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Wilhelmine Germany: Historical Interpretations*

T.S.Tsonchev

The Montreal Review, January, 2010

Historians often think of Wilhelmine Germany through the lens of the great wars of the twentieth century, and the question they argue about is whether the prewar German political, social, and economic system was responsible for both the outbreak of World War I and the rise of the Nazis.

 

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The policy of the Second Reich (Imperial Germany from 1871 to 1918) can be summarized in two main aspects: demagogy at home and threatening attitude abroad. German nationalism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries found expression in boastful state propaganda, protectionist agricultural and industrial policies, and the creation of a large navy. None of these measures improved German national security.

Protectionist policies are a form of economic warfare. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, protectionism was one of the main causes of economic disaster in Europe. While the German agrarian policy protected some segments of the German economy and certain producers, it had a generally bad effect on consumers and on sectors of the economy that were not the concern of the state. The creation of a large German navy was good for big business and heavy industry, but in a world where international trade is restricted, the existence of such a navy had no other reason than military.

Yet, as A. J. P. Taylor argues 1, German policy in the Bülow-Tirpitz era between 1898 and 1905 still contributed to the overall security of the world. The Reich was preoccupied with plans for naval greatness incomparable to the old German ambitions for continental expansion in the East, Russia had problems at home and in the Far East, and in Germany there were mixed feelings of sympathy for the Tsarist regime; Britain was trying to please the Germans instead of intimidating them.

After Germany's diplomatic defeat in the First Moroccan Crisis of 1906, its "world policy" brought the European powers of France, Great Britain, and Russia even closer together. By 1907, Germany was surrounded by an alliance bloc of hostile powers. The character of the alliance system in the early twentieth century was very specific - its primary purpose was militaristic, and it obliged the allied countries to support each other in the event of foreign aggression. The alliances were defensive measures; they had a negative character. In addition, secret diplomacy played an important role in foreign policy at that time, and the European countries were torn by mutual suspicion and fear. No country was completely sure of the intentions of its enemies or its allies. The psychological environment of fear and suspicion naturally led to the conflict of 1914.

The character of world politics in the early twentieth century, in which each great power bears some responsibility for the existence of international tensions, led to a certain consensus among historians writing immediately after World War I that Germany was not the primary culprit for the war. Most postwar historians, including Gerhard Ritter, Hans Rothfels, and Hans Herzfeld, were convinced that Germany had no particular "war guilt" and that it had been treated harshly by the victors at Versailles. They saw no credible connection between the character of German society and the policies of Imperial Germany and the escalation of the war in 1914 that could lead to the conclusion that the Germans were responsible for the conflict. There were some lone voices calling for a more social approach to prewar German history, such as Thorstein Veblen, but they received less attention.

After World War II, historians continued to support the same narrative. According to the popular understanding of the 1940s and 1950s, Germany was driven to revenge by the injustices of the Versailles Treaty, the fear and imperial greed of France and Britain. The study of the society and politics of Wilhelmine Germany did not lead to the conclusion that imperial Germany actually bore a great responsibility for both - the First World War and the Nazi regime. Historians did not see the conservative structures of the Second Reich in the fabric of the Weimar Republic. The imperial education system, big business, the judicial system, nationalist propaganda, army officers - all these were still alive in the 1920s.

In 1961, the historian Franz Fisher broke with the traditional interpretation that had rehabilitated German political responsibility for so many years. In "Germany's Objectives in the First World War," he argued that Germany was not an innocent victim of circumstances. His main arguments were: Germans wanted war and seized the opportunity in 1914; the expansionist ambitions of Kaiser's Reich were very similar to Hitler's imperial plans; the sources of Germany's desire for expansion were not rooted in the peculiarities of its international position, but in its domestic social, political, and economic environment. Fisher saw a clear continuity between the policies of the Kaiserreich and Hitler's Germany.

Fisher's work created an entirely new school in German historiography. It insisted that the seeds of German aggression in 1914 could be traced back to the 1860s and 1870s. Modern Germany was created and managed "from above"; it was an authoritarian state that industrialized and modernized under the supervision of the imperial elite. Its authoritarian XIX century explains its totalitarian XX century.

In the 1970s, another German historian, Hans Ulrih-Wehler, synthesized Fisher's ideas and added to the criticism of the Kaiserreich the role of national propaganda coming from the milieu of industrialists, clerics, and generals. Their propaganda, according to Wehler, was successful because of the political immaturity of the German people. Political immaturity was a natural consequence of Bismarck's anti-democratic policies.

Now the Fisher-Wehler interpretation is the "neo-orthodoxy" in German historiography.

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1 Taylor, A. J. P., Course of German History, The: A Survey of the Development of German History Since 1815 (Taylor & Francis, 2001)

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Related articles:

The Origins of the Second World War

First World War and Versailles - The Lessons

The Peace that led to War

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* This article doesn't pretend for historical accuracy. It is based on dilettante notes on German history readings.

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