Volkish and Anti-Democratic Thought before 1933 Tim B. Müller

In the two-page feature article of its New ocrats. Precisely the defeats the volkish and Year’s issue of 1933, the Frankfurter Zeitung – anti-democratic circles had had to endure again the leading liberal-democratic newspaper of the and again had contributed to their radicalization Weimar Republic – declared: “The turning point in the Weimar Republic. 2 This interpretation ap- has come.” The “turnaround” was “pervasive, pears paradoxical, but only at first sight. Closer and above all: it encompasses all of the essen- examination of the anti-democratic world before tial areas” – the economy, domestic politics, 1933 helps us to understand how improbable foreign politics, the “overall intellectual situa- their success seemed to many at the time. It tion”. Clear signs of an “easing of tension” were was true that, ideologically and culturally, Na- discernible. Most importantly, “the massive tional Socialism was rooted in the “underworld National Socialist attack on the democratic of extremist politics and tiny, eccentric political state” had not only been “fended off”, but sects”. 3 It is not so easy, however, to draw a countered with a “mighty counter-attack” by direct line between this radically nationalistic, the government, which had led to the “demy- racist and anti-Semitic political milieu and the stification of the NSDAP” (National Socialist establishment of National Socialist rule. 4 German Worker’s Party, or Nazi party). It was precisely the strategy of the new Reich chan- The expectations of the contemporaries, their cellor Kurt von Schleicher that had contributed debates and the forms in which political con- “to inflicting upon the National Socialists the flicts were carried out in the Weimar Republic series of failures and losses first observed in the all seemed to suggest that – regardless of its Reichstag elections of 6 November (in which the fragility – democracy was the probable scenar- NSDAP lost two million votes)”. For the intel- io, whereas its destruction seemed improbable, ligent observers of the Frankfurter Zeitung it even in the early 1930s. 5 Like other democra- had been demonstrated that “nothing could be cies in Europe, the young republic had come to more wrong than to say that the spirit of liberal terms with all kinds of crises, and in the eyes of democracy in Germany is dead”. To be sure, the many there was no viable alternative, wheth- parties had suffered in 1932, “but democracy er they liked it or not. In 1928, even intellectual hasn’t suffered; over the past half year it has opponents had made peace with democracy. virtually experienced a triumph”. 1 The executive director of the Deutschnationaler Handlungsgehilfen-Verband (German National Today, in retrospect, this perspective seems odd, Association of Commercial Employees), a right- even incomprehensible. Wasn’t the great Nation- ist employees’ trade union affiliated with the al Socialist victory – its assumption of power on Deutschnationale Volkspartei (German National 30 January 1933 – just around the corner? In People’s Party), demanded of its party that it any case, the expectations of many contempo- open its arms to democracy, not only tactically raries immediately prior to that event were very but also out of conviction, and that it develop a different: democracy had once again success- republican brand of conservatism. The German fully warded off its enemies, and the economic National People’s Party had participated in gov- upswing had already set in. With a view to these ernments and set out on the (still very long) path expectations regarding the present and future towards becoming a conservative-democratic in early January 1933, historiographic research people’s party. It should be added, however, that poses the question as to what they mean for our strong radical right-wing forces were also form- understanding of democracy’s demise. ing within the party in opposition to this “silent democratization”. 6 One aspect that has been pointed out by inter- national scholarship is also quite evident in the Two years later, after the outbreak of the world quotation from the Frankfurter Zeitung : hardly economic crisis – which dwarfed all previous anyone reckoned with a victory of the anti-dem- crises – everything changed. Yet the end of

226 | 227 democracy was not an accident, but the result ultimately appointed Reich chancellor in January of decisions. Society was dominated by bank- 1933 was anything but inevitable; rather, it was ruptcies and company failures, mass unemploy- the outcome of a concatenation of erroneous ment, impoverishment and hunger. To be sure, political calculations and intrigues in elitist cir- the economic disaster seriously unsettled the cles. That date, however, marked a break in the democracy, and the “austerity policy” pro- political development. The new “normality” that claimed by the government and Heinrich Brüning was created by the Nazi regime from early 1933 further aggravated the crisis between 1930 and onward through threats and the implementation 1932. Presumably, however, neither of those two of violence, and in which everything would soon factors led to the downfall of the democracy of revolve around war and racism, had virtually Weimar. 7 In 1932, the aggravation of the crisis nothing to do with democratic normality. 8 was what enabled the old elites around Reich Chancellor Franz von Papen, a number of eco- For the National Socialists, however, mass nomic leaders, and ultimately Reich President participation, public stagings and legitimation Paul von Hindenburg to implement a plan to con- through acclamation were already political vert the parliamentary-democratic republic into methods in the late phase of the Weimar Re- an authoritarian presidential system. This strat- public. To use Hans Mommsen’s formulation in egy also included the reversal of the prohibition somewhat altered form, democracy was breath- on the SA enacted just a few months earlier, ing down Hitler’s neck like a “parasite”. 9 He and which loosed a wave of violence. Along with con- his party had a better understanding of how to straints placed on the freedom of the press, the go about politics in democracy, how to take ad- “Preussenschlag” (“Prussian coup”) of 20 July vantage of moods, and how to exploit problems 1932 – with which Prussia’s Social Democratic for one’s own aims than those in power since minority government was deposed – eliminated 1930: he defeated democracy with democracy. important democratic institutions. This anti- Not only did democracy exhibit a deficit, already democratic plan, however, did not call for an perceived by contemporaries, in connection with assumption of power by the National Socialists, its policies for coping with crises. What is more, and – as demonstrated by the quotation from the democracy’s moral enemy – however transpar- Frankfurter Zeitung – opinions voiced at the time ent his camouflage – presented himself as the convey that people considered the democracy better democrat. Hitler not only promised better so strong that it would survive these authori- living conditions, but also social recognition and tarian machinations. The fact that Hitler was political participation as the perverted fulfilment

1 “Ein Jahr deutscher Politik”, Frankfurter Zeitung , 1 Jan. 1933, pp. 1f. 2 See Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916–1931 (New York, 2015), pp. 511–18.

3 Richard J. Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (London, 2004), p. 37.

4 In recent research, Geoff Eley, Nazism as Fascism: Violence, Ideology, and the Ground of Consent in Germany 1930–1945 (London, 2013) and Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in History and Memory (London, 2015), pp. 87–117, for example, emphasize the political watershed of 1933. 5 See for example Moritz Föllmer and Rüdiger Graf, eds., Die Krise der Weimarer Republik. Zur Kritik eines Deutungsmusters (Frankfurt, 2005); Rüdiger Graf, Die Zukunft der Weimarer Republik. Krisen und Zukunftsaneignungen in Deutschland 1918–1933 (Munich, 2008); Wolfgang Hardtwig, ed., Politische Kultur- geschichte der Zwischenkriegszeit 1918–1939 (Göttingen, 2005); idem, ed., Ordnungen in der Krise. Zur Politischen Kulturgeschichte Deutschlands 1918–1933 (Munich, 2007); Thomas Mergel, Parlamentarische Kultur in der Weimarer Republik. Politische Kommunikation, symbolische Politik und Öffentlichkeit im Reichstag (Düsseldorf, 2012); Tim B. Müller and Adam Tooze, eds., Normalität und Fragilität. Demokratie nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg (Hamburg, 2015); Benjamin Ziemann, Front und Heimat. Ländliche Kriegserfahrungen im südlichen Bayern 1914–1923 (Essen, 1997). 6 See Michael Dreyer, “Weimar als ‚wehrhafte Demokratie‘ – ein unterschätztes Vorbild”, Michael Schultheiss and Sebastian Lasch, eds., Die Weimarer Verfassung. Wert und Wirkung für die Demokratie (Erfurt, 2009), pp. 161–89; Barry A. Jackisch, The Pan-German League and Radical Nationalist Politics in Interwar Germany, 1918–1939 (Farnham, 2012), p. 154; Mergel 2012 (see note 5), pp. 323–31 speaks of “silent republicanization”. 7 For decades, Brüning’s deflation policy had been controversially discussed by scholars; for an introduction to the topic, see Andreas Wirsching, Die Weimarer Republik. Politik und Gesellschaft (Munich, 2008), pp. 109–14, 128f. 8 Apart from the classical representation by Karl Dietrich Bracher, Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik. Eine Studie zum Problem des Machtverfalls in der Demokratie , 2nd reprint of 5th edition (Düsseldorf, 1984), for example Hermann Beck, The Fateful Alliance: German Conservatives and Nazis in 1933 – The Machtergreifung in a New Light (New York, 2008); Dirk Blasius, Weimars Ende. Bürgerkrieg und Politik 1930–1933 (Göttingen, 2006); Dreyer 2009 (see note 6); Evans 2015 (see note 4), pp. 87–117; Ulrich Herbert, Geschichte Deutschlands im 20. Jahrhundert (Munich, 2014), pp. 259–301, 305–24; Gotthart Jasper, Die gescheiterte Zähmung. Wege zur Machtergreifung Hitlers 1930–1934 (Frankfurt, 1986). 9 Hans Mommsen, Beamtentum im Dritten Reich. Mit ausgewählten Quellen zur nationalsozialistischen Beamtenpolitik (Stuttgart, 1966), pp. 13, 18; see idem, Von Weimar nach Auschwitz. Zur Geschichte Deutschlands in der Weltkriegsepoche (Stuttgart, 1999), pp. 136–74, 201–13; idem, Zur Geschichte Deutschlands im 20. Jahrhundert. Demokratie, Diktatur, Widerstand (Munich, 2010), pp. 67–84; on the election successes of the NSDAP see, for example, Jürgen Falter, Hitlers Wähler (Munich, 1991); Oded Heilbronner, Catholicism, Political Culture, and the Countryside: A Social History of the Nazi Party in South Germany (Ann Arbor, 1998).

E S SAYS of a democratic ideal. In order to mobilize the New definitions of the term “Volk” (“nation”, masses, he had to let himself in for democracy, “people” as a collective noun) – ranging be- speak its language. National Socialism is also to tween linguistic and cultural unity on the one be understood as a simulation of a new demo- hand and the political nation on the other – and cratic departure. its compounds such as “Volksgemeinschaft” (“people’s community”, “national community”) That is also evident in the term “Volksgemein- or “Volksgenosse” (“member of the people/ schaft” – “people’s community” – which is today nation”) had emerged as early as the period associated almost exclusively with National around 1800. From the beginning, they mirrored Socialism. In the wake of the NSDAP’s substan- the “treacherous challenge of democratization” tial election successes from 1930 onward, the on the semantic level. 12 From the late nineteenth “people’s community” became a prominent century onward, the demand for democracy was rallying cry in its propaganda. With it, the party voiced almost ubiquitously. 13 By World War I, if conveyed a parasitically democratic message, not earlier, “Volk” had become a “general term a vision of future and optimism, of personal [in German political language] in which all po- opportunity and social cohesiveness. Yet the litical camps had to participate”. Its “explosive term owed its symbolic power to the fact that it usage” pointed to an “irreversible trend towards had a civil-liberal and social-democratic his- ‘democratization’ throughout the spectrum of tory and possessed broad appeal. Concepts of governmental forms”. 14 The coinage “volkish” community could and can be liberal, socialist – initially hardly more than a footnote to this or totalitarian. In the 1920s, they were part history of political language – had come into use of the democratic discussion. All classes and around the turn of the century in many right- groups were to have their place in democracy. wing circles in place of “national”, which was The promise of the “people’s community” had an considered a French loanword. Yet already the aura of openness and optimism. Even in the final name of the National Socialists, among whom phase of the republic, after Hitler and the Nazis the word “volkish” was otherwise very popular, had already reinterpreted the democratic notion reveals that even the volkish milieu never suc- of the people’s community and infused it with ceeded in applying such linguistic distinctions racist content, the term could be used free of entirely consistently. In essence, the adjective any association with ostracism and violence. 10 “volkish” served primarily as a self-designation As late as the end of 1932 / beginning of 1933, of a “decisively anti-Semitic nationalism”. 15 for example, it was possible for someone like Siegmund Warburg – a Jewish left-wing liber- When did volkish protagonists enter the political al banker of Hamburg – to go into politics as a stage? On 25 July 1919, an emblematic scene democratic economic reformer. Warburg equat- unfolded, illustrating the political constellation ed the “people’s community” with an order of at the beginning of the Weimar Republic, the ge- democratic participation. Or Otto Wels, one of nealogies going back to the German Empire, and the SPD party leaders: in his heroic Reichstag the radicalization that was to come. Two days speech of 23 March 1933, he juxtaposed the earlier, the Social Democratic Reich chancellor “true [democratic] people’s community” with Gustav Bauer had introduced his government the dictatorial abolishment of basic rights by a programme, which was built on an ambitious National Socialist Enabling Act. 11 conception of democracy. There was already a broad consensus about what democracy was The battle over the “people’s community” mir- and should be, despite eccentric reinterpreta- rors the fact that, in democracy, the concept of tions of the term by outsiders, already among “the people” had taken on such key importance them Hitler, who spoke of a “true Germanic for the political debate that it was also adopted democracy” where he later championed the by the opponents to the democratic develop- principle of “unconditional Führer authority”. 16 ment. This was even true of the various shades Democracy had become the reality that organ- of “volkish” sentiment which, however else they ized all politics. 17 “The German people is thirsting may have differed, agreed on an anti-egalitar- for democracy” proclaimed a convention of the ian politics ruled by elites and the rejection of left-wing liberal Deutsche Demokratische Partei democracy. (German Democratic Party) a short time later. 18

228 | 229 Reich Chancellor Bauer had no doubts be guaranteed. The Bauer administration at- about the longevity of democracy as a new form tached especial importance to the equal status of government and a new way of life: “We are of women as citizens. Soon thereafter, Bauer’s responding to this call from beyond the borders, minister of the interior Eduard David substan- we are united in the belief in democracy’s in- tiated his well-known statement – “Nowhere vincibility, which must not only create equality in the world has democracy been implemented between the members of the people’s commu- more stringently than in the new German con- nity, but also equality, freedom and brotherhood stitution” – in parliament by citing suffrage, the between the peoples, the League of Nations.” 19 option of the referendum, and the fact “that These words convey as much a vision of the women have achieved full political equality in European convergence of democracy as they do Germany”. He proclaimed: “The German republic optimistic expectations regarding the future. As is from this time forward the most democratic far as the international perspective was con- democracy in the world.” 21 The discussion of cerned, Bauer spoke of the states’ renunciation this programme and the ministers’ declarations “of a part of their sovereignty” as the “highest began on 23 July 1919 and lasted several days; aim” of foreign policy in a community of peoples on 25 July, finance minister Matthias Erzberger united by the League of Nations. In what was a introduced his plans. The Centre Party politician testimony to the impressively broad spectrum and Christian Democrat Erzberger was consid- of the contemporary understanding of this form ered the cabinet’s key figure. His signature at the of government, democracy unfolded in four bottom of the armistice agreement of 1918 had dimensions: firstly as the popular sovereignty made him a target of especially intense hatred and autocracy of the citizens, secondly as among radical nationalists. With his major tax culture, everyday life and a way of life, thirdly reform, which introduced a national income tax as an institutional order and governmental ad- and was intended to create the financial founda- ministration, a system of good governance, and tion for the democratic state, he had moreover fourthly as social, economic-politically active antagonized large portions of the middle class. democracy. 20 With the democracy now consti- As early as 1920, an attempt was made on his tuted, political equality had been attained, but life, and on 26 August 1921 he was assassinated the social foundations of equality were also to by right-wing extremist terrorists. 22 Right before

10 See Wolfgang Hardtwig, “Volksgemeinschaft im Übergang. Von der Demokratie zum rassistischen Führerstaat”, Detlef Lehnert, ed., Gemeinschaftsdenken in Europa. Das Gesellschaftskonzept „Volksheim“ im Vergleich 1900–1938 (Cologne, 2013), pp. 227–53, with references to the scholarly discussion; on terminology pertaining to community, see Michael Freeden, Liberal Languages: Ideological Imaginations and Twentieth-Century Progressive Thought (Princeton, 2005), pp. 38–59; Klaus Lichtblau, “‚Vergemeinschaftung‘ und ‚Vergesellschaftung‘ bei Max Weber. Eine Rekonstruktion seines Sprachgebrauchs”, Zeitschrift für Soziologie 29 (2000), pp. 423–43. 11 See Niall Ferguson, High Financier: The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburg (London, 2011), pp. 49f, 64–82; Verhandlungen des Reichstags, Stenographische Berichte , vol. 457, 2nd meeting, 23 Mar. 1933 (Berlin, 1934), p. 33. 12 Reinhart Koselleck et al., “Volk, Nation, Nationalismus, Masse”, Otto Brunner, Werner Conze and idem, eds., Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland (Stuttgart, 2004), vol. 7, pp. 141–431, here p. 382. 13 See Adam Tooze, “Ein globaler Krieg unter demokratischen Bedingungen”, Müller and Tooze 2015 (see note 5), pp. 37–69. 14 Koselleck 2004 (see note 12), p. 390; on the concept of “Volk” in the early Weimar Republic, also see Heiko Bollmeyer, Der steinige Weg zur Demokratie. Die Weimarer Nationalversammlung zwischen Kaiserreich und Republik (Frankfurt, 2007). 15 Uwe Puschner, Die völkische Bewegung. Sprache – Rasse – Religion (Darmstadt, 2001), pp. 9f, 27; see idem, Walter Schmitz and Justus H. Ulbricht, eds., Handbuch zur „Völkischen Bewegung“ 1871–1918 (Munich, 1996); Stefan Breuer, Die Völkischen in Deutschland. Kaiserreich und Weimarer Republik (Darmstadt, 2008). 16 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf. Eine Abrechnung von Adolf Hitler , vol. 1 (Munich, 1925), p. 364; see Hermann Hammer, “Die deutschen Ausgaben von Hitlers ‚Mein Kampf‘”, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 4 (1956), pp. 161–78, here p. 171; Othmar Plöckinger, Geschichte eines Buches. Adolf Hitlers „Mein Kampf“ 1922–1945 (Munich, 2006); after 1929, the later SS pioneer Reinhard Höhn championed the idea of “true Germanic democracy”; see Michael Stolleis, The Law under the Swastika: Studies on Legal History in Nazi Germany , trans. Thomas Dunlap (Chicago and London, 1998), pp. 74f. 17 See for example Christoph Gusy, ed., Demokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik (Baden-Baden, 2000); idem, ed., Demokratie in der Krise. Europa in der Zwischenkriegszeit (Baden-Baden, 2008); Marcus Llanque, Demokratisches Denken im Krieg. Die deutsche Debatte im Ersten Weltkrieg (Berlin, 2000); Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century (London, 1998); Jan-Werner Müller, Contesting Democracy: Political Ideas in Twentieth-Century Europe (New Haven, 2011); Tim B. Müller, Nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg. Lebensversuche moderner Demokratien (Hamburg, 2014); Andreas Wirsching, ed., Herausforderungen der parlamentarischen Demokratie. Die Weimarer Republik im europäischen Vergleich (Munich, 2007). 18 Hardtwig 2013 (see note 10), p. 247. 19 Verhandlungen der Verfassunggebenden Deutschen Nationalversammlung, Stenographische Berichte , vol. 328, 64th meeting, 23 Jul. 1919 (Berlin, 1920), p. 1852. 20 See ibid., pp. 1843–52.

21 Verhandlungen 1920 (see note 19), vol. 329, 71st meeting, 31 Jul. 1919, p. 2194. 22 See Klaus Epstein, Matthias Erzberger and the Dilemma of German Democracy (New York, 1971).

E S SAYS Erzberger gave his speech on 25 July 1919, the forefathers of – and the most important suppli- German National delegate and co-founder of the er of catchwords for – the volkish mentality, 24 German National People’s Party Albrecht von clearly revealed his political stance. Graefe had Graefe(-Goldebee) responded to the govern- thus declared his faith in volkish ideology, even ment statement by ridiculing Bauer’s “illusory if his radical anti-Semitism was not as obvious politics”, and his speech was riddled with sharp in his nationalist Reichstag speech as in other attacks on Erzberger. He even already espoused utterances. In terms of social rank, Graefe was the “Dolchstosslegende” (“stab-in-the-back a member of the German Empire’s ruling class, myth”) according to which the war hadn’t been which saw its privileged status threatened by lost “in the field”, but through the revolution mass society, socialism and democracy. The at home. According to Graefe, the democrat- loss of the war had radicalized the adherents to ic government and the new constitution were volkish sentiment. However spectacular its acts “the greatest calamity for our German people”. of violence, the struggle against democracy Bismarck’s work was thus being destroyed. On that had been established in 1918/19 seemed the one hand Graefe was availing himself of the hopeless, and it further radicalized the extrem- new language of mass participation: the “Volk” ism of volkish sympathizers. The core elements was the chief focus of his argumentation; the of their sometimes contradictory and confused abolition of the monarchy meant the “rape of political convictions and obsessions, which gave the majority by a minority – actually a very rise to all kinds of rivalries and schisms, were undemocratic way of proceeding”. What the gov- language, race and religion. Religion – whether ernment was engaging in was not an expression in the guise of a ‘de-Jewified’ “German Chris- of “honest democracy”. With elitist arrogance tianity”, a “faith in Germanity” or neo-pagan not at all in keeping with the new age, Graefe Teutonic cults – was thus “the ‘Archimedean accused the government on the other hand of point’ of the volkish worldview. It not only not yet being ripe for its governmental respon- provided justification of the apocalyptic volkish sibility and in need of an “apprenticeship”. In a doctrine of salvation based on the Germans’ blatant show of snobbery, this was followed by divine ancestry and destiny, but also supplied an enumeration of the professions of the mem- the volkish adherents with the prime rationale bers of government – professions associated for their racist, anti-egalitarian thought con- with a low level of social prestige and education. structs.” 25 Their espousal of the “purity” of the Graefe claimed that the people longed to return German language took on bizarre dimensions “to the old regime” and made himself out to be in their penchant for neologisms. Their racism the spokesman of the propertied and educated: was not limited to rabid anti-Semitism, but also the government, he said, lacked the “capability developed visions of a racially pure German or for” and “a sense of order”. He insisted on the “Aryan” human being. Already before World War right to “self-defence” against the Bolshevists, I, the followers of the volkish movement created condemned the tax plans as “confiscations of the ideologemes of their racist worldview as assets”, and declared it a “sacred duty to com- well as a Reich-wide network of organizations bat this government”. He concluded his speech highly skilled in agitation as aggressive as it with a quotation from Paul de Lagarde. 23 was purposeful. It was thus that they prepared the ideological foundations, the institutional What sounded like the political language of a conditions, and the propagandistic arsenal German National whose traditions of revolu- for the National Socialist movement and its tion and democracy-founding had been shaken ideology. 26 Regardless of whether they were actually contained fundamental elements of threatened by social downgrading, the members volkish thought. Graefe was a prominent figure of the esoteric circles and organizations, the in the intermediary realm between parliamen- subscribers to the volkish periodicals and the tary politics and the volkish “underground”. participants in volkish events can for the most He was among the leading members of the part be traced back to the Wilhelmine elites, Alldeutscher Verband (Pan-German League), especially the educated middle class. In the and he and others joined to form a “volkish Weimar Republic, the spread of anti-Semitism committee” within the German National Peo- and volkish thought and ultimately the endorse- ple’s Party. His reference to Lagarde, one of the ment of National Socialism was to be observed

230 | 231 especially among students. Their career pros- broadly based and rather loosely organized and pects were rapidly worsening, only to be dashed had dedicated themselves to armament, but also to pieces entirely by the economic crisis. This the Deutsche Vaterlandspartei (German Father- was the milieu from which the later “ideolog- land Party) active during World War I, and above ical elites” of the SS were recruited, although all the Pan-German League. 29 Contemporaries in their self-conception the latter cultivated a regarded the last-named organization as a kind tougher, “more objective” brand of racism. 27 Yet of connecting link between middle-class radi- the correlations were not always that obvious. cal nationalism and volkish racism, a view also The virulence of volkish thought, from which shared by scholars of the present. The Pan-Ger- National Socialism later adopted its symbols man League opposed democracy and modernity, and several elements of its language, can illumi- which it considered a threat, even if it was itself nate ideological genealogies, but it can’t explain a product of modern politics: it was reliant on Nazism as a mass party and form of rule. To all the conditions of the modern mass communi- too great a degree, that would be tantamount to cation society and it made skilful use of the re- intellectual-historical reductionism and teleo- spective potentials. In that sense, it was among logical argumentation. 28 the forces that can be considered the “dark” side of modernity. 30 Already the early analy- From the historical standpoint, there were sis of 1928 by Eckart Kehr spoke of a “kind of factors that would prove far more relevant than political-ideological holding company”, 31 while a volkish esotericism: networks, social circles more recent study calls the Pan-German League and organizations, constellations whose scopes a “coordination agency of the entire rightist reached beyond the bounds of the volkish camp spectrum”. 32 The league never had a member- and in which volkish thought fed into politically ship of more than a few thousand; at its peak in more relevant radical nationalistic discourses. 1923/24 it counted about 38,000 members. It was there that middle-class passions for the Its anti-Semitic mass organization, the violently grandeur of the fatherland, middle-class resent- inclined Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutz- ments against socialists and other “enemies bund (German Nationalist Protection and Defi- of the Reich”, and middle-class status-con- ance Federation) founded in 1919 and banned sciousness encountered more radical forces and in 1922, mobilized nearly 200,000 members. ideas, united in active commitment for Germany. The assassins of Erzberger and Walther Rathe- Prominent examples are the navy league and the nau maintained contact to this organization, defence association, both of which were quite from which later members of the NSDAP

23 Verhandlungen 1920 (see note 19), vol. 328, 66th meeting, 25 Jul. 1919, pp. 1912–25. 24 For a discerning discussion on Lagarde, who nevertheless remains one of the most important reference points for volkish thought, see Ulrich Sieg, Germany’s Prophet: Paul de Lagarde and the Origins of Modern Anti-Semitism , trans. Linda Ann Marianiello (Waltham, 2013). 25 Puschner 2001 (see note 15), p. 17; among the classical interpretations, see for example George L. Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich (New York, 1997). Another aspect not examined in the present essay is the intellectual right-wing radicalism subsumed under the term “Conservative Revolution”, among others; on this subject see the studies succeeding Kurt Sontheimer, Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik. Die politischen Ideen des deutschen Nationalismus zwischen 1918 und 1933 (Munich, 1962); most recently for example Volker Weiss, Moderne Antimoderne. Arthur Moeller van den Bruck und der Wandel des Konservatismus (Paderborn, 2012). 26 Puschner 2001 (see note 15), p. 25. 27 See Ulrich Herbert, Best. Biographische Studien über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und Vernunft 1903–1989 (Bonn, 1996), pp. 42–68; Konrad H. Jarausch, Deutsche Studenten 1800–1970 (Frankfurt, 1984), pp. 117–22; Michael H. Kater, Studentenschaft und Rechtsradikalismus in Deutschland 1918–1933. Eine sozialgeschichtliche Studie zur Bildungskrise in der Weimarer Republik (Hamburg, 1975); Michael Wildt, An Uncompromising Generation: The Nazi Leadership of the Reich Security Main Office , trans. Tom Lampert (Madison, 2009), pp. 37–80. 28 Per Leo, Der Wille zum Wesen. Weltanschauungskultur, charakterologisches Denken und Judenfeindschaft in Deutschland 1890–1940 (Berlin, 2013) investigates continuities in “educated” German racism from the perspective of the history of thought. 29 See for example Roger Chickering, We Men Who Feel Most German: A Cultural Study of the Pan-German League, 1886–1914 (Boston, 1984); Geoff Eley, Reshaping the German Right: Radical Nationalism and Political Change after Bismarck (Ann Arbor, 1991); Heinz Hagenlücke, Deutsche Vaterlandspartei. Die nationale Rechte am Ende des Kaiserreiches (Düsseldorf, 1997); Rainer Hering, Konstruierte Nation. Der Alldeutsche Verband 1890 bis 1939 (Hamburg, 2003); Jackisch 2012 (see note 6); Johannes Leicht, Heinrich Claß 1868–1953. Die politische Biographie eines Alldeutschen (Paderborn, 2012); Peter Walkenhorst, Nation – Volk – Rasse. Radikaler Nationalismus im Deutschen Kaiserreich 1890–1914 (Göttingen, 2007). 30 Hering 2003 (see note 29), pp. 496f; see for example Thomas Rohkrämer, Eine andere Moderne? Zivilisationskritik, Natur und Technik in Deutschland 1880–1933 (Paderborn, 1999); classical research contributions on this complex issue are Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Cambridge, 2013); Detlev J. K. Peukert, Max Webers Diagnose der Moderne (Göttingen, 1989); Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing (New York, 2009). 31 Eckart Kehr, Der Primat der Innenpolitik. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur preußisch-deutschen Sozialgeschichte im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt, 1970), p. 144. 32 Hagenlücke 1997 (see note 29), p. 402.

E S SAYS emerged. 33 The “Pan-German nation” to which This was diametrically opposed to the volkish the Pan-Germans aspired as a political goal outlook, and National Socialism radicalized was to be cleansed of all enemies from with- volkish thought regarding the people in two in – Jews, Social Democrats, Catholics, Poles decisive terminological operations. To begin and other cultural and national minorities. The with, it monopolized the “national”, aimed it Pan-German League envisioned a nation that against the Weimar state, and also placed the would pursue annexation plans in Europe and people above the new “polycratic” and in many colonialist visions in the world, give political respects unregulated state. Yet what National precedence to the elite, and be steered by an Socialism proclaimed as a “reconstruction on a authoritarian leader who increasingly came to popular [“volklicher”] foundation” had very little resemble Bismarck – a figure originally despised to do with earlier concepts of “Volk”. “Although as a political realist. The league rejected mass ‘Volk’ maintained its precedence in the every- democracy and equal suffrage as well as the day language of National Socialist propaganda, equality of women. 34 … the term had already long been devoid of significance.” It had not only lost all constitu- The Pan-Germans thus created a link between tional meaning, but had also – and this was its volkish thought and the middle classes. It was second reinterpretation – “ceded its ideological in part for this reason that racist, anti-Semitic function, its power to provide orientation for ideas and readiness to use violence became ac- attitudes and actions, to the term ‘race’” When ceptable in the civil society. This does not mean, the Nazis appealed to the “people’s communi- however, that traditional conservatism was con- ty”, what they really meant was the ideological trolled by the volkish movement. There were still subject “race”. 39 The dichotomy between race a considerable number of tensions which, until and state, to which traditional demarcations the Nazi assumption of power, erupted in open and rationality no longer had access, and the conflicts. The root causes of these conflicts dynamic of a “cumulative radicalization” served were often power issues and opposing interests. to toughen and accelerate not only racist ex- From the ideological point of view, however, they termination policies. They moreover triggered a can essentially be attributed to the dichotomy process that ultimately amounted to the “de- between state and people. Already Lagarde struction of politics” and the self-destruction of had relegated the state to the background as the Nazi regime. 40 a mere “supplement” vis-à-vis his racist/anti- Semitic-defined “Volk” that was moreover The Nazis’ obsessive preoccupation with the spiritually unified by a “national religion”. 35 For term “race” and its radicalization, however, not the Pan-Germans, the people, as an exclusive only reveals a constant of volkish thought. 41 and racially homogeneous community, always Issues that led straight to the heart of society had priority over the state, which was to be were subsumed under the catchword “eugen- recreated as a “volkish state”. 36 Traditional con- ics” – issues having to do with volkish-racist, servatism, on the other hand, paid its allegiance conventional socio-political and “socio-hygien- to the state. After 1918, this logic was indebted ic” aspects. The spectrum of these discussions to the “gouvernementale” wing of the German ranged from socio-political measures for the Nationals, which joined forces with conservative promotion of the public health on the one hand democrats to counter the volkish-oriented fun- to the forced sterilization of medically selected damental opposition in its own ranks and was “inferiors”, the killing of disabled persons and prepared to cooperate with the Weimar state. 37 the breeding of a new super race on the other. In the democratic discussion, people and state Initially, a great number of widely differing polit- came together; the term “Volksstaat” (“people’s ical voices were represented here. Modern med- state”) was usually used as a German version of icine and its tremendous significance to society, the word democracy. In the democratic con- the expansion of social hygiene to encompass all text, the concept of the people was of an open life circumstances, and the expansion of social and inclusive nature, and in addition to cultural work and welfare together created a situation aspects always also transported the notion of characterized by fluid boundaries between med- political self-determination. 38 ically and economically justified decisions, mea- sures that looked charitable at first sight but

232 | 233 were in fact paternalistically patronizing, and old conservative and middle-class elites played racist campaigns ultimately leading to ostracism a crucial role. They supplied the decision-mak- and annihilation. This was not an exclusively ers as NSDAP participation in the government German phenomenon. Similar tendencies were became increasingly conceivable. to be observed in the United States, Sweden, Britain and elsewhere, and nations also engaged In retrospect, however, volkish thought had in international collaborations with such aims. It already caused the most long-term damage took the developments in Germany, however, to far earlier. The ideological inflexibility of radical bring about a fundamentally new way of think- volkish nationalists and their fundamental rejec- ing in this area. Once the fatal consequences of tion of the political and social system of democ- eugenic thought had become evident, it lost its racy prevented the formation of a conservative scientific and social acceptance worldwide. 42 coalition party. In the long run, a party uniting all rightists may have succeeded in integrating These various developments all had a kind of even monarchist and other anti-democratic numbing impact on the foundations of civil soci- forces into democracy, as was the case in other ety, on its values and norms, its conceptions and countries. Again and again, however, the radi- modes of behaviour. Nazi slogans were no longer cals disturbed and disrupted the slow, difficult terrifying, not even surprising. The public was and tedious process of democratizing right- already familiar with National Socialist language wing portions of the population. The endeavours and symbols through the volkish movements. undertaken to this end in the German National Even in milieus in which volkish thought and People’s Party were repeatedly thwarted by the Pan-German politics did not meet with approv- relentless resistance of Pan-German and other al, people had become desensitized towards volkish protagonists. The constant disunity and anti-Semitism, racism and violence. The erosion many schisms in the right-wing-conservative of society’s moral foundations took on decisive spectrum facilitated the rise of National Social- political importance when – following the rise of ism. 43 National Socialism to a mass movement and the weakening of the parliament after 1930 – the

33 See Uwe Lohalm, Völkischer Radikalismus. Die Geschichte des Deutschvölkischen Schutz- und Trutzbundes 1919–1923 (Hamburg, 1970); Jackisch 2012 (see note 6), p. 3. 34 See Hering 2003 (see note 29). 35 Koselleck 2004 (see note 12), p. 374. 36 See Hering 2003 (see note 29), pp. 349–79. 37 See for example Jackisch 2012 (see note 6), pp. 89–100; Larry Eugene Jones, ed., The German Right in the Weimar Republic: Studies in the History of German Conservatism, Nationalism, and Antisemitism (New York, 2014); Thomas Mergel, “Das Scheitern des deutschen Tory-Konservatismus. Die Umformung der DNVP zu einer rechtsradikalen Partei 1928–1932”, Historische Zeitschrift 276 (2003), pp. 323–68; Stefanie Middendorf, “Finanzpolitische Fundamente der Demokratie? Haushaltsordnung. Ministerialbürokratie und Staatsdenken in der Weimarer Republik”, Müller and Tooze 2015 (see note 5), pp. 315–43; Philipp Nielsen, “Verantwortung und Kompromiss. Die Deutschnationalen auf der Suche nach einer konservativen Demokratie”, Müller and Tooze 2015 (see note 5), pp. 294–314. 38 See for example Koselleck 2004 (see note 12); Llanque 2000 (see note 17). 39 Koselleck 2004 (see note 12), pp. 398, 402, 411f, 413; for the discussion on institutional competitiveness in the National Socialist “polycracy”, see most recently Sven Reichardt and Wolfgang Seibel, eds., Der prekäre Staat. Herrschen und Verwalten im Nationalsozialismus (Frankfurt, 2011); for the discussion on the function of the term “people’s community” that has proven very difficult to grasp analytically, however omnipresent the term was in Nazi Germany, see Martina Steber and Bernhard Gotto, eds., Visions of Community in Nazi Germany: Social Engineering and Private Lives (Oxford, 2014); “Volksgemeinschaft und die Gesellschaftsgeschichte des NS-Regimes”, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 62 (2014), pp. 433–68. 40 Mommsen 1966 (see note 9), p. 117. 41 See Puschner 2001 (see note 15), pp. 49–201. 42 See for example Evans 2015 (see note 4), pp. 59–84; Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution (Chapel Hill, 2008); Jeremy Noakes, “Nazism and Eugenics: The Background to the Nazi Sterilization Law of 14 July 1933”, R. J. Bullen, H. Pogge von Strandmann and A. Polonsky, eds., Ideas into Politics: Aspects of European History 1880–1950 (London, 1984), pp. 75–94; Detlev J. K. Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition and Racism in Everyday Life , trans. Richard Deveson (New Haven, 1987); idem, Grenzen der Sozialdisziplinierung. Aufstieg und Krise der deutschen Jugend- fürsorge von 1878 bis 1932 (Cologne, 1986); Hans-Walter Schmuhl, Rassenhygiene, Nationalsozialismus, Euthanasie. Von der Verhütung zur Vernichtung „lebensunwerten Lebens“ 1890–1945 (Göttingen, 1987); Paul Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics between National Unification and Nazism, 1870–1945 (Cambridge, 1993); on the continuity of eugenic concepts in the German penal system, the first chapters of Nikolaus Wachsmann, Hitler’s Prisons: Legal Terror in Nazi Germany (New Haven, 2004); on the international dimension and the rejection of eugenic thought after 1945, Mazower 1998 (see note 17), pp. 117–56. 43 See Stefan Breuer, Ordnungen der Ungleichheit – die deutsche Rechte im Widerstreit ihrer Ideen 1871–1945 (Darmstadt, 2001), pp. 370–76; Eley 1991 (see note 29); Jackisch 2012 (see note 6); Larry Eugene Jones, “The Limits of Collaboration: Edgar Jung, Herbert von Bose, and the Origins of the Conservative Resistance to Hitler, 1933–34”, idem and James Retallack, eds., Between Reform, Reaction, and Resistance: Studies in the History of German Conservatism from 1789 to 1945 (Providence, 1993), pp. 465–501.

E S SAYS Let us return here to Albrecht von Graefe. tial elections, Ludendorff, the hero of World Although anti-Semitism served as a “cultural War I who meanwhile subscribed to a volkish- code”44 of mutual understanding among the esoteric ideology, had brought in a paltry 1.1 disunited German Nationals, the traditional per cent of the vote. 47 Defeat followed defeat in anti-Semitic attitudes of large portions of the close succession: the thwarted Kapp-Lüttwitz- party were still too moderate for Graefe and his Ludendorff coup of 1920, the Beer Hall Putsch likeminded cohorts. They envisioned racist and of 1923, the farce of a supposed “Class coup” of radically anti-Semitic politics. At the end of 1922 1926 48 and the spectacular – but spectacularly they left the German National People’s Party and unsuccessful – agitation against the Young Plan founded the Deutschvölkische Freiheitspartei in 1929. The Weimar “Republikschutz” – meas- (German Volkish Freedom Party). Especially in ures to protect the republic – cracked down Mecklenburg they recorded a number of minor harder than was later rumoured, and the Ger- successes and were considered the northern man Nationalist Protection and Defiance Feder- German counterpart to the NSDAP in Bavaria. ation was on the receiving end of its force. The The figurehead of both extreme right-wing republic was a democracy capable of defending splinter parties in this phase was the world war itself. Once the civil-war-like situation of the general Erich Ludendorff, whose inauspicious initial years had been overcome, the violence role in German history is a topic unto itself. 45 of the political conflict had dwindled signifi- Yet even the Pan-Germans considered the ex- cantly. And as late as 1932, the “Reichsbanner tremist attitudes of this openly volkish-racist Schwarz-Rot-Gold” (“Black-Red-Gold Banner of parties too radical, primarily because they didn’t the Reich”) – an organization loyal to the repub- think the latter had much in the way of viable lic with Social Democrats, Christian Democrats political chances. They therefore shifted their from the Centre Party and left-wing liberals focus back to the German National People’s among its members – far outsized the SA, the Party, with disastrous consequences. Following communist “Roter Frontkämpferbund” (“Alli- the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, if not ance of Red Front-Fighters”) and the German earlier, the Pan-German league and its chairman National “Stahlhelm” (“Steel Helmet League of Heinrich Class directed their energies towards Front Soldiers”) together. 49 Every investigation undermining the German National People’s Party of volkish thought must take these circumstanc- – which at the time was tending towards the Re- es into account. Because of the fact that, after public – as a way of realizing its volkish political 1933, so much happened that was reminiscent visions. One success of their strategy was the of volkish language and ideas, their pre-1933 election of Alfred Hugenberg – an extreme right- significance is easily overestimated. Radical- ist Pan-German who would ultimately be pre- ization, adjustments of tactic and changes of pared to cooperate with Hitler – as party leader. strategy were the consequence of setbacks. As Moderate conservatives left the German Nation- an eclectic ideology, National Socialism availed al People’s Party in droves, but the Pan-Germans itself of volkish thought. Yet it introduced an en- also lost the majority of their members in these tirely new quality to politics. After 1928, rather years. 46 than getting bogged down in the volkish mire, it sought to increase its appeal for large portions It was evident everywhere that volkish thought of the society, to become a kind of people’s had lost political significance. At the same time, party. In order to enable Hitler and the Nazi however, its Pan-German middle-class variety party to institute their project of a new, “racially succeeded in conquering the German National pure”, exclusion-based “people’s community” as People’s Party. This contradiction is character- government policy, however, massive economic, istic of the tragedy of pre-1933 German histo- political and social shockwaves were necessary. ry. The series of political defeats the radically Otherwise the National Socialists would prob- nationalist racist volkish political milieu had had ably have sunk into historical oblivion, and with to endure was also mirrored in the statistics. them the volkish movement. The German Volkish Freedom Party had not been able to assert itself in the 1928 Reichstag elec- That is what intelligent contemporary observers tions, and the NSDAP had attained a mere 2.6 expected would happen. Among them was the per cent of the votes. In the 1925 Reich presiden- sociologist Sigmund Neumann, who was forced

234 | 235 into exile in 1933. He had submitted his study on tionary elements” of the Hitler movement. As for “The German Parties” the previous year, a work what was to come, Neumann recognized that so rich in ideas and analytically precise that it “the National Socialists’ shift of tactic to the continues to inspire research on the German conquest of state power by way of a coalition Reich, the Weimar Republic and National Social- may well prove very significant in the future”. He ism even today. He conceived of the Nazi party moreover outlined the internal tensions with- as a “protest movement” elected by voters in the National Socialist movement. The clock scattered among various camps and social stra- was ticking for the Hitler party. A mass protest ta, as above all a “party of the middle class”, movement of the kind the radical right-wing sociologically speaking, but in terms of dynamic splinter party had become could not be mobi- a “continuation of the youth movement”. Neu- lized indefinitely. “There is no question: National mann described the rise of Nazism from 1930 Socialism will have to achieve success very soon onward as a “shadow or expression of the crisis or forfeit political significance. You can hardly that has developed over the past two years.” For make a permanent revolution with masses.” 50 National Socialism, politics was the “rationaliza- And in the November 1932 elections, the party tion of the irrational”. A “love for the absolute” did indeed lose a substantial number of votes was what drove its youthful following, including for the first time since 1930, as the Frankfurter the many students, to abandon themselves to Zeitung pointed out at the turn of the year the Führer; they wanted radical deeds. With its 1932/1933. We know how the story ended. 1930 “declaration of legality, however, Nation- al Socialism also gained the support of broad portions of society that essentially just wanted Tim B. Müller a radical German national party”. Yet the civil Historian and research associate at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research society underestimated the “genuinely revolu-

44 On this term see Shulamit Volkov, Antisemitismus als kultureller Code. Zehn Essays (Munich, 2000). 45 See Jackisch 2012 (see note 6), pp. 54–67; Manfred Nebelin, Ludendorff. Diktator im Ersten Weltkrieg (Munich, 2011). 46 See Jackisch 2012 (see note 6), pp. 101–58. 47 See Wolfram Pyta, Hindenburg. Herrschaft zwischen Hohenzollern und Hitler (Munich, 2007), p. 465. 48 On this subject, see Jackisch 2012 (see note 6), pp. 138–46. 49 See for example Dreyer 2009 (see note 6); Sven Reichardt, Faschistische Kampfbünde. Gewalt und Gemeinschaft im italienischen Squadrismus und in der deutschen SA (Cologne, 2009); Dirk Schumann, Politische Gewalt in der Weimarer Republik. Kampf um die Straße und Furcht vor dem Bürgerkrieg (Essen, 2001); Benjamin Ziemann, “Germany after the First World War – A Violent Society? Results and Implications of Recent Research on Weimar Germany”, Journal of Modern European History 1 (2003), pp. 80–95; idem, Veteranen der Republik. Kriegserinnerung und demokratische Politik 1918–1933 (Bonn, 2014); like Blasius 2006 (see note 8), these contributions show that the violence was not unleashed again until the final phase of the republic. 50 Sigmund Neumann, Die deutschen Parteien. Wesen und Wandel nach dem Kriege (Berlin, 1932), pp. 73ff, 78, 82, 85f and 88.

E S SAYS