Until very recently, German development has been widely described in terms of its Sonderweg, a sinister ‘Special Path’ that was leading in the wrong direction from the start. Communist crimes are rarely measured by the same criteria as Nazi crimes, and, despite a plethora of historical truth-telling in recent decades, Russia is still perceived, on balance, as having been a force for good.76 Young scholars who challenge the German-centred consensus can still sometimes expect a roasting.
