PREPARATION:

• Read Roskin, Ch. 12
  

NOTES:

Three Periods of German History

Modern German history can be divided into three basic periods, marked by three different, fundamental political issues.

• Before 1871, the issue was whether the German-speaking peoples would be able to unify.  (Recall that England had unified despite its people speaking different languages.)
• From 1871-1988, the issue was whether Germany could create an enduring democratic state.  German history (like France's) had been marked with a struggle between the democratizing left and the authoritarian right.  It's still a concern.
• After 1990, the issue has been whether a united, democratic Germany could prosper, particularly in the context of a resurgent European economy and particularly with the burden of the newly annexed states of the former East Germany.  How can Germany get along with the rest of Europe, trying to reconcile its own power with Europe's historical fears of that power?
  

Special aspects of German history:

• an historical movement (like Britain's) from feudalism to authoritarianism to democracy, but under the greater pressures of fragmentation, plus the pressures of industrialization, being surrounded by great powers, all of which gave rise to its authoritarian tradition.
• the lasting conflicts arising from the North-South religious & economic cleavage and the East-West cultural cleavage (Prussian authoritarian vs. the western states' liberalism)
• The fact that nationhood occurred before statehood, which caused and is still causing conflicts with its neighbors:  with the Czech Republic over the Südetenland and with France over Alsace-Lorraine.
  

A Brief Outline of German History

First Reich

• 843:  Charlemagne's three sons split up his empire upon his death;  the Northeast-Southwest division between Saxons (Germans) & Franks (French);  progressive disintegration of rule into ever-smaller principalities.
• Reformation & Counter-Reformation produced a series of religious wars, in which various (relatively weak, remember) principalities allied with different foreign powers (Sweden;  Austria;  France), as happened in Vietnam.  The results were:
• the Peace of Augsburg (1555;  ending the “Schmalkaldic War”) and 
• the Treaty of Westphalia (1648;  ending the Thirty Years War).  These treaties established and confirmed the doctrine of cuius regio eius religio:  religion & state combined;  obedience to ruler preached by all.
• An authoritarian state, therefore, like England under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I (who ruled during the same period).
• These wars (and the doctrine of cuius regio eius religio) also solidified the religious lines, and created a long-standing division between the richer, Protestant North and the poorer, Catholic South (Bavaria, Austria).  [Roskin:]  Germany broken into 360 separate political entities.
• Napoleonic Wars (1796-1815) and the “Romantic period” generally produced rise of:
• nationalism (strong;  romanticization of the German spirit).  Some unification of states as the “Confederation of the Rhine”, ruled by the Austrian Emperor.
• liberalism (politically weak but intellectually powerful;  became a tradition:  ideals of the French revolution, Karl Marx, Frankfurt School & critical theory).
• 1848:  The result was a number of liberal-socialist revolutions in Frankfurt, Berlin & Vienna, which threw out the absolutist monarchy.  But the Frankfurt Assembly of 1848 failed to produce a constitutional monarchy, the delegates being divided between supporters of Austria and Prussia.  The king of Prussia refused their offer of the crown when it was finally offered, and the uprising was crushed by both Prussian and Austrian troops.  (This is sadly humorous, given that the assembly was divided between which of these to support.)  After that, the middle class, the "liberals" [classical liberals, that is], the professional class, and the intellectuals were excluded from power.  As a result, one of the German "lessons of the past" of this period was,  “Don’t let the liberals gain power!”
  

Second Reich

Origins of authoritarianism and German unification:

• German family structure (patriarchal)
• Rise of the militarily dominant, successful, and authoritarian Kingdom of Prussia (formerly the city-state of Brandenburg, right outside Berlin).  It had few resources except the tight discipline imposed on its citizens.  Thus it could be compared to South Korea today.
• Rise of communication, transportation, and trade, which both required and enabled a more unified State
  

So there was an (unrecognized?) tension in this time:  a middle class growing in economic strength but dominated politically by Prussian military / aristocrats / large landowners.  As in Britain, but occurring later in Germany.

Balance of power [explain term] 1870-1914 was gradually destroyed by:

• German ambitions, esp. for colonies
• growing fear of Germany by its neighbors
• growing rigidity of the international system of alliances
  

These all led to World War I 1914-1918 and with Germany's defeat in 1918, the end of the Second Reich.  Several socialist revolts and even victories led to the conservatives' acceptance of the weak parliamentary government of the Weimar Republic, again, bending without breaking.  The judiciary & bureaucracy & military were still havens of conservatism, looking to a restoration of the old order.  The Leftists were looking toward a socialist revolution.  This set the stage for a radicalization of politics and the loss of legitimacy of the Weimar government:  the support for the three centrist parties dropped from 64% to 30% between the elections of 1919 and 1932.  The Nazis and Communists were the big gainers.

German participation in the war was ended by a German revolution internally, not a military defeat.  This produced a number of elements that gave rise to the rise of the Nazis:

• The Weimar Republic was associated with defeat [Again, “don’t let the liberals take power”.]
• The myth of a liberal Dolchstoss (stab in the back)
• The reparations demanded by Treaty of Versailles had to be paid off in hard currency.  This left little for the State, so it printed money to pay its own debts;  this led to inflation in the twenties, particularly 1923 (thus creating another German "lesson of the past":  a terror of inflation).  World depression in the Thirties.
  

The Weimar government was unable to act or lead, and so was unable to head off or deal with the problems that emerged after the war, esp. the radicalization of the political spectrum.  (Too much consultation required, somewhat like our Articles of Confederation.)

These factors led to the rise of Hitler and the Nazis.

Third Reich

• In 1933 the Nazis got a plurality in the Bundesrat and Hitler was asked by President Hindenburg to form a government
• Hitler formed a government, but quickly (after secretly having the Reichstag burned and blaming it on his enemies [Jews and leftists]) took "emergency power" under "Article 48";  and so in 1933 we have the end of the Weimar Republic and
• ... the advent of Third Reich (1934:  Hitler becomes Führer).
• Growing repression of the Jews and others (socialists, labor union leaders, Catholics, gays, Gypsies, mentally retarded, non-Aryans generally (although "Aryan" was a somewhat elastic term), Polish intelligentsia & partisans (after the invasion of Poland), etc.  Repression of the Jews starts with inflammatory rhetoric, then boycotts of Jewish shops, then terroristic actions by mobs unhindered by police (e.g., "Kristallnacht");  registration of the Jews;  etc.
• World-wide difficulty dealing with Hitler:
• the German partition of Czechoslovakia (the Südetenland)
• the annexation of Austria (the Anschluss)
• German invasion of Poland in Sep 1939 shortly after Chamberlain's treaty (Britain, France, and Italy) at Munich in 1938 partitions Czechoslovakia, bringing "peace in our time" and after the Molotov-Von Ribbentrop pact Aug 1939.  They concluded this pact because both Stalin and Hitler wanted temporary peace:  Stalin needed time to re-arm to face Hitler;  Hitler wanted to have his rear secure while he was conquering Europe.
• World War II;  the Holocaust;  Hitler's suicide and Germany’s unconditional surrender in 1945.  (Unconditional surrender demanded because the Allies wanted no later myth that Germany had not been defeated.)
• Division into four zones by the victors, then into East & West Germany when the U.S.S.R. split from the other three.  (Berlin was inside the Eastern Zone but was still divided.)
• Nuremberg trials of some Nazis for "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity".

Excursus on the Holocaust

Why was it unique?  Why is there so much attention paid to it?

• NOT for the number of people killed;  Stalin may well have killed more;  Pol Pot may have killed a larger proportion of the population.
• NOT for targeting of an ethnic group:  we have (and have had) "ethnic cleansing" and genocide all over the place.  (Armenians, Kurds, Bosnians, Tutsis, Hutus).
• UNIQUE because it was deliberate, systematic, scientific, bureaucratized evil
• UNIQUE because it was conducted even against Germany's own interests, and out of no political goal except the scapegoating of a people.
• It has also become a site of contention, particularly as a means of critiquing modernity.
  

Germans of this generation are coming to terms with it, after forty or more years of refusing to talk about it.  "We didn't know."  "It was the Nazis, not us, because we none of us were Nazis or Nazi supporters."  Not talked about by parents, ever.  Not dealt with in history classes or museums or films, etc.

"Lessons of the past" arising from the Holocaust give rise to these policies:

• open admission to refugees (until recently)
• support of Israel
• "Supermarket Drops Plans to Build in Auschwitz" (TWIG, 4/5/96, p.7)
  

Post-war Germany and the Development of  Democracy

I'll spare you the blow-by-blow history of post-war German politics (at least here) except to talk about how it began.

• Sept 1, 1948:  Parliamentary council formed, headed by Conrad Adenauer, formed to put in place a government for the combined British, French, and American zones;  Basic Law written (by the Allies, incorporating elements of both the British and U.S. systems) and adopted
• May 23, 1949:  "Basic Law" goes into force.  (Still in force, too, as of 2002, although with the reunification of Germany, some Germans are talking about creating their own, self-chosen constitution.)
• Aug 14, 1949:  First election;  CDU/CSU wins, and Adenauer becomes Chancellor (Prime Minister).
• 1955:  Allies restore "supreme sovereignty" to West Germany.
  

Marshall Plan;  rise of democracy & prosperity (“Wirtschaftswunder”);  Germany becomes the wealthiest nation in Europe, with a very high GDP/capita and the largest total GDP.  Authoritarian ways are discredited, by present success and by the former ways' discredit from the Holocaust and defeat.

Power gained by post-war ("unbelastet":  "untarnished") generation.  (Helmut Kohl was the first Chancellor who wasn't an adult during the Nazi years.)   Flowering of social philosophy (e.g., Habermas and many other fine theorists).

• 1989:  Berlin Wall comes down
• 1990:  formal reunification
• Dec 2, 1990:  All-German elections held
  

Problems arising from reunification

Economic problems arise from unification because of West Germany's commitment to tax and fiscal equalization between East and West.  (In other words, the tax system shall be the same in both east and west, and the Länder governments should be equally financed.)  This creates an enormous flow of money from west to east, adding to the problems of German economic decline (the last gasp of capitalism), with the resulting rise of neo-Nazi movements (e.g., skinheads), first in eastern Germany, then in Western, and associated problems in coming to terms with the Gastarbeiter (guest workers, formerly termed Fremdtarbeiter ["foreign workers" or even “stranger workers”] before political correctness took over);  attacks on foreigners.

Some policy cleavages:

• West German resentment of the expense of supporting those lazy, uncompetitive workers in East Germany.
• East German resentment of West German snobbishness, lack of concern, and economic & political domination.
• Legislative conflict over abortion:  conservative, Catholic, CDU/CSU law in West Germany vs. very liberal law in East Germany.  (A North-South divide.)
  

German Geography

Germany's geography is also very important in understanding its history.  Germany is a mostly flat country, located in the center of Europe -- or at least astride the routes that invaders must take when moving east to west (or vice versa) if they want to avoid the Alps.  This puts it in a position of some vulnerability, where it feels it must dominate or be dominated.  This sense of vulnerability is not solely theoretical, however, since during the Reformation the various German states were puppets of the Scandinavian or Austrian or French emperors.  As a result it has been repeatedly split;  the Reformation was particularly important here, since the line dividing Protestant from Catholics areas ran right through it.  (It still does.)  But this is not the only split;  as Roskin puts it, there was an additional split in Germany between advanced culture to the west and barbarism to the east.  (I say "was", but this remains a perception to this day.)