The intensity with which the participants in the public debate insisted on the correctness of their particular interpretation of history was the result of one expedient realization: only those who had the past on their side could claim legitimacy for their present-day political views. And legitimacy was desperately needed after the establishment of a political system without precedent in German history. The pseudo-historical debate surrounding Bismarck was therefore only a pretext for a more fundamental question: the historical legitimacy of the Weimar Republic.
The most basic common assumption of all studies that have emerged from this school in recent years is that each age reconstructs images of the past to suit its present purposes and needs.
Far from being a method pursued only by authoritarian regimes or dictatorships, the deployment of the past to further a more current political agenda is also a phenomenon of pluralistic societies. Whereas in authoritarian societies the state tends to dictate an official reading of the past, pluralistic societies usually witness a competition between various interpretations of history for universal acceptance. Very few movements (regardless of their ideological origin) have ever failed to attempt a justification of their aims through often contested historical traditions. The closer a political movement or social milieu comes to establishing its own view of the past as universal, the closer it gets to the state of cultural hegemony. In other words, power lies with those who have mastered the past.
Myths are popular semiotic narratives, usually based on true historical events or persons, which serve the purpose of fostering the self-awareness and integration of a community. Through mythical narratives political abstractions and complex historical realities can be simplified and — for example in the case of the Bismarck myth — personalized. The creation of hero figures in particular has been a dominant feature of myth-making since ancient times, and it became even more important with the emergence of the modern nation-state and the related quest for suitable historical traditions on which a national community’s identity could be founded. In the 19th century, when nationalism emerged as the secular religion of modernity, the enthusiastic search for mythical hero figures became a universal phenomenon.
Hero worship is the strongest and most reliable means for stabilizing a political and social order. A heroic past, great men, fame… that is the social capital on which the idea of a nation is founded.