Modernität und Modernisierung der Westdeutschen Gesellschaft in der deutschen Historiographie seit den 1960er Jahren.

Abstract

“Modernity” and “Modernization” of the West German Society in the German Historiography since the 1960s

The author of this article focuses on the concept of “modernization”. He shows that this term, when used to describe the processes that had taken place between the 1930s and the 1960s, has gradually lost its traditional explicitly positive (leftist) connotation with democratization and expansion of human rights. As early as in the mid-1960s Ralph Dahrendorf proposed a theory of modernism which was formulated even more clearly by Zygmunt Bauman in the late 1980s and, consequently, by a number of other historians. These scholars argue, while reflecting some of the great controversies about the “sore spots” of the modern German history that in the 20th century, especially during the times of murderous European dictatorships, certain modernizations took place, which were inherently politically, social and culturally malignant, perverted or contradictory. In this context, it is rather difficult to apply the term “modernization” unequivocally and without reservations to the essentially positive post war development of Europe and its neighbours.

Keywords: modernity, modernization, German society, German historiography, 20th century