My name is Myron Brick. Between 1984 and 1988 I was, I believe, Professor Koselleck's first American born graduate student in intellectual history, first at The University of Chicago, then, courtesy of the DAAD, in Bielefeld. I had to quit academia as of 1988 because of a mother's illness. She was the reason behind my higher education and also its terminus. I have never forgotten, nor can I, sitting with Reinhart Koselleck in his office, attempting to explain my predicament. He sat there and listened, mainly quiet, his empathetic/sympathetic demeanor on full display, a look of knowing kindness on his face, (I see it still), a look at once reassuring and acquiescent. We both accepted that I had to do what I had to do no matter the cost.
Prof. Tooze, thank you so much for bringing this piece to a wider, English speaking audience. Although I have long been aware of certain aspect's of Reinhart's youth and war experience, now I know fully the depth of feeling and experience behind that unforgettable look on his face that I saw that day as we said goodbye. Now I know how much better he understood my quandary than I did and why. At the time I only had my confidence in the transportability of my intellect into an unknowable future; he had a depth of experience behind him that no one would seek to replicate but that shone through all for the better.
Luckily, I never had to quit Koselleck. His example and writings inspire me still to complete my thesis. Der Riss in Der Zeit, for a time, is overwhelmed by geronnende Lavamasse. Thank you.
PS. Please don't refer to Prof. Koselleck as a 'Philosopher of History'; he was a theorist of history who realized that the 20th Century had changed everything, even the relation between the thinker and the thought.
This post (with your excellent translation) is an apt and brilliantly chosen reminder of what WWII really was about, and why we need the work of historians (not only to analyse chronologies, structural elements of a political or societal constellation and movements of certain historical "factions" but also to "tell the tale" - so that memory becomes something "real", collected and told from multiple vantage points to serve the purpose of elucidating a situation thoroughly and finding the multiple puzzle pieces or "truths" of something as devastating as a war.)
In Germany we have thankfully already learnt a lot about both World Wars (though in the 80ies and 90ies nothing about the colonial past) in school and we talked (we still do) about it at home. I am infinitely grateful for this!
My generation was in the fortunate condition of having a wealth of works to study from.
Without historians like Koselleck (and without all historians who to this day and in future work to educate future generations) we would not be able to work through this whole time complex, as individuals and collectively, as a nation, to learn from it and prevent such wars from ever happening again.
In times when there seems to be a real dearth of actual knowledge and historical education (online and offline we have such a treasure of sources available, much more than in my youth) but so much gets overlooked and is rudely brushed away by the nefarious propagandists of the political far-right, whom we can only fight with the help of proper educators on every level) this is invaluable...
I want to express something else (when I talk to my good friend in London we always wonder about this fact, that our grandparents fought each other and that we exchange music recommendations and celebrate x-mas together):
how wonderful is it that I, a German who grew up in a country free of war (my grandmother of course lived through both, WWI and WWII), liberated by the allies and helped back into the international community can now read the post of a British-born historian (who speaks my language) who lives and works in the US and fights for democracy and human rights internationally (in his own way) on a relatively free, very cosmopolitan internet...
Call me pollyannaish but to me this is the reminder that some things can improve if people knuckle down and put their weight behind it.
To me this is a stark reminder that we are not alone and that being human is not only about mistakes and destruction (we talk about these often and rightly so) but also about the immense progress people can achieve in the face of danger and devastation to overcome it, together. Thinking together is totally worth it... Thank you 👏
Thank you for this. Was there any particular reason you went for Mährisch Ostrau instead of Ostrava and Böhmen and Mähren instead of Bohemia and Moravia?
But I would urge everyone to read it in conjunction with Adam's other two pieces, one on Curzio Malaparte's work and the other one on the two volumes by Vassili Grossman.
The tragedy and suffering inflicted by the Thrid Reich on Europe was long lasting, longer than the war. From my part and my assessment, Germany has not even begin to pay for all the misery that it has inflicted with its war. There are not enough curses to throw at them.
The suffering described endured by individual German soldiers is just a blip on the overall suffering Germany inflicted on Europe.
And this:
"There are experiences that pour themselves into the body as a glowing mass of lava that hardens there. They can then be called upon unshakably, unchanged and at any time. Not many such experiences can be translated into authentic memories; but when it is possible it depends on their sensuous presence."
That lava has already evaporated!
Germany is one of the biggest defenders of the genocide going on in Gaza right now (https://x.com/Kanthan2030/status/1919695612569690486). After they killed untold millions, a couple more is small change on the memory of German folk. After all, they killed themselves with wanton abandon in the 30 years war, when 30% of German population died.
Thank you for the wonderful work here, Adam. You and your Germanophone readers may also enjoy looking through the other autobiographical writings, &c. gathered in Reinhart Koselleck, Geronnene Lava: Texte zu politischem Totenkult und Erinnerung. Manfred Hettling, Hubert Locher and Adriana Markantonatos, eds. (Suhrkamp, 2023) which appeared nearly simultaneously with the Hoffmann biography (cf. https://www.suhrkamp.de/buch/reinhart-koselleck-geronnene-lava-t-9783518587966). I'll confess that I still need to read the latter so I'm not sure whether Hoffmann cites this posthumous collection or not, even if I imagine he knows all the texts. On a lighter note, 2023 also saw a reissue of Koselleck's collections of caricatures (https://www.daedalus-verlag.de/reinhart-koselleck-vorbilder-nachbilder/), which are both really amusing and, in their way, quite literally sketch out a fascinating postwar intellectual and cultural milieu.
Reinhart Koselleck: your translation, Adam Tooze, of his “Glühende Lava, zur Erinnerung geronnen,” (Glowing lava hardened into memory) seemed to leave little space between his reflections and this reader. The connections that you know and feel between WW II and what is happening in Gaza, Ukraine, the U.S... and share with us is a touchstone, not limited to WW II. This repeating tragedy by human beings is The Tragedy.
Mährisch Ostrau is Czech Ostrava, where I was born and grew up four decades later.
A city that is barely known in the Western world. With a very specific, industry-related (now rust belt) culture. A city which was almost intellectually destroyed by the Holocaust, in which the local highly educated Jewish population (about 10 thousand people) was exterminated.
That was an unexpected reference for me. Never ever have I seen the name of my home town on Substack before. Or anywhere else in the Anglo-Saxon publishing world.
Danke Adam! Was für ein Text, den ich nicht kannte! Er rief in mir die Erzählungen meiner Eltern hervor, die uns Kindern von ihren Erfahrungen zum Kriegende erzählt haben. Traumata, die sie für den Rest ihres Lebens geprägt haben.
My name is Myron Brick. Between 1984 and 1988 I was, I believe, Professor Koselleck's first American born graduate student in intellectual history, first at The University of Chicago, then, courtesy of the DAAD, in Bielefeld. I had to quit academia as of 1988 because of a mother's illness. She was the reason behind my higher education and also its terminus. I have never forgotten, nor can I, sitting with Reinhart Koselleck in his office, attempting to explain my predicament. He sat there and listened, mainly quiet, his empathetic/sympathetic demeanor on full display, a look of knowing kindness on his face, (I see it still), a look at once reassuring and acquiescent. We both accepted that I had to do what I had to do no matter the cost.
Prof. Tooze, thank you so much for bringing this piece to a wider, English speaking audience. Although I have long been aware of certain aspect's of Reinhart's youth and war experience, now I know fully the depth of feeling and experience behind that unforgettable look on his face that I saw that day as we said goodbye. Now I know how much better he understood my quandary than I did and why. At the time I only had my confidence in the transportability of my intellect into an unknowable future; he had a depth of experience behind him that no one would seek to replicate but that shone through all for the better.
Luckily, I never had to quit Koselleck. His example and writings inspire me still to complete my thesis. Der Riss in Der Zeit, for a time, is overwhelmed by geronnende Lavamasse. Thank you.
PS. Please don't refer to Prof. Koselleck as a 'Philosopher of History'; he was a theorist of history who realized that the 20th Century had changed everything, even the relation between the thinker and the thought.
Thank you very much!!!
We worked with Koselleck's texts at university.
This post (with your excellent translation) is an apt and brilliantly chosen reminder of what WWII really was about, and why we need the work of historians (not only to analyse chronologies, structural elements of a political or societal constellation and movements of certain historical "factions" but also to "tell the tale" - so that memory becomes something "real", collected and told from multiple vantage points to serve the purpose of elucidating a situation thoroughly and finding the multiple puzzle pieces or "truths" of something as devastating as a war.)
In Germany we have thankfully already learnt a lot about both World Wars (though in the 80ies and 90ies nothing about the colonial past) in school and we talked (we still do) about it at home. I am infinitely grateful for this!
My generation was in the fortunate condition of having a wealth of works to study from.
Without historians like Koselleck (and without all historians who to this day and in future work to educate future generations) we would not be able to work through this whole time complex, as individuals and collectively, as a nation, to learn from it and prevent such wars from ever happening again.
In times when there seems to be a real dearth of actual knowledge and historical education (online and offline we have such a treasure of sources available, much more than in my youth) but so much gets overlooked and is rudely brushed away by the nefarious propagandists of the political far-right, whom we can only fight with the help of proper educators on every level) this is invaluable...
I want to express something else (when I talk to my good friend in London we always wonder about this fact, that our grandparents fought each other and that we exchange music recommendations and celebrate x-mas together):
how wonderful is it that I, a German who grew up in a country free of war (my grandmother of course lived through both, WWI and WWII), liberated by the allies and helped back into the international community can now read the post of a British-born historian (who speaks my language) who lives and works in the US and fights for democracy and human rights internationally (in his own way) on a relatively free, very cosmopolitan internet...
Call me pollyannaish but to me this is the reminder that some things can improve if people knuckle down and put their weight behind it.
To me this is a stark reminder that we are not alone and that being human is not only about mistakes and destruction (we talk about these often and rightly so) but also about the immense progress people can achieve in the face of danger and devastation to overcome it, together. Thinking together is totally worth it... Thank you 👏
Thank you for this. Was there any particular reason you went for Mährisch Ostrau instead of Ostrava and Böhmen and Mähren instead of Bohemia and Moravia?
Thank you for this piece, very nice.
But I would urge everyone to read it in conjunction with Adam's other two pieces, one on Curzio Malaparte's work and the other one on the two volumes by Vassili Grossman.
The tragedy and suffering inflicted by the Thrid Reich on Europe was long lasting, longer than the war. From my part and my assessment, Germany has not even begin to pay for all the misery that it has inflicted with its war. There are not enough curses to throw at them.
The suffering described endured by individual German soldiers is just a blip on the overall suffering Germany inflicted on Europe.
And this:
"There are experiences that pour themselves into the body as a glowing mass of lava that hardens there. They can then be called upon unshakably, unchanged and at any time. Not many such experiences can be translated into authentic memories; but when it is possible it depends on their sensuous presence."
That lava has already evaporated!
Germany is one of the biggest defenders of the genocide going on in Gaza right now (https://x.com/Kanthan2030/status/1919695612569690486). After they killed untold millions, a couple more is small change on the memory of German folk. After all, they killed themselves with wanton abandon in the 30 years war, when 30% of German population died.
It couldn't happen with nicer people.
Thank you for the wonderful work here, Adam. You and your Germanophone readers may also enjoy looking through the other autobiographical writings, &c. gathered in Reinhart Koselleck, Geronnene Lava: Texte zu politischem Totenkult und Erinnerung. Manfred Hettling, Hubert Locher and Adriana Markantonatos, eds. (Suhrkamp, 2023) which appeared nearly simultaneously with the Hoffmann biography (cf. https://www.suhrkamp.de/buch/reinhart-koselleck-geronnene-lava-t-9783518587966). I'll confess that I still need to read the latter so I'm not sure whether Hoffmann cites this posthumous collection or not, even if I imagine he knows all the texts. On a lighter note, 2023 also saw a reissue of Koselleck's collections of caricatures (https://www.daedalus-verlag.de/reinhart-koselleck-vorbilder-nachbilder/), which are both really amusing and, in their way, quite literally sketch out a fascinating postwar intellectual and cultural milieu.
Powerful and important. Thanks for the translation of these startling frozen thoughts/observations.
Reinhart Koselleck: your translation, Adam Tooze, of his “Glühende Lava, zur Erinnerung geronnen,” (Glowing lava hardened into memory) seemed to leave little space between his reflections and this reader. The connections that you know and feel between WW II and what is happening in Gaza, Ukraine, the U.S... and share with us is a touchstone, not limited to WW II. This repeating tragedy by human beings is The Tragedy.
Fantastic translations and context for an important day in history. Thank you!
As someone currently learning German I really appreciated this!!
Mährisch Ostrau is Czech Ostrava, where I was born and grew up four decades later.
A city that is barely known in the Western world. With a very specific, industry-related (now rust belt) culture. A city which was almost intellectually destroyed by the Holocaust, in which the local highly educated Jewish population (about 10 thousand people) was exterminated.
That was an unexpected reference for me. Never ever have I seen the name of my home town on Substack before. Or anywhere else in the Anglo-Saxon publishing world.
A moving piece - a perfect example demonstrates the transition from knowing to accepting.
Brilliant! Thank you for sharing this.
Dear Adam, thank you very much for your fine translation of Reinhart Koselleck,
it moved my hart.
very lovely. thanks very much.
Danke Adam! Was für ein Text, den ich nicht kannte! Er rief in mir die Erzählungen meiner Eltern hervor, die uns Kindern von ihren Erfahrungen zum Kriegende erzählt haben. Traumata, die sie für den Rest ihres Lebens geprägt haben.
Thanks.