Germany: Peculiarities, Unification, and Continuities in History

1. HI136 The History of GermanyLecture 19 Germany and Europe: The Debate on German Peculiarities

2. German Unification, 1862-1870 • After 1815 Germany made up of 39 independent states. • Growing demands for unification. • 1848: failure of liberal ‘bourgeois’ revolution. • Economic & industrial development helped unification, eg. the Zollverein customs union. • 1864-71: Wars of Unification, expelled Austria & united Germany under Prussian leadership.

3. Imperial Germany, 1871-1918 • Authoritarian government, but some degree of democracy & rule of law. • Forces of reaction balanced by forces of change. • Saw rapid industrialisation which brought both increased prosperity & social dislocation. • Emergence of aggressive nationalism & fears of social unrest may have led to decision to go to war in 1914. • War led to economic hardship & military dictatorship. Defeat discredited the regime & led to collapse of the monarchy.

4. The Weimar Republic, 1918-33 • Faced significant problems of legitimacy from the beginning: defeat, revolution, Versailles treaty, economic problems etc. • Characterised by economic upheaval & political extremism. • Attempts to balance German political traditions with West European democratic traditions. • But democracy endured for 15 years. • Achievements: • Guarantee of civil rights. • More equal society. • Cultural flowering. • World economic crisis initiated final crisis.

5. The Third Reich, 1933-45 • Debate over continuities with what went before: • Nationalism, militarism, racism etc. present in Germany before 1933 • But the Nazis took them to extremes. • Economic revival in 1930s. • Attempts to reshape German society & bring it into line with Nazi ideology. • Police state not governed by the rule of law. • Germans also victims of Nazism. • War & genocide ultimately led to disaster for Germany.

6. West Germany, 1949-90 • Rooted in Western democratic, free market traditions. • Rapid economic recovery in the 1950s helped produce a prosperous & stable society. • But reaction against this in the 1960s and 70s. • Nevertheless, the system itself not challenged. • By the 1980s West Germany was a stable democracy, firmly entrenched in Western Europe.

7. East Germany, 1949-90 • Roots in the Soviet occupation led to problems of legitimacy. • A single party state ruled by the SED. • Party rule bolstered by the secret police (Stasi) & a paternalistic welfare state. • Planned economy had some successes (rapid industrialisation in the 1950s), but by the 1980s had become stagnant & riddled with corruption. • Despite problems much support from citizens until the late 1980s. • Changing international situation & reform in the Soviet Bloc paved the way for collapse in 1989.

10. Germany’s Special Path (Sonderweg) • Term originated in the 19th century – Germany’s political, economic & military success were down to unique values & institutions. Germany was pursuing a ‘middle way’ between Tsarist Autocracy & western democracy. • After 1945 the notion took on a more negative slant – Germany had taken a ‘wrong turning’ on the path to modernity which led to National Socialism. • 1960s: Wehler – failed bourgeois revolution led to Germany developing a modern economy governed by pre-modern elites (monarchy, army, aristocracy). • 1980s: Blackbourn & Eley – German middle class disempowered in political life but dominated culture & society. Sonderweg a flawed tool for looking at German history.

11. Continuity in German History • Related to the debate over Sonderweg is the issue of continuities in modern German history. • 1940s & 50s: West European & American historians saw the Third Reich as the result of flaws in the German character; while West German historians saw it as an aberration & the consequence of wider European trends. • 1960s: Fischer controversy & new debate on Sonderweg led to ‘structuralist’ historians identifying & highlighting continuities between Imperial & Nazi Germany. • Undoubtedly there are similarities – no period of history is divorced from what precedes it – but this approach can be misleading. • Hindsight shouldn’t mislead us into assuming that the course of history was fixed.

12. Geographical Argument • Assertion that Germany’s historical development has been shaped by its geography. • Germany’s position at the centre of Europe made it a meeting place for different cultures and ideas, • But it also made it vulnerable to attack. • This led to development of Prussian military monarchy & the adoption of an aggressive foreign policy on the grounds that attack was the best form of defence. • After both World Wars Germany was at the mercy of its enemies, and its position at the heart of Europe made it the focus of Cold War rivalries and tensions. • Martin Kitchen: geography had a psychological effect on the Germans – nationalism the result of a jealous hatred of the west & an arrogant disdain for the east.

13. Historical Argument • Germany’s fractured & fragmented history is the key to understanding its development in the 20th century. • Germany became a nation-state comparatively late, which led to the development of an unstable national consciousness & national inferiority complex. • History of particularism made it difficult to integrate different groups into German society after 1871, leading to the growth of an assertive nationalism (Wehler – ‘negative integration’). • Debates between champions of federalism & centralisation continued in the 20th century – the Nazis tried to eliminate federal tradition & bring all of Germany under central control. • Revival of federalism after World War II seen as an important feature in ensuring stability & preventing a resurgence of nationalism.