The Real German Resistance to Hitler: The Social Democrats
In the course of an interesting article denouncing Valkyrie and The Reader, Ron Rosenbaum says:
And then there was Cruise’s character, Claus von Stauffenberg, very brave, it’s true, in 1944. But back during the brutal war crime that was the 1939 invasion of Poland (the British magazine History Today reminds us), he was describing the Polish civilians his army was slaughtering as “an unbelievable rabble” made up of “Jews and mongrels.” With friends like these …
Moral: Don’t go looking for heroes in the largely mythical “German resistance” to Hitler. The German resistance was not much more real or effectual than the French Resistance—its legend outgrew its deeds after the war.
I think this is too quick. There was very real German resistance to Hitler. It just didn’t come from the army or other elements of the German conservative establishment. And it wasn’t able to stop anything in 1939 or 1944 because it had already been crushed. The opposition came primarily from the German Social Democratic Party. Rosenbaum knows this because it wrote about it in his book, but for the purpose of this article he’s glossed over it. But emphasis on Germany complicity in Nazi atrocities shouldn’t obscure the fact that a large swathe of the German public tried—very hard—to prevent Hitler from coming to power throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s. The problem was that they were undercut by a non-trivial Communist Party that absurdly alleged that there was no difference between social democracy and fascism (they used the term “social fascists”) and by the fact that when the chips were down, both the Catholic political movement and the traditional Protestant conservatives didn’t like Hitler but preferred him socialism.
In Prussia, for example, Otto Braun’s SDP coalition was happily in power through democratic means until July of 1932 when the federal Chancellor Franz von Papen decided to abrogated constitutional government, kick Braun out of power, and start running the state himself. Papen also re-legalized the previously banned Nazi SA paramilitary organization in an effort to lure them into supporting his coalition, and then eventually agreed to serve as Vice Chancellor in a Hitler-led cabinet. After the reichstag fire, the conservative and centrist parties voted for the Enabling Act that gave Hitler dictatorial powers, but the SDP voted no, even though they knew they were doomed to lose the vote. At this point their leaders either went into exile (like Braun) or were generally sent to concentration camps. This, unlike the von Stauffenberg plot, was legitimate ahead-of-the-curve resistance to the Nazis.
125 Responses to “The Real German Resistance to Hitler: The Social Democrats”
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February 20th, 2009 at 10:24 am
Were the Social Democrats inclined to form coalitions with the communists in the first place? The third arrow in their triple-arrow emblem was meant for Thaelmann: http://www.teachersparadise.com/ency/en/media/2/23/spd_poster_1932.jpg
Of course I’m an anti-Stalinist, but anti-Communist liberal intellectuals have a quite a mythology of their own
February 20th, 2009 at 10:24 am
The problem was that they were undercut by a non-trivial Communist Party that absurdly alleged that there was no difference between social democracy and fascism (they used the term “social fascists”)
My mind goes back to all those idiots in 2000 who were arguing that they were voting for Nader because there’d be absolutely no difference between a Gore and a Bush presidency.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Worth noting specifically that Rosenbaum’s book “Explaining Hitler” is absolutely the best thing ever written on that subject.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:27 am
My mind goes back to all those idiots in 2000 who were arguing that they were voting for Nader
And fuck you too.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:27 am
There was a real, signficant opposition from the officer class as well. It’s true that it wasn’t, ultimately, effectual, and its members didn’t always have what we would regard as the best motivations, but, aside from the direct, tangible aid that it rendered to the allies in terms of intelliegence assistance, it did result in a failed attempt to not only assasinate Hitler but to take over the governemnt from the nazis. Acts which led to the deaths of many of its members.
Which is to say that people comfortably sitting on their asses in a (relatively) free society shouldn’t be too quick to judge people who gave their lives resisting the nazi regime, whatever their motivation (which were mixed but often honorable) or ultimate success.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:32 am
C’mon. “Real.” Not “Read.”
The German resistance to fascism was undercut in advance when the Social Democrat defense minister called in the Freikorps, which would form much of the backbone of the fascist movement, to crush leftist-led rebellions in German cities.
I’m not saying that the Social Democrats were in an easy position. But it set a precedent for the strength of right wing paramilitary forces, and that bolstering of the right wing Freikorps led to the militant fascism that destroyed the Social Democrats.
You should always be careful when temptation or desperation leads you to think the best way forward is to hire gangs of thugs, warlords, drug dealers, religious fundamentalists, or criminal syndicates to carry out your policies. It wasn’t good for Afghanistan to live under warlord hell, it wasn’t good for Italy for the CIA to reconstruct the Sicilian mafia, and it wasn’t good for Germany to deal with rebellion by crushing them with right wing proto-fascist paramilitaries.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Jawohl
I am glad somebody pointed it out that the resistance came from the left, the SPD and, yes, the KPD.
And I am glad Mr. Cruise played the aristocrat von Stauffenberg instead of a worker named Mueller. It would have been an insult.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:34 am
Thanks for the book recommendation, MattF.
Rosenbaum’s recent article about Billy Joel is also awesome.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:34 am
And then there was Cruise’s character, Claus von Stauffenberg, very brave, it’s true, in 1944. But back during the brutal war crime that was the 1939 invasion of Poland (the British magazine History Today reminds us), he was describing the Polish civilians his army was slaughtering as “an unbelievable rabble” made up of “Jews and mongrels.” With friends like these …
Sorry, but with enemies like Hitler, you take what friends you can get. I’m sure Count von Stauffenberg described them thus in 1939, but let’s remember that those attitudes would be fairly typical for a man of his class and background at the time, and, indeed, similar sentiments were voiced by upper-class Americans and Englishmen. Racism and anti-Semitism were alive and well in 1930s America, and these were the sorts of things one heard in drawing rooms and at Ivy League colleges all the time.
One has to distinguish between Stauffenberg’s class-based anti-Semitism and the Nazi’s eliminationist anti-Semitism, because the former was not advocating the complete genocide of the Jews and other subject races, while the latter was. It’s the difference between somebody who sneers at you because he thinks he’s better than you, and somebody who wants to round you and your entire family up and murder you all. The former may be unpleasant, but isn’t an existential threat.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Wow. Rosenbaum really hated “The Reader,” didn’t he? I had a very different reaction; I didn’t find it ‘exculpatory’ at all. Winslet’s character was a monster and her illiteracy was a symbol of ‘innocence’ only if being a stupid, willful predator is kind of innocent. I can see objecting to the movie by focusing on her seduction of the teenage boy while keeping her war crimes in the background. But that’s a valid artistic choice, not bogus Hollywood sentiment.
“Valkyrie,” on the other hand, is evil.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:40 am
One shouldn’t also forget the liberal wing of the Lutheran church associated with Dietrich Bonhoeffer that rejected Hitler and anti-semetism from the start. Bonhoeffer was involved in several plots to assassinate Hitler and was captures, tortured and executed for it.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:41 am
So Rosenbaum’s point is that there was no German resistance to speak of, as measured by its deeds . . . and your point, Matthew, is that there was, but it was so thoroughly crushed and emasculated that it couldn’t do anything? Do I have that right?
February 20th, 2009 at 10:44 am
As someone whose grandfather was in the French Resistance in Alsace (and he spent time in a concentration camp as a result), I take issue with the idea that the Resistance wasn’t a real resistance effort. Yes, its legend outgrew its reality, but the reality was pretty hardcore on its own, and those brave men and women deserve tremendous credit.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:45 am
The problem was that they were undercut by a non-trivial Communist Party that absurdly alleged that there was no difference between social democracy and fascism (they used the term “social fascists”)
I’m not sure I buy this. The Communists realized there was a major difference between the SDs and the Nazis; the SDs, after all, were the leading opponents of the right parties. The Communists wanted to bring down the SDs because 1) they both fished in the same unionist and intelligentsia waters, and 2) the Communists wanted to be the leaders of the leftist block.
The Communists weren’t deluded into thinking the SDs were similar to the Nazis. Rather, they very accurately noted the similarities – at least in terms of their political appeal and understanding of the world, though not their policies – between the SDs and themselves.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Stefan:
My mind goes back to all those idiots in 2000 who were arguing that they were voting for Nader because there’d be absolutely no difference between a Gore and a Bush presidency.
I was one of those people (not that there wasn’t a difference but the Democrats needed to be taught a lesson) and I have liberal friends who think it was a betrayal, however…
The Democratic party of the ’90s was moving too far to the right and becoming too pro-Business, cutting welfare, etc. We had to protest this and the Democratic party will remember that happening. September 11th made things a lot worse than they might have been.
Time magazine’s has a piece on the top 25 people responsible for the Ongoing Cluster&@$#:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877322,00.html
One is Bill Clinton
“President Clinton’s tenure was characterized by economic prosperity [for some] and financial deregulation, which in many ways set the stage for the excesses of recent years. Among his biggest strokes of free-wheeling capitalism was the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, a cornerstone of Depression-era regulation. He also signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which exempted credit-default swaps from regulation. In 1995 Clinton loosened housing rules by rewriting the Community Reinvestment Act, which put added pressure on banks to lend in low-income neighborhoods. It is the subject of heated political and scholarly debate whether any of these moves are to blame for our troubles, but they certainly played a role in creating a permissive lending environment. [MSM being "objective"]”
So, Stefan, gullible people like you are partly responsible for the current crisis.
Now lefites are attacking Summers and Geithner but I think they learned their lessons and they’re taking orders from Obama not Clinton.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Amen. And it’s still going on, as you point out. An internal army of assassins is a bad idea, whether sponsored by “social democrats” or right-wing tyrants. It is profoundly destabilizing.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Ah, defensive Naderites. But I repeat myself.
So, Stefan, gullible people like you are partly responsible for the current crisis.
First, voting for Ralph Nader in 2000 did absolutely nothing to influence Bill Clinton’s presidency during the 1990s.
Second, it’s interesting that you bring up Bill Clinton from that list. You know who else is on it? George Bush, Henry Paulson, Chris Cox…every single of one of whom YOU helped bring to power.
Thanks so much for that. Iraq thanks you, too.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Some this comes down to what one means by ‘resistance’. Organized and effective resistance by KPD or SPD circles was close to non-existent as far as I am aware. Sure, lot of people hung on to former identities, but for the most part resistance was passive, a withdrawal from a society dominated by Nazi-affiliated groups. This doesn’t mean that popular opinion didn’t matter, but that organized resistance was beaten down and eliminated while the Nazis tried to maintain their (considerable and widespread) support via policies that were, for the most part, popular.
Anti-Nazi sentiment and action in the Abwehr during WWII and before probably is a better example of elite resistance than Stauffenberg (though Abwehr members are less suitable identification figures for the ‘good’ military than Stauffenberg). For instance Oster.
The other Stefan
February 20th, 2009 at 10:58 am
In addition to Dietrich Bonhoeffer one should also not forget the students of the White Rose Society.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Rosenbaum is such a whiny little twit. Life Is Beautiful was “execrable”? It was a sweet, sad little movie about a dad trying to protect his child. Horrors.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Oh, and I missed this: The courageous reporters of the social-democratic paper had gotten hold of a secret Nazi Party plan for the disposition of the Jews that first used what was to become the widespread euphemism for extermination: “Final Solution” (Endlössung), a word that left little doubt over the mass murder it euphemized.
Permit me to doubt that the Final Solution was more than a gleam in Hitler’s eye in *1931*. Smug little bastard.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:07 am
I’ve always read that Adam von Trott, great-great-grandson of John Jay, Rhodes scholar, and German Foreign Ministry civil servant, was a pretty great guy.
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Adam-von-Trott-zu-Solz
I remember reading the memoirs of a White Russian emigre who ended up working as a secretary for him and just adored the guy.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:09 am
The courageous reporters of the social-democratic paper had gotten hold of a secret Nazi Party plan for the disposition of the Jews that first used what was to become the widespread euphemism for extermination: “Final Solution” (Endlössung), a word that left little doubt over the mass murder it euphemized.
Actually, that word leaves quite a lot of doubt. Most probably everyone who saw it in the 1930s would have assumed that it meant something like expulsion and/or expropriation and certainly not mass genocide. One reason that Hitler was able to get away with what he did was that it was literally so unthinkable to so many people, both in Germany and without, that they couldn’t accept the evidence of it even while it was going on during the war. There’s only no doubt if one reads what was written in 1931 with the knowledge of what one learned by 1945.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:09 am
It was the Commies who actually fought the Nazis in the streets — the Social Democrats were ineffectual manipulative pussies.
As El Cid notes above, Social Democrats like Friedrich Ebert depended upon –and hence supported –right wing militias in order to exterminate their leftist opponents.
Ebert also preserved the German officer corps — who in the end did much to raise Adolf Hitler to power (Hitler started his political career working as a spy for the Army after WWI ).
Weimar was ultimately doomed, of course, because the Social Democrats stabbed Germany in the back and sabotaged the WWI war effort –thereby leaving Germany wide open to vicious retaliation by the French and British at Versailles. No one who suffered through Germany’s deep poverty/starvation/economic collapse in the 1920s could fail to hate the self-serving Social Democrats. Look at the election returns.
They deserved what they got.
Now our own economy is on the verge of a similar collapse — burdened by the demand for reparations from Wall Street and major bank creditors.
The moral for today’s Democratic leaders is, I trust, sufficiently pointed.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:12 am
You guys are sad. The SPD was a horrible, horrible, bunch. They more or less created the KPD because they jumped on board WWI for whatever reason. Then the SPD spent an enormous amount of energy repressing and agitating against communists occasionally massacring (Blutmai) and jailing them.
After the Reichstad fire Hitler rounded up the KPD deputies and arrested all of them and the SPD basically giggled about it. Then when the vote came down to pass the enabling act, they realized they had shit their nest because they didn’t have enough votes without the KPD to stop Hitler from stripping them of power.
That’s the resistance.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:15 am
The German resistance to fascism was undercut in advance when the Social Democrat defense minister called in the Freikorps, which would form much of the backbone of the fascist movement
I don’t know to what extent the crushing of Bavaria led to the Nazis ten years later, but it certainly was a very good reason for the KPD to distrust the SPD, and in terms of using right-wing thugs to crush leftist movements, to consider the SPD & Nazis more alike than different.
Hey, the Nazis had decent social programs, too.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:17 am
The problem was that they were undercut by a non-trivial Communist Party that absurdly alleged that there was no difference between social democracy and fascism (they used the term “social fascists”)
Yes, a completely absurd claim. Why, one would almost think that the SPD had brutally murdered socialist leaders fifteen years earlier in a vain attempt to vouchsafe their own base of political power. Where could the KPD have possibly gotten the idea that both the NSDAP and the SPD were both led by blood-thirsty criminals? I wonder..
February 20th, 2009 at 11:18 am
The Democratic party of the ’90s was moving too far to the right and becoming too pro-Business, cutting welfare, etc. We had to protest this and the Democratic party will remember that happening.
Well, thank God that the Democratic party didn’t continue in power, or they might really have pushed this country in a rightwards, pro-business, anti-welfare direction…..
September 11th made things a lot worse than they might have been.
Ah, the old “no one could possibly have foreseen” dodge…
February 20th, 2009 at 11:19 am
It seems to have taken the Nazis a while to realize that, yes, hey, they could actually just *kill* all the Jews. I doubt that even Hitler thought in 1939 that it was physically feasible.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:20 am
While not doing so would have set a precedent for the strength of left-wing paramilitary forces, and militant communism which would destroy the Social Democrats.
It’s like blaming someone for water damage after they put out a fire. Maybe the water causes more damage than the fire would have, but it is an unreasonable assumption to make. You blame whoever started the fire for the water damage.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:20 am
every single of one of whom YOU helped bring to power.
Oh, grow up. More registered Democrats voted for Bush than all the Nader voters in the country combined. Nader voters didn’t do anything to “bring Bush to power,” unless you presume that anyone to the left of the Republican Party owes their vote to whatever lump of flesh gets the Democratic presidential nomination.
The logic of most Nader voters wasn’t that there “was no difference” between Gore and Bush; it was that Gore hadn’t earned their vote, and they were tired of voting for a party that was going to keep shitting on their ideals.
In my more childish days I used to blame Nader voters for Bush, too, ignoring the dozens of ways that Clinton and Gore paved the way for Bush – not just electorally, but policy-wise. Outsourcing torture dates back to Clinton/Gore; so does the “liberal hawk” pressure for war with Iraq; so does massive deregulation of the financial industry. Many of the people behind these policies, of course, are now working for the Obama administration – the same administration, of course, that’s currently escalating the war in Afghanistan while claiming the state secret privilege to protect the Bush administration’s torture network.
When you grow up, you might start to recognize that politics is not some sport where good and evil are dictated by the colors the different teams wear.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:23 am
These are good & important posts, MY. It is important to study the Weimar history, another time when centrists tried accomodation, comity, incrementalism, and meliorism enabled and abetted the murder of millions.
Not that I know for absolutely certain that Obamism will inevitably lead to fascist horror.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Re brooklynmatt’s comment “As someone whose grandfather was in the French Resistance in Alsace (and he spent time in a concentration camp as a result), I take issue with the idea that the Resistance wasn’t a real resistance effort.”
—————
Was that the Resistance run by the British — or the Resistance run by the Nazis?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Englandspiel
February 20th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Ah, the old “no one could possibly have foreseen” dodge…
At least you didn’t defend Clinton…
Well, thank God that the Democratic party didn’t continue in power, or they might really have pushed this country in a rightwards, pro-business, anti-welfare direction…..
Admittedly it’s a shitty Hobsons choice. Do you go with the Democratic Party, who is permanently moving the country to the right by stealing Republican ideas or do you try to start again?
I assume as the Democrats kept moving rightwards on various issues at some point you feel they had gone to far? Maybe when they became indistinguishable?
February 20th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Yes, the 1919-21 period is very important for understanding SPD KPD relations. Using Freikorps with members and commanders that ended up in the SA and later the SS to put down KPD lead groups is going to affect outlooks. See Munich and the Kapp-Putch. Sorry for the German language wiki links, the English language links leave out the relevant events.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Don’t forget the Spartacists! It would be a shame if we somehow forgot all the blood the SPD spilled in their glorious “resistance” to fascism.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Oh and Gore couldn’t even win his own state. But go ahead and blame the Nader voters.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:35 am
“The German resistance to fascism was undercut in advance when the Social Democrat defense minister called in the Freikorps, which would form much of the backbone of the fascist movement, to crush leftist-led rebellions in German cities.”
Let’s remember there’s a distinction between fascism and Nazism. The genocidal racism was a unique characteristic of Nazism. Fascism, initially (as practiced in Italy prior to Hitler coming to power in Germany), had nothing to do with that (heck, Mussolini even endowed a professorship at the Hebrew University in Palestine). Many of the Freikorps weren’t even proto-fascist, let alone Nazi. A few were even Jews.
“I don’t know to what extent the crushing of Bavaria led to the Nazis ten years later, but it certainly was a very good reason for the KPD to distrust the SPD, and in terms of using right-wing thugs to crush leftist movements, to consider the SPD & Nazis more alike than different.
Hey, the Nazis had decent social programs, too.”
“Right-wing thugs to crush leftist movements”? How come the right wingers trying to restore order are “thugs” and the violent leftists trying to sow anarchy are just a “movement”? If one group was thugs then both were. Was it Goebbels who said something like, “Give me a communist youth and I can easily convert him into National Socialism”?
February 20th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Matt, good post, and it’s clearly sparked a fierce and sometimes intereating debate (and who knew there were still Naderites? I mean, seriously?), but it’s important to point out that the post is incoherent even by your standards. In addition to the error in the title, there are several passages where your reader has to guess what you meant to write.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:40 am
“It seems to have taken the Nazis a while to realize that, yes, hey, they could actually just *kill* all the Jews.”
If only the Arabs hadn’t used oil to blackmail the Brits into limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine then, hundreds of thousands more Jews could have escaped.
Today, of course, there’s no chance that there will be a rise of anti-Jewish violence again. Not like any other historical events of the 1930s are repeating themselves.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Without excusing all the SPD tactics against the KPD, it is worth mentioning that Thälmann and the KPD were backed by Stalin, denounced socialists and social democrats as “social fascists” and were utterly serious about establishing a communist system in Germany. This wasn’t your run of the mill far-left opposition, but a genuine threat to German society.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:42 am
37:There is plenty of decent English laguage material. Somebody has done a good job at English Wiki. See German Revolution, Kurt Eisner, etc and follow links.
This is also a decent site on the Munich Soviet Republic and more.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Why no mention of Sophie Scholl and the movement of young people of conscience?
February 20th, 2009 at 11:45 am
and who knew there were still Naderites? I mean, seriously?
My meaningless 2000 vote for Nader in a blue lock was my favorite one I ever cast, and watching the commissars rage and fume about it eight years later never ceases to bring me joy.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:48 am
The genocidal racism was a unique characteristic of Nazism.
Wrong. See the Iron Guard in Romania, for one example. Italy was more the exception than the rule. But that’s another topic.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:50 am
How come the right wingers trying to restore order are “thugs” and the violent leftists trying to sow anarchy are just a “movement”?
Violent leftists everywhere! Oh my god! They were even printing pamphlets and planning a *general strike*! The horror! Surely such radicals should be beaten to death and their bodies sunk into the canal immediately!
Please. Noske et al happened to have a well-armed army behind them and, to quote somebody, “between equal rights, force decides.” Not sure how much sympathy they deserve for restoring their peculiar brand of “order.” I certainy won’t cry in my beer for their suddenly getting religion once a bigger, badder tyrant appeared.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Actually, although there was considerable support for Hitler in the German officer corps before he took power, that support at the very top deteriorated, based on what they considered his reckless adventurism. In fact, at the time of the Munich meeting in 1938, the two top generals, Frisch and von Blomberg were planning a coup to remove him from office. The coup was stillborn when Chamberlain caved in to Hitlers demands at Munich. Pretty hard to remove somebody who’s winning.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Bob,
thanks for the link. Tracking down some of the good literature on this period and taking a look at it is something I’d like to do, in particular with a view toward how it affect the outlooks of different political currents later on.
Just like the KPD’s outlook in the early 30s is in part affected by this period, the same thing applies to how the SPD and the bourgeois parties, and what role the military and paramilitary forces saw for themselves. But it would be good to know more.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:55 am
were utterly serious about establishing a communist system in Germany. This wasn’t your run of the mill far-left opposition, but a genuine threat to German society.
I would contend that Germans were forced to choose between two evils from 1918 on.
I do not think the SPD made the correct choice, but you can feel free to disagree. Some counterfactual where the SPD looked East in 1919 and allied with Hungary, Red Vienna, and Lenin may not have been actually possible but in the attempt they might have prevented Nazism.
I do believe the rest of the world would have been better off.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
And, I repeat, the relevance is in whether Obama needs to make a giant leap to the left. God help us, maybe only a FDR baby step.
I do realize a leftist Obama might mean some minor civil war, but the Republicans are already batshit crazy, will become more batshit every day, and will regain power. I really do believe if they are not totally crushed soon, the world is facing major horrors within the decade.
You cannot make deals with madmen.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
You don’t have even the slightest grasp of the military situation at the time. The choice for the allies was comparatively modest fighting to get to Berlin before the end of 1918, or walking into Berlin unopposed in the following spring, after another million or two Germans starved to death. The Armistice was a fait accompli. The choice was armistice or mass surrender of the entire army on the western front. The strikes had no effect on that.
What the strikes and rebellions did accomplish was the prevention of the national suicide attempt by the military leaders. The backbone of those strikes, by the way, was German soldiers who deserted or were unfit for duty due to injuries. They saved their fellows still at the lines from pointless slaughter or confinement in POW camps.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Much of the opposition to Hitler by German Army officers was motivated by a desire to save their own skins from the retribution that would follow Germany’s defeat were Hitler to remain in power. (BTW, a recent poll showed that about a quarter of the German people believe the attempt on Hitler’s life was an act of treason.) Matt’s just getting too abstract & ideological here.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
It was the Commies who actually fought the Nazis in the streets — the Social Democrats were ineffectual manipulative pussies.
This isn’t true. The SPD (more or less) had the Reichsbanner, who did just as much fighting in the streets with Nazis as the Red Front.
Also, and again, I don’t see how you can take a pro-Communist position in the SPD/KPD debate and then say ridiculous things like
Weimar was ultimately doomed, of course, because the Social Democrats stabbed Germany in the back and sabotaged the WWI war effort –thereby leaving Germany wide open to vicious retaliation by the French and British at Versailles.
This is repeating Nazi/far right propaganda, not real history. The Majority Socialists loyally supported the war. It was the predecessors of the Communists who refused to vote funds, and their efforts were totally ineffectual. Germany was open to “vicious retaliation” (which was not actually particularly vicious) not because of anything either set of Socialists did, but because they lost the war, something which was the fault of Hindenburg and Ludendorff, not the SPD.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Much of the opposition to Hitler by German Army officers was motivated by a desire to save their own skins from the retribution that would follow Germany’s defeat were Hitler to remain in power.
Not really true – there were trimmers trying to save their own asses, but most of the opposition really did have moral objections to Hitler – although perhaps not the moral objections we would want them to have.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
That’s a fairly easy counterfactual. The west’s response to a Russian communist revolution was invasion. It was a desperate attempt at restoring an unpopular government. It failed.
If Germany went communist in 1919, after the armistice and before the Peace of Versailles, the west would not have recognized the government. There would be no accepted government to enforce the German side of the armistice. The allies would have invaded, and, unlike in Russia, they would have been successful. They would have put in place the most pliant government that would be acceptable to the German people. It would have been indistinguishable from Weimar, except that even more people would view them as the group that betrayed them to foreigners.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Weimar was ultimately doomed, of course, because the Social Democrats stabbed Germany in the back and sabotaged the WWI war effort
Holy sheep sh*t! Did you really just write that?
February 20th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Boy, you two sure do make some good points.
And also, OUCH!
February 20th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
I suppose if Nader voters could count, they wouldn’t have been Nader voters in the first place.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Yeah, We loved the democrats, if only we could have been liberated by Al Gore.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
“Holy Hysteria” — why the Nazi movement happened in Germany and not France (arguably more anti-semitic). A good article:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=16177 (you have to pay or belong to library to read the whole thing).
The thesis is that France had disciplined army that did not break down and kill civilians during the Dreyfus affair and after. Even though the demonstrators were demonstrating against the army!
The German Social Democrats resorted to the freikorps. A government that kills its own citizens is sowing the wind.
February 20th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
I’ve always found Rosenbaum an interesting writer, but it boggles the mind that he can claim with a straight face that the German military plots against Hitler started only after the Normandy Invasion. That’s utter and total crap. Oster, Olbricht, Henning von Trescow and the others – including Stauffenberg after his recovery from his wounds – had been working on various plots for several years, some of which came within an ace of working well before Normandy (an attempt to blow up Hitler’s plane, for example, and another involving a suicide bomber who planned to blow up Hitler during a display of new uniforms). Not much reason to take seriously anything else he says on the subject, I’m afraid.
February 20th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
The importance of strong democratic institutions and the rule of law in times of unrest
First of all a civilian police force and a military) firmly under civilian control.
During anti-Semitic demonstrations in the French Provinces in 1898:
February 20th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Neither this poster nor Rosenbaum appear to have understood the Reader. It is neither exculpatory or judgmental. It makes more demands on its readers than that: it makes you sort out the moral ambiguities and shows how people’s lives are often defined by a few choices made when forces beyond their control create absurd situations. We can smugly judge from the sidelines, but pretending that we would not have made the same choice is the one thing I don’t think any fair reading of Reader should allow for.
The key scene in the movie is when the law student vents at his classmates that “Everyone knew — our parents, our teachers…”
With millions of people in society at least a little bit guilty, the feel-good show trial being staged in the film, not unlike Nuremberg, was an absurdity and it was treated that way by most of the characters. Here we have the truly guilty! Now the rest of society can lie to themselves and believe that some kind of justice has been done and that it was a institutional evil perpetrated by a select few individuals that had gotten control of a modern nation state, along with the true believers that signed up for the SS.
At the same time, there were Germans who opposed Nazi ideology or who weren’t politically active that were swept up in the absurdity of totalitarian rule. Winslett’s character joined the SS to avoid the shame of her illiteracy. She wasn’t a true believer and offered compassion towards the inmates. The arrogance of everyone around her (and maybe a few people in this thread?) pretending that they would have been willing to commit a noble suicide by taking overt action that would signal their dissent highlights their collective guilt, not her particular guilt. Most of the people in the courtroom could have taken risks to help Nazi victims at some point or another, and didn’t. How convenient that this more clear cut example of inaction comes along to provide moral clarity. As if.
The movie does a great job of balancing out the competing truths of collective guilt of a society that largely embraced Nazism (by 1936, at least a majority) and the insane moral situations individuals face in war when their own lives are on the line.
And if you think the point of Winslett’s character was as a monster, I’m sorry, watch the first half hour again. Remember that he didn’t go to his own father’s funeral. 2 lonely souls find solace in each other. His heartbreak and confusion are real and they caused lasting damage, yet he still has deep compassion for her. Its a complicated relationship, not one that can be reduced to a “stupid, willful, predator” or any such label. That’s just puritanical American sexual misunderstanding being applied to characters more complex than perpetrator and victim. She is not innocent — neither is he, and neither is anyone in the film except the Jews, but sometimes, to take a line from another Oscar movie, “it is written.”
February 20th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
My meaningless 2000 vote for Nader in a blue lock was my favorite one I ever cast, and watching the commissars rage and fume about it eight years later never ceases to bring me joy.
What frustrates me about the Naderites is that they’re supposed to be so much smarter than the rest of us, tactically pushing the Democratic party further to the left by throwing their votes away.
Of course, what would be much tactically smarter would be for them to work to get fusion voting passed in their state. That way, they could have voted for Al Gore on the Green Party line, and it would have counted for Al Gore! And then, see, the powers that be in the Green Party could have gone to Al Gore and said “Asshole, we were your margin of victory in Florida. You HAVE to move further to the left on issues x, y, and z, or next election, we’ll give that line away.”
If you want your agenda passed, it’s MUCH more useful to have powerful leverage over a politician who is actually in power than to hope you have taught a lesson to the leaders of the party that is out of power and totally freaking out. Also, it helps you when things like 9/11 happen, and the incumbent gets really, really, spectacularly popular.
Of course, changing the rules of the game never actually occurs to the people who are supposedly so tactically brilliant and so eager to effect real change. It’s almost like they’d rather be ideologically pure than, you know, affect things and have to perhaps at some level take responsibility for something. Much easier to say “none of this is my fault, I voted for the messiah.”
February 20th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I haven’t seen the Reader movie, but the book certainly does not glorify Hanna’s character.
February 20th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
When would it ever be acceptable to yank the line away? The usual suspects will howl like scalded cats one way or another.
You know it’s funny, last gubenatorial election I got a bunch of this same bullshit for voting Green rather than Blagojevich (and in retrospect it’s not like the Republican was even a Republican). Nader this, yadda, yadda, yadda. I haven’t heard from them in awhile! I’m waiting to catch one of them claiming they never voted for guy.
February 20th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Others have said it as well, but Matt really needs to bone up on the Social Democrats’ complicity in the Freikorps’ murder of the Communist party leaders, Karl Liebknect and Rosa Luxemberg, before he spouts off more on the subject.
February 20th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
It is not only their complicity with the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, but also their support of the Kaiser in WW1. The Kaiser’s militarism and expansionist goals basically were the same as Hitler’s, as has recently been pointed out, and were the values and goals endorsed to the end by the Junker class that comprised the Wehrmacht officers, including those celebrated in Tom Cruise’s recent film.
As I understand it, the struggle between Bernstein and Luxemburg was over whether they should or shouldn’t support the war. My knowledge of this period is not as deep as I would like, but I have come to believe that there was a right and wrong side in this war (which my grandfather fought in on the allied side), and that the right side was not Germany and Austria, but the parliamentary democracies of Britain and France, flawed as they may have been.
February 20th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
You mean the guy who ferociously and publicly denounced the war before it even began?
If I’d helped make the invasion of Iraq happen by electing George Bush, I might end up living in my Happy Place, too.
February 20th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
harold-
As the War Nerd put it, “they were all fascists.” What the British did outside of Europe makes anything the Germans did pale in comparison. I can’t believe there are still people who think there was a right side to choose in World War One.
If anything, it would have been better to let the Germans win.
Then, no Hitler and no Stalin.
February 20th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
The Naderites got one thing right: Al Gore moved to the left after his defeat. Now they need to figure out how to make him President…
February 20th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
You mean the guy who ferociously and publicly denounced the war before it even began?
No, I mean fucking Albert Gore who at no time ever ferociously and publicly denounced the war before it started. Al Gore gave a speech and said that Saddam was a menace and his cabinet of death had to go, but that Bush wasn’t being a good Atlantacist about it. If I had to apologize for the Clinton/Gore record on Iraq, I’d find some tiny third party to blame for it to.
February 20th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Re harold’s comment “My knowledge of this period is not as deep as I would like, but I have come to believe that there was a right and wrong side in this war (which my grandfather fought in on the allied side), and that the right side was not Germany and Austria, but the parliamentary democracies of Britain and France, flawed as they may have been.”
————–
I don’t think there were any innocent parties. The Major Powers had secret alliances that were like cocked guns. Russia pulled the trigger when Austria moved against the Serbs –but neither Britain nor France tried to stop it.
February 20th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Well, there is another one who believes “there was no difference” — in this case, between a a parliamentary government and one that is not.
February 20th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Actually, I don’t think the SPD was correct in calling out paramilitary rightists to avoid the fall of a government committed to keep fighting on in WWI no matter the cost to the nation or how many troops and sailors in rebellion needed to be crushed.
Good god, the German Navy was going to launch an attack without government authorization, and the sailors revolted — it was they who did the right thing, and not their commanders.
Why was it in our interests that German leaders avoid a social revolution at all costs?
Why was it some good thing that the SPD called in the protofascists to crush rebellions? What exactly noble state were they protecting? What democratic rights were they preserving?
At every crisis and every chance, the SPD leadership chose to work with the rightists and the old regime and the upper classes against far better claims from workers, soldiers, sailors, and larger groups. That it got to a revolutionary stage is not simply the fault of leftist schemers, but that of a government which had led its nation into complete disaster.
February 20th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
“I have come to believe that there was a right and wrong side in this war [WWI]…that the right side was not Germany and Austria, but the parliamentary democracies of Britain and France”
Well, I’m not sure that the right and wrong side of WWI was terribly obvious at the time, even if it may look a bit more obvious ex-post and may have looked obvious at the time to the sides involved. And in retrospect the anti-war parties, both in Germany and in the US, look pretty sane in their anti-war stance, even these parties are not popular now.
Also note the right side here is identified as ‘Britain and France’ — Germany was also fighting Russia, that progressive bastion. Indeed, keeping France and Britain out of the war was Germany’s preference. Ex ante things weren’t supposed to play out this way.
As an aside, Germany, perhaps ineffectually and quite opportunistically, spent the war trying to stir up trouble in France and Britain’s colonies and zones of influence, especially in the Middle East, and supporting Zionism, fighting for national liberation against imperialism. From central Europe it wasn’t clear this was the side of darkness.
February 20th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
I have a couple problems with Rosenbaum’s article. First, the German word is Endlösung, not Endlössung. Second, how can a piece that deals with Hollywood’s penchant for linking Nazi themes with sex not so much as mention Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS from 1975? That film gets no respect!
February 20th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
65: Neither this poster nor Rosenbaum appear to have understood the Reader. It is neither exculpatory or judgmental…it makes you sort out the moral ambiguities and shows how people’s lives are often defined by a few choices made when forces beyond their control create absurd situations.
Actually, I think this is precisely how Rosenbaum interprets “The Reader.” The difference between poster #65 and Rosenbaum is that Rosenbaum finds a morally ambiguous story about people like Hannah S. to be exculpatory and repugnant.
I didn’t find it to be all that ambiguous. Hannah selfishly damaged Michael’s life, and she committed atrocities during the war. The film shows us why she may have done these things, but never asks us to forgive her.
February 20th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
It’s interesting to see the similarities between people who think the KPD was right to spurn the SPD and people who think they were right to vote for Nader. Both valued the sanctity of intellectual purity over the greater good; both brought untold destruction as a consequence of their pigheadedness.
Susan already pointed out Rosenbaum’s factual error in stating the resistance made no attempt until after the Normandy landings; Tresckow’s bomb was in early 1943.
keeping France and Britain out of the war was Germany’s preference.
Say what? Germany invaded France.
As to the question of which were the right and wrong sides in World War I, it’s a complex question. We can probably say with confidence that the Austrians were on the wrong side for picking a fight with Serbia. We can say the Germans were wrong for attacking France. And we can say that if the British had things to do over again maybe they wouldn’t have sacrificed a million dead for freaking Belgium. If we’re looking from the standpoint of Woodrow Wilson in 1914, OTOH, is there really a case to side with one faction over the other? And how about Britain’s Dominions? What the hell did CANADA care about Belgium?
February 20th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Also, just what about “Downfall” is supposed to be so terrible?
February 20th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Susan,
You make an excellent point about resistance pre-dating Normandy. While elements of resistance existed from the start of the war, things really got moving in late 1942 as the Nazis suffered major reversals on multiple fronts. Military high command who avoided self-delusional Hitler worship understood that the war was lost by early 1943 after it suffered catastrophic defeats at El Alamein and Stalingrad.
The anti-Hitler plotters understood that the Allies would never offer conditional surrender to Hitler no matter the cost. Regime change was a necessary step to avoid the destruction and occupation of the Fatherland. The plotters also understood that the window for negotiated surrender remained open, if at all, only as long as the Allies didn’t have a foothold in Europe.
The pace of the plotting became furious in 1943 and several serious attempts failed that year because of Hitler’s famously unpredictable schedule. The nearest success was in March 1943 when intended suicide bomber Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff set 10 minute fuses to his bombs at a museum Hitler was to tour with the bomber as his appointed guide. Hitler actually showed but then rushed through the tour in less than 10 minutes leaving Gersdorff mere seconds to diffuse the bombs. Amazingly, Gersdorff was among the very few plotters to survive the war (for some reason his name wasn’t revealed by cohorts who gave up virtually everyone else either under torture or in voluntary, albeit ineffective, betrayals to save themselves).
After D-Day, the plotters debated the wisdom of risking their lives without the leverage to achieve conditional surrender. They decided to go forward anyway because they felt strongly that the verdict on Hitler should be rendered by Germans even if post-war occupation could no longer be avoided. Whatever their flaws, I give a lot of credit to that principle. Whether realistic, the main catalyst for plot was to sue for peace from a position of relative strength and be the saviors of the country. This potential upside evaporated at Normady and yet six weeks later the risky attempt went forward and when it failed, most everyone involved suffered painful deaths as they fully expected they would. It would have been a lot easier and safer to abandon the plot after D-Day. Whatever flaws, however late to the party, these guys put themselves in jeopardy to take out a monster on principle.
February 20th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
On the ‘Germany attacked France’ issue, there is no legal problem with Germany invading France once Russia was in the war against Germany, since France was committed by treaty with Russia to attack Germany and France didn’t disavow this treaty commitment. The problem arose from Germany attacking France through Belgium. Keeping France out of the war was Germany’s preference and Germany attempted to keep the UK out of the war and to use this to put pressure on France, which did not work and may not have been realistic.
February 20th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
I can see a game between the lines, let’s play the game. So this so-called resistance was a partisan, socialist moviment with purely political motives. Such heroes they are. No thanks, better fascist than partisan
Eugh, I think my keyboard wants to commit suicide
February 20th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
France was committed by treaty with Russia to attack Germany
But they didn’t. And in fact, the French withdrew their troops back from the borders. See Barbara Tuchman, “The Guns of August”.
Keeping France out of the war was Germany’s preference
Then they shouldn’t have invaded France.
February 20th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
The Kaiser’s militarism and expansionist goals basically were the same as Hitler’s, as has recently been pointed out,
You mean by Fritz Fischer in 1961? Anyway, I think this is taking it too far. There are obviously commonalties between the Second and Third Reich, but while Imperial Germany’s maximalist goals certainly bear a resemblance to Hitler’s, I think there’s enough significant differences that we should be really wary of equating the two.
Actually, I don’t think the SPD was correct in calling out paramilitary rightists to avoid the fall of a government committed to keep fighting on in WWI no matter the cost to the nation or how many troops and sailors in rebellion needed to be crushed…Why was it in our interests that German leaders avoid a social revolution at all costs? Why was it some good thing that the SPD called in the protofascists to crush rebellions? What exactly noble state were they protecting? What democratic rights were they preserving?
I agree to some extent, but it’s worth noting that the SPD did not call out paramilitary rightists to fight for the Kaiser and Ludendorff. It called out the paramilitaries to prevent a communist revolution after the Kaiser had been bounced.
And it’s worth noting that the great historical example before the Majority Socialists in 1919 was not the Nazi takeover or even the Fascist takeover in Italy. It was the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Said revolution had seen moderate socialists pursue exactly the policy that you seem to think the SPD should have followed – “no enemies to the left”. The result had been a disaster.
Now, did the SPD misjudge the relative danger of bolshevik revolution vs. that of a right wing resurgence? Probably, but that’s really easy to say in hindsight. But the independents and Spartacists clearly made just as big misjudgments.
As to Ron Rosenbaum, the guy’s a scold, and an annoying one. He seems to think that strident moral denunciation is the only acceptable position to take on anything relating to Nazism.
I’ve not seen The Reader, but his condemnations of Valkyrie and Downfall seem deeply misguided to me. Basically, his criticism of Valkyrie seems to be that anyone dared to make a movie about the July 20 plotters at all. To do so, apparently, is to condone the Wehrmacht in its entirety.
The criticism of Downfall seems even more ridiculous. Basically, Rosenbaum seems to have a problem with showing any kind of empathy towards anyone who may have had any role in supporting the Nazi regime. The whole thing is tedious, and Rosenbaum is tedious.
February 20th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
It seems imperative for some people to portray all German officers as evil monsters unlike any other monsters. It’s childish.
February 20th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
As far as the similarity of the Kaiser’s program to Hitler’s, it was a recent book, just last year — at the moment I don’t remember the name, I’m sorry to say.
And it is not an equation, but the fact that Hitler’s plans were not all that original was an important reason he could rally such support for them among the German populace and, especially, the military.
It was an eye-opener for me, when I went to the Museum of Terror in Berlin, to learn that the “White Rose Society” consisted of just 6 people. So much for the widespread active opposition.
Of course the majority of Berlin may not have liked Hitler, the SD was the majority there, but as I understand it, they were easily bullied into submission by an energetic minority of fanatical believers, or so I learned from the rather exhaustively Teutonic labels at the Museum of Terror and accompanying booklet.
I happen to think Rosa Luxemburg was right to oppose the war and Bernstein was wrong to support it so docilely. Maybe Bernstein’s submissiveness set a bad example to the future.
In any case, I don’t think extra-judicial killing can be defended as policy. It also set a dreadful example.
I also prefer Kerensky to Lenin, whom some say was sent in by the Kaiser to do what he did. There were wheels within wheels, certainly.
I also have not seen The Reader. Downfall was an excellent movie that did not demonize its villains. That perfectly average people can do bad things is more scary, in a way, because it means that you and I can do them, not just some evil “other”. The secretary on whose memoirs Downfall was based said in an interview accompanying the film that it was over thirty years before she realized the extent of the evil she had participated in.
February 20th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Some counterfactual where the SPD looked East in 1919 and allied with Hungary, Red Vienna, and Lenin may not have been actually possible but in the attempt they might have prevented Nazism.
It wasn’t possible at all. The problem throughout the Weimar Republic was that the vast majority of the German population and especially its institutions were ideologically still firmly stuck in the Kaiserreich. They rejected democracy as such and positively hated anything that smelled of socialism. The actions of the Weimar governments can only be interpreted with this in mind, they were constantly walking a tightrope, being undermined by both the right and the left at every turn. Maybe they were doomed to failure from the start, but had the communists faced reality, discarded their pipe dreams and chosen to opt for the lesser evil, the chances of averting the fascist takeover would have been higher.
February 20th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Vidor, your claim that Germany not attacking France would have kept France out of the war seems willfully misleading. This was not the stated French position. Germany would have had to commit to not attacking France and Russia to keep France out of the war, while Russia mobilized to attack Austria.
February 20th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Ah, defensive Naderites. But I repeat myself.
Second, it’s interesting that you bring up Bill Clinton from that list. You know who else is on it? George Bush, Henry Paulson, Chris Cox…every single of one of whom YOU helped bring to power.
Thanks so much for that. Iraq thanks you, too.
Nonsense. I’m not from the US and wouldn’t have voted for Nader anyway, but this is nonsense. You know who is to blame for Nader’s success in 2000? Al Gore. Al Gore failed to convince Nader voters that he was a better choice. That’s his problem. If people hadn’t voted for Nader, there’s just a good a chance they would have stayed home.
February 20th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Or voted for Bush. I know at least 2 that did.
February 20th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
As I noted earlier, I think all the Great Powers were responsible for World War I –because they allowed powder keg conditions to develop in the two decades prior to the war.
But Germany’s actions were more in the nature of self-defense than aggressive. When Russia started mobilizing, Germany had to act or else she would have been wide open to invasion and defeat given the time delays and rail chokepoints involved in shipping millions of troops by rail and the supplies needed to sustain them. She made several attempts to convince Russia to halt full mobilization, to no avail.
Given France’s alliance with Russia, Germany’s war plan called for a quick defeat of France before turning east toward Russia. She could not leave her back unguarded to an attack by France.
But when Great Britain proposed to Germany that Germany only fight Russia — and that Great Britain would guarantee that France would remain neutral, Germany accepted the offer at once.
Great Britain then rescinded the offer, however. A cynic would think that Britain’s proposal was done merely to delay and disrupt Germany’s mobilization and war plans.
Germany’s use of Belgium to get at France was just an excuse for Britain to enter a war she was planning to enter anyway. At the end of the day, Britain was just a chickenshit island which had gotten a jump start with the Industrial Revolution but whose relative power and Empire was in decline. She could not allow a continental power like Germany to grow stronger.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
I have to disagree with Don Williams and other who think that Germany was the equivalent to Britain and France and that it might have been better had the Kaiser won the war:
The book is Mark Mazower’s Hitler’s Empire
, reviewed in the New York Review of Books Oct. 23, 2008, by Max Hastings:
February 20th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
harold quote Mazower (who I’ve not read):
The problem here is that this isn’t at all a unique German phenomena, but exists in the US, Britain or France as well. Settlement in land rich colonies or territories is what the UK, France or US did, and obsessions with race and national expansion aren’t unknown in the US or Britain either. Indeed, Germany thought, not totally unfairly, that it was behaving in the East the way Britain behaved in Africa or in Asia. There certainly are continuities between what the Nazis wanted and what parts of pre-WWI German society wanted, but there are also lots of continuities between how Germany in WWI saw its objectives and what the UK and US thought they were doing.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
But Mazower notes that Wilhelm shared Hitler’s belief in a worldwide Jewish anti-German plot, and possessed the same aspiration to rule Europe.
Now Mazower is a good historian (Dark Continent was a great survey), but this seems kind of weak to me.
After the war the Kaiser wrote in his memoirs about his belief in a Jewish anti-German plot, sure. And anti-semitism was certainly a part of pre-war German culture. But this is a pretty strongly post-war development. Many leading German industrialists and financiers during the war were Jews (e.g. the Warburgs, Walther Rathenau). Whatever generic anti-semitic sentiments the Kaiser and the German officer corps may have held before World War I were little different from a pretty universal anti-semitism that can be found across Europe’s ruling classes, and bears little relationship to Nazi ideology. Again, there are obviously some connections to be made here, but really the discontinuities between the Nazis and previous German history are at least as noticeable as the continuities.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Well, there is another one who believes “there was no difference” — in this case, between a a parliamentary government and one that is not.
Please explain in what way the British constitutional monarchy was a parliamentary government but the German or A-H constitutional monarchies were not
February 20th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
But Mazower notes that Wilhelm shared Hitler’s belief in a worldwide Jewish anti-German plot, and possessed the same aspiration to rule Europe
I’ll bet Dreyfus was glad he was from a country where they didnt go in for that kind of thing
How did Czar Nikki feel about world wide Jewish plots?
February 20th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
We can probably say with confidence that the Austrians were on the wrong side for picking a fight with Serbia
No, “We” cant say that. Maybe you can, but I like some honesty in the things that I say
February 21st, 2009 at 1:45 am
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9800EFDF113EE233A2575AC1A9679D946997D6CF
It’s a PDF
The answer is that in Germany the Kaiser was in charge of foreign policy. In Britain and France parliament had a say in foreign policy.
The Kaiser did not endorse the murder of the Jews by the Nazis but:
I am baffled by the apologists for the Kaiser on this board. Though I would not be surprised to hear that Bush and Cheney admired him because they also claimed sole control of foreign policy (as did King Vittorio Emanuel of Italy, to the great misfortune of his country).
February 21st, 2009 at 2:20 am
Harold –
I’d say the British and French governments were genuinely constitutional in that the executive had to maintain majority support in parliament, whereas in Germany and Austria they depended solely on the confidence of the monarch (Hungary had a reasonably genuine constitutional monarchy, but the Hungarian government had only indirect influence over foreign affairs in the monarchy).
That being said, the British parliament and the French National Assembly as institutions really didn’t have much more control of foreign policy in 1914 than the Reichstag did. In Britain, for instance, successive foreign secretaries, guided by the non-elected permanent bureaucracies of the Foreign Office, had committed Britain to what was effectively a close alliance with France, all the while assuring parliament that no binding commitments had been made. Parliament’s ability to prevent Britain from going to war was only marginally stronger than the Reichstag’s ability to do the same. (I am less familiar with the details of the French case)
As to Wilhelm II’s paranoid anti-semitic ravings in 1939, I will certainly say nothing in defense of them. But the bitter ranting of an exiled old man are really not evidence of the goals or aspirations of a government (nominally) led by him over twenty years earlier – they tell us much about Wilhelm’s mindset in 1940, nothing about it in 1914 or 1918.
I don’t think I’m much of an apologist for the Kaiser – he was a fool and a buffoon, and a deeply unpleasant character. There is little to be said in his favor, as either a human being or a ruler. But he was not a monster – he was a mediocre man with a nasty chip on his shoulder who was not equipped to deal with the role that Bismarck’s constitution had thrust him into. After 1900 he increasingly withdrew from active participation in politics, with his most prominent involvement being occasional embarrassing public statements to discomfit his own ministers. And the war was really not largely his work – Bethmann and Jagow knew that, if Wilhelm was kept fully in the loop, he would end up backing down in favor of a compromise, so they purposely got him out of the way for most of July 1914 so they could do what they wanted. The key figures who brought on World War I from the German side were Bethmann and Moltke.
As to the conduct of the war itself, the conduct of the German army, and the overweening peace terms of Brest-Litovsk, this was again largely not the Kaiser’s responsibility – in particular, Brest-Litovsk was really Hindenburg and Ludendorff’s baby, and, more broadly, as the war went on Wilhelm was little more than a puppet of the High Command, especially after Bethmann’s dismissal in the summer of 1917.
As to the governmental system of Imperial Germany more broadly, while obviously deeply problematic in any number of ways, it’s worth noting that it also compares pretty favorably in many ways to most of the dictatorships of the 20th century – it had relative press freedom, genuinely free elections, and a parliament that had some real (albeit limited) ability to impact policy.
I’ll add that I think comparisons of German foreign policy before WWI to Bush’s foreign policy have always seemed a propos to me – what is particularly striking is the way that both Wilhelm and his ministers and the Bush administration seem to have felt that bullying is the best way to get what you want in foreign affairs (Paul Cellucci’s ridiculous behavior in Canada is particularly reminiscent of the way Wilhelmine Germany won friends and influenced people.)
There’s also some interesting similarities in domestic policy – the co-optation of patriotism to bolster right wing policies at home, for instance.
February 21st, 2009 at 3:03 am
For context, people should remember the catastrophe of the Russian revolution. Chekas — armed groups of proles — were randomly murdering people on the street, on the trains, etc. It was nihilism, murder, and chaos, and nothing good came of it. An oppressive monarchy was replaced with a far worse and more brutal regime, after an orgy of bloodletting.
February 21st, 2009 at 5:06 am
“As I understand it, the struggle between Bernstein and Luxemburg was over whether they should or shouldn’t support the war.”
No, it was overwhether there was a democratic road to socialism, and whether the aims of the SPD could be achieved without a fundamental reorganization of society.
Keir Hardie, Jean Jaures, and many other socialists, opposed the war. Kautsky, however, did support the war, at least until 1915. Bernstein voted against rearmament in 1913, voting with the left, but did vote for war credits in 1914, but opposed the war from 1915. The fact that Hardie was ostracized (and worked himself to death fighting against the war), Jaures assassinated, should disabuse folks of the idea that the fall into WW1 could have been avoided if Social Democrats had Just Worked Harder/Been Purer Ideologically. The war was popular. Nation won out over Class.
“The German resistance to fascism was undercut in advance when the Social Democrat defense minister called in the Freikorps, which would form much of the backbone of the fascist movement, to crush leftist-led rebellions in German cities.”
Quite possibly they saw how the Bolsheviks had f**ked over the Social Revolutionaries, Menscheviks, and Kadets in Russia and figured that rolling over like the Kerensky government did wasn’t the best of tactics. They had no way of knowing what the Freikorps would become, but they had a good idea what a Leninist regime would be like: just read Luxemburg’s writings on the revolution herself, or Julian Martov’s writings, written within a year of the October revolution, to see their forebodings of what Leninism would lead to.
February 21st, 2009 at 9:45 am
One pretty standard citation in political science here is Ido Oren, “The Subjectivity of the ‘Democratic’ Peace: Changing U.S. Perceptions of Imperial Germany,” International Security, Vol. 20, no. 2 (Fall 1995). Oren’s prime reference is the admittedly at time problematic professor of political science Woodrow Wilson writing at the turn of the century.
February 21st, 2009 at 12:18 pm
There seems to be a nostalgia for the Kaiser and his “efficient” method of government (compared here to a benevolent dictatorship) among political scientists. (Could this be perhaps because so many influential political scientists originated from that part of the world: Karl Friedrich, Kissinger, et. al.) It is my impression this affection is not shared by the historians and novelists that comprised most of my own background reading. Still, granted, Germany was regarded as the “most advanced” “Western” nation, in the popular mind, in terms of social programs and patronage of learning — the barbarous militarism of that regime is conveniently left out of the equation. Yes, many have noticed the resemblance of George Bush to Kaiser Bill (and to Hirohito) — By their fruits shall ye know them!
As on can deduce from the quote from Wilson above, the Germans may have copied their racism from Anglo-phone countries, but Anglophone and French countries also had strong humanistic and egalitarian traditions that they did not copy. However that may be, much as I admire German music and scholarship, my cultural and biases fall certainly on the British and French side of things, which I notice that the better Germans (and Russians) admired as well.
I recently finished James J. Sheehan’s very fine German History, 1770-1866 (Oxford History of Europe series) and now have to get started on the second volume of that series (by Gordon Craig), so I will know a little more.
February 21st, 2009 at 12:35 pm
I am hardly defending the Kaiser — or the German officer class. I am merely saying that if you vote for war –as the Social Democrats did — and if you send men off to die, then you should not 3 years later support munitions strikes at a critical moment in the conflict in order to advance a political agenda.
Political disputes arise within the context of the nation-state. When the very nation is threatened, political agendas have to be subordinate to what is needed to settle the war on acceptable terms. No nation can afford to tolerate treason in a time of war.
It’s fine to advocate for socialism — but you have to have a sense of nationalism as well.
Er..let me rephrase that.
February 21st, 2009 at 12:48 pm
“These brutal murders [of Luxemburg and Liebknecht] inflicted a wound upon the German working class movement from which it did not recover. Even those who had joined the Spartacus Union in 1918 and had subsequently become disillusioned with the course of German Communism found it difficult, if not impossible, to return to the party that had condoned, or seemed to condone [i.e., the Social Democrats], these vindictive executions. [note: Arendt, Men in Dark Times, pl 36] The memory of Liebknecht and Luxemburg was to be one of the most potent factors in preventing a true reunion of the left even when Adolph Hitler was standing at the gates.” Gordon Craig, Germany 1866-1945 (Oxford U Press), p. 409.
Also, at random: “At the end of his career [ie in 1890], Bismark had no other answer for the problems of his society than violence. His successors proved to be no more fertile in expedience than he” (Godon, p. 179).
February 21st, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Correction: Gordon Craig, not Godon. I recommend these two volumes (by Sheehan and Craig) as background to anyone who wants to discuss the history of Germany. The Sheehan, which I have completed, is one of the best books on any subject that I have even read, with striking insights on every page — almost in every other sentence. The Craig, which I have just glanced at, is supposed to be equally good.
February 21st, 2009 at 10:51 pm
I’ve decided I def. need to read up on some of the immediate post-WWI German history.
Viz. the Munich Soviet, Baveria did hold elections in January 1919. The KPD and affiliated groups boycotted, but participation was 86%. The right-wing ‘anti-jewish-anti-bolshewic’ Bayerische Volkspartei (BVP) received 35%, the bourgeois DDP 14%, the Bauernpartei 11%, the National Liberals (NLP and BMP) 5.8%, the MSPD 33% and the USPD 2.5%. So even if you count all non-voters as left of the SPD, leftists have less than 20% support, probably considerably less. An uprising that declares a Soviet Republic with this sort of public support isn’t going to end well, if the MSPD agrees to help put it down or not. Or so it would seem…
February 22nd, 2009 at 12:12 am
Just got back from seeing “The Reader,” and man, Rosenbaum is even more full of shit than I’d given him credit for.
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Mere quoting of statistics about percentages of who voted for what, without context or interpretation, tells us little and merely “darkens counsel by words without knowledge” This seems to be the difference between political “scientists” and true historians.
If anyone is looking at this old thread, Hannah Arendt’s excellent assessment of Rosa Luxemberg is available on Google Reader. A sample:
It is also truly chilling to read Arendt’s account of the Bonn government’s Cold War embrace and justification of the murders, which went far beyond what the Social Democrats ever admitted.
February 23rd, 2009 at 8:48 am
harold writes
Hm, I don’t think me putting up the Bavarian election results of January 1919 to contextualize the attempted seizure of power in Munich in March 1919 ‘tells us little and merely “darkens counsel by words without knowledge”, while harold quoting Arendt’s without providing considerably more context does not. Popular opinion as expressed in elections is important context and lots of people — maybe harold included? — may not be aware of it. Yes, there is lots more context for these events, but characterizing election results as ‘mere words’ doesn’t strike me as the path to ‘knowledge’.
February 23rd, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Point taken. I realize what I said was overdrawn — also my grumblings not personally directed at you or your post, since you seem one of the more judicious people posting here, as much as reflecting my unhappiness with US policies and trends in higher ed of last 30 years. How could Matthew, for example, not know about the context of the SD after attending such good schools? For me the Arendt article was an eye-opener.
February 23rd, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Harold, thanks…I was taken a bit aback since you seem to be one of the more judicious posters here also.
I’d argue though that historical context is something one picks up slowly over time, in multiple iterations, and that different people can come to the same history from quite different interpretive legacies, and having pointers from different people to what influenced them is useful. German interwar history has led to quite an array of divergent and deep rooted interpretations and it is easy to miss aspects for other people’s frameworks. So don’t be too hard on MY, especially since the influence of this period of German history on modern political thought has waned in the last 30 years.
This thread was quite useful to me in just making me realize I ought to read up on 1918-22 German history, especially Baveria, in part since some of the old interpretive trenches do seem to have shifted in the last two decades, at least for some people.
February 24th, 2009 at 12:15 am
An interesting novel is Sybille Bedford’s A Legacy, about the differences between Catholic Bavaria and Berlin.
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