Introduction

Research according to Nazi principles, 1937

Wilhelm Engel's article „Deutsches Mittelalter. Aufgabe und Wege seiner Erforschung“ (The German Middle Ages: The Aim and Methods of research)

In 1936, a young ministerial civil servant and archivist named Wilhelm Engel assumed the direction of the newly created „Reichsinstitut für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde“, the NS institution now responsible for publishing MGH editions. Although Engel’s former superior Karl August Eckhardt had originally been intended to receive this position - he had been endorsed by Heinrich Himmler himself -, Engel had nevertheless managed to supplant him with the help of Walther Frank, the president of the sister-institute, the „Reichsinstitut für Geschichte des neuen Deutschlands“ (Reich institute for the history of new Germany), a fanatical National-Socialist and close confidant of the NS chief ideologist Alfred Rosenberg.

In order to profile himself in his new role, Engel renamed the MGH journal, formerly the „Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde“, as the „Deutsches Archiv für Geschichte des Mittelalters“ and attempted to give it a more political tendency with an editorial in which he outlined the new guiding principles. In his choice of words and tone, he oriented himself on NS party rhetoric such as had been repeatedly voiced by Walther Frank, prising the National-Socialist focus on Volk and race as the solution for the methodical controversies that had previously riven historical studies and purporting that this approach would provide a secure framework for the work of the MGH.

Regarding the content of this work, however, Engel remained vague, merely suggesting that the focus should shift away from the dichotomy between the Empire and the Papacy and move towards the subjects of imperial „West politics“ and the history of the Hanse (p. 8). By so doing, he hoped to continue the existing MGH programme in largely unchanged form behind an ideological façade. This intent concurred with his postulation that historical research should remain independent (p. 6). At the same time, the very creation of a state-controlled Reichsinstitut obviously severely restricted any such independence.

It is worth noting that Engel, who later fashioned himself as an expert on the subject of supposed Jewish ritual murders, makes no mention here of the „Jewish question“ and restricts himself to anonymous references to Erich Caspar, a Jewish historian in Berlin who occasionally worked for the MGH, speaking of him as a certain „history researcher“ who had opposed the direction taken by another unnamed historian – Johannes Haller. The Caspar-Haller controversy, in Engel's words an „elegant, almost humorous game“, was, as he writes, resolved through the National-Socialist orientation. Considering that Caspar had committed suicide in 1935 for fear of the NS regime, this was a highly derisory epithet for the man whom Engel otherwise generously praised as „the greatest German charter scholar“ (p. 9). Despite his boastful propaganda, Engel's article failed to attract much attention and, as his adversaries gained influence, he was obliged to step down from the direction of the Reichsinstitut in favour of his former professor, Edmund Ernst Stengel, taking up a professorship in Würzburg on 1 November 1937.

Wilhelm Engel: Deutsches Mittelalter. Aufgaben und Wege seiner Erforschung, in: Deutsches Archiv für Geschichte des Mittelalters, herausgegeben von Karl Brandi - Göttingen, Wilhelm Engel - Berlin, Walther Holtzmann - Bonn, 1. Jahrgang (1937), pp. 3-10