German Past Revealed

To chart an entire nation’s history was a daunting task for Steven Ozment, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History. But Ozment is a “can-do” historian, and in his newest book, A Mighty Fortress, he endeavored to do just that.

In A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People, Ozment harnesses over 2000 years of German history in less than 350 pages. Friendly, thorough and wholly comprehensive, the book is an enlightening way to learn about the fascinating and controversial Germans.

“It’s time we know the difference between the Germans and the Nazis,” Ozment says.

As the name suggests, A Mighty Fortress does not ignore Germany’s turbulent and war-stricken past. Rather, the book presents a more substantial perspective. Unifying Germany’s history before 1930 with that after 1945, Ozment does not neglect the white elephant in between.

For Ozment, that dual history is a part of his own story. Like 58 million other Americans, Ozment can claim a German-American heritage. After his mother’s family immigrated to the United States, they dropped the end of their last name, disconnecting themselves with their German history.

Growing up in Arkansas, surrounded by a segregated deep South, Ozment says he learned at an early age how to cope with a divided history. Optimistically, he says that confronting the past is the best way of looking forward.

“Every generation needs to be able to look back at their history and find things that give them esteem and pride to go forward,” Ozment says.

For Germany, the past is certainly something to be reckoned with. But, according to Ozment, many historians have been going about it in the wrong way.

Rather than reading the history of Germany from the 1930s and 1940s back, Ozment says that history must be read forward to be true to the story. Germany’s path has led it to a seat in the heart of the European Union and possession a new democracy.

Beginning with the story of barbarian tribes along the Rhine in the first century B.C., Ozment’s book identifies a resilience and pride that is deeply rooted in the Germans’ past. Surviving endless Roman attacks in the early years, it is remarkable that the Germans came to control the entire empire 500 years later.

“If I could to re-title the book, I would call it The Can-Do Germans,” Ozment says. “I really want the book to show what an open, curious, successful people Germans are.”

Despite the book’s subtitle, though, Ozment insists that A Mighty Fortress is not a book about the masses or a people’s history. Rather he hopes that the book will recover the mainstream German history that has been lost in a post-war world.

Regardless of names and labels, Ozment’s book expresses the often overlooked sentiment that the Germans are a composite people with a complex past.