‘Outcast From History’: The Fischer Controversy and British Historiography

Abstract

Fritz Fischer’s 1961 Griff nach der Weltmacht enjoys a well-deserved reputation as a landmark in later twentieth-century German historiography. The impact of the so-called ‘Fischer controversy’ on British scholarship, by contrast, was varied and ambiguous. Even so, the reaction of British historians to Fischer’s work as such and the fierce public debate it generated in West Germany is revealing on a number of counts. It throws into sharper relief different interpretations of Great Power politics in the long nineteenth century that reflect different national academic traditions. As this article shows, moreover, Fischer’s work burst onto the scene at a time of considerable turmoil in the historical profession in the United Kingdom. This examination of the reaction to Fischer’s work thus throws a revealing light also on the state of history as an academic discipline as well as on contemporary perceptions of West German politics and society.