Not long ago the West German historian Michael Stunner declared, “He who controls the past also controls the future.” What he apparently meant by this was that German historians should shape a coherent vision of the national past that might help rekindle a sense of national pride and self-confidence among the German people. This is a very problematical notion, suggesting as it does that there can or should be a coherent national history, and that this interpretation of the past should take a political direction that makes it serviceable to the present and future.

Be that as it may, all nations seem to need a “usable past” with which they can validate their present and inspire faith in their future. Certainly, few nations in recent times have needed this more than the young Federal Republic of Germany, which (like its eastern equivalent) was founded under the auspices of foreign powers, enjoyed for much of its history only limited sovereignty, and suffered from an acute lack of national identity. But if the Federal Republic was to find historical traditions that might give it added legitimacy, where could it look? It could, and did, turn to the Prussian reform movement of the early nineteenth century, to the liberal ideals of the Hambach Festival and the revolutions of 1848, and to the comparatively restrained national diplomacy of Bismarck.