@article{Fulbrook2004,
  author    = {Fulbrook, Mary},
  title     = {Approaches to German Contemporary History since 1945. Politics and Paradigms},
  journal   = {Zeithistorische Forschungen - Studies in Contemporary History},
  volume    = {1},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {ZZF - Centre for Contemporary History: Zeithistorische Forschungen},
  address   = {Potsdam},
  doi       = {10.14765/zzf.dok-2096},
  pages     = {31 -- 50},
  year      = {2004},
  abstract  = {`Contemporary history' is inherently relevant to, indeed an integral part of, political and social processes in the present. Yet, despite a high level of politicisation of historical debates, the issue of `objectivity' or `value neutrality' cannot be addressed solely in terms of the views of the individual historian, or the wider functions fulfilled by a particular historical interpretation. Attention needs to be shifted to the conceptualisation and `emplotment' of a historical narrative within a given theoretical paradigm. Professional history entails not (merely) the imposition of creative stories, as post-modernists would have it, nor (only) the digging up of ever more `facts' about the past, as on the empiricist view. Rather, it is a puzzle-solving discipline requiring appropriate conceptual tools for the investigation of specific, theoretically constructed, questions. This article reviews recent developments in German contemporary history in the light of this framework.},
  language  = {en}
}