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More tolerant and politically liberal than many members of the historical profession in Weimar Germany, Friedrich Meinecke was willing to supervise the research of students of Jewish descent for the doctorate and the Habilitation (the authorization to teach in a German university as a Privatdozent). In this volume of letters and documents drawn from several archives, Gerhard A. Ritter provides us with a rich assemblage of sources related to twelve refugee historians who corresponded with Meinecke and a few other German academics. No review can do justice to the many memorable and poignant letters. For most readers, the historical significance of this collection will lie in the correspondence from two periods: 1933-34, when these students of Meinecke were the victims of the racist anti-Semitism of Hitler's government and faced an uncertain future in exile; and 1945-49, when they reestablished their personal relation with their mentor after World War II. Ritter makes these letters accessible to readers today through an informative introduction and expert and graceful editing.
The letters from 1945-49 are especially significant and shed new light on the personal and professional communication between the refugee historians and their homeland. Our understanding of their attitudes and relationship toward Germany is deepened by the chronological depth of the correspondence, which extends back to their university years. These letters require an analysis that is sensitive to epistolary strategies, psychological constraints, and reticence. The willingness of Hans Rosenberg and other refugee historians to reestablish contacts with German colleagues and return to their homeland as visiting professors so quickly after the war should not be interpreted as "the return to normality ... as quickly as the return to business as usual within the German historical profession.â[euro]1 The relations of émigré historians with the historical guild in Germany after 1945 were complex and, sometimes, emotionally conflicted.
Meinecke's refugee students came from families in the German Bildungsbürgertum, and with the exception of Hajo Holborn, they were baptized Protestants of Jewish descent or assimilated German Jews. Gerhard Masur wrote an anguished confessional letter to Meinecke in 1927 after his application for Habilitation at the University of Frankfurt had been rejected. This encounter with anti-Semitism was an unexpected and painful wound to Masur, which...