bethke: The man simply cannot be saved any more. He had a high school diploma, and nobody asked him about the Aryanization: Udo Wengst's curious Eschenburg biography. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung No. 35, February 11, 2015, p. 10; Hans-Christof Kraus in: Historische Zeitschrift 303 (2016), pp. 596–597. Rainer Eisfeld in: H-Soz-Kult , June 5, 2015, ( online ).
  14. ↑ Udo Wengst: The "Theodor Eschenburg Case". On the problem of historical judgment. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 61 (2013), pp. 411–440. See Hans Woller and Jürgen Zarusky: The “Theodor Eschenburg Case” and the Institute for Contemporary History. Open questions and new perspectives In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 61 (2013), pp. 551–566 ( online )
  15. ↑ Udo Wengst: The "Theodor Eschenburg Case". On the problem of historical judgment. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 61 (2013), pp. 411–440, here: p. 439.
  16. ↑ Udo Wengst: The "Theodor Eschenburg Case". On the problem of historical judgment. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 61 (2013), pp. 411–440, here: p. 413.
personal data
SURNAME Wengst, Udo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH July 1, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Remsfeld