Reappraising the Past

Elisabeth Schmitz had resumed her correspondence with Friedrich Meinecke in October of 1944. In March of 1946, she wrote her aged doctoral adviser a long letter after having read an advance publication of excerpts of his influential book “Die Deutsche Katastrophe” (The German Catastrophe).

In it, she wrote that reappraising the prehistory and history of Nazi rule was a mission, even though she was still uncertain about the how and the when. She herself would have liked to have collected material on and researched this. Ultimately, her path led her back to the school however and not because she lacked alternatives: Sometimes I think that the school is perhaps most important after all.

She had to fight before the court for recognition by the civil service for her lost years of work from 1939 to 1946.