Hong, Sang Bin and her twin sister Hong Ja Bin lived in a German-speaking environment for four years; they both are
fluent in German language. After both of them had taken the AP test in European History, they wanted to take on
research projects.
I suggested to Sang Bin to compare German history textbooks from periods when history class had an ideological
agenda - the Nazi period and Communist East Germany. On a trip home I acquired such textbooks in antiquarian
bookstores.
When writing the paper, Sang Bin faced obstacles on several levels. First, when she lived in a German-speaking
environment, she was younger; the level of German she acquired was appropriate to her age and academic level
German proved one difficulty. Second, my instruction on German history in the context of an AP course in European
History covers, for instance, the high and late middle ages in two, perhaps three hours; in German schools,
teachers have an entire year to cover this period. Necessarily, the books she had to examine were much more
detailed than what she had learned in class. Thirdly, one of the books was printed in Gothic font (Fraktur); however, as I
taught her paleography (how to read old handwriting), she quickly figured out how to read Gothic font text.
At first I provided Sang Bin with one Nazi era textbook covering the German High Middle Ages and an East German
textbook covering the Russian Revolution and Weimar Republic. Only toward the end of her research did I obtain
a complete set of East German textbooks, enabling her to compare books covering the same era. This explains
why her paper contains a chapter on the Russian Revoluton and Weimar Republic.
The choice of the High Middle Ages is a good one, as this period historically is rather distant from the political
reality and political ideal of Nazi Germany as well as Communist East Germany. Therefore, ideologically tainted
description of this era is more subtle, less easy to detect, than, for instance, both a Nazi and Communist
account of the Weimar Republic (as both Nazi Germany and Communist East Germany defined themselves as
an antithesis to East Germany).
The task of Sang Bin was to detect omissions, distortions, exaggerations and blatantly false statements, and to
come up with a judgment of her own. In order to avoid influencing her in forming an independent judgment, I had
to refrain from giving her detailed lectures on the topic; so she had to find independent and reliable accounts of
the respective period in German/European history and compare her findings with the content of the books which
provided the basis for her research. The sources she used were printed in English language and therefore, by
nature, more summaric than German language sources would have been.
Sang Bin had one and a half years for her research. In the first year, progress was slow, for a number of
reasons. This was the first research project of that kind she undertook. She had to deal with history way more
detailed than she was accustomed to; in class she learned the basic definition of a feudal society; here
entire books dealt with nothing else and she was to detect nuances. She felt that the sources she had available
to compare only partially covered the content of the Nazi German respectively Communist East German
textbook she examined. And the time she could invest in her research was limited by the many other obligations
she, as a high school student, had.
In the last couple of months, being provided the East German textbook covering the High Middle Ages, Sang Bin
seemed more confident and then wrote down the results of her research.
From the beginning, I told her that I did not expect her to find every distortion, omission, exaggeration or false
statement in the books. Her task was rather to describe how history was used to justify the totalitarian ideology
prevailing at the respective time.
Sang Bin has detected ideological input of the obvious kind as well as of the subtle kind; the East German
textbook covering the Weimar Era dealt exclusively with Russian and German history; other countries seem
not to have existed - an obviously ideologically influenced choice of subjects. However, the name of Stalin,
in a book covering this period of history, is mentioned only three times - subtle.
In the Nazi textbook on the High Middle Ages Sang Bin detected an attempt to redefine the Romanesque
architectural style as being German in nature.
In her paper, Sang Bin follows the organization of the textbooks she examined. In her conclusion she
discusses the purpose history class served in Nazi Germany and in the GDR, and the extent to which both
Nazi Germany and the GDR used history to serve their purpose. Sang Bin's paper is a solid analysis,
supported by numerous quotes in translation, and by appendices such as translates tables of content
and a glossary, which make the books better accessible to non-readers of German language.
Among the papers students have written in Research Seminar History at KMLA, Sang Bin's paper
stands out because (1) she made thorough use of her knowledge of German language, way beyond the
AP 5 level, (2) because of the time and effort she invested and (3) because her study is based on
primary sources.
December 20th 2005
Alexander Ganse
