In his congratulatory message to Hans Rothfels on the occasion of Rothfels' seventieth birthday, Theodor Schieder pinpointed him, the student of Friedrich Meinecke's and Hermann Oncken's, as belonging to the “Enkelgeneration” of German historians. As the founding fathers, so to speak, of German history he identified Ranke, Sybel, and Treitschke. The problem of change and continuity, especially in Rothfels' case, must be projected backward into the academic past as much as it must be tested forward on his own life and work.

Of course it was Ranke above all others who served as a model for the mainline German historians of our century, whether they were “sons” or “grandsons.” His often quoted and often misunderstood maxim that the historian was to relate “wie es eigentlichgewesen” did indeed mean that he aspired toward objectivity, thus to “extinguish,” as he put it, the self. But far from giving himself to the illusion that he could ever reach this aim, he was keenly aware of the fact that “the subjective element” introduced itself “as a matter of course.” No illusion and no boast led him to state his maxim, but rather a sense of self-restraint. History, as he observed and conceived it, was not ultimately the construct of men, and the historian accordingly was relegated to bear witness to a world that ultimately was unfathomable and full of mystery. Ranke's conviction that it was the “wings of God,” not man, that ultimately hovered over the affairs of this world was echoed also by the generations of his disciples. Meinecke saw in history a “divine service in the broadest sense,” just as Rothfels paid tribute to the “anonymous forces” that transcended the causal chain of events.