Lutz Hachmeister. Schleyer: Eine deutsche Geschichte. München: C.H. Beck Verlag, 2004. 447 S. + 38 Abb. EUR 24.90, cloth, ISBN 978-3-406-51863-8.

Reviewed by Karrin Hanshew

Published on H-German (September, 2005)

With his book on Hanns Martin Schleyer, 1970s, not only by focusing on the RAF's most Lutz Hachmeister brings two current trends in prominent victim, rather than the terrorists them‐ German historiography together, namely the re‐ selves, but also in its attempt to place the phe‐ vival of the biography and the ongoing interest in nomenon of West German terrorism in its larger the (RAF), whose ability to at‐ historical context. tract both popular and academic attention has Hachmeister's present work is inspired by the only increased with this year's much-debated ex‐ documentary flm the author made for ARD, in hibition on the West German terrorist group. which he traced the life of the former President of Those familiar with Hachmeister's earlier work the Employers' Federation (BDA) and the West on journalists in West Germany will fnd this book German Federation of Industries (BDI) until his analogous in its approach as well as its revela‐ kidnapping and death at the hands of the RAF in tions of continuities between Nazi Germany and Fall, 1977. Expanded in its scope and research and the FRG.[1] His methodological commitment to bi‐ intended to stand on its own, the book neverthe‐ ography rests on a desire to overcome structural‐ less carries the imprint of the original project. The ist social histories that stay at a level of abstrac‐ construction of the narrative and dramatic fore‐ tion, far removed from the lives of individual peo‐ shadowing of Schleyer's fate often resonates with ple (p. 24). As the title implies, Schleyer: Eine conventions of contemporary flm and historians deutsche Geschichte operates on two levels, pro‐ will fnd themselves alternately frustrated and be‐ viding a detail-rich description of Schleyer's life fuddled by the ease with which facts and quota‐ while simultaneously using this individual history tions go uncited and the way material from recent to gain insights into twentieth-century German interviews is used on par with archival sources. history as a whole. While the results are mixed, Hachmeister's last chapter, on the 1960s and with its successes heavily weighted toward the 1970s, further sufers from a lack of primary re‐ micro-level, the book distinguishes itself from oth‐ search, with the result that he adopts, at times er popular works touching on the terrorism of the H-Net Reviews wholesale, analyses and biographical characteri‐ tenacity of 1930s' corporatism in Schleyer's think‐ zations found in the existing secondary litera‐ ing even as the industrialist espoused support for ture--a secondary literature that, due to both its Erhard's "formierte Gesellschaft" and proved him‐ under-developed state and its implication in self a hardliner in 1963 by instituting a lockout of present-day politics, represents anything but an striking metalworkers. unproblematic source. Ultimately, the narrative of Schleyer's life pro‐ That said, however, Hachmeister succeeds in vides the vehicle for innumerable "mini-biogra‐ producing a highly informative, detail-packed, phies." While sometimes guilty of distracting from and readable history of the life and times of the work's analytical drive and cohesion, they do Hanns Martin Schleyer. Beginning with his family, succeed as a powerful illustration of the continu‐ the author traces Schleyer's youth under the ities between the industrial and economic person‐ widely unpopular Weimar Republic to his univer‐ nel of the Third Reich and the bosses of big busi‐ sity years in Heidelberg, where he became what ness and industry in the FRG. While one may be Hachmeister repeatedly describes as a student aware of such continuities before opening "activist" for National Socialism--a role that even‐ Hachmeister's book, reading one biographical tually led to his position as SS-Untersturmführer sketch after another in which the subject steps in charge of organizing the economy of the Pro‐ lightly from one regime to the next can fll even tectorate of and . Here, in his those well-versed in the historiography of West discussion of Schleyer's activities in , Germany with renewed disgust and amazement Hachmeister makes a particularly signifcant con‐ at the inefectiveness of denazifcation and the tribution by clearing up Schleyer's relationship to ability of individuals to adapt to circumstances as Reinhard Heydrich, well known as head of the Re‐ necessary. ich Security Main Ofce for his role in planning The source of the book's strengths, however, the Final Solution. While Schleyer has been char‐ creates problems when Hachmeister shifts from acterized frequently as Heydrich's "right hand" by the micro- to the macro-level. While I am deeply members of the left, Hachmeister shows that this sympathetic to the need to place West German was not the case. While Schleyer most certainly terrorism into its historical context--a context carried on the program for the Protectorate laid which I agree extends beyond the 1960s and the down by Heydrich, the SS leader was already student movement--the history of twentieth-cen‐ dead when Schleyer came to Prague (pp. 207-208). tury Germany ofered by Schleyer: Eine deutsche Hachmeister begins his examination of Schleyer's Geschichte falls short of its mark. Hachmeister ar‐ postwar career with the future industrialist's gues that the terrorism of the 1970s is part of a three-year internment in a POW camp for his larger trajectory of "extra-state militancy" begin‐ questionable relationship to National Socialism (a ning in World War I (p. 37). Compelling for its relationship made questionable by Schleyer's self- treatment of terrorism as an historical phenome‐ serving and inconsistent self-descriptions as well non to be examined and explained, the argument, as the inaccessibility of information on Nazi per‐ unfortunately, relies more on Hachmeister's intu‐ sonnel within the Protectorate) and then goes on ition than on evidence due to the sporadic and of‐ to trace Schleyer's steady rise in West German ten confusing interjection of the larger social, eco‐ business and industry. Hachmeister convincingly nomic, and political developments within the cen‐ demonstrates how Schleyer's successful career at tral narrative of Schleyer's life. More problematic Mercedes-Benz was enabled by personal connec‐ is the way in which Hachmeister's desire to fold tions predating 1945 (p. 242) and, using Schleyer's National Socialism and the terrorism of the 1970s own book on the "social model," argues for the

2 H-Net Reviews into a historical narrative of extra-state militancy decisively removes terrorism as practiced by the Nazi state from consideration. When coupled with his method of biography-driven analysis, this ar‐ gument casts politics to the background. In two eras notorious for political extremism, namely the 1930s and the 1970s, Hachmeister directs atten‐ tion to motivations such as personal loyalties and moral self-righteousness--not political or ideologi‐ cal commitment--in attempting to understand Schleyer and, in the fnal pages, the second gener‐ ation of RAF who kidnapped and murdered him. In the end, Hachmeister argues that one mili‐ tant group begets another and that only when this cycle of extra-state militancy ends can something new begin. In Hachmeister's history of twentieth- century Germany, Schleyer's murder in October, 1977, demobilized a politics of "pure conviction" that had simmered under the surface of West Ger‐ man society since the 1950s and had fed the extra- state militancy of the 1970s (p. 403). In this way, he suggests, the cycle of action and reaction be‐ gun some sixty years earlier came to an end and prepared the way for a new era in German histo‐ ry. Hachmeister is unable to ground the "how" and the "why" behind this demobilization or to ac‐ count for the changes in the political landscape visible by the early 1980s. But what he has done with great success is to raise the questions that still require answers and to indicate the direction in which the study of West German terrorism and its relationship to the German past must go. Note [1]. Lutz Hachmeister and Friedemann Sier‐ ing, eds., Die Herren Journalisten: Die Elite der deutschen Presse nach 1945 (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2002); see H-German review at .

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Citation: Karrin Hanshew. Review of Hachmeister, Lutz. Schleyer: Eine deutsche Geschichte. H-German, H-Net Reviews. September, 2005.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11127

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