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Dreams and Delusions: The Drama of German History
This collection of essays by eminent historian Fritz Stern ponders the monumental promise and catastrophe of twentieth-century German history. It is now reissued with a new introduction by the author.
- GenresHistory
364 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
About the author
Fritz Stern
33 books35 followersFritz Richard Stern was born in Breslau, Silesia, to prominent parents: his father, Rudolf Stern, a physician and medical researcher, and his mother, Käthe Brieger Stern, a noted theorist and reformer in the education of young children. After converting from Judaism to Lutheran Protestantism in the 1890s, his family emigrated to the United States in 1938, forced to leave by the virulently anti-Jewish policies of Adolf Hitler's National Socialist government and increasing violence against all Germans of Jewish ancestry. The family settled in New York City where Stern attended Columbia University from which he received his bachelors, masters and PhD. From 1953 to 1997, he was a professor at Columbia, obtaining the eminent Seth Low Chair before attaining the rank of University Professor.
Much of Stern's work tracks the development of the rise of National Socialism in Germany, tracing that the origins of Nazism back to the 19th century völkische movement. In Stern's opinion, the virulently anti-Semitic völkische movement was the result of the "politics of cultural despair" experienced by German intellectuals who were unable to come to grips with modernity. He rejects the Sonderweg interpretation of German history which considers Germany to have followed a unique course from aristocracy into democracy distinct from other European countries. In the 1990s, Stern was a leading critic of the controversial American author Daniel Goldhagen, whose book Hitler's Willing Executioners he denounced as unscholarly and full of Germanophobia.
Another major area of research for Stern has been the history of the Jewish community in Germany and how Jewish and German cultures have influenced each other -- what Stern has often called the "Jewish-German symbiosis," the best examplar of which was Albert Einstein.
Much of Stern's work tracks the development of the rise of National Socialism in Germany, tracing that the origins of Nazism back to the 19th century völkische movement. In Stern's opinion, the virulently anti-Semitic völkische movement was the result of the "politics of cultural despair" experienced by German intellectuals who were unable to come to grips with modernity. He rejects the Sonderweg interpretation of German history which considers Germany to have followed a unique course from aristocracy into democracy distinct from other European countries. In the 1990s, Stern was a leading critic of the controversial American author Daniel Goldhagen, whose book Hitler's Willing Executioners he denounced as unscholarly and full of Germanophobia.
Another major area of research for Stern has been the history of the Jewish community in Germany and how Jewish and German cultures have influenced each other -- what Stern has often called the "Jewish-German symbiosis," the best examplar of which was Albert Einstein.
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January 28, 2022Collection of essays and talks. I felt there was a significant overlap between the first two essays here and another collection of his that I've read: Einstein's German World; and if I hadn't have read that I would have enjoyed this more. A couple of the essays I felt had been left behind by events - the collection was published in 1987 - but others still had something to offer.
An interesting feature is that there is very little distance between Stern and his subjects, Fritz Haber was one of his Godparents, he had met Einstein who advised him to pursue a career in medicine rather than in history, and he and his family were emigrants from Nazi Germany to the USA.
The essays are:
Einstein's Germany - which has enough Einstein witticisms to make it worth reading
Fritz Haber the scientist in power and in exile - seemed to be a shorter version of an essay from Einstein's German World interesting as a contrast to Einstein, the two men seemed to have taken opposite paths through life but all the same became friends. Haber is the one man responsible for the First World war not ending around Christmas 1914, but also through the Haber-Bosch process for the chemical fertilisers that provide most of us with our staple crops.
Ernst Reuter the making of a democratic socialist - dovetails nicely with the essay on national Socialism as temptation just on account of Reuter's family background and their opposition to socialism which they saw as anti-patriotic
The burden of success reflections on German Jewry ah, although I read this only a few days before writing the review I can remember nothing about it. Perhaps only that Einstein advised Rathenau not to become Foreign Minister, thinking it was unwise for a Jew to be too prominent in national life?
Germany 1933 fifty years later again a struggle to recall anything specific about this one.
National socialism as temptation - probably the standout essay in the collection. Very interesting thesis of national socialism filling the gap left by the decline of faith, but this instantly raises the question of why similar movements did not achieve 30% of the vote in other countries too!
Germany in a semi Gaullist Europe - this is the one that really suffers from the passage of time
Germany and the United States: visions of declining virtue - much as above
Americans and the German past: a century of American scholarship - a fast flying birds eye view of the historiographical tradition
Capitalism and the cultural historian - the title misleads, it is really about Germany in the 1870s and 1880s and at that mostly in fact about the Baron von Bleichroeder, a Jew and Bismarck's banker.
The Speech to the Bundestag, June 17, 1987 quite a lot about the career of the poet Friedigrath.
An interesting feature is that there is very little distance between Stern and his subjects, Fritz Haber was one of his Godparents, he had met Einstein who advised him to pursue a career in medicine rather than in history, and he and his family were emigrants from Nazi Germany to the USA.
The essays are:
Einstein's Germany - which has enough Einstein witticisms to make it worth reading
Fritz Haber the scientist in power and in exile - seemed to be a shorter version of an essay from Einstein's German World interesting as a contrast to Einstein, the two men seemed to have taken opposite paths through life but all the same became friends. Haber is the one man responsible for the First World war not ending around Christmas 1914, but also through the Haber-Bosch process for the chemical fertilisers that provide most of us with our staple crops.
Ernst Reuter the making of a democratic socialist - dovetails nicely with the essay on national Socialism as temptation just on account of Reuter's family background and their opposition to socialism which they saw as anti-patriotic
The burden of success reflections on German Jewry ah, although I read this only a few days before writing the review I can remember nothing about it. Perhaps only that Einstein advised Rathenau not to become Foreign Minister, thinking it was unwise for a Jew to be too prominent in national life?
Germany 1933 fifty years later again a struggle to recall anything specific about this one.
National socialism as temptation - probably the standout essay in the collection. Very interesting thesis of national socialism filling the gap left by the decline of faith, but this instantly raises the question of why similar movements did not achieve 30% of the vote in other countries too!
Germany in a semi Gaullist Europe - this is the one that really suffers from the passage of time
Germany and the United States: visions of declining virtue - much as above
Americans and the German past: a century of American scholarship - a fast flying birds eye view of the historiographical tradition
Capitalism and the cultural historian - the title misleads, it is really about Germany in the 1870s and 1880s and at that mostly in fact about the Baron von Bleichroeder, a Jew and Bismarck's banker.
The Speech to the Bundestag, June 17, 1987 quite a lot about the career of the poet Friedigrath.
May 15, 2017
This collection of essays by historian Fritz Stern illuminates the power of the personal essay form. I especially loved the first essay on Einstein's Germany. No matter how many biographies and books one reads on Einstein, his inner world is hard to fundamentally grasp. I guess it is because Einstein had a child-like quality and a strong sense of both playfulness as well as resistance to any for of thought control. His religious stance, as well as the topic of war, the atom bomb and Zionism are hard to really hammer out. Stern's essay captured for me --for the first time-- what explained the about-faces Einstein took and how often he argued by negated the opposite. How does someone so vehemently anti-war, turn around and write the US President urging him to work toward developed an atomic weapon? How does a man who actually renounced his own citizenship, becoming stateless go on to speak on behalf of the creation of the state of Israel--and then move again to distance himself from it later? Einstein was slippery in the way of all brilliant thinkers. I really loved Stern's essay on "Einstein's Germany." These essays are jewels.
The essay on Fritz Haber is also a tour de force. Haber is a case study for the Germany of the time.... a man who converted to Protestant Christianity from Judaism, he then went on to work tirelessly for the nation and really was a relentless nationalist. Like Oppenheimer he would go on to lead a scientific organization (future Max Planck Institute) and be behind the development of a deadly weapon (chemical weapons).... going on (also like Oppenheimer) to end up derided by the very nation he worked for. Dying in exile, his ending days were filed with great bitterness. Stern describes it brilliantly--and ends the essay with the famous letter that Einstein wrote to Haber when he had basically been run out of Germany: "I can imagine your inner conflict. It is as if one must give up a theory which one has worked on all one's life. It is not the same for me because I never believed in it in the least."
The essay on Fritz Haber is also a tour de force. Haber is a case study for the Germany of the time.... a man who converted to Protestant Christianity from Judaism, he then went on to work tirelessly for the nation and really was a relentless nationalist. Like Oppenheimer he would go on to lead a scientific organization (future Max Planck Institute) and be behind the development of a deadly weapon (chemical weapons).... going on (also like Oppenheimer) to end up derided by the very nation he worked for. Dying in exile, his ending days were filed with great bitterness. Stern describes it brilliantly--and ends the essay with the famous letter that Einstein wrote to Haber when he had basically been run out of Germany: "I can imagine your inner conflict. It is as if one must give up a theory which one has worked on all one's life. It is not the same for me because I never believed in it in the least."
April 17, 2025
Sobering and lyrical. Stern's ongoing conversation with Hofstadter in this gives helpful touchpoints for the more America-centric readers like myself. Echoing other reviews here, but the essays "Germany 1933 Fifty Years Later" and "National Socialism as Temptation" are standouts, both in this collection and in my life as a reader.
October 27, 2015
It's an essay collection - compiled old lectures and articles and things related to the topic of early 20th ce Germany, history, science history, etc. But still got that excellent style of Fritz Stern.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews