ABSTRACT
Critical geography in the German-language countries – Germany, divided into East and West Germany until 1990, Austria and parts of Switzerland – is smaller and less significant than its Anglo-American counterpart. The general weakness of critical positions within academic geography in the German-language countries has historical roots. In the chapter, we sketch four phases since World War II: The period until the late 1960s, overdetermined by the cold war; the central German-language geography of 1969, when critical theory was briefly put on the agenda in an intervention of students and young faculty; the 1970s, 80s and 90s that saw the rise of a neo-positivist, applied human geography that built on the less radical elements of that intervention in the one hand and the rise of feminist geography on the other hand; and the last two decades, when internationalization lead to an acceptance of critical geographies.
