An Examination of Certain of the Polarizations of the Historikerstreit

Abstract: The historians" debate or the Historikerstreit of the 1980s in the then divided Germany brought to thefore the key areas of division betwixt the historians and philosophers of the day, sounding the ground on wherethey stood vis-à-vis the project/process of remembering and commemorating the past otherwise known as theVergangenheitsbewältigung. This paper proposes to examine certain of the prominent debates which took placein the publications of the erstwhile Federal Republic of Germany, with especial reference to the Nolte-Habermaswar of words as also the Stürmer-Augstein polarities, as sourced from extracts, original documents andcompendiums which include (but are not limited to) the Frankfurter Zeitung and Die Zeit newspapers. The aimwill be to understand the coming to terms which an entire generation (and more) arrived at as scoped throughthe erudition of public intellectuals who had a vast influence on the direction and even character, of the nation ofGermany as we know it.