Weimar and Nazi Germany

Continuities and Discontinuities

Panikos Panayi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317881506
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

Weimar and Nazi Germany presents the history of the country in these periods in a unique way. Examining the continuities and discontinuities between the Third Reich and the Weimar Republic, it also contextualises these two regimes within modern German and European history. After a broad introduction to 1919-1945, four general surveys examine the economy, society, internal politics and foreign policy. A third section treats specific key themes including women and the family, big business, race, the SPD, the extreme Right and Anglo-German relations. This innovative text assembles major scholars of Germany. It will prove vital reading for all those interested in twentieth century history.

PART ONE

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Introduction

CHAPTER ONE

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Continuities and discontinuities in German history, 1919–1945

PANIKOS PANAYI

Introduction

An examination of Germany between 1919 and 1945 clearly reveals both continuities and discontinuities. On the one hand we can see the Weimar Republic and the Nazi dictatorship as firmly rooted in the evolution of the German nation state which came into existence in 1871. The years between 1919 and 1945 brought to the surface latent characteristics of the Kaiserreich. At the same time one could make comparisons with the other dictatorships that existed in inter-war Europe, including Stalinism and Italian Fascism. Weimar specifically may be said to have similarities with contemporary European liberal democracies of the years 1919–45. Finally, developments in Germany after the Second World War indicate that Nazism had such a profound impact upon the country that it could never fully escape from its Nazi past.

An alternative view would stress the uniqueness of Nazism. While it may have roots in German and European history, it has various characteristics which make it stand out from any other state. This line of argument would not only see the Nazi dictatorship as detached from other modern European regimes, but would also clearly delineate the Nazi years from the Weimar Republic.¹ The uniqueness of Nazism according to this line of argument would lie in a number of central aspects of the regime. These would include the ideology, which has both backward- and forward-looking elements. The centrality of race in Nazi Germany, both ideologically and in terms of practical implementation, would also appear to make it unique.² A third element which would appear to distinguish Nazism from other modern European regimes would consist of the level of control, intolerance, and, during the Second World War, brutality. After 1939 the Nazi regime entered a period in which killing became its central function. While such an assertion may apply to all states that become involved in war, the treatment of the Jewish and Slavic populations of eastern Europe, which involved an organized bureaucratic system of mass murder, would certainly appear to make Nazism unique.

In reality, both of the above points of view have validity. No period of history, even one as apparently unique as Nazism, can be regarded as rootless. Clearly, it did bring to the surface many latent developments characteristic of German evolution before 1918. Racism and anti-Semitism had played a central role in German history from the creation of the first modern state in 1871. On the other hand, the practical implementation of racism appears to make Nazism unique. Similar statements can be made about any number of Nazi policies. But other characteristics of the years 1933–45 place them firmly in the context of German history. A good example would be economic development. If anything, the Weimar period, with the economic disasters which characterize it, would represent the unique period in modern German history. The economic success of peacetime Nazism links it closely with the Kaiserreich and the Federal Republic.

There are several possible ways of examining the continuities and discontinuities in German history, with particular reference to the years 1919– 45. Apart from contextualizing this period within German history before 1919 and after 1945, we can also draw comparisons with other regimes that existed simultaneously within Europe, particularly Stalinism and Italian Fascism. In addition, an examination of contemporary European liberal democracies reveals that similarities existed with such systems of government. The discussion will revolve around the four divisions of the present book, namely economics, society, politics and foreign policy. It will also examine specific issues within these areas, as well as some of the core questions which would point to the uniqueness of Nazism, including those of race and intolerance.

The historical background

The central political development in nineteenth-century central Europe was the foundation of the first German nation state in 1871. Unlike Britain and France, which had existed as monarchies since the medieval period and which evolved, by a process sparked off by revolution, into liberal nation states, no unitary German state, with executive control over all German areas of Europe, had ever existed. In this sense Germany represents the norm, becoming, as it did, a nation state during the nineteenth century, when nationalism in Europe began to emerge as the dominant political ideology.³ Hand in hand with the political transformation that took place in Germany during the nineteenth century went economic, social and intellectual revolutions, which acted as the roots for the German states that would emerge after the First World War.

Underlying all the other changes in nineteenth-century Germany was the process of industrialization, which, by 1914, had made the country the dominant economy on the continent. While Britain may have industrialized first, Germany made up for lost time. During the period 1882–96 annual industrial growth rates averaged 4.5 per cent per annum, remaining at 3.1 per cent from 1896 to 1913. By the outbreak of the First World War Germany produced more iron ore and coal than Britain. The industries that would play a dominant role in the economic history of Germany during the twentieth century had come into existence, especially in the areas of engineering, electrical engineering and chemicals. In the last of these Germany reigned supreme in terms of the quantity and quality of its products, based on the strength of chemistry as an academic subject in German universities.⁴

The spread of industrialization inevitably meant a transformation of German society. German demography underwent dramatic changes characteristic of an industrializing state. In the first place, largely as a result of declining death rates, the population increased from its pre-industrial base of 23,520,000 in 1816 to 37,956,000 in 1865 and 67,883,000 in 1915.⁵ In addition, population was highly mobile. This meant emigration to America, internal movement to German industrial areas, and a general internal east-west movement under the Kaiserreich. By the beginning of the twentieth century, as economic growth outstripped the increase in domestic labour supplies, emigration to the USA ceased, while the Kaiserreich began a process which all of its German successors would copy: importing foreign labour.⁶ As a result of industrialization, employment structure clearly changed so that the overwhelming majority of Germans moved from working in rural to urban occupations. Thus a town such as Dortmund saw an increase in its population from 57,752 in 1875 to 214,226 in 1910, or a growth of 271 per cent. The overall proportion of Germans living in settlements of less than 2,000 decreased from almost two-thirds in 1871 to two-fifths by 1910.⁷ Such changes meant an increase in the size of the working classes and the various shades of the German Mittelstand (middle class) at the expense of the peasantry. By 1907 over half of German employees belonged to the working classes, meaning an increase from 12.4 million workers in 1882 to 19.6 by 1907.⁸ The middle-class occupations of businessmen, professionals and bureaucrats also saw significant expansion in the same period.⁹ By the outbreak of the First World War, German society had the characteristics that would survive into the Weimar and Nazi periods and that would play a role in the rise of Hitler.¹⁰ This meant that while the urban working classes may have represented the largest social group, the relatively large size of the bourgeoisie and the peasantry, as well as the continued survival of a Prussian aristocracy, determined the political development of Germany both before and after 1918.

The creation of the German nation state of 1871 clearly took place against the background of the economic and social transformations that affected central Europe during the course of the nineteenth century. The growth of liberal nationalism before 1848 would fit into classic interpretations of rising national movements dependent upon an emerging bourgeoisie. Had the revolutionaries of 1848 succeeded, the course of German history would have been quite different.¹¹ However, they did not, meaning that the first German nation state came into existence due to intervention from above, in the form of the Prussian autocracy, personified initially by Bismarck and then by Kaiser Wilhelm II. State creation from above, rather than, as in the British and French cases, the emergence of a new nation state due to revolution from below, meant that the Kaiserreich had strong autocratic tendencies. Although the Constitution of 1871 established a Reichstag elected by universal manhood suffrage, the executive, in the form of Kaiser and Chancellor, held real power between 1871 and 1918.¹²

Nevertheless, whether or not the Kaiserreich represented a sham democracy, the fact that all males could vote led to the emergence of mass parties. Much to the chagrin of the Kaiser, by the outbreak of the First World War the largest of these was the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Its share of the vote increased from 19.7 per cent in the Reichstag elections of 1890 to 34.8 per cent in 1912. By this time it had widened its support beyond its traditional urban centres of strength to make some impact (though often minimal) in rural Germany.¹³ In 1912 it had 1,085,000 members and had become a truly mass party in terms of its organizational structure and its social and cultural activities, as well as its membership.¹⁴ In addition, there also existed various shades of liberals and conservatives, as well as the Catholic Centre Party, which survived the anti-Catholic, Bismarckian Kulturkampf. The three groups had much in common. In the...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of maps
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Notes on the contributors
• Part One: Introduction
• Part Two: Weimar and Nazi Germany: A Survey
• Part Three: Economics, Society, Politics and Diplomacy, 1919–1945: Key Themes
• Maps
• Glossary
• Index