Historical study of the most recent past is an ambivalent undertaking. For one, contemporary history succeeds in understanding present-day constellations and discourses from a historical perspective and in this way to generate valuable knowledge. For another, it enters into a varied situation of competition that is not found, for instance, in research on Antiquity or the Middle Ages: Political actors, particularly actors in education policy, may not always be happy about historical explanations, because they bring to light contextual framework conditions or previous failures of similar reforms and can thus severely interfere with the actors «future» rhetoric. Contemporary witnesses feel misunderstood by historical research and insist that things were «completely different» than as described by the ivory tower researchers: The reaction of many persons from the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) to present-day scientific research on the GDR demonstrates this problem impressively, as does the reaction in Switzerland of the generation that saw active service to the research on Switzerland in the Second World War.

Several contributions in this issue of the Zeitschrift für pädagogische Historiographie look at contemporary history. In the «Topic» section, Anne Rohstock discusses university reform in Germany in the last 50 years, pointing out mainly that Humboldt plays an ambivalent role in the reform discussion, seen for one as the benchmark of an ideal university but for another interpreted so variously that Humboldt ironically becomes a sign of the reform resistance. In the «Research» section, Sabine Moller analyzes a difficult methodological problem in contemporary history – namely, that of contemporary witnesses and in particular family memory, or the knowledge that is handed down within the family. Taking National Socialism as an example, Moller shows how the grandchild generation glosses over the information told by grandparents and in this way causes problems for contemporary history and especially also for history instruction in the schools. This issue's «Discussion» section also belongs under the label – but with certain exceptions – of «contemporary history». It examines the extent to which we can learn from history without coloring it too much by contemporary interests. The starting point here is Hans-Ulrich Wehler's book of essays, Aus der Geschichte lernen, published in 1988. It is discussed here by twenty colleagues in honor of Gerhard Kluchert on the occasion of his 60th birthday.

Two contributions in this issue do not deal with contemporary history. In a paper titled «Das Warenhaus als Erzieher», Thomas Lenz looks at relevant – mostly anti-modernist – discussion contributions around 1900 that praised Socrates, Kant, Fichte, or Rembrandt «as educators» and that, among other things, were a reaction to a specific, modernization-friendly «educational reality»: to department stores, which were definitely emblematic of modernity and in which people could experience the future. For that very reason, the department stores evoked morally-charged, antisemitic, and misogynist stereotypes that were a perfect fit with the cultural pessimism dominant at the time.

Heinrich R. Schmidt's contribution in the «Document» section belongs to the time of Kant and Fichte and turns to a large history of education research project on the comprehensive School Inquiry of 1799 in Switzerland. Through the School Inquiry, the minister of education of the new Helvetic Republic (1798–1803) wanted to obtain a picture of the schooling situation in Switzerland, on which basis school reform was to be conducted. In contrast to schooling surveys conducted earlier, this «Stapfer-Enquête» of 1799 was not addressed to the supervisory authorities of the schools, mostly priests, but instead to the teachers themselves. Today still preserved are 2,500 answers to the 1799 questionnaire containing 60 questions, and it yields immensely precise insights into the situation of Swiss basic primary and secondary schools around 1800. Over the coming six years, this data will be compiled and made available to researchers; in the context of the project, eight to 10 dissertations will examine a number of research questions. The research project was launched in the summer of 2009 with the generous support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.