German Historians Debate the Nazi Past

The Historikerstreit or historians’ controversy that erupted in summer 1986 was an intellectual event unprecedented in postwar West Germany. Its importance lies less in its originality or profundity than in its intensity. Never before have the “spirits” been so divided, the polemics so fierce, the political fronts so immobile, or the issues so interlaced. The Historikerstreit was at once a conflict over the meaning of the Nazi past, historical method, generatio...