Introduction

putting German political thought in context

Jan-Werner Müller

pp. 1-20

in: German ideologies since 1945, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003

Abstract

How did Germans overcome the "Germanic ideology," the fateful mixture of radical nationalism and cultural pessimism that was so pervasive in Germany in the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century?¹ Or did they? How has political thought developed in Germany since 1945, the supposed "zero hour" in modern German history? What have been the contours of the new German post-war ideologies that have replaced the Germanic ideology? And is there an inner logic to the constellation of political traditions prevalent in Germany after 1945?