A Prime Example for the Objectification of Textbook Representations? Failure and Success of the Franco-German Textbook Discussions in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

Abstract

The conflictual relationship between Germany and France determined the history of Europe just as much as the self-perception of the two countries in the nineteenth and up to the middle of the twentieth century. Conflicts of interest in the sphere of power politics certainly were the main reasons for the impaired relations between the two neighbours. For contemporaries, however, the conflicts were historicised into a convincing and coherent narrative of traditional enmity. Such a narrative offered formidable potential for identification and mobilisation and, thus, shaped the national self-perception (Jeismann, Das Vaterland der Feinde. Studien zum nationalen Feindbegriff und Selbstverständnis in Deutschland und Frankreich 1792-1918. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 1992). History lessons at school played an essential role in this process because they familiarised the pupils-future citizens of the two nations-with the basic assumptions and self-conception of the nation that they were expected to take responsibility for as adults. Despite this being a general characteristic of history teaching, it is a particularly grave matter in the era of nationalism. That being said, this chapter seeks to shed some light on the question of how exactly, against such a difficult background, it was possible for textbook authors, educational experts and teachers from Germany and France to question and finally overcome the mechanisms of nationalistic, hostile history teaching.