Misplaced Pages

Veit Valentin

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
German historian (1885–1947)
Veit Valentin
Born20 March 1885
Frankfurt, Germany
Died12 January 1947
Washington D.C. United States

Veit Valentin (25 March 1885, Frankfurt – 12 January 1947, Washington D.C.) was a German historian who was Professor of History at the University of Freiburg.

In comments that caused a storm of controversy in Germany, Valentin attacked Ernst Graf zu Reventlow's Deutschlands Auswärtige Politik in 1916: "It is a classic example of historiographical demagogy and we have no choice but to warn the public against the book and its author". During the First World War, Gustav Stresemann tried to have Valentin sent to court for alleged treasonable utterances.

Valentin was appointed by the German Foreign Office to write a history of German foreign policy, permitting him access to their papers. This was published in 1921 as Deutschlands Aussenpolitik, 1890-1918. In assessing responsibility for causing the World War during the July Crisis, Valentin ranked Russia as the country most to blame, followed by Austria-Hungary, with France, England and Germany joint third. Valentin wrote: "None of the Powers was wholly innocent, none alone guilty. The world spirit was ready for the world war".

In a conversation with Paul Nikolaus Cossmann, the editor of the Süddeutsche Monatshefte, Valentin accused Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz of doctoring statistics related to Germany's performance in the U-boat campaign. Cossmann launched a legal action against Valentin and he resigned his professorship, thus ending his academic career in Germany.

Notes

  1. Paul Honigsheim, 'Veit Valentin (1885-1947): Der Weg eines deutschen Historikers zum Pazifismus', Die Friedens-Warte Vol. 47, No. 4/5 (1947), pp. 274
  2. ^ G. P. Gooch, 'Recent Revelations on European Diplomacy', Journal of the British Institute of International Affairs Vol. 2, No. 1 (Jan., 1923), p. 5.
  3. Hans W. Gatzke, 'The Stresemann Papers', The Journal of Modern History Vol. 26, No. 1 (Mar., 1954), p. 55, n. 29.
  4. ^ Frederick A. Hale, 'Fritz Fischer and the Historiography of World War One', The History Teacher, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Feb., 1976), p. 262.

Further reading

  • H. Bauer, 'Veit Valentin, 1885-1947', in S. W. Halperin (ed.), Some 20th-Century Historians (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1961), pp. 103–141.
Categories: