Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914–1918

by Roger Chickering

  The body of scholarship on the middle-class German peace movement during the war is much less extensive. It features Karl Holl’s biography, Ludwig Quidde (1858–1941) (Düsseldorf, 2007) and his edition of Quidde’s memoir, Der deutsche Pazifismus während des Weltkrieges 1914–1918 (Boppard, 1979); Wilfried Eisenbeiss, Die bürgerliche Friedensbewegung in Deutschland während des Ersten Weltkrieges: Organisation, Selbstverständnis und politische Praxis 1913/14–1919 (Frankfurt am Main, 1980); and James Shand, “Doves among the eagles: German pacifists and their government during World War I,” Journal of Contemporary History 10 (1975), 95–108. Francis L. Carsten incorporates the pacifists’ efforts into a much broader narrative context in War against War: British and German Radical Movements in the First World War (Berkeley, CA, 1982).

  Domestic politics

  The polarization of German politics during the war has also received considerable attention. The starting point is the so-called “spirit of 1914,” the mood of elation that allegedly gripped Germans of all stations at the beginning of the war. This phenomenon has inspired a large literature in the last several years. The pioneer was Jeffrey Verhey, whose dissertation has been published in English as The Spirit of 1914: Militarism, Myth and Mobilization in Germany (Cambridge, 2000). Other important contributions to this discussion include Thomas Raithel, Das “Wunder” der inneren Einheit: Studien zur deutschen und französischen Öffentlichkeit bei Beginn des Ersten Weltkrieges (Bonn, 1996), which ventures a comparison with the popular mood in France; and the case-study by Christian Geinitz, Kriegsfurcht und Kampfbereitschaft: Das Augusterlebnis in Freiburg: Eine Studie zum Kriegsbeginn 1914 (Essen, 1998). A good survey of the problem is Wolfgang Kruse, “Die Kriegsbegeisterung im Deutschen Reich zu Beginn des Ersten Weltkrieges: Entstehungszusammenhänge, Grenzen und ideologische Strukturen,” in Marcel van der Linden and Gottfried Mergner (eds.), Kriegsbegeisterung und mentale Kriegsvorbereitung: Interdisziplinäre Studien (Berlin, 1991), 73–87.

  The breakdown of the consensus in favor of the war has attracted the attention of Marxist scholars, who have analyzed it in anticipation of the revolution that followed the end of the war. The classic statement of this view is Arthur Rosenberg, The Birth of the German Republic (London, 1931). Western scholars have preferred to speak of a collapse of legitimacy. See, for example, Klaus-Peter Müller, Politik und Gesellschaft im Krieg: Der Legitimätsverlust des badischen Staates 1914–1918 (Stuttgart, 1988). Matthew Stibbe, German Anglophobia and the Great War, 1914–1918 (Cambridge, 2001), treats efforts to avert this process and to turn the counter-symbol of Great Britain into the basis of popular unity in favor of the war. The recent study by Sven Oliver Müller, Die Nation als Waffe und Vorstellung: Nationalismus in Deutschland und Grossbritannien im Ersten Weltkrieg (Göttingen, 2002), emphasizes the limits of nationalism as an ideology of integration in both Germany and Britain, however.

  On the constitutional and administrative aspects of German domestic politics, one begins with the work of Wilhelm Deist, whose Militär und Innenpolitik im Weltkrieg 1914–1918 (2 vols., Düsseldorf, 1970) documents the activities of the deputy commanding generals. A masterful analysis of the problem precedes the documents, and it has been reprinted, along with a number of Deist’s other major essays on the war, as “Voraussetzungen innenpolitischen Handelns des Militärs im Ersten Weltkrieg,” in his Militär, Staat und Gesellschaft, 103–52. On the broader problem of civil–military relations during the war, the classic study is Gerhard Ritter’s Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk: Das Problem des “Militarismus” in Deutschland (4 vols., Munich, 1954–68) (translated into English as Sword and Scepter: The Problem of Militarism in Germany [3 vols., Coral Gables, FL, 1969–73]). Karl-Heinz Janssen studies civil–military relations through two key figures in the confrontation: Der Kanzler und der General: Die Führungskrise um Bethmann Hollweg und Falkenhayn (1914– 1916) (Göttingen, 1967). Martin Kitchen examines the last two years of the war in The Silent Dictatorship: The Politics of the German High Command under Hindenburg and Ludendorff, 1916–18 (New York, 1976), as does Dirk Stegmann, “Die deutsche Inlandspropaganda 1917/18: Zum innenpolitischen Machtkampf zwischen OHL und ziviler Reichsleitung in der Endphase des Kaiserreiches,” Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 2 (1972), 75–116. Several works examine the problem of censorship and the press. The study by David Welch, Germany, Propaganda and Total War, 1914–1918: The Sins of Omission (New Brunswick, NJ, 2000), offers a good guide to the pertinent literature, but it contains many errors and should be read with care. Other studies include: Heinz-Dietrich Fischer (ed.), Pressekonzentration und Zensurpraxis im Ersten Weltkrieg: Texte und Quellen (Berlin, 1973); Kurt Koszyk, Deutsche Pressepolitik im Ersten Weltkrieg (Düsseldorf, 1968); Wilhelm Deist, “Zensur und Propaganda in Deutschland während des Ersten Weltkrieges,” in his Militär, Staat und Gesellschaft, 153–64; Wolfgang Mommsen, “Die Regierung Bethmann Hollweg und die öffentliche Meinung 1914–1917,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 17 (1969), 117–55; and Gary Stark, “All quiet on the home front: popular entertainments, censorship and civilian morale in Germany, 1914–1918,” in Frans Coetzee and Marilyn Shevin-Coetzee (eds.), Authority, Identity and the Social History of the Great War (Providence, RI, 1995), 57–80. Karl Lange, Marneschlacht und deutsche Öffentlichkeit 1914–1939: Eine verdrängte Niederlage und ihre Folgen (Düsseldorf, 1974), deals with the management of the press in a single notable incident.

  A number of leading German political figures have been the subjects of biographies. The search for the “real” Bethmann Hollweg has spawned a small industry, to which Klaus Hildebrand, Bethmann Hollweg: Der Kanzler ohne Eigenschaften? Urteile der Geschichtsschreibung (Düsseldorf, 1970), offers preliminary guidance. The chancellor’s biographies include Eberhard von Vietsch’s Bethmann Hollweg: Staatsmann zwischen Macht und Ethos (Boppard, 1969); Willibald Gutsche, Aufstieg und Fall eines kaiserlichen Reichskanzlers: Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg 1850–1921: Ein politisches Lebensbild (East Berlin, 1971); Konrad H. Jarausch, The Enigmatic Chancellor: Bethmann Hollweg and the Hubris of Imperial Germany (New Haven, CT, 1973); and Günter Wollstein, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg: Letzter Erbe Bismarcks, Erstes Opfer der Dolchstosslegende (Göttingen, 1990). Jost Dülffer has brought out a critical edition of Bethmann Hollweg’s Betrachtungen zum Weltkriege (Essen, 1989). The Kaiser, too, has attracted the interest of the biographers. John Röhl’s massive biographical enterprise is now complete, and its third volume covers the era of the war: Wilhelm II: Der Weg in den Abgrund 1900–1941 (Munich, 2009). An English translation is now available: Wilhelm II: Into the Abyss of War and Exile (Cambridge, 2013). No other biography can match Röhl’s in its rich detail, but Christopher Clark, Kaiser Wilhelm II (Essex, 2000), 225–45, provides an excellent, well-balanced introduction. See also Willibald Gutsche, Wilhelm II: Der letzte Kaiser des Deutschen Reiches (Berlin, 1991); and Lamar Cecil, William II: Emperor and Exile, 1900–1941 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1996). Although it is not a biography, Holger Afflerbach’s edition of the papers of leading soldiers in the emperor’s entourage provides a fascinating glimpse into this milieu: Kaiser Wilhelm II als Oberster Kriegsherr im Ersten Weltkrieg: Quellen aus der militärischen Umgebung des Kaisers 1914–1918 (Munich, 2005). On Erzberger, the best book remains Klaus Epstein’s Matthias Erzberger and the Dilemma of German Democracy (Princeton, NJ, 1959); but see also Wolfgang Ruge, Matthias Erzberger: Eine politische Biographie (East Berlin, 1976). John Williamson provides a good study of the treasury secretary: Karl Helfferich, 1872–1924: Economist, Financier, Politician (Princeton, NJ, 1971). Georg Michaelis, Bethmann’s successor as chancellor, is now the subject of a massive study: Bert Becker, Georg Michaelis: Preußischer Beamter, Reichskanzler, christlicher Reformer 1857–1936: Eine Biographie (Paderborn, 2007).

  On the major political parties and pressure groups, there are a number of standard works, including Rudolf Morsey, Die deutsche Zentrumspartei 1917 bis 1923 (Düsseldorf, 1966); and Hartwig Thieme, Nationaler Liberalismus in der Krise: Die nationalliberale Frak
tion des preussischen Abgeordnetenhauses 1914–1918 (Boppard, 1968). On the ambivalence of the major parties towards democratic institutions, see Reinhard Patemann, Der Kampf um die preussische Wahlreform im Ersten Weltkrieg (Düsseldorf, 1964); Dieter Grosser, Vom monarchischen Konstitutionalismus zur parlamentarischen Demokratie: Die Verfassungspolitik der deutschen Parteien im letzten Jahrzehnt des Kaiserreiches (The Hague, 1970); and Marcus Wanque, Demokratisches Denken im Krieg: Die deutsche Debatte im Ersten Weltkrieg (Berlin, 2000). Torsten Oppeland, Reichstag und Aussenpolitik im Ersten Weltkrieg: Die deutschen Parteien und die Politik der USA 1914–1918 (Düsseldorf, 1995), has charted this ambivalence through the lens of attitudes towards the United States. The halting emergence of a durable coalition among the parties on the left is the subject of several works: Rudolf Morsey (ed.), Der Interfraktionelle Ausschuss 1917/18 (Düsseldorf, 1959); Udo Bermbach, Vorformen parlamentarischer Kabinettsbildung in Deutschland: Der Interfraktionelle Ausschuss und die Parlamentarisierung der Reichsregierung (Cologne, 1967); and Reinhard Schiffers, Der Hauptausschuss des Deutschen Reichstags, 1915–1918: Formen und Bereiche der Kooperation zwischen Parlament und Regierung (Düsseldorf, 1979). Manfred Rauh, Die Parlamentarisierung des Deutschen Reiches (Düsseldorf, 1977) offers an optimistic analysis of these parliamentary trends. On the Fatherland Party, see Heinz Hagenlücke, Deutsche Vaterlandspartei: Die nationale Rechte am Ende des Kaiserreiches (Düsseldorf, 1997). Raffael Scheck, Alfred von Tirpitz and German Right-Wing Politics, 1914–1930 (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1997), offers a view of the restless politics of the German right during the war.

  The political history of the labor movement has also been the subject of numerous works, many of which deal principally with the revolution at the end of the war. The foremost study of the Social Democratic party during the war is Susanne Miller’s Burgfrieden und Klassenkampf: Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie im Ersten Weltkrieg (Düsseldorf, 1974). Wolfgang Kruse, Krieg und nationale Integration: Eine Neuinterpretation des sozialdemokratischen Burgfriedensschlusses 1914/15 (Essen, 1993), has more recently analyzed the hard calculations that recommended the Socialists’ support for the war. There are also a number of good older works in English: Carl E. Schorske, German Social Democracy, 1905–1917: The Development of the Great Schism (Cambridge, MA, 1955); A. Joseph Berlau, The German Social Democratic Party, 1914–1921 (New York, 1949); and John W. Mishark, The Road to Revolution: German Marxism and World War I, 1914–1919 (Detroit, 1967). Introductions to the history of the trade unions during the war can be found in Hans-Joachim Bieber, Gewerkschaften in Krieg und Revolution (2 vols., Hamburg, 1981); and Klaus Schönhoven (ed.), Die Gewerkschaften in Weltkrieg und Revolution 1914–1919 (Cologne, 1985). A number of local studies address the factors that promoted (or retarded) the radicalization of the labor movement. These studies include Friedhelm Boll, “Spontaneität der Basis und politische Funktion des Streiks 1914 bis 1918: Das Beispiel Braunschweig,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 17 (1977), 337–66; Boll, Massenbewegungen in Niedersachsen 1906–1920: Eine sozialgeschichtliche Untersuchung zu den unterschiedlichen Entwicklungstypen Braunschweig und Hannover (Bonn, 1981); Elizabeth H. Tobin, “War and the working class: the case of Düsseldorf 1914–1918,” Central European History 17 (1985), 257–99; Mary Nolan, Social Democracy and Society: Working-Class Radicalism in Düsseldorf, 1890–1920 (Cambridge, 1981); and Volker Ullrich, Die Hamburger Arbeiterbewegung vom Vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges bis zur Revolution 1918/19 (Hamburg, 1976). See, in addition, the survey of working-class unrest by Gerald D. Feldman, Eberhard Kolb, and Reinhard Rürup, “Die Massenbewegungen der Arbeiterschaft in Deutschland am Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges (1917–1920),” Politische Vierteljahrschrift 13 (1972), 84–105.

  The emergence of political opposition within the labor movement was a moment of truth in the German Democratic Republic, whose scholars were intensely concerned with the history of this phenomenon. In addition to the general East German surveys of the war, in which it functions as the principal plot line, see Heinz Wohlgemuth, Die Entstehung der Kommunistischen Partei Deutschlands 1914 bis 1918 (Berlin, 1978). A good survey of the literature on the Independent Social Democratic party, as well as an excellent history of the party itself, is to be found in David Morgan, The Socialist Left and the German Revolution: A History of the German Independent Social Democratic Party, 1917–1922 (Ithaca, NY, 1975). Robert Wheeler, USPD und Internationale: Sozialistischer Internationalismus in der Zeit der Revolution (Frankfurt am Main, 1975) remains an indispensable account of this phenomenon. Other studies include Hartfrid Krause, political survey, USPD: Zur Geschichte der Unabhängigen Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands (Frankfurt am Main, 1975); Arthur J. Ryder, The German Revolution of 1918: A Study of German Socialism in War and Revolt (Cambridge, 1967), 1–139; and Eric D. Weitz’s survey, Creating German Communism, 1890–1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State (Princeton, NJ, 1997), 62–83. Rosa Luxemburg has been the subject of several biographies, the best of which is John Peter Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg (2 vols., Oxford, 1966); but see also Paul Fröhlich’s classic, Rosa Luxemburg: Her Life and Work (New York, 1972); and the East German study by Annelies Laschitza and Günter Radczun, Rosa Luxemburg: Ihr Wirken in der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung (Berlin, 1971). On Karl Liebknecht, there is Helmut Trotnow, Karl Liebknecht (1871–1919): A Political Biography (Hamden, CT, 1984); and Annalies Laschitza and Elke Keller, Karl Liebknecht: Eine Biographie in Dokumenten (Berlin, 1982).

  War memory

  The study of Weimar Germany has been enriched by the renewed interest in collective memory, particularly as it relates to the First World War. The theoretical foundations of this interest were laid shortly after this war in the work of the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs: see his On Collective Memory (Chicago, 1992). For good introductions to the theory, see Jan Assmann, “Collective memory and cultural identity,” New German Critique 65 (1995), 125–33; Aleida Assmann, Erinnerungsräume: Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses (Munich, 1999); and Astrid Erll, Kollektives Gedächtnis und Erinnerungskulturen (Weimar, 2005). Among the seminal texts on the memory of the Great War are those by Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge, 1995); George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (New York, 1990); and Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery (New York, 2001), who offers comparisons to the aftermath of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War.

  Good studies of the “stab in the back” are now available. The most comprehensive (and arguably too comprehensive) account is Boris Barth’s Dolchstoßlegenden und politische Desintegration: Das Trauma der deutschen Niederlage im Ersten Weltkrieg 1914–1933 (Düsseldorf, 2003). Rainer Sammet, “Dolchstoss”: Deutschland und die Auseinandersetzung mit der Niederlage im Ersten Weltkrieg (1918–1933) (Berlin, 2003), offers a wealth of interesting information. Ulrich Heinemann, Die verdrängte Niederlage: Politische Öffentlichkeit und Kriegsschuldfrage in der Weimarer Republik (Göttingen, 1983), deals more broadly with the question of war guilt. Joachim Petzold, Die Dolchstoßlegende: Eine Geschichtsfälschung im Dienst des deutschen Imperialismus und Militarismus (Berlin, 1963), offers a Marxist–Leninist perspective.

  The playing out of the war’s legacy has been well treated in several recent studies of war memorials and the organizations that tended them: Christian Saehrendt, Der Stellungskrieg der Denkmäler: Kriegerdenkmäler im Berlin der Zwischenkriegszeit (1919–1939) (Bonn, 2004); Benjamin Ziemann, Contested Commemorations: Republican War Veterans and Weimar Political Culture (Cambridge, 2013); and, on memories of the war in the political cultures of the youth movement, Arndt Weinrich, Der Weltkrieg als Erzieher: Jugend zwischen Weimarer Republik und Nationalsozialismus (Essen, 2013). Weinrich studies the place of war memory in the triumph of National Socialism among groups of young people. For an introduction to the broader topic, see the essays in the stimulating collection by Gerd Krumeich (ed.), Nationalsozialismus und Erst
er Weltkrieg (Essen, 2010).