From the conservative revolution to technocratic conservatism

Dirk van Laak

pp. 147-160

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

Abstract

Looking backward from the end of our century, the course of European history can now finally be qualified. The question of historical continuities, changes, and chances has never been put forward more fervently than in the German case. Assessments of German history were obsessed with stating peculiarities or Sonderwege, to use one of the most prominent terms. From a distance, however, it becomes obvious that political and social developments in Germany were indeed extreme, but not as exceptional as had been assumed for a long time. Also, the well-known caesuras of 1914 and 1945 have been relativized significantly. For, if one does not merely take political turning points into account but economic, social, and cultural events as well, one cannot but state that for many developments the main thresholds have been the 1920s and the 1960s.