The article discusses the German political scientist H. Munkler’s concept of philosophy of history that is actively debated in the military and political discourse in the Federal Republic of Germany and assumes that the Western European and American societies are post-heroic structures that, unlike the heroic societies, are seen as progressive ones. It also focuses on what role this concept plays in the current discussion on political and ideological education in the Bundeswehr. It reveals how this concept was originally applied in the Anglo-Saxon tradition of the philosophy of war. This concept seems to be heuristically attractive for the European societies, but it is far from being flawless if applied to the study of a specific historical materia