Submitted by: Konrad Jarausch Dear Diethelm, Jeremy, Jonathan, Orville, Thomas and Mitch: Thank you all very much for your spirited debate of the postmodern issue on the German history network. This kind of provocative discussion is precisely what Michael and I hoped for when we wrote the rebuttal to Ken. In that sense I am pleased that our comments provided an opening and not a false sense of closure, because these are complicated issues of historical philosophy and practice. Let me, without in any way wanting to constrain further discussion, make a couple of observations on your comments which might clear up some misunderstandings. For the sake of clarity, I shall try to adher to the sequence of your remarks. Diethelm, you are disappointed that Michael and I did not answer Ken's substantive charges. In an earlier draft I had tried to do that and then Michael persuaded me to drop this approach, because the recent Appleby/Hunt/Jacobs volume and lots of other essays in other fields had already done that so that it seemed repetitive to rehash the material once more in a German setting. Perhaps it needs to be done, anyway. Jeremy, once we had decided not to argue the issue in its own terms, Michael and I got more and more interested in thinking about what made Ken so angry, i.e. we were trying to give his text a deeper reading by going behind the ostensible arguments. There we encountered the declining position of German history in the US, the erosion of male white predominance, etc. It may be too simple to attribute Ken's individual musings to these factors, but certainly their resonance in the public during their oral presentation had, according to my personal impression, much to do with these factors, since the audience split somewhat along generational and gender lines. Jonathan, you are as usual right about the reasons for the marginality of postmodern approaches in German history. But the split between the social historians (Ken would probably see himself in that camp) and the new cultural historians is similar in this area as well. What we wanted to do was not to preach some variant of postmodernism, but to open the door to more experimentation with its techniques in order to see how far they would carry us. Perhaps this is excessive pragmatism, but I think that ultimately the case must be made on the resulting insights into the past not on principles. Orville, we also found Ken's reading of the poststructuralists somewhat disappointing, since it seemed to look for flaws, exaggerations and the like in order to dismiss what they might have to offer constructively. My sense is that one needs to do some careful sorting out between clearly untenable assertions and stimulating suggestions. That is what makes the whole issue so muddled. Thomas, the quote about the mainstream of German historiography is great. It does reflect the views of the overwhelming majority of our German colleagues, with a few exceptions which you noted. I would also want to add PEter Schoettler to the list, since he is an important intermediary between French theory and German practice. Also the Jelavich article in Geschichte und Gesellschaft represents just the kind of careful sorting out of issues which I have in mind. Mitch, of course there is cultural capital involved. That also explains the generational aspects of the debate, with each succeeding cohort claiming new primacy under a different banner and putting erstwhile innovators like Ken on the defensive. But we were wondering why relatively few of the younger Germanists had chosen the postmodern route and why the resistance of the established cohort was so much more obdurate than in other fields. And finally back to Diethelm, the central issues which you raise are important and necessary to debate. Instead of spelling all of this out now, just two words. I agree that the holocaust has hindered a playful exploration of some of the text-centered readings of the poststructuralists. It also compels one not to give up on the referentiality of historical statements and to clilng to some standards or procedures of proof. But this constraint does not legitimate Gertrude Himmelfarb's rejection of greater attention to language, to culture, to multiplicity of meaning and the like. The terrible crimes should not serve as justification for the dominance of a certain approach to history but rather challenge the historical imagination in ever new ways, since any single approach can only explain a small piece of the unfathomable. The point of the above comments on your comments was not to enforce our own view, but to try to explain why we were so disturbed by Ken's anger and why we sought for its underlying reasons rather than taking his arguments at face value. Perhaps some of the network members might want to comment also on whether their experiences or feelings about the status of German history in the US agree or disagree with our impressions. Cordially, Konrad P.S. Since Michael does not use e-mail, I have answered on my own, but will forward your comments to him as well. .