Page iii
The Divided Nation
A History of Germany 19181990
Mary Fulbrook
Page 17
Two
The Weimar Republic:
Origins and Orientations
The Weimar Republic was Germany's first attempt at parliamentary
democracy. Born in 1918 of military defeat and domestic revolution, it
was riddled with compromises and burdened with difficulties. After
turbulent beginnings, from 1924 to 1928 there was a period of at least
apparent stabilization; yet between 1929 and 1933, concerted attacks
on democracy in the context of mounting economic difficulties
culminated in the collapse of the regime and the appointment of Adolf
Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party
(NSDAP or Nazi Party), as Germany's Chancellor.
The ultimate demise of the Weimar Republic has inevitably
overshadowed interpretations of its course. Some commentators have
drawn such a stark and gloomy picture of its early difficulties that the
Republic seems foredoomed to failure from the outset; other scholars
have placed greater weight on problems arising from the Depression
after 1929; and some historians have emphasized the importance of
particular decisions and actions made by key political figures in the
closing months of the Republic's existence, in 19323. It is important to
bear in mind, when exploring the complex paths of Weimar history,
the constant interplay of structure and action, context and personality;
it is important also to bear in mind that under certain circumstances,
the scope for human intervention in the course of events may be more
limited or constrained than at other times. The conditions in which
Weimar democracy was born were certainly not such as to help it
flourish; and as it unfolded, it was clearly saddled with a burden of
problems, in a
Page 18
range of areas, that would render Weimar democracy peculiarly
susceptible to anti-democratic forces in the end.
Germany in the Early Twentieth Century
What was Germany like in the decades prior to 1918? Germany had
only been unified as a result of Prussian chancellor Bismarck's
policies of 'blood and iron' in 1871. Although processes of
industrialization had started earlier in the nineteenth century, the pace
of change was dramatically quickened by unification. In the period
from 1871 to the outbreak of war in 1914, Germany's output of
manufactured goods quintupled, while her population grew from 41
million to 67.7 million. Rapid changes in economy and society were
associated with a host of strains in the autocratic political system that
was Bismarck's legacy for Imperial Germany.
Some areas were experiencing rapid modernization, with expansion in
urban areas, such as the great metropolitan capital, Berlin, and in the
heavy industry and coal-mining centre of the Ruhr. Workers migrating
from the countryside to the towns were lucky if they were housed in
the housing estates of paternalistic employers such as Siemens; many
more found themselves living in cramped, dark tenement buildings
with poor sanitation and limited backyards which were the only areas
where their children could play. Meanwhile, the urban upper middle
classes led their rather stuffy lives in the somewhat pompous
buildings that were characteristic of Imperial Germany. The 'middle
classes' were a far from homogenous entity. At the upper levels were
the officials, professionals and state servants (the Beamten, in
Germany a less narrow category than the British 'civil servant'). Then,
at a more modest social level, there were the increasing numbers of
white-collar employees (Angestellten), as well as the older groups of
the self-employed, traders and shop-keepers, and small artisans. These
latter groups were increasingly challenged by the rise of 'modern',
large-scale mechanized industry, run by major entrepreneurs, and by
the growth of big
Page 19
department stores as outlets for mass-produced wares. Urban life was
clearly changing and expanding at a quickening rate.
Peasants in far-flung rural areas, such as southern Bavaria, might still
appear to be living as they had done for centuries, although the notion
of a static, unchanging 'traditional' rural society is something of a
myth. While the urban bourgeoisie might be enjoying the fruits of
modern technology such as electricity these peasants would be living
in the old, wooden farmhouses, with their religious wall-paintings and
flower-bedecked balconies, where they still relied on candlelight,
water from the well, and very rudimentary sanitary facilities. Small
peasant economies in the south and west had been interpenetrated by
artisanal activities for centuries, and had also begun to cater to the
newer pursuits of tourism. In the north-east and, particularly, eastern
areas of Germany, rural life was characterized by a rather different
social pattern: estates owned by the aristocratic land-owning class, the
Junkers, were worked by landless agricultural labourers (often Polish),
and were increasingly under strain in the competitive atmosphere of a
rapidly industrializing nation. While retaining a socially and
politically dominant position, the militaristic land-owning caste was
suffering a period of economic difficulty, necessitating a series of
compromises with, particularly, increasingly important industrial
interests.
There were many regional variations: the German Empire had by no
means homogenized the differences between its constituent states, and
in many ways regional loyalties overrode any 'national' identification.
There were traditional antagonisms between, for example, Bavaria
and Prussia, based on centuries of political, cultural and social
differences. Religious differences, too, were of crucial importance:
post-Reformation Germany was divided between Catholicism and a
variety of forms of Protestantism (both Lutheran and Reformed).
While some states notably Prussia were of a mixed religious
complexion, divisions between Catholic and Protestant communities
in many areas were highly salient. These divisions went right through
the community: it was quite possible to live one's life entirely within
the framework, for example, of the Catholic church and
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its political, economic and social institutions: the Catholic Centre
party in politics, the Catholic trade unions at the workplace, the
reading, cycling, and singing clubs when at leisure. Similarly,
Protestants and others had their own penumbra of institutions.
Political persuasion might be as important as religious confession: the
Social Democrats, for example, had a comparable range of
organizations and leisure activities, encompassing many aspects of life
and helping to define a particular social and cultural milieu. It is
difficult to evaluate the implications of these socio-cultural
environments; some have seen them as giving members of those
subordinate groups which the architect of Imperial Germany,
Bismarck, dubbed 'Enemies of the Empire' (Reichsfeinde) an accepted
place in society, while others have seen more subversive aspects to
their varied activities. Then, too, there were those members of society
who constituted different 'underworlds': those who resisted all
attempts at organization of whatever kind. 1
Politically, the old Prussian aristocracy retained pre-eminence
nationally, through its domination of the largest constituent state of the
federal Empire Prussia. The inegalitarian three-class voting system
obtaining in Prussia entailed the division of the population of each
electoral district into three classes according to the payment of wealth
taxes. The minority who were the richest then obtained one-third of
the votes; the moderately wealthy the next one-third, and the large
majority who fell into the poorest category were also allotted only
one-third of the votes. The double effect of this system not only
greatly disadvantaged the propertyless masses, but also promoted the
political position of the landowning Junker class (who were relatively
the wealthiest within the sparsely populated rural constituencies) in
comparison with the very much wealthier urban bourgeoisie.
Dominating Prussian politics, the Junkers were then able to play a
major role in the Prussian-dominated Reich. It was a role they were to
exercise in the context of the autocratic political structure of the
German Empire: real power lay, not so much with the parliament or
Reichstag, as with the Emperor, his close circle of advisers, his
Chancellor, and leaders of the army and the civil service. Influence
was exerted on these groups and individuals by the increasingly
important pressure groups many stridently
Page 21
nationalist which circumvented parliamentary politics in pursuit of
their aims. As the German sociologist Max Weber put it, no person
with any aspirations to real power would seriously consider becoming
a member of parliament in Imperial Germany.
Yet at the same time, Junker domination was not unchallenged. For
one thing, with Germany's extraordinarily rapid industrialization, the
propertied bourgeoisie (Besitzbürgertum) was becoming increasingly
important, and compromises had repeatedly to be hammered out
between policies reflecting bourgeois economic interests and the often
conflicting interests of the land-owning classes. At the same time, the
masses were emerging on to the political scene, particularly through
the ever-growing Social Democratic Party (SPD). This latter, while
professing a certain revolutionary rhetoric deriving from its Marxist
heritage, was in practice rather moderate, with a marked focus on
parliamentary representation and activity (partly as an ironic result of
Bismarck's anti-socialist laws which effectively restricted Social
Democratic activity to this sphere). Nevertheless, the growth of an
explicitly radical party representing the expanding working classes
struck fear in the hearts of the elites, who on some accounts resolved
certain differences among themselves in order to present a more
united front against a perceived threat from below. Whatever the
wider merits of this interpretation, certainly one manifestation was the
fostering of German nationalism, in the hope that loyalty to the
German 'fatherland' would transcend bitter divisions between the
classes. Fear of potential civil war at home contributed to willingness
to engage in war abroad.
In the event, the First World War did little to resolve the domestic
strains of Imperial Germany. Despite a brief moment of apparent and
much celebrated (if not exaggerated) national unity in August 1914,
social tensions were exacerbated rather than eased by the experience
of total war. Industry became more concentrated, with cartels fixing
prices and production quantities; but organized labour also became
more powerful, since the government and employers had to find ways
of avoiding strikes and maximising production in a war economy, and
therefore had to treat with the recognized representatives of labour.
With the
Page 22
continued expansion of industrial capitalism, the 'old' middle
classes the small producers, shopkeepers and traders found their
already declining position ever more threatened. New sections of the
population were increasingly politicized: with many men away at the
front, and with the large numbers of war casualties, women and young
people were drawn into sectors of the economy in which they had not
previously worked, and gained first-hand experience of union
organization, confrontation with employers, and notions of 'class war'.
Even those women who were not part of the paid labour market may
have become somewhat politicized through the sheer struggle for
survival, and the realization that the government rather than the
individual might be held responsible for the difficulties they found in
feeding their families. This awareness of the responsibilities of the
state continued after the war, heightened by more widespread
dependence on state benefits and pensions.
During this protracted war in which progress was measured from the
trenches in terms of yards rather than miles circumstances on the
home front soon deteriorated. Food supplies became a problem as
early as 1915. In April 1917 the first major strikes occurred, a
consequence of the cutting of bread rations. Civilian government
broke down with the resignation of the moderate Chancellor
Bethmann-Hollweg in July 1917, and the country was under the
effective military rule of Chief-of-Staff Hindenburg and General
Ludendorff (in conjunction with two short-lived and ineffective
civilian Chancellors, Georg Michaelis until October 1917 and Count
von Hertling until October 1918). In 1917, there were two successful
revolutions in Tsarist Russia a far less economically advanced
autocracy, and one which, according to a Marxist analysis, should not
have been the first to experience communist revolution. Following the
Bolsheviks' seizure of power in the autumn, Russia concluded an
armistice with Germany and entered into negotiations for peace. After
abortive discussions, Germany renewed hostilities in February 1918,
and, from a position of strength, was able to impose the annexationist
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on Russia in March 1918. This harsh
Page 23
treaty was greeted with a mixed reception at home, and hardened the
attitudes of the western powers against Germany.
Meanwhile, rising domestic unrest in Germany played a role in the
Army leaders' decision, in the winter of 191718, to ignore the chance
of achieving peace with the western powers on relatively moderate
terms, since they had begun to believe that only a spectacular military
victory could now avert the threat of domestic revolution. In January
1918 there were more strikes, and a widespread war-weariness and
desire for peace, even as the Army High Command, supported by the
recently founded right-wing Vaterlandspartei, propagated ever more
extravagant military aims. Yet on the left, the political forces opposing
both the military and the right-wing nationalist parties were
themselves divided. The Social Democratic Party, since its formation
in 1875 out of two pre-existing parties with different traditions, had
long experienced tension between its reformist and revolutionary
wings. Under the strain of responding to the war effort, the SPD
finally split in 1917. The more radical wing formed the so-called
Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), while the majority
remained with the more moderate SPD, sometimes known as the
Majority Social Democratic Party (MSPD). A loose, more radical
grouping further to the left of the Social Democrats was the Spartacus
League, whose leading lights were Rosa Luxemburg and Karl
Liebknecht. It was in this complex domestic configuration that the
new Republic was born.
The 'Last Revolution from Above'
Despite the success of the spring offensive against Russia, by the
summer of 1918 it was clear even to the leaders of the Army that the
war was lost. The Army High Command now felt that it would be
advisable to hand over power to a civilian administration: Army
leaders who were already propagating the myth of a 'stab in the back',
the betrayal of an undefeated Germany by Jews and Bolsheviks at
home, an enemy within preferred that a civilian government should
have to shoulder the opprobrium of accepting national defeat.
Page 24
Accordingly, in October 1918 a new civilian government was formed
under the chancellorship of Prince Max von Baden. Faced with
considerable domestic unrest, this government introduced certain
reforms. The reforms were not simply (as they are often described) a
'last revolution from above', a desperate attempt to salvage some
credibility for the Imperial system; they also resulted from very strong
pressures in parliament, particularly on the part of the moderate Social
Democrats. Most notable among the reforms were the introduction of
ministerial responsibility to parliament, the control of the armed
forces by the civilian government, and the abolition of the iniquitous
Prussian three-class voting system. The removal of this system, along
with the other reforms, constituted a progressive move in the eyes of
democratic forces; but there was one step that Prince Max von
Baden's government failed to take. Despite efforts to persuade
Emperor Wilhelm II to abdicate in favour of one of his sons, the
obdurate Emperor, supported by his sons, refused to assume sole
responsibility for Germany's ills. Had he agreed to leave the political
scene gracefully in October, the monarchy might have been saved.
The Incomplete Revolution of November 1918
However, matters developed otherwise. All the cautious moves for
reform from above were swept away by a revolutionary tide on the
streets which, by early November, it was no longer possible for Max
von Baden's government to control. Uprisings all over Germany were
sparked off by a sailors' mutiny in Wilhelmshaven and Kiel at the end
of October. Ordered out on a last, suicidal mission against the British
fleet, the sailors decided they would rather save their own skins than
attempt to salvage 'German honour'. News of the mutiny led to the
formation, in a large number of places across Germany, of 'sailors',
soldiers' and workers' councils', which wrested control of
administration from local governments. On 8 November, a Republic
was proclaimed in the 'Free State' of Bavaria, under a workers',
soldiers' and peasants' council led by Kurt Eisner. The German war
effort had clearly collapsed, the authority of the regime was rapidly
Page 25
crumbling, the threat of strikes and civil war on the streets loomed
ever larger.
On 9 November Max von Baden made a last-ditch effort to salvage
what he could from the situation. He felt that Friedrich Ebert in his
view the most level headed of the Social Democrats and the one for
whom he had most respect might yet be able to maintain a modicum
of control over the situation and avert the threat of radical social
revolution headed by the far left. Unable to reach the Emperor (who
had fled the unrest of Berlin) by telephone by midday, Max von
Baden, in something of a panic, took it upon himself to pronounce the
abdication of the Emperor and the intended appointment of Ebert as
leader of a new civilian government. The shape of such a government
had by no means been decided when, at around two o'clock, Ebert's
colleague Philipp Scheidemann went to a balcony of the Reichstag to
proclaim a republic, in an attempt to marginalize the almost
simultaneous proclamation of a socialist republic by more radical
socialists in another part of Berlin. It was clear that Ebert and the
moderate Social Democrats would have to move fast to assert control
over a situation of strikes, uprisings, mass demonstrations and the
breakdown of governmental authority across a Germany which was,
formally, still at war.
Rapid negotiations took place between the moderate Social Democrats
and the USPD leaders, and a compromise caretaker government was
agreed. This consisted of a six-member 'Council of People's
Representatives' (Rat der Volksbeauftragten), of whom three Ebert,
Scheidemann and Landsberg were members of the SPD, and
three Haase, Dittmann and Barth were members of the USPD. Even
before this body had been constituted, Ebert had declared his priorities
to the people of Germany. The new government was committed to
organizing elections for a national constituent assembly, which would
be elected by all men and women over twenty years of age. Until this
elected body could take power, the temporary government would
agree an armistice, lead peace negotiations, seek to ensure an adequate
food supply for the people, and oversee an orderly demobilization of
troops and the return of former soldiers to civilian life and work. In
the mean time, law and order were to
Page 26
be upheld, the people were to desist from plunder and violence, and
help to build a better future.
In the context of widespread strikes and demonstrations, the obstacles
to a peaceful transition to a new order were formidable. The USPD
did agree to cooperate with the SPD, despite their rather different
general aims, and the new government which was to last only a few
weeks was duly given popular legitimization, first by a meeting of
council delegates in Berlin in November, and then in December by a
wider body of delegates from workers' and soldiers' councils from all
over Germany. An armistice was achieved on 11 November, although
it was not until the following summer that the terms of the peace
treaty would be revealed.
In the first few days after the proclamation of the Republic, two very
significant agreements were reached, which embodied compromises
which would have a profound effect on the subsequent course of
events. The first was between the new government and the Army; the
second between leaders of industry and the trade unions.
There were fears among members of the Army High Command, not
only of the effects on the troops of the abdication of the Emperor, to
whom they had traditionally owed obedience, but also of the
possibility of a Soviet-style Bolshevik revolution in Germany. On 10
November, General Groener (who had succeeded Ludendorff as
Quarter-Master General) decided that the best approach would be to
enter into a pact with Ebert, whom Groener, like Prince Max,
considered to be the most sensible and moderate of the Social
Democrats. Groener offered Ebert the support of the army in
maintaining law and order and suppressing revolutionary uprisings;
Ebert accepted. In this pact lay the seeds of many future problems. It
illustrated the limited nature of the revolution not only the Army, but
also the other elites of Imperial Germany (including the civil service,
the judiciary, and the economic elites), were to remain untouched and
unscathed by what remained a purely political, rather than a farreaching
social and economic, revolution. Perhaps more importantly,
it also laid the foundations for the repeated repression of radical
Page 27
movements in the following months and years, inaugurating a split
between moderate and radical socialists that was ultimately to
contribute to their failure to unite in defence of Weimar democracy.
The other early compromise was that negotiated by the trade unionist
Carl Legien and the employers' leader Hugo Stinnes. With the
'Stinnes-Legien agreement' of 15 November 1918, the employers
made certain crucial concessions to labour. These included:
recognition of the legitimacy of trade union representation of the
workforce, and agreement no longer to support 'employer-friendly
associations'; the smooth reincorporation, so far as possible, of former
employees returning from war into their old jobs; the establishment of
'Workers' Committees' (or Works Councils) in enterprises with more
than fifty employees, to ensure discussion between employers and
employees over conditions of work; the limitation of the working day
to eight hours; and the institution of a 'Central Committee'
(Zentralausschuss) made up of representatives of the unions and the
employers to regulate not only the more immediate problems of
demobilization and the reconstruction of a war-torn economy, but also
the longer-term issues of wages, working conditions, and other
contentious matters that might arise in labour affairs. This committee
laid the foundations for the Zentral-Arbeits-Gemeinschaft (ZAG),
which was to give Weimar democracy a corporatist element that later
played a role in the economic elites' utter rejection of the 'system' that
allowed workers such a considerable voice. Concessions made by
employers to workers, when the latter were relatively strong and the
former feared a more radical revolution, were to be fundamentally
queried and subject to sustained assault as was the political system
that guaranteed those concessions when the relative circumstances of
the parties had changed.
By December 1918, the USPD had fallen out with Ebert's cautious
course. The radical socialists had wanted to seize the opportunity for a
thorough-going reform of the army, and for the socialization of the
means of production; in short, they wanted to effect a genuine
revolution, not to administer affairs on a temporary basis pending
national elections. The USPD left the
Page 28
government; and at the end of December, the far left formed the
German Communist Party (KPD). In January 1919 the split between
moderate Social Democrats on the one hand, and radical socialists and
communists on the other, became an unbridgeable chasm. A largely
spontaneous uprising in Berlin, occasioned by the dismissal of the
radical Police Chief Eichhorn, belatedly came under the control of the
Spartacist leaders. The SPD overreacted to the demonstrations,
requesting the support of the Army and Free Corps (Freikorps) units
(privately financed paramilitary groups of demobilized soldiers) to
suppress the revolt by force. This they did with a vengeance. In the
process of being arrested and imprisoned, the Spartacist leaders, Karl
Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, were brutally murdered. Radicals
never forgave moderate Social Democrats for their use of force which
was to be repeated all over Germany, many times, in response to
unrest in the following months and years and the bitter resentment
and hostility aroused at this early date helped to sustain the
Communists' later (Moscow-dominated) view of Social Democrats as
'social fascists', a worse enemy even than the Nazis.
Street-fighting, strikes, demonstrations and barricades provided the
backdrop for a national campaign for the elections of 19 January
1919. The SPD, which had been relying on this for a solid majority
confirming its mandate to govern the new Republic, was disappointed.
It gained only thirty-eight per cent of the vote, which under the system
of proportional representation entailed forming a coalition
government in conjunction with the Catholic Centre Party (Zentrum)
and the liberal German Democratic Party (DDP). On 6 February 1919
the National Constituent Assembly convened in the town of Weimar
(hence the name 'Weimar Republic'), and within a week Ebert had
been elected the Republic's first President, while Scheidemann
became head of the coalition cabinet.
The Weimar Constitution and the Treaty of Versailles
During December 1918, a group of experts (including Max Weber),
under the leadership of Hugo Preuss, a left-liberal
Page 29
Professor of Law, had been busy developing a draft constitution for
the Republic. This constitution was then considered by the National
Assembly, and an agreed version took effect on 11 August 1919. It
appeared and indeed was very progressive, but has subsequently
come under much criticism for alleged weaknesses which facilitated
the subsequent collapse of democracy.
The electoral system was to be one of proportional representation of
parties in the national parliament according to the percentage of votes
cast by all men and women over the age of twenty. In the event, the
nature of the party system in the Weimar Republic, and what might be
called the 'political culture' of a number of Weimar parties, rendered
post-election bargaining over possible governmental coalitions much
more difficult than it has proved to be in other democracies where
proportional representation prevails; thus, as we shall see, it was not
so much the rules of the game, as the nature of the parties playing the
game, that rendered proportional representation a serious liability for
Weimar democracy. The constitution also stressed the participatory,
rather than purely representative, aspects of the democratic system.
Referenda could be called with direct popular vote on policy issues of
considerable importance. The President himself was to be elected by
direct popular vote for a seven-year period of office. The elected
President, who as a ceremonial head of state replaced the hereditary
office of Emperor, was in many ways what has been called an ErsatzKaiser
(substitute Emperor). He had tremendous personal powers,
including the right to appoint and dismiss Chancellors, to dissolve the
parliament and call new elections, and, in cases where no
parliamentary majority could be found in support of governmental
policies, to authorize the Chancellor to rule by presidential decree.
The notorious Article 48 of the constitution, which gave the President
such emergency powers, also permitted military intervention in the
affairs of the different local states or Länder if it was deemed that a
state of emergency obtained. Given the considerable personal power
of the President, a lot depended on the particular character who held
the office. Friedrich Ebert made use of presidential powers to
Page 30
The Versailles settlement, 1919
Page 31
stabilize democracy; his successor, the ageing military hero Field
Marshal Hindenburg, turned out to be much less committed to
upholding parliamentary democracy and was to play an important role
in its destruction.
One of the first tasks of the new government was to sign a peace
treaty with the victorious powers. The provisions of the Versailles
Treaty, when they were finally revealed in the early summer of 1919,
proved to be harsh. Scheidemann's cabinet resigned, and a delegation
from a new cabinet under Bauer went to sign the Treaty on 28 June
1999. Germany lost not only her colonies, but also large areas of
German territory in Europe: Alsace-Lorraine was to be returned to
France (which was also to enjoy the fruits of coal production in the
Saar basin); West Prussia, Upper Silesia and Posen (Poznan) * were to
be restored to a newly reconstituted Poland, and Danzig was to
become a free city under the supervision of the newly established
League of Nations. The 'Polish Corridor' thus created separated East
Prussia from the rest of Germany. Border areas of Germany were to
be demilitarized; the left bank of the Rhine was placed under Allied
supervision for a prospective period of fifteen years. There was to be
no union of Germany and Austria. The German army was to be
reduced to 100,00 men, for domestic and border-guard purposes only,
while the German navy was similarly restricted submarines were
forbidden and an air force was not permitted at all. Article 231 stated
that Germany and her allies were responsible for the war and the
damage it had caused. In consideration of this responsibility, Germany
was to pay an unspecified sum in reparation, to be determined later.
When the details of reparations were finally announced at the Paris
conference of January 1921, the high sums involved were to arouse
great indignation, and to have tremendous political and (politically
exacerbated) economic consequences. Altogether, the harsh treatment
of Germany after the First World War was to prove a considerable
burden for Weimar democracy, and a powerful cause of the persistent,
widespread and energetic revisionism on the part of many groups and
individuals in the following years. The legend of the 'stab in the back'
was to gain considerable currency in the summer of 1919, and for
Page 32
many people 'democracy' became synonymous with national
humiliation and, increasingly, economic ruin.
Political Unrest and Economic Chaos
The fledgeling Republic was subjected not only to a hammering from
abroad, but also to onslaughts from a variety of quarters at home. Its
first four years were characterized by a high level of political
violence, with frequent assassinations, coup attempts, strikes and
demonstrations, these last generally being put down with considerable
force. A second attempt at establishing a Bavarian Republic,
following the assassination of Kurt Eisner, was brutally suppressed in
May 1919 by Free Corps units, with perhaps a thousand deaths. An
attempted national right-wing putsch, with a march on Berlin led by
Generallandschaftsdirektor Kapp and Infantry General Freiherr von
Lüttwitz in March 1920, was only brought down by a general strike,
after the army had refused to fire on the putschist troops. Later a
successful coup in Bavaria installed a right-wing regime under Kahr,
turning Bavaria into a haven in which small nationalist (or völkisch)
groups could safely organize and foment unrest against democracy.
The army, despite its unwillingness to act against the Kapp putsch,
was only too happy to fire on the so-called 'Red Army' in the Ruhr,
when there were left-wing uprisings against the Republic in the spring
of 1920. The army and Free Corps were also keen to intervene to
suppress Communist-led uprisings and left-wing regimes in Saxony,
Thuringia, and Hamburg in the autumn of 1923. Faced with repeated
strikes, demonstrations, and political violence, the SPD sadly
misjudged the situation and, instead of responding to the causes of
distress, sought to use force to suppress the symptoms of unrest. 2
Moreover, the judiciary throughout the Weimar Republic displayed
considerable political bias in treating left-wing offenders very harshly,
while meting out lenient sentences to offenders on the right. A deeply
polarized society was hardly coming to terms with the new political
circumstances of the time.
In the elections of June 1920, there was a swing to the parties of the
extreme left and the right, while the more moderate 'Weimar
Page 33
coalition' parties lost ground. The SPD's share of the vote fell from
37.9% to 21.7% while the German Democratic Party's (DDP) vote fell
to 8.2%, less than half its former 18.5% and the Centre dropped
moderately from 19.7% to 13.6%. The USPD share grew from 7.6%
to 17.8% while the KPD (which had not contested the 1919 elections)
won 2% of the vote; on the right, the German People's Party (DVP)
increased its poll from 4.4% to 13.9%, and the German National
People's Party (DNVP) gained 15%, compared to its earlier 10.3%
share of the vote. The SPD-led coalition government was replaced by
a centre-right coalition.
From 1921 to the summer of 1923, governmental policies served to
exacerbate Germany's political and economic difficulties. Wirth's
government of 19212 pursued a so-called 'policy of fulfilment' which,
by attempting to fulfil Germany's reparations obligations, served to
demonstrate that the German economy was in fact too weak to pay
reparations as envisaged. This coincided with the pursuit by the
French of revisionist policies aimed at gaining control of the left bank
of the Rhine and setting up a puppet state. Matters came to a head
under the government of Cuno, from November 1922 to August 1923,
which included the DVP while the SPD remained in opposition. In
January 1923, the French and Belgians sent troops to 'supervise'
production in the Ruhr, using the shortfall in German wood and coal
deliveries to the French as a pretext. This military occupation of the
Ruhr entailed the deployment of 100,000 men equivalent to the total
strength of the German army. The Germans responded with a policy
of 'passive resistance', ceasing economic production and refusing to
cooperate with the occupation. The need to subsidize Germans in the
now unproductive Ruhr was exceedingly detrimental to the German
economy, and coincided with an extraordinary period of catastrophic
inflation.
While the roots of German inflation lay in the earlier financing of war
by bonds and loans rather than taxation increases, its explosive growth
was fuelled by, among other factors, the printing of paper money for
the payment of reparations, and for the financing of heavy social
expenditure (on pensions, for example).
Page 34
This sent the value of money totally out of control. In the course of
the spring and summer of 1923, the German Mark progressively
became worthless. The American dollar was worth 4.2 Marks in July
1914; it had risen to 8.9 Marks in January 1919, 14 Marks by July
1919, and a peak of 64.8 Marks in January 1920. There was then a
brief period of respite, but after January 1921 the snowball started
rolling again. By July 1922, the dollar was worth 493.2 Marks; by
January 1923 the figure was 17,972; and in an inflationary explosion,
the figures rose to 4.62 million Marks by August, 98.86 million Marks
by September, 25,260 million Marks by October, and an almost
unimaginable 4,200,000 million Marks by 15 November 1923 3 Paper
notes were simply stamped with a new increased value; people were
paid their wages by the cartload; prices doubled and trebled several
times a day, making shopping with money almost impossible; and the
savings, hopes, plans, assumptions and aspirations of huge numbers of
people were swept away in a chaotic whirlwind.
Those on fixed incomes, and those dependent on money savings, were
of course hit the hardest. Even when the worst material impact was
over, the psychological shock of the experience was to have longerlasting
effects, confirming a deep-seated dislike of democracy which
was thereafter equated with economic distress and a heightened fear
of the possible consequences of economic instability. A few groups
and individuals were by contrast well-placed to benefit, and even to
make a profit, from the inflation, such as the industrialist Hugo
Stinnes.
In the end, the situation was brought under control by the Stresemann
government of August November 1923. The policy of passive
resistance in the Ruhr was terminated, easing the burden on the
German economy and defusing international tension, while a currency
reform introduced the Rentenmark and laid the foundations both of a
more stable currency and of a reconsideration of the reparations
question in the following year. At the same time, a number of putsch
attempts, including communist-inspired uprisings in Saxony,
Thuringia and Hamburg, were suppressed. One putsch attempt of this
period which
Page 35
was at the time but one among many-has gained particular historical
notoriety. In Bavaria, a number of nationalist groups were laying
complex plans for a right-wing 'march on Berlin', copying the
successful model of Mussolini's Fascist march on Rome of the
previous year. One of the groups associated with these plans was the
small party formed out of the earlier German Workers' Party (DAP)
led by Anton Drexler, and now known as the National Socialist
German Workers' Party (NSDAP, or Nazi) under the leadership of a
certain Adolf Hitler. At the time relatively insignificant, the failed
'Beer Hall Putsch' of 8-9 November 1923-which lost crucial support in
high places at the last moment-in the event gave Hitler and his
associates considerable national publicity in the trial which ensued.
Sentenced to a minimum of five years' detention-of which he served
less than a year, in relatively comfortable circumstances in Landsberg
prison-Hitler took the opportunity to write the political diatribe
entitled Mein Kampf, and to ruminate on the future strategy of his
party. In the mean time, however, from 1924 the Republic appeared to
be recovering from its early turbulence, and entering into a new period
of stabilization, on both the domestic and international fronts.
Apparent Stabilization, 1924-9
In November 1923, Gustav Stresemann became Foreign Minister. A
member of the right-wing liberal DVP, Stresemann only gradually
became committed to the Republic, intellectually rather than
emotionally (as the German phrase Vernunftrepublikaner implied).
Despite the frequent changes of governmental coalition during the
Weimar Republic, Stresemann retained the position of Foreign
Minister until his death in October 1929. During this period he made a
major contribution to the stabilization of the Republic as far as foreign
affairs were concerned-which, as it sadly turned out, was in the end
not quite far enough.
The Versailles Treaty had left a number of outstanding problems. It
was clear after the catastrophes of 1923 that the issue of reparations
would have to be reconsidered. In
Page 36
1924 the Dawes Plan was adopted, which aided both German
economic recovery and American expansionist economic policies.
Essentially postponing a final settlement, this plan allowed Germany a
breathing space before full reparations would be payable, with
payment staggered over four years before reaching a maximum level
in the fifth year. For Germany, it also meant considerable economic
dependence on short-term loans from abroad, particularly from
America. In the early phases only one-fifth would be paid from
Germany's own resources while four-fifths were to come from
international 'start-up' loans. Stresemann was quite clear about the
difficulties this would entail for the weak German economy, but felt
that the potential benefits of normalization of relations with France in
particular outweighed the obvious and serious economic problems
involved.
In July 1925 the Rhineland began to be cleared and French troops
started to leave the Ruhr. After long negotiations, in October 1925, the
Locarno Pact was signed by representatives of Germany, Belgium,
Britain, France, Italy, together with separate agreements between
Germany and Poland, and Germany and Czechoslovakia. Locarno
guaranteed the frontiers between Germany and France, and between
Germany and Belgium, and its parties mutually renounced the use of
force or invasion of each other's territory except in self-defence. Since
the militarily emasculated Germany was in no position to use force,
and since Locarno entailed further recognition of the validity of the
Treaty of Versailles, as well as appearing to favour good relations with
Germany's western neighbours at the expense of relations with Russia,
the agreement provoked highly hostile responses from both left-and
right-wingers at home. On the other hand, Locarno appeared to mark
the beginning of the re-entry of Germany into a community of nations
seeking a framework for peace and security in Europe, and it paved
the way for Germany's entry into the League of Nations in September
1926.
Partly to reassure domestic opinion, and partly to reaffirm Germany's
position vis-à-vis Russia, Stresemann concluded with Russia the
Berlin Treaty of 1926. This confirmed the Rapallo Treaty of 1922,
concluded when Rathenau (who was assassinated after the Treaty was
signed) was Foreign Minister. Rapallo
Page 37
had re-established diplomatic relations between Germany and Russia,
and the two powers had mutually renounced claims to reparations or
compensation. This foreign policy initiative, which aroused
considerable resentment among the western powers (who were
suspicious of a special relationship between Germany and Russia),
had also included a secret military agreement allowing German
remilitarization inside the territory of the USSR. In the Berlin Treaty
of 1926, Russia and Germany reassured each other of their friendly
relations, and committed themselves to remaining neutral in the event
of the other country being at war with a third power or powers. This
meant that if, for example, Poland and Russia were at war, France
would not be able to come to Poland's help via German territory.
Stresemann was anxious to reassure his opponents at home that
Germany was not exclusively western-orientated in her foreign policy,
but rather could act as a peace-keeping bridge in the centre of Europe
between West and East. It was nevertheless clear that Poland's
position was rather weak, and the issue of Germany's eastern frontiers
was left sufficiently open to give hope to revisionists in Germany that
changes might yet be effected on that front.
In January 1927 the allied military commission overseeing the postVersailles
disarmament of Germany was withdrawn. The reparations
question was reopened, as the 'normal' years of full reparations
payments, 19289, drew closer. In August 1929 the Young Plan revised
the reparations schedule yet again, setting a new total figure and a
reduced annual average of reparations payments. This was met with
an intense campaign of domestic opposition in which the Nazis
gained some respectability and free publicity by associating
themselves with conservative nationalists in the DNVP. But the
referendum 'against the enslavement of the German people' failed to
win the required 21 million votes (receiving the acclamation of 'only'
5.83 million). In the event, under the Young Plan, foreign controls
were to be removed and the Rhineland evacuated by the Allied
powers in June 1930, five years earlier than envisaged in the
Versailles Treaty. To moderate observers, it might appear that under
Stresemann's guidance, a considerable amount had been achieved:
reparations had been renegotiated to a more
Page 38
manageable level, Germany's relations with her former enemies and
neighbours had been regularized, the Ruhr and Rhineland had been
evacuated, Germany had been accepted into the League of
Nations and at the same time there still appeared to be the possibility
of reconsidering Germany's eastern frontiers, thus pursuing revisionist
aims in a peaceful manner.
Yet many observers in the Weimar Republic were far from moderate.
Each of the measures negotiated under Stresemann was highly
contentious. Moreover, under the facade of apparent stabilization
there were many cracks, both political and economic. In the period of
renewed crisis after 1929, these cracks were to turn into an
earthquake, bringing the shaky edifice of Weimar democracy tumbling
down in ruins. We shall consider the intrinsic domestic weaknesses of
the Weimar Republic as they affected its eventual collapse in the next
chapter. In the mean time, however, on another front 'Weimar culture'
was beginning to achieve international renown.
The Golden Twenties?
Society and Culture in the Weimar Republic
Many people who know little more about the politics of the Weimar
Republic than that it ended with the rise of Hitler may know a great
deal about 'Weimar culture'. The Weimar years, brief though this
political epoch was, saw an explosion of creativity across a wide
range of scientific and artistic fields. The German traditions of
research in the natural sciences, particularly physics and chemistry,
and expertise in psychology and psychoanalysis, continued to develop
in the 1920s. In the field of social sciences, great contributions were
made by, for example, the 'Frankfurt School' of Critical Theory,
members of which included Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno and
Walter Benjamin. This school of social theory, forced into exile in the
Nazi period, was subsequently rediscovered in the 1960s by younger
American and European social theorists, influenced particularly by the
ageing Marcuse and by a second generation of critical theorists such
as Habermas. In the visual arts, tendencies existing before the First
World War particularly
Page 39
the schools known as 'Die Brücke' (based in Dresden) and 'Der blaue
Reiter' (based in Munich) continued to be creative in the early
Weimar years. Expressionism associated with names such as Ernst
Ludwig Kirchner and Franz Marc exploded, and diversified into an
array of experimental and avant-garde tendencies: cubism, futurism,
Dada, and other styles flourished. In literature, a great range of prose,
poetry, and drama was produced which has proved to be of enduring
merit and lasting reputation. Names such as Heinrich and Thomas
Mann, Hermann Hesse, Rainer Maria Rilke, Bertolt Brecht (and his
musical associate Kurt Weill) have achieved international standing.
Even in architecture, Weimar Germany produced a phenomenon of
enduring interest: the Bauhaus school led by Walter Gropius. In
music, too, there was experimentation in the atonal work of Arnold
Schönberg.
Given such an extraordinary diversity of talent and creative
production, it is difficult to form valid brief generalizations about
Weimar culture, or to suggest a periodisation. It is also clear that not
all of that which has been termed 'Weimar culture' was actually a
direct product of the Weimar period itself: many commentators have
pointed to a cultural epoch stretching from the turn of the century to
about 1930. Many of the schools, tendencies, and individuals
associated with Weimar culture had been creative already in the
decade before the outbreak of the First World War. Some elements
were, however, new, and corresponded curiously to the political
phases of Weimar democracy. Eberhard Kolb has pointed out that the
tendency known as 'new objectivity' (Neue Sachlichkeit), with which
the Bauhaus, for example, was associated, coincided with the period
of relative stabilization from 1924 to 1929. 4 After the nearapocalyptic
exuberance of the early years in both the political and
artistic realms a new emphasis was given to a cool, detached
combination of utilitarian and aesthetic qualities. The final years of
the Weimar Republic witnessed not only a radical political
polarization, but also a heightened politicization and polarization in
art, particularly in such fields as theatre. And the social conditions and
political violence of the closing years of the Republic, with the onset
of the depression, were
Page 40
witnessed to in such realist novels as Alexander Döblin's Berlin
Alexanderplatz.
But there are perhaps more important ways than simple periodisation
in which Weimar culture reflected, refracted, and contributed to the
complexities of Weimar politics. For Weimar culture, far from being a
homogenous entity, was a deeply divided phenomenon: indeed,
perhaps it would be more apposite to speak of Weimar cultures in the
plural. And, most importantly, the one element that united the most
diverse aspects of this culture was the problematic relationship that
proponents of both left-wing and right-wing tendencies had to
'modernity' in general and the Weimar Republic in particular. Use was
made of modern means of communication, modern machinery and
media, to criticize the age of the machine and modern society. On the
left, artists such as Georg Grosz, Otto Dix, Käthe Kollwitz, and
Heinrich Zille criticized the bourgeois society in which the bourgeois,
conservative and nationalist 'pillars of society' (to borrow the title of
one of Grosz's most scathing and biting pictures; see cover) grew fat
at the expense of the masses, who were driven into conditions of
abject poverty. This poverty was captured with humour in Zille's
drawings of the life of the Berlin working classes in the early
twentieth century, and with pathos in Käthe Kollwitz's representations
of misery and suffering. While left-wing political cabaret and theatre
attacked the pomposity and injustice of bourgeois capitalist society,
the right-wing attacked parliamentary democracy, the political form of
the Weimar Republic. The influx of new forms, such as American jazz
music held by right-wingers to be the ultimate in decadence and the
perceived 'laxity in morals', particularly in metropolitan centres such
as 1920s Berlin, were held to be evidence of cultural decay. The
Weimar Republic itself was held responsible for this decadence, and
for the penetration of western forms of shallow, superficial
'civilization' into the purer German 'culture', defiling it in the process.
So while the left attacked capitalism, the right attacked democracy:
neither wing of elite culture with the exception of a few individuals,
most notably (and belatedly) Thomas Mann spoke out to sustain the
Weimar Republic in principle.
Page 41
Nor was culture in the wider sense to sustain the new Republic. The
social institutions which had the most influence on popular attitudes
were still the churches and the schools: and both religious and
educational institutions by and large tended to undermine Weimar
democracy. Both the Catholic and the Protestant churches propagated
essentially conservative, monarchist and anti-democratic sympathies;
they were moreover highly critical of the moral decadence, as they
saw it, of a society in which birth control was for the first time
becoming widespread. The education system was also, in general,
conservative and anti-democratic in outlook. Many schoolteachers
were traditional conservative nationalists. Student fraternities and
university teachers were similarly preponderantly right-wing and antidemocratic
in sympathy: the Left was only to dominate German
student politics for the first time in the West Germany of the late
1960s. However, in the sphere of education, as in virtually every other
aspect of Weimar life, quite different tendencies co-existed. Alongside
the highly conservative educational establishment ran currents of
reform, and progressive schools. After the Second World War, largely
unsuccessful attempts were made to resurrect some of the more
progressive elements in Weimar education.
The Weimar period saw an explosion in new media of
communication. The cinema began to replace the theatre, as
films first silent, then from 1929 with soundtracks became an
increasingly popular form of mass entertainment. Radio ownership
spread rapidly among German households, and contributed to the
formation of a new national public. There have been suggestions that
the commercialization of leisure started to break down the divisions
between class-based subcultures, and perhaps also to erode the hold of
the SPD over the outlook and organizations of large parts of the
working class. 5 Regional isolation was also diminished, in a less than
democratic manner, with increased concentration in the newspaper
industry: press barons such as Hugenberg not only directly owned and
influenced their own newspapers, but also indirectly affected the
contents and political bias of 'independent' local papers through their
press agency services and the provision of news snippets and
Page 42
commentaries. In film, radio and newsprint, as in other areas of
Weimar culture, developments were ambiguous. While certain
renowned films, such as Remarque's 'All Quiet on the Western Front'
(Im Westen nichts Neues), took a firm stand against war, they
remained the exception: there were many more, generally ephemeral
and of low artistic quality, which glorified nationalism, war, and the
fatherland. In the sphere of radio, pro-Republican forces failed to gain
political control or make serious use of a medium which was for most
of the Weimar period intended to be politically neutral. It was only in
1932 that von Papen (then Chancellor) asserted political control of the
radio, leaving a welcome gift for the Nazis to exploit in their
propaganda efforts after January 1933.
If one turns from culture, at both elite and mass levels, to society more
generally in the Weimar period, then a similar range of complexities,
ambiguities and conflicts appear. Women were formally 'emancipated'
in what was essentially a highly progressive welfare state. But this
was an 'emancipation from above': despite the existence of minority
feminist movements, both bourgeois and socialist, the majority of
women continued to have rather traditional conceptions of their role.
Being a wife and mother was held to be the essential fulfilment of
womanhood: paid employment outside the home was preferably to be
undertaken only before marriage, or only if economically absolutely
essential. Weimar 'emancipation' was more theoretical than real: while
women gained the vote (of which they made slowly increasing use),
they remained in predominantly low-paid and low-status occupations.
While women had always formed a considerable proportion of the
agricultural labour force peasant farms, for example, being family
concerns where women brought in the hay, fed the chickens and
milked the cows as a matter of course women in the Weimar Republic
were increasingly employed in white-collar occupations in the new
middle class, a trend evident since the beginning of the century. A
minority of women did achieve a certain status, if not actual power:
the first Parliament of the Weimar Republic, for example, had a
distinguished group of women Members. But by and large, despite the
spread of birth control and the
Page 43
progressive framework of the constitution, attitudes both of and
towards women remained highly traditional. In the depression, with
rising unemployment after 1929, there was criticism of 'double
earners' (Doppeherdiener), as people complained of the unfairness of
some families having two incomes while others had no income at all.
And when women voted they tended to vote disproportionately for
parties which did not hold progressive attitudes on women's questions,
such as the conservative and Christian parties. The two parties with
the most progressive views on women's issues, the SPD and the KPD,
failed to attract a proportional share of the votes of women. 6 Formal
appearances notwithstanding, most women neither were nor seemed
to want to be 'emancipated'. The minority who adopted what they held
to be an emancipated style smoking cigarettes in long holders, cutting
their hair in short fashions, driving cars and indulging in an apparently
glittering night life attracted criticism from many of the more staid
and stolid Hausfrauen of Weimar Germany.
There was nevertheless widespread experimentation in life styles
among some groups, with 'reform' movements in the areas of food and
health, for example. There was an emphasis on nature, with members
of youth movements indulging in long hiking trips through the
German pine forests, swimming in lakes and rivers, camping and
youth hostelling at every opportunity. There had been a tradition of
such youth movements in Imperial Germany, such as the largely
middle-class Wandervogel movement, and the comparable SPD youth
organizations. Their activities continued to flourish in the Weimar
Republic. Perhaps partly in reaction against the constraints and
repressions, the restrictions and gloom of life in large cities, emphasis
was given to escape into the countryside.
Whatever the ambiguities of Weimar society and culture, perhaps the
deepest and most fatal splits were embedded in the Weimar social
compromise, and in the institutional framework of relations between
the classes. It was these which contributed mightily to the breakdown
of the Weimar political system, creating the opportunities which the
Nazis were to seize. We must turn now to the complex and
contentious task of explaining the ultimate collapse of the short-lived
Weimar Republic.