Why Has Analytic Philosophy Almost Completely Failed to Exert any Influence on German Historical Writing and Reflections on Methodology?

The paper is a response to the question why analytic philosophy, which dominated philosophical Faculties in the English-speaking world, exerted virtually no influence on historical thought and writing in Germany. It examines major historiographical trends in Germany from the beginnings of history as an academic discipline in the nineteenth century to the present: the anti-democratic, nationalist tradition with its focus on politics and diplomacy associated with Historismus, which dominated German historical writing until after World War II, the democratically and socially oriented "historical social science" (Historische Sozialwissennschaft) of the 1960s and 1970s, committed to the analysis of social structures and historical processes, and the "history of everyday life" (Alltagsgeschichte) which aimed at a "history from below". Yet what made analytic philosophy unacceptable to all these trends was that it proceeded in an abstract logical manner which neglected the concrete context in which historical explanation takes place.