The struggle over history in the Third Reich. The fate of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica

The article is devoted to the Monumenta Germaniae Historica (MGH) which is one of the oldest academic or­ganizations in Germany. It was founded in 1819 for the search and study of German medieval historical documents. The MGH was reformed many times in its history, but it keeps group leadership and internal autonomy. It was seri­ously changed after Nazi came to power in 1933. The statute was strongly changed, the organization got a new name and the President of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica got the right to be a single leader. The MGH became a new imperial institute with new functions, which made it the subject for the struggle between different power centers in the Nazi state. Hitler, Rosenberg and Himmler personally interfered in the questions of the new President's appoint­ment, and Frank who was the «leader» of historical science in Germany played the leading role in this struggle. As a result the appointment of the MGH President was connected with the struggle of different groups of the Nazi state and party. Nevertheless, many historians of the MGH had internal freedom and made independent research. More­over, the decrease of research's fundung helped them to save the traditions of objective science and independent studies which allowed the Monumenta Germaniae Historica to keep its high authority and special internal atmos­phere. The Nazi power gradually left its politics of the "unification" of historical science and stopped direct interven­tions to internal life of academic organizations in 1937. The new attitude of the power to the MGH led to the changes of leadership when the medieval historians E.E. Shtangels and later T. Mayer got the post of the President of the or­ganization.