ABSTRACT
By the events of the year 1945, the Germans again came into possession of their own history. The Hitler regime deprived the Germans of the right freely to interpret their great and rich past. The freedom to take hold of the meaningful substance of German history through critical understanding and evaluation exists again, and it is the task of a new generation to make the best use of this opportunity. Few speak directly of Nazi Germany, and few of the Weimar Republic either. The central position of Germany, however, was utilized almost exclusively to justify power politics. In Germany under William II, the doctrine of the difference between individual and general, historical and absolute values, found its leading philosophical advocate in Heinrich Rickert. One of the preconditions for the formulation of a new German concept of history and new forms of social and political organization is the recognition of the unity of life.
