Christmas dinner with Frans Willem Lantink

The perception of German history as a whole continues to be disproportionately dominated by the Third Reich. Identifying positive historical continuities often remains taboo, for fear that doing so might be interpreted as relativising the National Socialist past. National symbols—such as the flag—which in other countries generally function as politically neutral expressions of collective identity, remain permanently charged in Germany due to their association with Nazism. While this sensitivity was understandable in the immediate post-war period, it becomes increasingly problematic as historical distance grows. Even the exceptional rupture of 1945 cannot be understood in isolation from underlying structural continuities. Although the Federal Republic was established under American supervision, it was sustained by German citizens, civil servants and institutions, and it built upon existing administrative and societal traditions. Administrative practices, social structures and cultural patterns did not abruptly disappear with the rise and fall of the Third Reich.

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Earlier historical ruptures—such as the Thirty Years’ War, the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, the revolution of 1848 and the Treaty of Versailles—also caused profound disruptions. Yet in each case, fundamental characteristics of German society, including regional autonomy, institutional continuity and federal organisation, proved resilient. This constellation is easily overlooked when historiographical focus rests too narrowly on Prussia and Berlin. As early as the Hanseatic period, German cities functioned economically and politically as largely autonomous entities within a loose confederal structure. The Holy Roman Empire itself was not a centralised state, but a pluralistic ensemble of largely autonomous polities. Moreover, the Peace of Westphalia (1648) institutionalised religious tolerance—an early manifestation of a liberal principle. In the nineteenth century, the establishment of the Zollverein further promoted economic integration and liberalisation.

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It is, of course, undeniable that centralising ideas gained influence during the late nineteenth century, visible for example in the Methodenstreit between the German and Austrian schools of economics. Nevertheless, decentralisation is historically older and more fundamental. Even after German unification in 1871, federalism remained a core feature of the German state. Subsequent forms of statehood, including the Weimar Republic and the Federal Republic, displayed clear continuities in terms of federal organisation, parliamentary democracy and economic governance. From this perspective, the so-called Sonderweg thesis loses much of its persuasiveness. This approach, particularly influential in Anglophone historiography, maintains that since the nineteenth century Germany followed a unique and aberrant path—characterised by militarism, centralism and authoritarianism—almost inevitably culminating in National Socialism.

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It is also important to note that liberalism in Germany was not understood solely as an economic doctrine, but also as a principle of state organisation. Alongside classical economic liberalism, a political variant emerged that combined Locke’s notion of the ‘night-watchman state’ with Hegel’s view that individual freedom is made possible precisely through a strong, law-based state order. This synthesis gave rise to durable institutions, including the liberal constitutional state, property rights, the separation of church and state, and the development of social provision. In Prussia, the state acted as a catalyst for modernisation, for instance through investments in infrastructure, banking, and education. This ordoliberal tradition—later systematically elaborated by the Freiburg School—formed the intellectual foundation of the Soziale Marktwirtschaft and the Rhineland model of the Federal Republic. Central to this tradition is the conviction that the state must play a strong ordering role by establishing clear rules and safeguarding fair competition, without directly intervening in the market process. The aim is a free market that functions in a socially just and institutionally stable manner.