Sonderwegsbesessenheit und Selbstabsolution. Über einige Neuerscheinungen zum Kaiserreich

The essay reviews recent books that claim to set a new narrative of the German Empire departing from the negative judgement of its authoritarian structure - the Sonderweg - provided by previous scholarship such as Wehler and others. The article starts from the balanced synthesis written by Eckhart Conze and looks at the arguments put forward by books that assess the German Empire as a modern, dynamic, state within a western narrative of individualism and emancipation. It suggests that the revaluation of the Kaiserreich looks exclusively at German history forgetting the context, whereas both narratives start from a theleological perpective, assuming the Third Reich as an hidden starting point. The article suggests that new research paths require a change of historical perspective, a less deterministic starting point and a sharper distinction between long-term dynamics and the novelties of the Weimar Republic.