Historical science and politics during the Century of Intellectuals. Karl Dietrich Erdmann and the liberal-conservative modernisaton of West Germany

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The aim of the research project is to study the intellectual biography of the West-German historian Karl Dietrich Erdmann whose publications have stood at the center of a historiographical controversy since the 1990s. With regard to the period between the 1950s and 1980s, Erdmann can be ranked as one of West-Germanys foremost historians. In this phase, his public interventions met with a wide echo, and he was also in a prominent position when the reconstruction of West German historical sciences came underway. Due to his elevated position in the Comité International des Sciences Historiques and also due to his temporary chairman he established a wide reaching international academic network. He was held in high esteem abroad to an extent which was rather unusual for the members of his generation. On the basis of his academic work, but also in consequence of his manifold political and confessional activities, Erdmann managed to exert a considerable influence on West Germanys political culture over three decades. The research projects aims to analyze Erdmans professional and personal career by embedding it into wider intellectual, social and generational contexts in West Germany. To achieve this, the biography will focus on three major fields: science, politics and the public. On the hand this will lead to an inquiry into continuities and changes in Erdmann's thinking and writing whose professional career spanned all political systems form Imperial Germany to the Federal Republic. On the other hand, the focus will direct the attention on the interplay between historical interpretations and a constantly changing political and social environment. With regard to this entanglement, the study will probe into the question how and why Erdmann as public intellectual managed to evoke a considerable public echo for such a long time. The first-round evaluation of the project came to the conclusion that this undertaking should be ranked as one of high academic importance and that it serves to satisfy many academic interests. It is based a broad range of sources which will be analyzed by taking recourse to concepts of intellectual history and generational research.