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Since the beginning of the fourth century, the church of the Roman Empire was confronted with Christian emperors. By this, Christian actors faced a strong challenge, while late antiquity saw dramatically changed structures for ecclesiastic actions. Suddenly, a certain factor had appeared, which was external to ecclesiastic developments so far, but nevertheless had to be integrated into the structure of the church. As it should prove to be impossible to find a commonly accepted place for the emperor inside these structures, the emergence of a „Reichskirche“ prevented the church of late antiquity to develop its aspired unity. Though the emperors enabled single ecclesiastic actors in case of conflict to enforce their positions against other actors, a general ecclesiastical segmentarity was never to be overcome entirely: Imperial commitments regarding matters of church intensified the significance of ecclesiastical conflicts in dogma and hierarchy. At the same time, these imperial commitments themselves became the casus belli for further controversies among ecclesiastical actors. Indeed, by means of covering minor differences by the practical ways of establishing ecclesiastical order, orders could emerge and appear to be stable; but in fact, such orders were permanently threatened by their susceptibility for conflicts – and thus could fail at any time. The „Reichskirche“ was characterized not by the a much wished-for unity but by different disfuncionalities. Nevertheless, the factual existence of this „Reichskirche“ should not at all be denied by its lacking historical realization: It already existed in the mere convergence of church and empire.

In this article, the research proceedings of the Acta Pacis Westphalicae (APW) will be described and analyzed. The edition documents the negotiations surrounding the Peace of Westphalia between the years 1644 and 1649 and thus a significant event in European history. The editorial project was funded up to the year 2011 by the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities and has now come to an end. The first part of the article sketches the origins and aims of the project. It began in the Federal Republic of Germany during the early years of non-university research institutions, but only contingently and not tactically defined, as is common today. Then follows an account of what has been published and what has been omitted, and to what extent the aims have been achieved. The next section addresses the conversion of the existing print edition into a digital online publication, in order to compare the two formats, but also to evaluate the challenges and opportunities of digital editions. Concluding thoughts pertain to the contributions of the APW and comparable editions to historical research. The criticisms of such major projects are also considered, it is argued, however, that editorial projects fulfill essential functions within the historical discipline: They lead to the development of new, unique methods which are now necessary in the course of digital editions. By opening up these complex bodies of text for research for the first time, new knowledge is gained and the scope of questions is broadened while the questions themselves become more innovative. Finally, these projects ensure a high degree of checking the results, which is necessary in all sciences. Schlagwörter: Westfälischer Frieden, Acta Pacis Westphalicae, (Print-)Editionen, digitale Editionen, historische Grundlagenforschung

The sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912, claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people. In the United States, Great Britain and Germany, the vast majority of commentators were convinced that this catastrophe, in one form or another, was going to benefit society. Some believed that when destroying this ship, God had punished the hubris of modern man, others thought that the victims of the Titanic had been sacrificed for the security and humanity of future deep-sea navigation. What is more, first-cabin men seemed to have been given the chance to heroically die for women and children and thus to attest to the morality and piety of mankind, the superiority of the „Anglo-Saxon race“, and the uselessness of women’s suffrage. This heroic narrative, which was questioned by very few, can even be found in the eyewitness accounts. These stories are characterised by an aestheticisation of the catastrophe that is mystically connoted. Many of those who saw the Titanic sink considered this accident to be announcing a crisis of Western civilisation and its moral foundations. At the same time, however, they experienced a peculiar kind of holism: the renewed trust in God’s providence, a providence that – especially in spiritistic convictions – incorporated early twentieth-century scientific and technological progress. Thus, central dimensions of pre-World War One controversies about the self-preservation of modernity become manifest in survivors’ stories of the sinking of the Titanic.

The Correspondence of Friedrich Meinecke. New Editions of Letters