Emil Lederer: “… Wiedererweckung der Geschichte aus dem Erleben der Gegenwart heraus” (1931)

Emil Lederer’s newspaper contribution to a university debate locates the crisis of the German university in a rupture of historical consciousness. Neither contemporary “materialism,” overcrowding, nor the supposed moral or intellectual failings of students and teachers explains the problem. The World War and its aftermath have broken the continuity through which earlier generations understood their present. Drawing on discussions with his students, Lederer describes a consciousness flattened onto contemporary concerns: the past lacks an experiential foundation and, when it attracts attention, often becomes an object of romantic projection.

Unzählige Diskussionen mit meinen Studenten haben mich darüber belehrt, daß ihr Bewußtsein „flächenhaft“ ist, an der Gegenwart und deren Problemen orientiert oder — wo nach rückwärts gewendet — romantisch.

English translation: Countless discussions with my students have taught me that their consciousness is “two-dimensional,” oriented toward the present and its problems or—where directed backward—romantic.

This diagnosis connects apparently different tendencies: practical study, attention to concrete matters, and deliberately narrow, “objective” scholarly questions. Even enthusiasm for sociology largely concerns the critical examination and relativization of one’s own position and those of others, rather than historical sociology. Lederer does not simply condemn these interests; he asks what they reveal about the loss of a living relation to history.

The article then reinterprets the nineteenth-century humanistic university. Its formative power came not from antiquity considered in isolation, but from antiquity’s place within the university’s own world, a relationship inherited and sustained across generations. With the collapse of the prewar world, that humanism survives principally among those who experienced it and could preserve it. Consequently, restoring an inherited curriculum or exhorting students to adopt a humanistic disposition cannot by itself renew the university. The break of 1914 must be bridged, even though it cannot be closed.

Das ist aber nur für wenige in der Erweckung einer humanistischen Gesinnung zu erwarten, hingegen für mehr Menschen, als man denkt, von der Wiedererweckung der Geschichte aus dem Erleben der Gegenwart heraus — was bis in die antike Geschichte zurückführen mag.

English translation: This, however, can be expected for only a few through the awakening of a humanistic disposition, but for more people than one might think through the reawakening of history out of the experience of the present—which may lead back as far as ancient history.

The conceptual reversal is central: historical continuity must be reconstructed from present experience, rather than imposed through the authority of the past. Antiquity remains a possible destination, but no longer supplies an unquestioned starting point. Sociology could play a major role in this university renaissance, provided freedom to form convictions and the possibility of discussion remain intact. Lederer’s warning that dictatorship leads into darkness makes intellectual freedom a condition of renewal, not a supplementary institutional ideal.

The final movement translates this argument into teaching arrangements. Lederer agrees with Tillich that the university’s internal transformation has overtaken the older mode of study and requires greater specialization. He nevertheless proposes a different solution: sufficient instructional assistants, following the example of English universities. Their provision of subject-specific instruction would preserve the distinctive function of university teachers who cultivate their disciplines within broader contexts.

Seine Bedeutung für den Studierenden besteht ja gerade darin, daß er in seinen Vorlesungen und Seminarien in die noch offenen, ihm selbst noch ungelösten Probleme berichtend, deutend und — zweifelnd einführt.

English translation: His significance for the student consists precisely in introducing, through his lectures and seminars, the still-open problems that remain unresolved even for himself, by reporting, interpreting, and—doubting.

Teaching therefore means more than transmitting an objectively available stock of knowledge: it admits students into unfinished inquiry. Lederer’s practical conclusion combines preservation of the older university wherever possible with more substantial vocational or disciplinary instruction and examinations that genuinely select students early in their studies. His closing questions qualify the reach of these reforms: the university is a social phenomenon whose character and function are partly determined by society. The article’s relevance lies in this conjunction of historical rupture, intellectual freedom, and differentiated teaching. Institutional renewal cannot be separated from the social conditions that make a shared historical consciousness possible.