Gottlieb von Jagow and the war guilt question 1918 to 1935. The role of Imperial Germany's leading diplomat in the political debates on war guilt during the Weimar Republic. A historiographical and biographical study

戈特利布·冯·亚高（1863年至1935年），1913年至1916年德国最高外交官（外交部副国务卿），是《凡尔赛条约》（特别是第231条）中关于德国战争罪行的辩论的主要人物。但是贾戈站在第二排；他在躲避聚光灯。他与外交部的密切合作，以及他在由前任和现任外交官、政治家、历史学家和公关人员组成的广泛网络中的地位，几乎无人知晓。办公室里有一个专门处理战争罪行问题的部门。它不仅报道国内和国际上的讨论，而且还组织研究发表“关于战争罪行的德国无罪论证”（Große Kracht）。关于这个问题的科学文献的最新进展主要是Geiss、Heinemann和Dreyer/Lembke在1983年至1993年间发表的研究。他们描述了Schuldreferat的组织，对战争罪行的研究，以及与学术历史学家的合作。当代证人的作用并不是主要的焦点。因此，这个项目的目标是发现Jagow在这些辩论中的角色，作为前帝国政治家和普鲁士-德国右翼保守精英代表的典型人物，在第一次世界大战之前和期间，以及在君主制在革命期间消亡之后，直到国家社会主义党掌权。在魏玛政府终止凡尔赛条约的战略中，雅高扮演了一个未知的角色。为了发现这些关系和动机，该项目将分析Jagow与办公室的政治通信，与其他政治家，外交官，办公室及其公务员的反应，以及该项目将分析Jagow未出版的秘密回忆录。迄今为止，这些大量的文献几乎被历史学家所忽视。你可以在Jagow的文件和Schuldreferat的文件中找到这些来源，这些文件保存在外交部的政治档案中，以及许多档案中。为了发现Jagow的角色，该项目将把这些文件与他自己的出版物进行比较。这些来源大大超出了他的出版物《第一次世界大战的起因和爆发》（1919），涉及所涵盖的时期以及他看似中立和强迫的客观节奏；事实上，命名文档允许对某些事件和人物及其动机进行更清晰、更集中的分析，包括Jagow本人。该项目将使研究人员能够仔细研究魏玛共和国的政治、文化和思想史，以及个人和团体的传记。历史学家因此得以研究帝国的官僚精英，包括分析处理战争罪行问题的政治网络。

Gottlieb von Jagow (1863 to 1935) the top diplomat of Germany from 1913 to 1916 (undersecretary of state of the Foreign Office) was a major figure in the debates on German war guilt postulated in Versailles Treaty (esp. Art. 231). But Jagow stand in the 2nd line; he was avoiding the limelight. His closed collaboration with the Foreign Office and his position in a wide network of former and active diplomats and politicians, historians, and publicists is nearly unknown. There was a special department in the Office dealing with the war guilt question (Schuldreferat). It was not only reporting on national and international discussion but it was also organizing research to publish “Arguments of German innocence concerning war guilt“ (Große Kracht). The state of the art in the scientific literature on this question is dominated by the studies of Geiss, Heinemann, and Dreyer/Lembke, published between 1983 and 1993. Theiy discribed the organization of the Schuldreferat, the research on war guilt, and the collaboration with academic historians. The role of the contemporary witnesses was not in the main focus. It is thus the project’s goal to discover the role of Jagow in these debates as an arch-typical figure of the former imperial politicians and representatives of the Prussian-German right wing conservative elites before and during Ward War I, as well as after the monarchy’s demise during revolution and until the National-Socialist’s rise to power. Jagow played an unknown part in the strategy of the Weimar government to end the Versailles dictates. To discover these relations and motives the project will analyse Jagow’s political correspondence with the Office, with other politicians, diplomats, the Office and the reactions of it’s civil servants, as well the project will analyse Jagow’s unprinted secret memoirs. These big numbers of documents have been nearly ignored till now by the historians. You can find these sources in the Jagow papers and the files of the Schuldreferat kept in Foreign Office political archive as well as in numerous archives. To discover Jagow’s role the project will compare these documents with his own publications. These sources greatly extend beyond his publication „Causes and Outbreak of World War I“ (1919) concerning the covered period as well as his seemingly neutral and forced objective cadence; in fact, the named documents allow for a much clearer and more focused analysis of certain events and figures as well as their motives, including Jagow himself. The project will enable researchers to scrutinize the Weimar Republic’s political, cultural, and intellectual history, as well as individuals‘ and groups‘ biographies. Historians are thus enabled to study the Empire’s bureaucratic elites, including the analysis of political networks dealing with the issue of war guilt.