Date: Mon, 18 Sep 1995 15:30:29 -0500 From: H-GERMAN EDITOR Dan Rogers To: Multiple recipients of list H-GERMAN Subject: Michael Geyer There are two messages below. 1) Submitted by: Richard Bodek I am surprised by the vituperative nature of the comments Charles McClelland made regarding Michael Geyer and his students. Although it is certainly a ridiculous situation that would see me defending Michael, I would like to give it a try. As Professor McClelland probably knows, Michael made his reputation as scholar of the German military. Reviews of his first work, based on his dissertation, were unanimous in their praise of his careful research and imaginative conclusions. H-U Wehler, an historian well known for his concern with scientific methodology and precision, included a book by Michael on the military in a series which he edited. Michael's most recent work on the nature of the National Socialist state can only be described as brilliant. It shows a knowledge of both the archives and relevant historiography that is breathtaking. One need not know him personally for this to be readily apparent. As a student of Michael's and Geoff Eley's at the University of Michigan in the mid 1980s, I can state that neither one of them would stand for anything approaching 'serious intellectual confusion and radical inconsistency.' I and my fellow graduate students learned this early, and were reminded of it often. We were sent to the anthropology department to learn theory first hand. To the extent that we were given core intellectual values to live by, they were precision combined with imagination. Michael always insisted that we know the intricacies of our material so that although readers might be able to argue with our conclusions, they could not charge us with shoddiness; theoretical, methodological, archival or otherwise. Have all of us lived up to the rigorous standard set -- probably not. Nonetheless, the fault lies not in our advisors, but in ourselves. Richard Bodek Department of History College of Charleston e mail Bodekr @CofC.Edu 2) Submitted by: Holger Herwig How about a word of sanity in all the postmodern insanity: could it possibly be that Michael Geyer is a Mensch, a scholar working hard at the trade, intent on learning? Gads, what a truly revolutionary thought! .