Читать книгу Rude Awakenings: An American Historian's Encounter With Nazism, Communism and McCarthyism - Carol Jr. Sicherman - Страница 19

The History Seminar (Department) of the University of Berlin, the epicenter of modern historical scholarship in Germany, was at a significant moment in its own history, for most of the older generation had either retired or were on the verge of retirement, and bright young recruits were emerging on a scene that was about to change dramatically. In his first semester Harry heard “the last series of public lecturers by Friedrich Meinecke, the dean of German historians.”75 His recollection fifty years later of Meinecke’s “sensitive and carefully nuanced refined mind” belies the sharper impression in his diary of the great man’s final lecture, attended not only by students but by colleagues distinguished by their “bald heads, beards, and a professional gravity.” As he was about to begin, Meinecke was presented with “yellow tulips and a red rose bush–it looked like a wedding.” Meinecke “was surprised and touched.” The lecture displeased Harry, who thought Meinecke “mishandled the American revolution in an obsolete manner.”76 Another oldtimer, Werner Sombart, “a celebrated economic and social historian, proved to be over the hill and on the way to foolishness.”77 The most important of the middle generation for Harry was Gustav Mayer, but the young fellows were more exciting. Because Harry’s academic experiences in 1932-33 were of a piece with those in 1931-32, I discuss here Harry’s second as well as his first year.