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Heinrich August Winkler, ed.. Weimar im Widerstreit. Deutungen der ersten deutschen Republik im geteilten Deutschland. Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2002. 193 pp. EUR 24.80, cloth, ISBN 978-3-486-56653-6.

Reviewed by Matthew Stibbe

Published on H-German (January, 2004)

In the period since the collapse of the GDR The volume is neatly divided into three sec‐ and the reunifcation of Germany in 1989/90, tions, each devoted to a major area of controversy scholars have shown a growing interest in the within and between the two opposing historio‐ problem of coming to terms with a "divided past"; graphical traditions. The frst section deals with that is, the problem of how to reconcile the two the foundations of the in very diferent historiographical traditions preva‐ 1918-19, and in particular with rival interpreta‐ lent in capitalist West Germany and communist tions of the character and signifcance of the No‐ during the Cold War era. In particu‐ vember 1918 revolution. Klaus Schoenhoven be‐ lar attention has focused on the Third Reich and gins with an overview of recent literature on the the Holocaust, as well as on the German resis‐ legacy of the First World War, paying particular tance to Hitler.[1] However, as Heinrich August attention to its political, social and cultural efects. Winkler argues in the introduction to this new In his view the First World War was both the collection of essays, "hardly any chapter in Ger‐ Urkatastrophe of the twentieth century and at the man history created such tensions between the same time particularly damaging to Germany, Federal Republic and the GDR as the Weimar [pe‐ where it helped to breed a widespread contempt riod]" (p. 9). This is largely because the political for parliamentary politics and a glorifcation of vi‐ and ideological battles between communists and olence, especially, but not exclusively, on the polit‐ social democrats which began at that time were ical Right. The results were already to be seen in still being fought out between the two German the early years of the new republic: between 1918 states in the 1950s and beyond. Even in the 1980s and 1924, for instance, 376 politically motivated and into the 1990s, the years 1918-1933 continued murders took place, and among the victims were to be a hotly contested area of debate, with both such prominent democratic politicians as sides claiming to represent the most humane and Matthias Erzberger and Walter Rathenau, as well democratic version of history. as the revolutionaries Karl Liebknecht and . These murders in turn were a heavy H-Net Reviews burden for the new republic to bear, perhaps out‐ early as 1948, and stressed the "bourgeois" nature weighing in importance even the economic and of the 1918 revolution and the "opportunistic" be‐ social costs of the war. havior of the SPD and USPD-dominated workers' Moving on to the revolution councils. The "lessons" to be drawn were self-evi‐ itself, Winkler gives a precise summary of the dent: a successful socialist revolution could only changing nature of West German interpretations be achieved in Germany by ridding the workers' of the workers' councils of 1918-19. Whereas in movement of all forms of Sozialdemokratismus the 1950s historical writing on this subject was and instead building up a "party of a new type" dominated by anti-, in the 1960s new based on the Bolshevik model of democratic cen‐ questions arose. Was the period November 1918 tralism as practiced by Lenin in the to February 1919 a missed opportunity for and by the SED from 1948-49 onwards. Even so, as in Germany? Could the split in the workers' move‐ John notes, this orthodox position was challenged ment between communists and social democrats at various points--particularly in the late 1950s have been avoided at this time? Was there a "third and again in the Gorbachev era--by an alternative way" between a Soviet-style dictatorship and a view which stressed the revolutionary (albeit capitalist parliamentary republic? Winkler him‐ non-Leninist) character of the workers' councils self rejects the answer provided by the "68ers" in of 1918-19 and the possibility of missed opportu‐ West Germany, who stressed the revolutionary nities for a separate German road to . In democratic potential contained in the workers' other words, the "lessons" of 1918 might just as council movement of Winter 1918-19. As far as he easily challenge the legitimacy of SED rule as rein‐ is concerned, the government of people's commis‐ force it. This problem explains why party chair‐ sars, led by Ebert and Scheidemann, had to make man Walter Ulbricht took such a strong personal compromises with the bourgeois parties and the interest in the question of historical interpreta‐ forces of law and order in order to prevent the tions of 1918, and why, under his successor, Erich slide into chaos and civil war. Compromise with Honecker, the party actually began to distance it‐ the communists was out of the question, for the self from any positive references to 1918 at all. In‐ latter were determined to block not only the elec‐ stead, greater emphasis was now placed on the tions to a National Assembly but also the forma‐ revolutions of 1848, which could be more easily tion of a broadly representative coalition-based presented as a defning moment in the history of government. If the elections had not taken place, the German workers' movement within the and if the bourgeois parties had not been allowed broader framework of the "heritage and tradition" to enter the government, argues Winkler, then the debate. most likely result would have been civil war fol‐ The second section of the book moves on to lowed by right-wing dictatorship, and certainly look at another equally controversial area of the not a strengthening of in historiography, namely the rival and mutually in‐ Germany. compatible policies adopted by the SPD and the A very diferent view of the events of 1918-19 KPD in the early 1930s when confronted with the prevailed in the GDR, as Juergen John shows in rise of Hitler and the Nazi party. Eberhard Kolb, his contribution, which examines in detail the use in his contribution, subjects the actions of the SPD made by the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) of leadership between 1930 and 1933 to a critical the anniversaries of 1918 in 1948, 1958 and 1968 analysis and comes to a fairly positive assessment in order to reinforce its own claim to historical le‐ of the party's attempts to uphold democracy in gitimacy. The ofcial party line was laid down as the face of threats from a totalitarian left and fas‐ cist right. In particular the decision of the party to

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"tolerate" the Bruening government between 1930 burg in 1919, and the crushing of the May Day and 1932 must be judged in terms of how it was demonstrations by the SPD-dominated Prussian seen at the time: as a short-term strategy designed government in 1929. Such events, argues Bramke, to allow the parliamentary system to survive the drove the KPD into a marginalized position within immediate economic crisis, rather than as a be‐ Weimar society and encouraged the process of trayal of social democratic principles. Andreas Stalinization at the expense of internal party Wirsching, on the other hand, investigates the po‐ democracy. sition adopted by the KPD between 1928 and 1932, The fnal section looks at difering interpreta‐ with particular emphasis on the "anti-fascist ac‐ tions of the legacy of Weimar in the post-1945 tion" of 1932. The KPD's policy after the Prussian world. Here we are dealing with some of the most elections in April 1932 was to undermine the lead‐ important "founding myths" of the two German ership of the SPD by appealing to the SPD rank- states in 1949. In West Germany, for instance, the and-fle to join in a common struggle against slogan "Bonn is not Weimar" was linked to a nega‐ Hitler. If SPD-oriented workers could be won tive interpretation of the 1919 Weimar constitu‐ over, their leaders would have to follow. Yet, as tion, which was held to contain insufcient safe‐ Wirsching notes, any real chance of a united front guards against the rise of extremist parties on the against fascism was destroyed by internal rifts one hand and the abdication of power by respon‐ within the KPD, which ended ultimately in the re‐ sible democratic parties on the other. However, as fusal of the party's Central Committee to compro‐ Dieter Grimm points out, Bonn survived not only mise on ideological questions or to drop its con‐ because it had a more robust constitution but be‐ demnation of "reformist" social democratic organ‐ cause of the entirely diferent conditions prevail‐ isations as "social fascist." Initial confusion and ing in the western zones of Germany in the late uncertainty in April 1932 were followed by a 1940s and beyond. In particular the Basic Law of hardening of entrenched ideological positions in 1949 was preceded by the reemergence and/or July 1932, to Hitler's advantage and to the disad‐ amalgamation of democratic parties who were in vantage of both KPD and SPD. fundamental agreement on the principles which The two further commentaries by Hermann should govern the new state. Anti-communism Weber and Werner Bramke are perhaps more in‐ too was perhaps an important unifying factor in teresting for what they say about Wirsching's con‐ West German politics, especially in the 1950s. tribution than Kolb's. Thus Weber criticises In the eastern part of Germany, on the other Wirsching for overemphasizing the autonomy of hand, the slogan "no going back to Weimar" was the German and its followers; in used to justify the enforced merger of the SPD and his view, the KPD simply followed the line estab‐ KPD in 1946, and to uphold the GDR's claim to be lished by the Comintern in Moscow, whose goal "anti-fascist" (as opposed to the "fascist-clerical" was to destroy the Weimar Republic and the SPD Federal Republic which allegedly had returned to as the frst step towards the establishment of a the aggressive imperialist policies of the past). communist dictatorship in Germany. Bramke, on This led to some highly distorted images of West the other hand, warns against any one-sided view Germany, such as the idea that the Grand Coali‐ of the relationship between the SPD and the KPD. tion of the mid-to late 1960s was the precursor for The KPD's "ultra-left" strategy was indeed the a new fascist dictatorship bent on launching a main obstacle to the achievement of anti-fascist war of aggression against the Soviet bloc in al‐ unity in 1932-33. However, this strategy also liance with the United States. However, as Martin needs to be understood against the background of Sabrow convincingly argues, historical scholar‐ the murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxem‐

3 H-Net Reviews ship in the GDR had many diferent faces. At its tive impact of Ebert's anti-Bolshevik policies in worst it simply provided crude justifcations for November-December 1918, namely the alienation SED rule, but at its best it also helped to open up of large numbers of workers and intellectuals new areas of research which had previously been from the new republic and their subsequent at‐ marginalized or ignored in German historiogra‐ traction to the anti-democratic (and later pro-Stal‐ phy. In the 1960s most East German historians in) KPD. And yet as Winkler notes, the failure of were prepared to put up with a high level of party Ebert and Scheidemann to undertake a broader interference in their work, and surprisingly it was socialization of the economy in the 1918-19 in al‐ left to the SED ideology chief Kurt Hager to call for liance with the USPD and other radical leftist less rigid forms of academic debate so that schol‐ groups is still a highly contentious issue in Ger‐ arship in the GDR might compete more efectively many today. On the one hand, it was an absolute with that produced in the west. By the 1980s, on precondition for the establishment of a function‐ the other hand, the tables had turned and some of ing parliamentary democracy with the half-heart‐ the key GDR experts working on the 1917-1933 pe‐ ed approval of the bourgeois parties, but on the riod were beginning to challenge the narrow other hand it also produced deep and damaging framework in which they were obliged to work, divisions on the German left with far-reaching especially the obligation to denounce the Weimar consequences for the 1920s and beyond. Republic as an imperialist state while presenting Notes an uncritical image of the KPD as the only positive [1]. Recent publications in this feld include alternative on ofer. The result was a gradual loss Juergen Danyel, ed., Die geteilte Vergangenheit. of faith in the party and the way in which it pre‐ Zum Umgang mit Nationalsozialismus und scribed the type of history that could be written in Widerstand in den beiden deutschen Staaten the GDR, although direct criticism of the SED and (, 1994); Jefrey Herf, Divided Memory: The its academic policies was very rare until after Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Cambridge, 1989.[2] 1997); Mary Fulbrook, German National Identity The individual contributions in this volume after the Holocaust (Cambridge, 1999); Klaus Neu‐ all make highly interesting reading in their own mann, Shifting Memories: The Nazi Past in the right. Taken together, they provide a valuable ac‐ New Germany (Ann Arbor, 2000); Bill Niven, Fac‐ count of the divided history of the German work‐ ing the Nazi Past: United Germany and the Legacy ers' movement since 1918, and how this history of the Third Reich (London, 2002). was used and abused by both sides in the Cold [2]. This tendency can also be seen in some of War era. However, I also have one or two criti‐ the recent autobiographies written by former cisms of the volume as a whole. While we learn a GDR historians. See e.g. Fritz Klein, Drinnen und great deal from Sabrow about the ideological Draussen. Ein Historiker in der DDR. Erinnerun‐ pressures placed on scholars in the GDR, and in gen (Frankfurt am Main, 2000); and Joachim Pet‐ particular the role played by the SED-Institute for zold, Parteinahme wofuer? DDR-Historiker im - (IML), much less is said about Spannungsfeld von Politik und Wissenschaft, ed. the more subtle political constraints placed on Martin Sabrow (, 2000). West German historiography. These constraints are implied rather than spelled out in detail. Copyright (c) 2003 by H-Net, all rights re‐ Moreover, while nearly all the contributors praise served. H-Net permits the redistribution and the SPD for its commitment to defending democ‐ reprinting of this work for nonproft, educational racy between 1918 and 1933, only one, Werner purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the Bramke, seriously considers the long-term nega‐ author, web location, date of publication, originat‐

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Citation: Matthew Stibbe. Review of Winkler, Heinrich August, ed. Weimar im Widerstreit. Deutungen der ersten deutschen Republik im geteilten Deutschland. H-German, H-Net Reviews. January, 2004.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=8633

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