You are bidding on one Handwritten, signed letter card of the historian Johannes Haller (1865-1947).

DatedStuttgart, Neue Weinsteige 44, 25. April 1934.

Transcription: "My dear Mr. Leichtle, I would be happy to send you the signature in accordance with your request. I have been retired for a year and a half (born 1865) and left Tübingen. With best regards, your devoted Haller."

The recipient may be about Christian Leichtle (1892-1949), founder of the Heilbronn adult education center?

Format: 8.6x13.5cm; without envelope.

Condition: Cardboard browned and slightly stained. bplease note the pictures too!

Internal note: Reimann in Riehl green

About Johannes Haller (source: wikipedia):

Johannes Haller (*16. October 1865 in Keinis, Estonian Governorate, Russian Empire; † 24. December 1947 in Tübingen) was a German historian who primarily researched the late Middle Ages. As a full professor of medieval history, he taught at the universities of Marburg (1904), Gießen (1904–1913) and Tübingen (1913–1932).

With the beginning of the First World War, he changed from an aristocratic-feeling and national-socialist liberal to a conservative German nationalist. His involvement in war journalism increased his popularity and brought him contacts with the political and military leadership. Haller was considered an expert on Russia and was a representative of a “Siegfrieden”. He firmly rejected the Weimar Republic. From 1932 onwards he briefly placed his hopes on National Socialism. His relations with the Nazi regime from 1933 onwards were characterized by strong ambivalence. He welcomed the military successes until 1940, but rejected the Nazi scientific and church policies.

Haller was considered a specialist in medieval papal and church history. With his extensive edition of sources on the Council of Basel, he made a valuable contribution to research into the history of the council. Through his general representations such as the epochs of German history or a thousand years of German-French relations as well as works on contemporary history (The Bülow era, From the life of Prince Philipp zu Eulenburg-Hertefeld), he was one of the most read and best-known historians of his time. His work had a significant impact on the image of the Middle Ages in research and society until the 1970s. With the multi-volume presentation The Papacy. He presented a monumental early work combining idea and reality. At the same time, his perceived difficult character and his penchant for polemics made him an outsider in historical science.

Life

Origin and youth: Johannes Haller was born in 1865 in Keinis on the island of Dagö, which is part of Estonia. The Estonian governorate was at that time a Russian province. Haller was the son of the Lutheran pastor Anton Haller (1833–1905), who as a Lutheran clergyman was initially pastor in Keinis, from 1875 in Reval and city superintendent there from 1886 to 1889. Anton Haller's second marriage was to Amalie Sacken (1838–1899). According to Haller's memoirs, the Baltics were a “class-structured, aristocratic-liberal” society.[1] His origins in the Protestant-aristocratic world of the Baltic Germans contributed to his being skeptical of parliamentarism and democracy throughout his life.

The marriage between Anton and Amalie produced seven children, including Johannes Haller. He spent the first ten years on the island, where, according to his account, life was characterized by “loneliness and isolation from the world” and at the same time required a living between Estonians and Germans.[3] From 1876 to 1883 Haller attended the Reval Cathedral School. His health had been compromised since his youth; Apparently he suffered from rheumatoid arthritis.[4] The precarious health condition and his father's will caused him to refrain from pursuing a career as a musician. His father ensured that Haller began studying history.

Study years in Dorpat (1883–1888):From 1883 to 1888 Haller studied history at the German-speaking University of Dorpat. After completing his studies, he wanted to settle as a senior teacher in the Baltics. In a letter from September 1883 to his half-sister Helene, he complained about not being able to make acquaintances among the students. In his opinion, the student body consisted only of “zeros” and “corporelles”.[5] A little later, Haller himself became a member of the Baltic Corporation Estonia Dorpat and was able to make friends for the first time. Given his new contacts, his father accused him of neglecting his academic duties.

His two most important teachers were the modernist Alexander Brückner and the medievalist Richard Hausmann. Haller wrote the “Candidata Writing”, a work that had to be completed in addition to the scientific examinations, for Brückner about the circumstances and intrigues that led to the accession to the throne of Catherine I of Russia after the death of Peter I. The work was published in the Russian Revue magazine in 1890.[7]

Emigration to the German Empire (autumn 1890): Haller's studies took place at a time when the influence of Baltic Germans was decreasing in the course of “Russification”. Haller felt culturally superior not only to Estonians and Latvians, but also to Russians. The German Balts were particularly hard hit by the Russification measures. For Haller it was a “moral impossibility” to have to teach in Russian.[8] His experiences in the Baltics led him to believe that the Germans were among the leading cultural peoples in the world.[9] After working as a private tutor for two years, Haller left his Baltic homeland in the fall of 1890 with the help of a travel grant from Estonia and emigrated to the German Empire. According to Hans-Erich Volkmann, he was characterized at this time by a “deep-rooted German national and specific Greater German sentiment”.[10] Apart from a few short visits, Haller never returned to his homeland.

Study years in Berlin and Heidelberg (1890–1892):In the fall of 1890, Haller continued his history studies at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. He felt extremely uncomfortable in Germany. According to Hans-Erich Volkmann, he “visibly suffered from the unfinished idea of ​​a greater German empire, which remained his scientific and political leitmotif throughout his life.”[12] Haller was not very enthusiastic about Berlin. There he had difficulty establishing social contacts. In a letter to his half-sister Helene, he attributed this to the “close-mindedness” not only of Berliners, but also of the Baltic Germans living in Berlin.[13] After a short time, he even stopped attending the meetings of Baltic German emigrants where he met the theologian Adolf Harnack. He also didn't like the political life of Berlin. Haller attended the founding meeting of the General German Association, which he perceived as a meaningless event consisting of “music, beer, speeches and drunken Reichstag Presidents”.[14] What was even more strange for Haller was that by the end of 1890 no one in Berlin was mourning the long-time Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who had been replaced that year. According to Haller's account, Bismarck was admired in the Baltics as a “statesmanlike genius”.

For Haller, Berlin was a “horrible place”.[16] His admiration of Bismarck did not lead him to worship Prussia; rather, for him Prussia was a “barbarian state without a past”[17] and “basically just a polished Russia”.[18] Haller only spent one semester in Berlin. He liked the south of Germany much better. He went to Heidelberg for two semesters. Research stays for his dissertation took him to Wolfenbüttel, Göttingen, Augsburg and Munich. In December 1891 he received his doctorate in Heidelberg under Bernhard Erdmannsdörffer with the thesis German journalism in the years 1668–1674. The work with the subtitle “A contribution to the history of the predatory wars of Louis XIV.” was published in 1892. The dissertation did not play a major role in Haller's further academic career. He dealt neither with pamphlet literature nor with the early modern era. However, the work proves his early interest in German-French relations.

Activity in Rome (1892–1897):At the beginning of March 1892, Haller went to Rome on the advice of his doctoral supervisor, as he might be able to find permanent employment at the Prussian Historical Institute. In Rome, Haller wanted to work primarily on the Council of Basel.[20] In the first few months he devoted himself to research on the council. In November 1892 he was employed as an unskilled worker at the Royal Prussian Historical Institute in Rome. In the following years he worked primarily on the Repertory Germanicum. In 1896, however, the editing business had discouraged him so much that he considered stopping his work in Rome as well as on the council edition entirely and switching to journalism.[21] Haller responded to the planned discontinuation of the project with the publication of the first volume by resigning on January 1st. April 1897. The Basel archivist Rudolf Wackernagel then offered him the opportunity to work on the Basel document book for three years and the prospect of a habilitation at the University of Basel.[22]

Years in Basel (1897–1901):His habilitation on the Council of Basel took place at the University of Basel in the summer of 1897. However, it is unclear which work was recognized as a habilitation achievement.[23] Haller worked as a private lecturer in Basel. The historian Eduard Fueter was one of his students there. Haller also met Fueter's sister Elisabeth there, who later became his wife. She came from a respected middle-class family and was the cousin of the historian Matthias Gelzer.

Haller worked for the Historical and Antiquarian Society of Basel on the Basel document book. In 1899, Volume 7, which he edited, was published and covers the period from 1301 to 1522.[24] He also worked on the edition of the council's sources. Two further source volumes from the Concilium Basiliense appeared in 1897 and 1900. In view of his financially strained situation, Haller also worked as a journalist. He wrote regular reports for the Protestant-conservative Allgemeine Schweizer Zeitung. His biographer Benjamin Hasselhorn identified Haller's articles from this time as a “basic liberal preference”.[25] They deal with the expulsion of Danish servants from Northern Schleswig ordered by the Prussian government, the Boer War and Russian-German relations. This was also the only time Haller publicly commented on anti-Semitism. In his report on the Second International Zionist Congress, published in September 1898, he called anti-Semitism a “poisonous plant.” Haller distinguished between older variants of anti-Semitism and modern anti-Semitism. In his private letters, however, according to Benjamin Hasselhorn, he agreed with contemporary anti-Jewish prejudices.[26] In a letter from November 1901 to his friend Ferdinand Wagner, he confessed that he was a “strong anti-Semite” in medicine because: “For the Jew, everything is business, including the illness of one's neighbor, which does not exclude the fact that many Christians do the same “.[27] In his memoirs, however, he claimed to have “never been an anti-Semite”.

Haller was deeply impressed by his encounter with Julius von Eckardt, who was consul general in Basel from 1897 to 1900.[29] His acquaintance with the church historian Franz Overbeck was also formative for him. He discussed theological and church history topics with him. However, Haller was not satisfied with his living situation in Basel.[30] At the end of his three-year work for the Historical and Antiquarian Society in Basel, he had neither the prospect of continuing his work nor of getting a university position. Working as a journalist could not provide him with sufficient income. His courses were hardly attended. Due to the lack of listening funds, his financial situation remained tense. His good relationship with Wackernagel ended in April 1900 when he reproached him in a letter to Elisabeth Wackernagel-Burckhardt and viewed his decision to go to Basel as a personal step backwards.[31] Haller rejected an offer of a two-year contract with the newspaper made in 1900 because he feared that accepting the offer would also mean the end of his academic career. Instead, he wrote to Max Lenz in January 1900 and asked whether he would be responsible for editing the papal camera files of the 14th century. and 15. Century could receive a research contract from the Prussian Academy of Sciences.[32] Since there was no connection to Prussia, this project could not be realized. After all, in April 1901, Haller received a job as a librarian at the Prussian Historical Institute in Rome.

Second stay in Rome (1901–1902):Haller discovered his passion for Italy in Basel. He wrote to his friend Ferdinand Wagner in July 1901 that he felt more at home in Rome than anywhere else in the world.[33] At the end of June 1902, an intensive correspondence began between Paul Fridolin Kehr and Haller. Haller supported Kehr's pursuit of the institute's leadership in Rome: in a memorandum about the Royal Prussian Institute written in September 1902, he expressed reservations about its incumbent director Aloys Schulte and recommended Kehr as his successor.[34] In 1902, Kehr wanted to win Haller over to a historic outpost in Paris and entrust him with the “Gallia Pontificia”. The ones before Innocent III should. issued early and high medieval papal documents. In October 1903, Kehr became the new director of the Historical Institute in Rome. However, differences arose between him and Haller because he refused to fulfill Haller's request for a position that was not bound by instructions. This almost led to a break in the relationship. After 1903, contact between the two scholars decreased significantly.[35]

Marburg years (1902–1904):In August 1902, Friedrich Althoff, the influential head of the higher education department in the Prussian Ministry of Culture, gave him an extraordinary professorship in Marburg against the wishes of the faculty.[36] As a result of this decision, the plans to establish a branch in Paris ultimately failed. The investigations into this are now classified in the prehistory of the founding of the German Historical Institute in Paris.[37] Haller was satisfied with his living situation after his first year in Marburg. He had finally found a field of activity that suited him. In March 1904 his associate professorship was converted into a full professorship; his lectures were well attended, but differences arose with his Marburg colleagues. Haller competed in teaching with Goswin von der Ropp and Conrad Varrentrapp, who focused on middle and modern history, although his actual area of ​​responsibility was the auxiliary sciences.

In August 1904 he married Elisabeth Fueter. A few months later he accepted a position at the University of Giessen in October 1904, as he was able to teach the entire range of medieval history there.[39]

Giessen years (1904–1913):In the winter semester of 1904/05 he succeeded the late Konstantin Höhlbaum as a full professor of medieval history in Giessen.[40] At his new place of work, Haller concentrated primarily on his further training as a scholar.[41] At the University of Giessen he made lasting contributions by expanding the library of the historical seminar and purchasing the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, a fundamental collection of medieval sources.[42] During this time he undertook little political activity. He was involved as a spokesman for Giessen in the “Committee for the Support of the Needy Germans of Russia”. In a lecture from January 1906, Haller appealed for Imperial German support for the “German colony” on the Baltic Sea. He was the keynote speaker on the 29th. July 1905 for the laying of the foundation stone of the Bismarck Tower of the Giessen student body.

The four children (1906, 1908, 1909 and 1911) from his marriage to Elisabeth Fueter were born in Giessen. In December 1905, Haller's father died. This also ended the correspondence with his most important correspondent. Haller described and justified his own life decisions in letters to his father. The development of his family and the death of his father increased his professional isolation. There are hardly any letters to colleagues from this time.[44] Haller exchanged a few letters with Karl Hampe. However, different assessments of the fall of Henry the Lion led to the termination of their correspondence. According to Haller's reinterpretation, the actors' emotions played an important role in Heinrich's disempowerment, while Hampe believed that, at least in the case of Friedrich Barbarossa, it was not “emotions of passion” but “statesmanlike considerations” that were decisive. Hampe rejected Haller's “one-sided escalation of things that was purely personal and extremely unfavorable for the emperor.”[45]

Tübingen years (1913–1932):In the summer semester of 1913, Haller moved to the Tübingen chair for medieval history as Walter Goetz's successor. He stayed there until his retirement in 1932. Participation in the First World War was out of the question for the 49-year-old from Hall for health reasons. His sons, who were not yet of age, also did not take part in the war. Immediately after the German Reich declared war on Russia, Haller expressed to the Württemberg Prime Minister his willingness to volunteer for war journalism. He carried out extensive work in this area through lectures and publications.

Haller was an advocate of Siegfried until the spring of 1918. He was elected rector of the university for the academic year 1918/19. In this role he gave the speech “On the Death and Resurrection of the German Nation” to students returning from the war.[46] He greeted those returning home with the words: “Your homeland has stabbed you from behind.”[47] The Tübingen historian Dieter Langewiesche sees this speech as a textbook example of the ideas of a group of professors who did not understand the fall of the monarchy in Germany.

Haller represented the stab-in-the-back legend, which says that the army, which was undefeated in the field, was brought down by “treachery” at home. At the end of March 1919 he still feared that he would lose his chair and be arrested.[49] The “so-called. He accused the government”[50] of Friedrich Ebert and Philipp Scheidemann of setting up a “system of lies”.[51] He sympathized with the German National People's Party (DNVP) and appeared as a guest at their party conference in Munich. However, active participation in the party did not come about.[52] Since the war years and after 1918, he rejected parliamentarism and democracy as “Western” ideas.[53] He often used his lectures to speak out against the republic.[54] According to the memories of his students, such as Theodor Eschenburg and Kurt Georg Kiesinger, evaluated by Heribert Müller, Haller practically demonstrated the Republic in his lectures.[55] The aggressive and apodictic style of his lectures made him a “Tübingen Treitschke” for Heribert Müller.[56] Haller felt nothing but “disgust” for democracy.[57] He maintained his contempt for Weimar democracy until old age. For Georg G. Iggers, Haller, along with Erich Marcks, Dietrich Schäfer and Adalbert Wahl, was one of the best-known representatives of the ultranationalist, expansionist, anti-democratic direction in the Weimar Republic.

During the first years of the Weimar Republic, the medievalist Haller dealt with immediate contemporary history. His books The Bülow Era (1922) and From the Life of Prince Philipp zu Eulenburg-Hertefeld (1923 and 1924) were published within a short time. Haller was still giving lectures on modern and recent history in the 1920s.[59] His Tübingen lectures were considered an “experience”. For Theodor Eschenburg, a student in Tübingen from 1924, Haller was “the most outstanding lecturer” one could hear in Tübingen.[60] According to an autobiographical note by Walter Schlesinger, it was Haller's lectures that led him to choose the profession of historian.[61] Haller was popular as an academic teacher in Tübingen among the Baltic Germans, several of whom he received doctorates in the 1920s. They included Reinhard Wittram, Hellmuth Weiss, Wilhelm Lenz, Albert Bauer, Heinrich Bosse and Gert Kroeger. Helmut Speer and Georg von Rauch were also temporarily among Haller's listeners.

Since Haller's Epochs of German History, published in 1923, had a circulation of at least 237,000 copies,[63] he was doing well financially.[64] He was one of the top earners at the philosophy faculty in Tübingen.

As a university professor in Tübingen, Haller was particularly involved in Württemberg's educational policy. He noticed a decline in education as a result of the school reforms that had been implemented before the First World War. He rejected the equation of humanistic high school, secondary school and upper secondary school. In his opinion, only the humanistic high school could impart the necessary knowledge and skills for studying the humanities. In May 1925 he published an article in the Schwäbische Kronik, which belongs to the Schwäbischer Merkur, with the headline “Warning signs in the higher education system”. The article attracted a lot of attention and received widespread approval, but also opposition. Haller criticized the fact that politicians, with their “amateurish reformism,” had adopted school reforms that had led to a continuous decline in the standards of students. Haller feared that universities would no longer be able to fulfill their tasks if these reforms were not stopped soon. The Ministry of Culture responded with an official statement. In the period that followed, Haller tried above all to ensure that the university had a say in school policy decisions. He managed to prevent the school reforms from being fully implemented. The conflict between Haller and the Württemberg school authorities dragged on until he withdrew from the debate in 1926.

On the occasion of the 450th In 1927, on the anniversary of the University of Tübingen, Haller published the account The Beginnings of the University of Tübingen 1477–1537. From 1929 he vehemently campaigned for the appointment of the ancient historian Richard Laqueur. In the dispute over filling the ancient history chair, he stood in opposition to a group around Adalbert Wahl, which rejected the appointment because of Laqueur's Jewish origins.[67] As a result of this process, Haller fell out with parts of his faculty.

In the period 1929–1931, in several letters to the Württemberg Ministry of Culture, Haller obtained exemption from seminars and, in some cases, lectures, citing his poor health.[68] Haller had gallstones, suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, had heart problems and catarrh.[69] He therefore had to undergo a strict health program and go to the spa regularly. The difficult relationship with his colleagues also led him to ask for his retirement,[70] which took place in 1932. The Tübingen law faculty awarded him an honorary doctorate.

In January 1933, Friedrich Baethgen was appointed as Haller's successor, but Christian Mergenthaler, who died on January 15, The National Socialist Minister of Education for the State of Württemberg, appointed in March 1933, reversed the appointment against the will of the faculty because Baethgen had “no sufficient guarantee that the office would be conducted in the National Socialist spirit”; Heinrich Dannenbauer, on the other hand, is seen in party circles as an “unconditionally reliable National Socialist”.[71] The faculty and university continued to seek Baethgen's appointment in vain, and the ministry suspended his appointment on January 1st. July 1933 Dannenbauer. In August 1933, Baethgen blamed Haller in particular for the failure of the appointment: “Only Haller, who has fallen apart along with the entire university, has once again shown the worst side of his character and schemed against me, after he had explicitly told third parties in the winter had declared that he was very pleased that I would become his successor.”[72] After his retirement, Haller moved to Stuttgart. His most famous students included Heinrich Dannenbauer, Reinhard Wittram and Fritz Ernst.

Relationship to the Nazi regime

Journalism and letters: A clear picture does not emerge from the available biographical information about Haller's relationship to National Socialism; his attitude is interpreted differently. According to Benjamin Hasselhorn, Haller was “a right-wing conservative with a clear affinity for young conservative ideas” in the 1920s and 1930s.[73] According to Stefan Weiß, Haller can be characterized as a Bismarckian who at times fell into the mistaken belief that Hitler would turn out to be the new Bismarck.[74] Heribert Müller identified Haller as having a “disgusted admiration” for National Socialism.[75] After Hans-Erich Volkmann, Haller was one of the supporters of National Socialism.

Haller did not belong to the NSDAP or any other National Socialist organization. In the spring of 1932 he agreed to work with the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur and its future magazine Volk und Kultur.[77] In April 1932 he voted for the NSDAP in the state elections in Württemberg.[78] Haller, along with 41 professors, signed a call from the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur to build a new German intellectual life that would be saved from the threat of cultural Bolshevism. The call was made on the 30th. Published in the Völkischer Observer in April 1932.[79] On the 29th. In July 1932, Haller signed a “Declaration by German University Teachers,” which appeared in the Völkischer Observer. 51 university professors confessed that they expected “the recovery of our entire public life and the rescue of the German people […] from the National Socialist leadership in the state.” In addition to Haller, only two other historians, Helmut Göring and Günther Franz, had signed. Shortly before the Reichstag election on March 31st. In July 1932, this amounted to an election call in favor of the NSDAP.

In the second half of 1932, however, Haller distanced himself from the NSDAP. On the 17th In September 1932 he decided against further involvement with the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur. He justified this by saying that the party had decided on the “proletarian direction”.[81] Haller did not sign a “Declaration by German University and College Professors” prepared by the National Socialist German Student Association in the fall of 1932 because he “was wrong in his assessment of the leading people in the National Socialist movement.”[82] According to Heribert Müller, the terror of the National Socialists, which left 300 dead and 1,200 injured, and the realization that they could not be integrated into the network of conservative power holders were decisive for this decision.[83] Hans-Erich Volkmann said that for Haller the basic racist component of the National Socialist worldview was less important than the proletarianization he feared.[84] The professors' call on the day before the Reichstag election on June 6th In November 1932, Haller also no longer signed.[85] On the 29th. In January 1933, one day before Adolf Hitler “seized power,” he expressed his concerns in a letter. According to his view at the time, “a National Socialist government would be a very daring experiment that would cost us dearly.”

Haller met the Württemberg regional bishop Theophil Wurm through the former Tübingen city priest. Haller was impressed by Wurm's commitment to the “Confessing Church” and his fight against the “Faith Movement of German Christians” supported by the regime. On the 28th. In November 1935, Haller issued his own statement on the church struggle, which, according to Benjamin Hasselhorn, was sent at least to his circle of acquaintances. He warned the National Socialist government against “encroaching on church territory.” It is a mistake that “forcibly enforced denominational uniformity” strengthens the state.

Despite his skepticism about National Socialism, Haller long clung to the idea that Hitler could become a “new Bismarck.” After the NSDAP's election success in March 1933, he published a book entitled “Zum 1. April 1933” an article in the Stuttgarter Süddeutsche Zeitung. There he combined a euphoric obituary for Bismarck with a ruthless reckoning with his successors in imperial Germany. Haller accused the politicians of the Weimar Republic of betraying the Bismarckian idea of ​​empire and the national cause. At the same time, he expressed the hope that Hitler would become Bismarck's “heir, his continuer, yes, God willing, the completer of his work.”[88] Haller hoped for a return to Bismarck's efforts to "win for the German nation the place among the powers that it deserves, to provide it with the security it needs in order to be able to live and work in peace."[89] In In a letter from May 1933 to his eldest son Hans Jakob Haller, he admired Hitler as a great statesman.[90] In another new edition of the epochs from 1939, Haller praised National Socialism in detail. In the last chapter he judged that the National Socialist government had achieved its main political goals, the “suppression of communism, the elimination of unemployment and the restoration of Germany's honor and freedom”. According to Hans-Erich Volkmann, this last epoch chapter from 1939 was “a kowtow to Adolf Hitler in terms of content and scope”.

According to Hans-Erich Volkmann, the “dismantling of the Polish state” was at the top of Haller’s list of appeals. For Haller, the defeat of Poland was not only satisfaction for the humiliation he had suffered, but also a continuation of Bismarck's foreign policy.[92] Germany's military success over France in World War II sparked enthusiasm in Haller. In January 1940 he attributed the success primarily to “Hitler's brilliant strategy”.[93] Haller then also planned a new edition of his Epochs of German History. In 1940 he received his 75th birthday. On his birthday, in addition to the Goethe Medal, the Charlotten War Order and a commemorative publication.[94] At this time, Haller was considered an important scholar. Otto Riethmüller declared him “a political educator of the first rank”.

Haller's letters show a poor level of information and reveal numerous misjudgments of the military situation.[96] In July 1941, in a private letter, he appeared very confident of victory: “We can no longer be defeated.”[97] Despite the first military setbacks at the end of 1941, in his letters he stuck to Hitler as a military strategist.[98] On the 21st February 1943, a few weeks after the defeat of the 6th Army in the Battle of Stalingrad, however, he expressed pessimism about a positive outcome of the war for Germany.[99] He refrained from making public statements after the defeat at Stalingrad.[100] The assassination attempt on January 20th In July 1944, Haller described the fight against Adolf Hitler as “incomprehensible folly and therefore a crime against the nation” in a letter to his eldest son Hans Jakob. Haller feared a political shift in the regime to the left.

Despite his ambivalent relationship to their ideology, the National Socialists did not want to do without him. In the Nazi bibliography of 1939, this is expressed as follows: “But we are obliged, even if he doesn’t want to, to evaluate his results for our findings.” The design of the new editions of his eras also gave the National Socialists little reason to assume that Haller was an opponent of Hitler.[102] In April 1942 he was there for the celebrations of the 1200th. Invited to Paris as a speaker on Charlemagne's birthday. He declined the lecture citing his age and precarious health situation.[103] In 1943, the Propaganda Ministry tried to get Haller to do radio broadcasts about German history. At the same time, an honorary trial was underway against Otto Haendle, the editor of the Stuttgarter Tagblatt, because Haller had been critical of Wolfgang Liebeneiner's film The Dismissal, which was shown in the cinema in 1942.[105] Haller also found Liebeneiner's “Bismarck,” a National Socialist propaganda film, a failure.

Research and scientific operations:After Benjamin Hasselhorn, Haller went into internal emigration, no longer devoting himself to political questions but only to scientific tasks.[107] Haller concentrated on the history of the papacy, which had been planned for some time. The first volume of this presentation appeared in 1934. In the preface he denied any interest in the present and future. His presentation should only serve for knowledge.

Benjamin Hasselhorn and Heribert Müller see Haller's influence as a decisive impulse for the efforts of his academic student Heinrich Dannenbauer to defend science against National Socialist appropriation.[109] In the summer of 1934, Haller advised Dannenbauer to “stop doing allotria” and to distance himself from politics as a university professor. He should concentrate entirely on the strict rules of scientific work and keep his inaugural lecture in Tübingen as scientific as possible.[110] Dannenbauer raised in his on the 15th. The inaugural lecture on Germanic antiquity and German history was held in November 1934 and in a public lecture in Stuttgart in 1935 the importance of Roman antiquity and Christianity for the Western Middle Ages. At the same time, he opposed the heroization of the Germanic race. Dannenbauer was committed to a science without presuppositions. The publication of Dannenbauer's inaugural lecture triggered a press campaign directed against him.

Haller turned against the National Socialist understanding of science several times. In a lecture “On the Tasks of the Historian” given in Münster in November 1934 and printed in 1935, he spoke out in favor of the “historicist” understanding of science. He positioned himself against the redesign of German historical science advocated by Walter Frank as a “fighting science” that should take the side of politics.[112] The leading Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg stylized Charlemagne as the “butcher of Saxony” and his Saxon opponent Widukind as the “ancestor” of National Socialism. Haller tried to enhance Karl's achievements and emphasized the peaceful course of Widukind's conversion.[113] Adolf Hitler ultimately spoke out against any negative assessment of Charlemagne.[114] In contrast to Hermann Aubin, Haller did not follow an ethnically based folk story in the 1920s and 1930s. He oriented himself towards the German “nation” and its form of power state.[115] In December 1936, Karl Alexander von Müller asked Haller for an opinion on the intended appointment of Kleophas Pleyer as associate professor. Pleyer was one of Haller's former students and was a Sudeten German National Socialist. Haller refused and justified this with the fact that his “judgment is not in accordance with the conditions according to which decisions are made in such cases in the relevant authorities”.

Benjamin Hasselhorn sees Haller's rejection of ethnic scientific concepts as evidence of the thesis put forward by Karl Ferdinand Werner in 1967 that German historians were resistant to National Socialist conformity. However, more recent research has come to more differentiated assessments.[118] As early as the 1990s, Peter Schöttler had identified a large number of German historians who applauded the Nazi regime in their writings.[119] Jürgen Elvert (2002) came to the conclusion that around 40 percent of historians decided to cooperate openly, around the same number had come to terms with the Nazi system and only a minority had taken a “critical attitude towards the Nazi system”.

Last years of life: In February 1944, Haller's house was partially damaged. Because of the bombing, he fled from Stuttgart to stay with friends in Alsace.[121] In the fall of 1944 the family returned to Tübingen. Haller experienced it there on the 19th. April 1945 the invasion of French soldiers and the end of the war. Between April and August 1945 he had to endure the billeting of French soldiers in his house twice.[122] Haller explained to American information officers in July 1945 that the “seizure of power” in 1933 was necessary “to be protected from the communist mass uprising.”

In view of problems in teaching caused by the war, Haller offered to help out with an introductory event in the “Study of the Sources of Medieval History” at the University of Tübingen.[124] The proposal was welcomed by the philosophy faculty, but rejected by the State Secretariat. Benjamin Hasselhorn suspects that this decision was due to political concerns against Haller,[125] who was considered politically burdened, especially because of his eras in German history.[126] The use of the eras was expressly prohibited in December 1945 in a decree for special courses to obtain university entrance qualifications. But as early as 1950 the depiction appeared in a “cleaned” version. The reference to the “coming day” and the leader’s praise were omitted. The text was essentially based on the first edition from 1923.

In the last two years of his life, Haller dealt with religious and historical-philosophical topics. In his memoirs he referred to “the close connection between the events from 1933 to 1945 and those from 1918 to 1933”. He described the period of the Weimar Republic as “powerless” and “honourless”; Germany was “mentally crushed” and “economically ruined”. He separated “guilt in the historical sense” from “moral guilt” and was convinced that “the only real guilt falls on those who could have prevented what happened, primarily those who committed themselves between 1918 and 1918 In 1933 they took over the government of the Reich and, through their incompetence, allowed it to get to the point where a foreign adventurer, that was Adolf Hitler, [...] could be welcomed as a God-sent savior." He also counted himself “among those who placed their last hope in him.” For Haller, however, this was a “leap into the dark”. Looking back, he only described Hitler as an “Austrian who didn’t even know Germany.” The German people were deceived and seduced by Hitler. He described Germany's development as “fate”, “tragedy” and “denied grace”.[128] After 1945, he compared history to a natural disaster. The conceptual proximity of the term “catastrophe” to the passive, to being at the mercy and to storms, earthquakes or floods was also used by other historians such as Friedrich Meinecke and Hans Freyer. In addition to his memoirs, Haller wrote a study about Dante, which was not published until 1954. At the age of 82, he died on Christmas Eve 1947 in Tübingen.

Work: Haller presented more than 100 publications in the more than five decades of his work. The works are thematically wide-ranging and extend from the entry of the Germanic peoples into history through the emergence of the Papal States to the Bülow era. Haller's thematic range was already clear in his early years. He dealt with both the prehistory of the Concordat of Worms and the accession to the throne of Catherine I.

Church and papal history: Haller is considered the founding father of critical research on the Council of Basel (1431–1449).[130] As the sole editor of the four-volume edition of the Council's sources, he created lasting foundations for research into the late medieval history of the Council. Johannes Helmrath recognized his source editions as a pioneering achievement.[131] Haller established a connection between the Council of Basel and the Reformation. His view that the German path led straight from “Basel to Wittenberg and Worms” did not gain acceptance.[132] His account of the Papacy and Church Reform, published in 1903, reached up to the turn of the 14th century. and 15. Century and, according to his own admission, emerged “from studies on the Council of Basel”. A second volume planned by Haller never came to fruition.

From the 1930s onwards, Haller worked primarily in the area of ​​papal history. In 1934, 1942, 1939 and 1945 he published the four-volume The Papacy. Idea and reality. The focus was on the High Middle Ages. Horst Fuhrmann counted Haller's work, alongside those of Franz Xaver Seppelt and Erich Caspar, among the great individual achievements of German papal historiography of the last decades.[134] It is considered a stylistic masterpiece among papal historiographies.[135] With the first volume, published in 1934, Haller, unlike Seppelt, did not want to write a history of the popes, but rather show the papacy as a supra-personal phenomenon. He argued that the idea of ​​the papacy arose as a "product of the religious attitude of the Germanic peoples towards Saint Peter and his earthly representative" and was specifically developed by the Anglo-Saxons.[136] This view has not gained acceptance among experts.[137] Compared to Haller's portrayal by Friedrich Kempf and Walter Ullmann, Caspar's work was described as having greater depth and greater reflection. In his habilitation, Sebastian Scholz praised Haller's multi-volume papal history as a "brilliantly written" presentation, but its conception was "less complex" than Caspar's work.

Activity as a war journalist: During the First World War, a diverse range of war journalism developed, in which around half of all medievalist professors in Germany took part.[140] However, professors generally did not have more reliable information or a better ability to assess the war situation than those with less education.

After a short time, Haller was one of the most productive war journalists in the Reich. He alone wrote a third of all relevant articles by Tübingen professors.[142] In his first verifiable statement in August 1914, he defended Italian neutrality. The neutral stance is advantageous for Germany, as Italy taking sides would create new fronts for the Central Powers, where they currently have free trade and supply routes. In September 1914, Haller wrote the concept for the call from the universities of the German Reich to the universities abroad, which was supported by 22 German universities.[143] The text is about the rejection of the accusations from abroad, which are described as a “campaign of systematic lies and slander […] against the German people and Reich”. The German universities turned to foreign universities and called on them to protect the German people and army abroad against accusations of “barbaric cruelty and senseless destructiveness”.

In the discussion of war goals there was a break with Friedrich Meinecke. From 1905 to 1914 the two had friendly correspondence, which ended with the start of the war. Haller and Meinecke differed both in their political views and in their methodological working methods. Haller advocated a peace with annexations, Meinecke one without territorial gain. Haller advocated against a negotiated peace. He organized a collection of signatures when the Reichstag factions of the Center, the Social Democrats and the Progressive People's Party called for a negotiated peace in 1917. Around 900 university professors took part in the signature campaign.[145] Meinecke reacted to the declaration by German university professors initiated by Haller against the Reichstag's peace resolution with a counter-declaration that was directed against the "opponents of a mutually agreed peace". After the war, Meinecke became a “Republican of Reason,” while Haller categorically rejected the Weimar Republic.[146] In protest, Haller stopped publishing in the historical journal published by Meinecke between 1914 and 1939.[147] On the occasion of the publication of Meinecke's memoirs in 1942, Haller described him as his "mortal enemy: an ice-cold, haughty and ultimately doggedly spiteful person".[148] Haller long maintained the belief that at least a relative victory was possible for the German Empire. He took part in projects to strengthen the will to persevere among the German people. In 1917, Haller joined the Fatherland Party founded by Alfred von Tirpitz and Wolfgang Kapp. However, he later claimed that he had no longer believed in a positive outcome for Germany since the fall of 1915.

From 1916 onwards, Haller's focus in war journalism shifted to the war in the East. His lectures and articles were about counteracting German-Russian friendship and highlighting the importance of the Baltic question. According to Haller, Russia's foreign policy interests were bound to generate conflicts with Germany. The courting of German-Russian friendship can only be explained “by ignorance, lack of judgment, and lack of inner independence.”[150] His opponent in war journalism work was Otto Hoetzsch, who advocated an agreement with Russia, which he described as the most important prerequisite for a victory against the Western powers. Haller counteracted Hoetzsch's image of Russia with his idea of ​​the Tatar-Asian nature of the Russian people. According to Haller, Russian-Asian expansionism threatened to spread to Europe. Anyone who ignores this danger must themselves be combated as a “Russian danger in the German house”.[151] In 1917, Haller accused Hoetzsch of taking on the role of a “Russian crown attorney.”

On the Baltic question, Haller referred to the importance of the Baltics. The Baltic Sea, over whose control Germany and Russia fought, is of strategic importance. It will be decided there whether Germany will remain a “world people” or not. Haller warned against making peace with Russia too early, as this would result in losing influence in the Baltics.[153] Haller's fame brought him contacts with the political and military leadership. In the discussion about the official German position on the Baltic question, he was interviewed as an expert on Russia and the Baltics. Before the Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations took place on 18 In December 1917 a meeting took place in Bad Kreuznach about Germany's attitude towards the Baltics. Paul von Hindenburg and Haller were of the opinion that the Baltics had to be brought under German rule. Haller unsuccessfully wrote a letter in December 1917 seeking Hindenburg's support for the separation of Estonia and Livonia from Russia.[154] In a memorandum from the spring of 1917 that had 20,000 signatures, Haller unsuccessfully demanded that the Baltic provinces be annexed to the German Reich by Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg.

At the same time, his work in medieval studies came to a standstill. While Haller stood out in 1912 through a meticulous source study of the Marbach Annals,[156] his next specialist essay on Innocent III appeared. and the empire of Henry VI. only in 1920.[157] With his work in war journalism he also hoped to reach a larger audience, which he did not have with his specialist historical studies. His involvement in war journalism in no way damaged his reputation as a scientist. In February 1916 he received from King Wilhelm II of Württemberg. the Wilhelmskreuz. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the theological faculty of the University of Giessen in November 1917. In June 1917 he received an offer to the chair of medieval history at the University of Strasbourg, which he apparently turned down solely for financial reasons. A possible cession of Alsace-Lorraine to France given the war situation did not influence his decision. In April 1917 he was brought in by Paul Fridolin Kehr as an expert advisor for the upcoming founding of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for History. Haller's increased reputation in war journalism was probably also decisive for his election as dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Tübingen in 1916/17 and 1917/18 as well as for his election as rector for the academic year 1917/18.

Haller's involvement in war journalism is assessed differently in research. According to Dieter Langewiesche, he was one of the “irreducable annexationists,”[159] for Christian Jansen he was one of the “leading annexationists,”[160] Hans Peter Bleuel counted him as one of the spokesmen for the annexationists on Germany's eastern and western borders.[161] For Benjamin Hasselhorn, however, he was one of the moderates in the Siegfrieden Party camp. He advocated an amicable settlement in the West and only advocated larger territorial expansions in the East.[162]

Contemporary historical research: Haller devoted himself to contemporary historical research during the first years of the Weimar Republic. Contact with Philipp zu Eulenburg-Hertefeld came about in the summer of 1915 through Jakob von Uexküll, who he had known since his student days. In September 1918, Haller agreed to publish Eulenburg's correspondence after his death. Until Eulenburg's death in 1921, Haller lived with the former confidant of Kaiser Wilhelm II. intensive correspondence. Eulenburg withdrew from politics after a public scandal surrounding his homosexuality. With his two publications, Haller attempted to rehabilitate Eulenburg. Haller spoke out against the allegations made as part of the scandal trial and against the view that Eulenburg had exerted a bad political influence on the emperor.

His most extensive contemporary historical work was The Bülow Era, published in 1922. In this study he took stock of the policies of the former Reich Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow. Haller accused Bülow of a failed foreign policy that, when he left, amounted to a disguised “bankruptcy” that “became more and more obvious” after 1909 […] until it could no longer be kept secret in July 1914. The outbreak of the First World War was nothing other than the confession that our politics had reached the end of its wisdom.”[164] But Haller also spoke of “encirclement” by the Entente and saw “the German-Russian war as a world-historical necessity.”[165] As early as 1917, Haller made his dislike of Bülow clear in the Süddeutsche Monatheften and named a German share of responsibility for the First World War.[166]

Formation of the Middle Ages image of the Germans: In the 19th century In the 19th century, the people's own “suffering from a lack of statehood”[167] resulted in the high medieval empire being glorified in bourgeois history as a national, unified German state. After the fall of the monarchy in 1918 and the Treaty of Versailles, which was perceived as humiliating, the history of medieval German royalty became even more of a focus of general interest. Dealing with it was intended to preserve the identity of the empire and correct undesirable developments that were blamed on the republic.[168] In his works The Epochs of German History and The Old German Empire, Haller tied in with the prevailing historical images from the 19th century. and early 20th century. According to these, the Ottonian, Salian and Hohenstaufen empires were extremely powerful in Europe.[169] With his characteristic power of words and suggestive power of argument, Haller made a significant contribution to the further dissemination of this view of history. He praised the German imperial period of the Middle Ages as a golden age in the history of the German people. He saw the empire under the Ottonians and early Salians as the strongest power factor in Europe.[170] Within this framework, the medieval emperors were viewed as either heroes or failures in a history of progress and modernization. Haller interpreted the investiture dispute as the first turning point. After the death of Henry III. “The empire, which had just stood at the heights and saw the proudest future open before it,” had to wage “a fight for its existence.”[171] The other rulers only hung on the “guiding rope of the church”. The first Hohenstaufen was Konrad III. a “thoroughly dependent nature and unreservedly devoted to the church out of inner need.”[172] Only when Frederick Barbarossa came to power was the German Empire able to once again become the dominant power in Europe.[173] The empire reached its peak under Henry VI. Since the double election of 1198, it has increasingly lost touch with the other European powers. Haller identified the greats as the main culprits for the empire's collapse in power in the Middle Ages.[174] In 1923, when the first edition of his eras was published, Haller judged that Germany was at its lowest ebb ever. In the foreword, Haller expressed his hope “that the misery of the present will lead to a better future must emerge, and that a new generation with new strength will also give German history its meaning. This is how I understand the motto that I add to the title: The day will come!” In March 1939, another edition of the Epochs of German History was published. Haller concluded this presentation with the words: “What was faith and hope has become reality, the day has come!” For Karl Ferdinand Werner, Haller’s presentation with its heroic, power-political view was a “prime on power”.[175]

Works on French history: Heribert Müller has shown how the supposed political and military danger posed by France is reflected in Haller's early medievalist works. According to Müller, Haller's political thinking was determined by pressure on the Reich from two fronts. In the epochs of German history, the struggle of the German Empire “on two fronts” became a leitmotif of the depiction:[176] In the West, France was the admired “hereditary enemy” and Poland was the deeply despised “hereditary enemy of the Germans in the East”. Haller developed a culture carrier theory. He propagated German Eastern work as a cultural obligation. The “vocation of the German people” lay “in the civilization of their eastern neighbors.”

In 1930, in the late phase of his work, he presented a comprehensive presentation of French history called A Thousand Years of German-French Relations. In the foreword, Haller emphasized that he did not want to do “scholarly research” with this work, but rather wanted to show the history of Germany and France in its “inner context” for the first time. Haller saw the German-French relationship as a “community of fate”. For him, France was the active part striving for “world domination”, while Germany took on a passive, only reactive role in the thousand-year history of their relations. In a review published in 1935, Marc Bloch denied the work any scientific value.[178] According to Benjamin Hasselhorn, Haller argued more analytically than propagandistically in this presentation.[179] According to Ernst Schulin, Haller did not construct a “1000-year enmity”, but only saw it since the late 17th century. Century. His assessments are significantly more differentiated than those of other assessors during the Weimar Republic period.[180] Heribert Müller came to the conclusion that Haller hated and admired the French “hereditary enemy” at the same time.[181] According to Müller, Haller's portrayal of the French Middle Ages is largely free of distortions or polemics,[182] his assessments regarding the Middle Ages remain valid for more recent research.[183] Müller was only able to identify negative accents in Haller's picture of France in the 15th century. make up the century. Haller made a judgment about France's attitude at the Council of Basel in his essay from 1901 on the enfeoffment of René of Anjou with Naples, which was influenced by the time and milieu.[184] The French King Charles VII. and his advisors played a clever and underhanded “double game” against Pope Eugene IV. and the Council of Basel with the aim of French rule over the Kingdom of Naples as well as over Avignon as the location of the Union Council. The French always kept their real goals secret. The counterpart to this is the upright, genuine, freedom- and truth-loving German.[185] This interpretation of a double game in French diplomacy was adopted by other historians for decades and was only refuted by Heribert Müller in 1990. Müller was able to show that conversations and impressions, encounters and experiences in Italy and Switzerland correspond to Haller's view of the topic “France and the Council of Basel”.[186] From the French Revolution and Napoleon onwards, Haller's portrayal, according to Müller, shows an increasingly distant and negative attitude towards France.[187]

Between collegial marginality and public centrality: Haller was considered arrogant and eccentric. He tended to engage in excessive polemics in reviews and scientific controversies.[188] Paul Fridolin Kehr wrote to Haller in a letter in September 1902: “Everyone thinks you are a jerk [...] or at least difficult.”[189] Haller did not hold back in his letters with devastating judgments about politicians, colleagues in the field and even the dead back. He described Karl Lamprecht as a “giddy fat guy” who needed to be “killed”.[190] For him, Bruno Krusch was an “old hornet,”[191] Michael Tangl was “a zero in every respect”.[192] Heinrich Mitteis considered Haller to be a "precocious chatterbox",[193] he found Karl Hampe "too small and too gentle",[194] his German Imperial History "boring" and his Konradin book "bland".[195] Bernhard von Bülow was “a bungler and incompetent of the first order”,[196] Adolf von Harnack was the “superlative of intellectual shallowness”.[197] In April 1924 he thanked Arnold Oskar Meyer in a letter for his depiction of Metternich and at the same time used the letter for a general general criticism of the book.[198] Haller also showed open rejection of Gerhard Ritter. With him he led a long-term controversy about the correct relationship to the Renaissance and Reformation.[199] Ritter reported in 1967 that Haller had become his opponent "because he was deeply offended that I, as a very young private lecturer, had dared to criticize an essay by the great man on the history of the Reformation."

Because of his conflict-loving nature, Haller became increasingly sidelined in the professional world. He often considered himself an “outsider”[201] and cultivated this position. “Such an idiosyncratic outsider as I am,” he wrote in a letter to his wife Elisabeth dated December 12th. August 1929, "can't expect anything more than to be tolerated [...] I'm not at the top, but on the sidelines and with conviction."[202] There were only no conflicts with people who were significantly younger or had a different professional focus. He was generally accepted as a scholar of distinction. He declined appointments to the University of Munich in 1923 and 1925.

At the same time, Haller's books reached a broad audience that went far beyond the German-speaking world. Through his epochs of German history, which emerged from lectures in 1923, he became a successful author. The work was certainly noticed by experts, but was also criticized for its “one-sidedness” and “inclination to modernize the problems”.[204] His late work, A Thousand Years of German-French Relations, also saw a high number of editions. However, it received relatively little attention from experts, although critical voices predominated.[205] Haller also gained a lot of recognition as an academic teacher. His lectures were already very popular in Marburg. With Eduard Schwartz, Rudolf Smend, Johan Huizinga and Otto Scheel, Haller had a small network of scholars with whom he maintained friendly contact.

Aftermath: Haller did not belong to any scientific academy. He also did not found a school in the sense of a group of students with a common area of ​​research. After his death, he received very few obituaries.[206] In Heidelberg, Fritz Ernst had an academic memorial service organized for his academic teacher Johannes Haller, although Haller never had any close contact with Heidelberg.

In the post-war period, Haller's image fluctuated between criticism and appreciation. In September 1949, in his opening lecture at the Historians' Day in Munich, Gerhard Ritter criticized Haller's nationalistic tone in his published lectures on German history.[208] Ludwig Dehio was outraged in the Historical Journal about the new edition of the epochs from 1950, which was largely based on the 1923 version, and its outdated view of history.[209] In 1957, the ancient historian Hans Georg Gundel counted Haller “among the most important historians of the 20th century.” Century”.[210] His works were repeatedly reprinted until the 1970s and shaped the historical image of research and society.[211] In 1960, Haller's student Wittram published his teacher's memoirs. In the afterword, Wittram admitted to having shortened “obviously objective errors” and pointed judgments from Haller. Wittram left out the fourth part completely “because it doesn’t actually contain memories, but rather primarily contemporary historical observations”. The memoirs received predominantly positive reviews in the press, but Wittram's style of editing was criticized by experts. On the occasion of Haller's 100th birthday. An anniversary edition of his account of the papacy and church reform was published in 1965. Südwestfunk dedicated a special broadcast to him on this occasion. This was also the highlight of Haller's reception. In the period that followed, it was considered scientifically outdated and politically burdened.

Since the 1980s, medieval studies have come to numerous new insights into high medieval kingship. Medieval research recognized that the contrast between monarchical central authority on the one hand and princes on the other is not relevant to understanding the pre-modern exercise of power. Rather, research emphasizes the interaction between king and prince (“consensual rule”) as an essential feature of medieval rule.

Haller is not known in modern history either because of his particularly innovative research approaches or as a classic. In recent decades it has only been discussed in connection with the rise of National Socialism. Since the 1990s, historical scholarship began to focus more on the involvement of its representatives in the “Third Reich”. Johannes Haller was not the focus of the discussion, but his journalistic support for Hitler in the summer of 1932 was noted. This solidified the view of Haller as a national conservative historian who was one of the intellectual pioneers of National Socialism. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the German Historical Institute in Paris, a colloquium examined its origins using a personal history approach. The focus was on the biographies of the institute's founders and their relationship to National Socialism. Johannes Haller was elevated to the circle of “founding fathers” of the German Historical Institute. His image of France and French history was analyzed.

A biography has long been considered a gap in research.[216] In 2014, Benjamin Hasselhorn published a selection edition with a total of 386 letters or Haller's letter passages from around 2,500 surviving letters from over 70 years were presented and a biographical study about Haller was published a year later.[217] Attached to the presentation is an edition of the entire last and fourth part of the memoirs “In the Stream of Time”. The part left out by Haller's student Wittram deals with the causes and consequences of the First World War and also contains a few statements about National Socialism.

Fonts (selection)

A list of publications appeared in Benjamin Hasselhorn: Johannes Haller. A political scholar's biography. With an edition of the unpublished part of Johannes Haller's memoirs (= series of publications by the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Volume 93). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-525-36084-2, pp. 443–447.

Monographs

Papacy and church reform. Four chapters on the history of the late Middle Ages. Part 1. Weidmann, Berlin 1903.

The Bülow era. A historical-political study. Cotta, Stuttgart 1922.

The eras of German history. Cotta, Stuttgart and others 1923. (numerous other editions)

The Old German Empire. Union German Publishing Company, Stuttgart 1926.

The beginnings of the University of Tübingen 1477–1537. To celebrate the 450th anniversary of the university. 2 volumes. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1927–1929.

The Papacy. Idea and reality. 4 volumes. Cotta, Stuttgart 1934–1945.

Editorialships

Concilium Basiliense. Studies and sources on the history of the Council of Basel 4 volumes. Basel 1896–1903.

Volume 1: Studies and documents on the history of the years 1431–1437. Reich, Basel 1896.

Volume 2: Minutes of the Council 1431–1433. From the manual of the notary Bruneti and a Roman manuscript. Reich, Basel 1897.

Volume 3: Minutes of the Council 1434 and 1435. From the manual of the notary Bruneti and a Roman manuscript. Reich, Basel 1900.

Volume 4: Minutes of the Council of 1436. From the manual of the notary Bruneti and a second Paris manuscript. Helbing & Lichtenhahn, Basel 1903.

Source editions

Benjamin Hasselhorn, Christian Kleinert (eds.): Johannes Haller (1865–1947). Letters from a historian (= German historical sources from the 19th century) and 20. century. Volume 71). Oldenbourg, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-11-036968-7.

Herbert Zielinski (ed.): Johannes Haller and Karl Straube. A friendship reflected in the letters. Edition and commentary. (= Studia Giessensia, new episode volume 5), Georg Olms, Hildesheim 2018, ISBN 978-3-487-15707-8.