Vol 29 (2009)
Articles (Peer Reviewed)

Contemporary Witnesses and the Historical Profession: Remembrance, Communicative Transmission, and Collective Memory in Qualitative History

Alexander von Plato
Fernuniversitaet Hagen

Abstract

This article provides an introduction to the theoretical, methodological, and practical approaches to oral history in Germany. It explores the influence of German history and historiography on the development of oral history in Germany as well as questions of individual and collective memory. It describes in detail a three-phase interview technique that is widely used in German interview practice and that von Plato expanded to include a fourth phase. The article focuses on the importance of subjectivity and the significance of experience in oral history. It argues that the analysis and interpretation of subjectivity is central to the practice of oral history and to the writing of the “history of experience.”