»Geschichtsgemeinschaft«

Abstract

Over the last decade there has been an increasing use of the term »Geschichtsgemeinschaft«, meaning »historical community«, in German legal science. The reasons for this lie mainly in the advancing process of European integration. The development of the European Union from a group created to tackle economic and technical problems to a political union with an ever more comprehensive list of competences (social policy, employment, asylum, migration, police, justice, foreign policy – as well as a common security and defence policy), the penetration of the law of the member states by European law which claims superiority and obligatory force, and finally the abolition of the principle of majority rule in the community law for decision-making in the Council of the European Communities, have brought the problem of the legitimacy of the decisions of the Commission, the Council, the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament starkly to the fore. That is why there is a demand for a strong collective European identity that gives a sense of belonging and solidarity, which should find its basis in a common European history. The article examines the use of the term »Geschichtsgemeinschaft«. It identifies the holistic, static and ontological understanding of history that dominates legal discourse and criticises this understanding from the point of view of the theory of history and epistemology. Recommended citation: Hanschmann, Felix , »Geschichtsgemeinschaft«. Ein problematischer Begriff und seine Verwendung im Staats- und Europarecht, in: Rechtsgeschichte - Legal History Rg 05 (2004) 150-161, online: http://dx.doi.org/10.12946/rg05/150-161