EDUARD MUHLE. Fur Volk und deutschen Osten: Der Historiker Hermann Aubin und die deutsche Ostforschung. (Schriften des Bundesarchivs, number 65.) Dusseldorf: Droste. Pp. x, 732. $50.00

Abstract

Hermann Aubin was one of the most important German historians of the twentieth century. For forty-one years, until 1967, he edited the journal Vierteljahres-schrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte. From 1953 to 1958, he headed the German Historians Association (Historikerverband). Few other historians whose professionally formative years fell within the pre-World War I “Age of Empire” later descended as deeply into the dark depths of twentieth-century German history as the medievalist Aubin. Eduard Mühle, the former director of the Herder Institute in Marburg, has now written a 700-page biography of Aubin, who in 1950 was one of the cofounders of that same institute. Mühle's source base includes a slew of previously unknown materials. A glance at the book's organization, however, gives an impression of disconnectedness which is borne out by further reading. Mühle's initial biographical portrait of Aubin, which covers 150 pages, is followed by two seemingly unrelated chapters, one discussing Aubin's activities as an “organizer of scholarship” (Wissenschaftsorganisator), the other his role as a producer of “historical images” (Geschichtsbildern). Treating a scholar's career and historical vision in isolation from his biography, particularly in twentieth-century Germany, is a questionable endeavor indeed.