On March 5th, the Institute of European Studies held a lecture by Paul Nolte, titled “Degrees of Order, Measures of Freedom: Modern German History and the Challenge of Postmodern Historiography,” in collaboration with the German Historical Institute of Washington, the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, the Institute of International Studies, the Center for German and European Studies and the Berkeley Department of History.
Paul Nolte is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Freie University Berlin. John Connelly, Director of the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies introduced the speaker and fielded questions from the lecture’s 40 attendees.
The lecture was divided into three sections: Narrating German History: Some Historiographical Considerations, Orders and Freedoms in German History, and Territory, Space and the Anthropocene.
In the first section, the most prominent narrative Nolte discussed was the narrative of redemption. He explained that global approaches often re-integrate classical narratives of German guilt and redemption, present an ambivalence regarding colonial history, and fail to fully synthesize German history. Nolte also discussed the practice of presenting history in a collection of vignettes or episodes; however, he expressed this can leave a sense of fragmented pieces that may not be pressed into any larger or more meaningful story.
In Orders and Freedoms in German History, Nolte cited varying constellations in order and history but maintained that empirically, the struggle between these two concepts has resonated in Germany over centuries and continues to in the present day. Germany is a nation that values security, but complex webs exist between freedom and order. Germany’s entanglement with these two ‘ambivalent’ ideals was presented as a Sisyphus-like struggle between the two dichroic values that could serve as an additional perspective under which a narrative could be composed.
Finally, Territory, Space and the Anthropocene focused on the pressing concerns of our time. Nolte suggests that while climate change is planetary in scale, and empirical research relating to climate change and German history may have to zoom in on smaller scales, it is also essential to look at how history before the present impacted current developments. In terms of territory and space, Nolte suggests exploring memory in both West and East Germany, an overarching narrative that considers colonial spaces outside of Germany, and urban micro spaces, such as those currently being protested in Berlin by decolonial activists.
Nolte argued for a new master narrative that focuses on re-thinking from the center (in this case, referring to the majority of the population throughout varying periods), using the three sections, most notably freedom and order, as central paradigms for exploration.