Germany, 1914-1933

Politics, Society and Culture

Matthew Stibbe

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317866534
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Deutsche Geschichte

Germany, 1914-1933: Politics, Society and Culture takes a fresh and critical look at a crucial period in German history. Rather than starting with the traditional date of 1918, the book begins with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, and argues that this was a pivotal turning point in shaping the future successes and failures of the Weimar Republic.

Combining traditional political narrative with new insights provided by social and cultural history, the book reconsiders such key questions as:

• How widespread was support for the war in Germany between 1914 and 1918?

• How was the war viewed both 'from above', by leading generals, admirals and statesmen, and 'from below', by ordinary soldiers and civilians?

• What were the chief political, social, economic and cultural consequences of the war? In particular, did it result in a brutalisation of German society after 1918?

• How modern were German attitudes towards work, family, sex and leisure during the 1920s? What accounts for the extraordinary richness and experimentalism of this period?

The book also provides a thorough and comprehensive discussion of the difficulties faced by the Weimar Republic in capturing the hearts and minds of the German people in the 1920s, and of the causes of its final demise in the early 1930s.

CHAPTER 1

The War From Above

The assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Serbian nationalists during his visit to Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 set in train a series of events which led, within five to six weeks, to the outbreak of the First World War. Imperial Germany’s own responsibility for this calamity is still the subject of intense historical controversy, and it is not the intention to retrace this debate in any great detail here.¹ Suffice it to say that in offering Austria-Hungary a blank cheque to deal with Serbia as it saw fit, Germany’s leaders at the very least took a conscious risk that the two Central Powers might become embroiled in a war with Russia, Serbia’s main protector in Europe. On top of this, German military strategy – based on the Schlieffen Plan of 1905 – meant that a war with Russia would very likely have to begin with a knockout blow against France, Russia’s ally, in order to overcome the obvious disadvantages of a prolonged two-front campaign. The violation of Belgian neutrality – another product of the Schlieffen Plan – in turn ensured that Britain would enter the war on the side of Russia and France. After the breakdown of diplomatic negotiations, the final unravelling of this process took place between 30 July (Russian mobilisation in support of Serbia) and 4 August (Britain’s declaration of war on Germany).²

This chapter will examine the ‘war from above’, in other words, the war as seen and experienced by the chief policy makers in Germany between 1914 and 1918. In particular it will explore the views of the generals and admirals who directed military operations, and of the politicians, industrialists, bankers and army officers who helped to determine policy on the home front during the war. It will also look at the bitter domestic controversy over unrestricted submarine warfare between 1915 and 1917, and the growth of opposition to government policy among the moderate parties in the German parliament, the Reichstag. Firstly, though, it will be necessary to consider the issue of political and economic mobilisation for war on a broader level.

The Burgfrieden

On 4 August 1914 the Reichstag or German parliament met to debate the outbreak of hostilities and the granting of war credits to the government, without which the latter would be unable to finance its military campaigns. Of the six major political parties (from right to left, Conservatives, Free Conservatives, National Liberals, Catholic Centre Party, Progressives and the Social Democrats or SPD) a question mark hung only over the response of the left-wing Social Democrats. Would they remain true to the principles of the Socialist International, and vote against war, or would they embrace the concept of a defensive war, thus proving their loyalty to the nation in its hour of need? In the event, the SPD parliamentary caucus, meeting earlier that day, voted 78 to 14 in favour of approving war credits, with the minority agreeing to abide by the decision of the majority in line with the requirements of party discipline. In one single afternoon, the party leadership had therefore abandoned the anti-war movement, which on 28 July had brought 100,000 protesters onto the streets of Berlin. It had also abandoned all opposition to the manner of prosecuting the war on the home front, including the granting of sweeping new powers to the military under the state of siege, such as the right to curb labour protest, ban strikes and intern political suspects.³

The SPD’s decision to support the government in turn gave rise to the Burgfrieden, a civil truce between all political parties which was intended to last for the duration of the war. Trade unions and employers’ organisations also agreed to suspend their disagreements until victory had been achieved, and in the meantime to cooperate towards the maximum mobilisation of economic resources. Similar trends were evident throughout Europe in 1914–15, when social democratic parties in all the belligerent nations, with the exception of Russia, Serbia and later Italy, agreed to support the call to arms.⁴ On the other side of the political spectrum, conservative and extreme right-wing parties called a temporary halt to their anti-socialist (and anti-Semitic) propaganda; social democrats and Jews, they now apparently agreed to recognise, could be good patriots and loyal citizens. Of course, this arrangement did not last for very long, and was dead and buried by 1915 at the latest.⁵ Yet given the degree of political, confessional and industrial conflict in Germany before 1914, and the long-standing alienation of the SPD from the imperial state, the surprising thing is that the Burgfrieden was established for any length of time at all. How can this be explained?

One argument suggests that the SPD and trade union leaders were simply following the mood and desires of their rank and file members, who had already been exposed to much nationalist propaganda in the years before the war, and were now caught up in an unstoppable wave of patriotism which swept over Germany.⁶ Hundreds of thousands of young workers volunteered to join the army in the first weeks of August and thus seemed to share in the dream of achieving a glorious victory on the battlefield. Trains taking them to the front were adorned with slogans such as ‘To Paris’ and ‘To St Petersburg’, while patriotic songs and poems published in popular newspapers welcomed the war as a test of manhood and courage. Yet it is by no means certain that the rank and file of the German labour movement wanted war in 1914.⁷ Not only were there mass demonstrations against Austria’s ultimatum to Serbia at the end of July, but also a broader feeling of indifference and fatalism, rather than enthusiasm for the coming conflagration.⁸ The crowds who thronged the streets of Berlin, Munich and other major cities, apparently to welcome the announcement of mobilisation for war, were, it is now known, made up largely of middle-class students and civil servants rather than members of the organised working class. The latter tended to stay away and were also under-represented among recruits.⁹ In rural areas, too, peasants and farm labourers palpably did not greet the call to arms with joyous celebrations, although admittedly here the SPD’s political influence was much less extensive, and concerns about labour shortages at harvest time were more paramount.¹⁰

A second theory focuses on longer-term developments within German Social Democracy, in particular the ideological split which took place at around the turn of the century between ‘revolutionaries’ who remained loyal to orthodox Marxism and the cause of proletarian revolution, and ‘revisionists’ who developed an alternative strategy based on the belief that modern capitalism would gradually evolve into socialism via parliamentary methods and participation in existing legislative processes. The move away from core Marxist beliefs, in this view, necessarily weakened the SPD’s firm commitment to collective struggles for international peace and led it to pursue new strategies which linked social and political rights to the question of citizenship and positive integration into the existing nation-state.¹¹ Yet in fact, Eduard Bernstein, the key proponent of revisionism, and his leading critic, the ‘centrist’ Marxist Karl Kautsky, joined forces in March 1915 to oppose the war in an important pamphlet entitled Das Gebot der Stunde (The Demand of the Hour), co-written with former party chairman Hugo Haase. Later all three men broke with the majority SPD (MSPD) to vote against an extension of war credits in March 1916, leading to their expulsion from the parliamentary party. Whether a Social Democrat belonged to the revisionist or revolutionary wing of the party before 1914, in other words, did not necessarily dictate the position they would take in the event of war.¹²

A third explanation focuses on the activities of a small group of influential right-wing Social Democrats and labour officials who met with senior government representatives in the last days before war and who are said to have had a decisive influence on negotiations inside the party. Foremost among them were the Reichstag deputies Eduard David, Albert Südekum and Max Cohen-Reuß, and the national trade union leaders Carl Legien and Gustav Bauer, all of whom believed that tactical SPD support for the war would bring the party and the labour movement great benefits in the guise of domestic political reform, including trade union recognition and equal votes for all in Prussia, the largest of the German states.¹³ This was David’s intention in particular, as his diary entries for 1914 and beyond clearly show.¹⁴ Yet he was not the only senior figure in the SPD who adopted a pro-war stance. In fact, the two leading members of the party executive who re...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of plates
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• Publisher's acknowledgements
• Chronology
• Map of Weimar Germany
• Introduction
• 1 The war from above
• 2 The war from below
• 3 Political and psychological consequences of the war
• 4 Economy and Society in the 1920s
• 5 Weimar Culture
• 6 The final years of the Republic
• Conclusion
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index