Download - German Historical Institute London

Book Reviews
disputes occurring within it, Müller refers to Pierre Bourdieu’s field
theory, in particular, to his thoughts on the field of cultural production.
However, Müller does not get involved in a diversified and differentiated
theoretical discussion. Rather, he is interested in interpreting
the rich material that he presents in support of his theoretical
premisses. Müller’s achievement here is considerable. His book gives
an thrilling insight into recent German history, and also provides
informative illustrative material on how, within a specific field, opinions
in general are produced. In his introductory explanations of the
logic of the intellectual field, Müller points out that it is a special
German feature, not found within the Anglo-American space, that
intellectuals have such a high public profile, achieved in particular by
publishing in major newspapers. Yet to conclude that in Germany,
intellectuals are the ‘influential opinion makers’ would be rash. German
intellectuals undoubtedly have an exposed position in the process
of constructing national identity. However, the role of ‘seismograph’
corresponds more accurately to the self-image of intellectuals
than to reality. German intellectuals are inclined to intervene, somewhat
belatedly, on issues that have already been settled. Concerning
the reaction of the intellectuals to German unification, this diagnosis
applies to a certain extent. In fact, one often had the impression that
German intellectuals would have hesitated to settle the issues.
Whether this behaviour can be generalized into a national feature is
another question. Historical events such as German unification are
always the hour of activists. Intellectuals feature as quiet initiators
and as subsequent interpreters in such processes. That they seem to
fade out a little during the events themselves is neither a specifically
German feature, nor a reproach to intellectuals in general.
What characterizes the German intellectual landscape, according
to Müller, is a fatal inclination towards ‘camp thinking’, that is, a tendency
to collapse into a self-referential and perhaps also complacent
discourse which ultimately focuses less on the actual subject of the
debate than on forming distinct intellectual camps. The inclination of
German intellectuals, whether on the Right or the Left, to intervene
after the event, often with pedagogical intent, and their ‘excessive
attention to positionality’, as Müller puts it, both point to a feature of
the German nationality debate that he does not address directly, but
that can be read between the lines. I refer here to the tension between
the intellectuals and the people, or the Volk and the masses. Concern-
110