Revolutions in German History: 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90

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JÖRN LEONHARD

Anatomies of failure? Revolutions in German history: 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90

Originalbeitrag erschienen in: Jörn Leonhard (Hrsg.): Ten years of German unification : transfer, transformation, incorporation? Birmingham: Univ. of Birmingham Pr., 2002, S. [21] - 55 Part I Historical and Foreign Policy Aspects I Anatomies of Failure? Revolutions in German History: 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90

JOrn Leonhard

The problem of revolutionary experience in modern German history

The developments in the Eastern part of Europe since summer 1989 brought back the concept of 'revolution' to the understanding of European history. Within a short period of time, revolution changed from an object far distant from the contemporary, into a fundamental experience of the present. History, in the eyes of many contemporaries, had reached the present: contrary to the assumption that the Cold War had both frozen the political constellations in Central Europe and defined the limits of civil rights movements in the member states of the Warsaw Pact, 1989 meant the returning experience of historical change and changeability, of ' Nriintierbarkeit, as the result of a rapid erosion of political legitimacy.1 22 JOrn Leonhard

In the case of Germany, 1989/90 generated a new meaning of 'revolution', a concept which hitherto seemed to have been overshadowed by the ambiguous legacies of 'failed', 'incomplete', or 'missing' revolutions in 1848 and 1918, or the negative connotation of 1933 as a 'legal revolution' by which the first German democracy was overturned within its own constitutional framework.' In collective memory, the events of 1968 were not regarded as a political 'revolution', but rather as a student revolt or a symbol of a cultural transformation.' In contrast, for the collective memory of most post-war Germans, 1933 and 1945 stood for the most fundamental turning-points in modern German history. In summer 1989, just weeks before the crisis brought about by GDR refugees in the Prague embassy led to the rapid delegitirnisation of the GDR's political and social elites, France had celebrated her Bicentenaire, the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution of 1789, accompanied by intensive discussions about the revolutions character and legacy, including highly controversial debates about the terrefir and the place of 1789 in French political culture.` In contrast, the two main exhibitions on 1789 in Germany reflected a particular distance towards the meaning of revolution in modern German history. Both exhibitions focused on 1789's indirect impact on Germany, on the export of revolutionary principles to Germany as part of the Napoleonic expansion and on the different responses to this challenge in the single German states: the political and constitutional reforms in the member states of the Confederation of the Rhine, especially in Baden, Wiirttemberg, and Bavaria, and the projects of the Prussian Reform era, following the Prussian defeat against Napoleonic France in 1806. 5 However, what distinguished German and French views on revolution as part of their history was that in public discussions in France, the legacy of 1789 was primarily regarded as an integral and positive part of republican and democratic identity of the modern French nation. The revolution could thus serve as a collective `lieu de memoire', providing positive and integrative symbolic codes, binding together historical experience and political expectations.6 For the German discussion, however, 'revolution' in general and 1789 in particular meant a rather distant event in history with no place in contemporary German political culture. Discussions rather focused on the lack of a German 1789 as part of a deviation from a Western path of apparently successful political modernisation. As the Historikerstreit, the debate about the comparability of the Nazi Holocaust and crimes committed by the Stalinist regime, demonstrated in the 1980s, collective historical memory was almost completely dominated by the impact of National Socialist dictatorship on modern German history. Earlier attempts in the 1970s and 1980s to revive a positive commemoration of 1848 as part of a democratic tradition in German history could not alter this dominating paradigm.7 In 1934 the German historian Rudolf Stadelmann had stated that all revolutions in German history, from Luther's reformation to the 'revolution' against Revolutions in German History: 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90 23

Napoleon, had failed because of the existence of the supranational Reich, which, symbolised in Charles V and Metternich, had absorbed the people's movements of the sixteenth and the early nineteenth centuries. Used to a reform-oriented state in the tradition of enlightened absolutism, Germany, according to Stadelmann, both in 1848 and in 1918 was too developed for a complete break with the past.8 His notion of a 'missed revolution' became a much debated but stable cornerstone of the historiographic paradigm of a German Sondenves in modern history: 'The heydays of our national past are not victories over the monarchy, but rather feats of glory and the achievements of statesmen, Frederick the Great and Bismarck.' Revolutions, by their very nature, seemed to be `un-German'.9 Heinrich August Winkler, in his recent history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century German history, concludes that the real 'German revolution' was a revolution against Marxism and against West European democracy, which had to be defeated by those powers founded on the basis of successful revolutions in the seventeenth century, in 1776, 1789, and 1917: the Western democracies and the Soviet Union.1° What do these examples reveal about the understanding of 'revolution' in mod- em German history? Is there a justification, as still many would argue, for the lament of a lack of supposedly 'successful' revolutions or positive identification with revolutionary turning-points in modern German history? 11 If so, how far has this pattern been questioned by the experiences of 1989/90? This chapter tries to approach these questions by examining and comparing basic problems of the revolutionary turning-points of 1848, 1918 and 1989/90. This should not be misin- terpreted as an attempt to deny the fundamental difference in the historical contexts of these events or to formulate another theory of revolutions above and beyond essentially different contexts, 12 but as a historical comparison that can deepen the understanding of the particular meaning of revolution in modern German history and of the way this has been challenged by the events of 1989/90.13 The chapter is in five parts. An introductory section concentrates on the meaning of the concept 'revolution' in modern German history and tries to identify particular connotations. The following three sections focus on the revolutionary turning-points of 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90 by means of a system- atic analysis that considers six factors: (1) origins and causes of the crisis of legitimacy of existing regimes, (2) levels of revolutionary actions and communication, (3) the relation between conflict and compromise strategies, (4) state versus society: revolutionary elements 'from below' and 'from above', (5) counter-revolutionary forces, and (6) levels of short- and long-term impacts as seen in political and constitutional change, social transformation and implications for nation- state building. A fifth section systematically summarises the results according to these factors and puts them into the context of changing patterns of revolutionary experience and its legacy in Germany. 24 JOrn Leonhard

`A revolution in the positive meaning - `revolution as a political concept in Germany

The primary meaning of the concept 'revolution', derived from the medieval Latin noun, is best caught by the modern English verb `to revolve'. According to this connotation, dominating in pre-1789 European political language, revolution, similar to the celestial spheres in Ptolemaic astronomy or the relation between earth and planets as examined by Copernican astronomy, 'goes round and round' (John Dunn). In the course of the seventeenth century with its mech- anisation of the world of politics and the essentially imaginative role of astronomy, 'revolution' was then first applied to examplts of political change in an explanatory framework. Thus the Glorious Revolution of 1688/89 could be regarded as a 'return' to a political and constitutional balance that had been destroyed by the Great Rebellion of the 1640s — first described as the 'English Revolution' only in the aftermath of the French Revolution — and the absolutist Stuarts after 1660.14 In contrast, 'revolution' in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Germany retained the character of a foreign term, meaning 'revolt', 'turmoil' or else 'civil war', and, contrary to other Western European languages, entered the sphere of politics only very slowly. 15 'Revolution', according to the astronomic origin, referred to 'growth and decline, increase and decrease' of countries or states.16 Following the experience of the French Revolution, 'revolution' became a central concept of contemporary political discussion in Germany. In 1795 Konrad Engelbert Oelsner commented on the change from a circular meaning of revolution to one that described a linear historical development, transcending the seventeenth-century connotative limits: 'True, the revolution has turned in a circle, but this circle is a spiral from out of which the revolution moves, seem- ingly returning to a fixed point but in actual fact moving towards and taking the human spirit with it.'17 A persistent meaning of revolution as a distinct concept of anti-feudal modernisation and political as well as social progress stood behind the writings of the leading Prussian reformer Hardenberg and his definition of a 'revolution in the positive meaning' in his Riga Memorandum of September 1807, by which he set out the objects of the Prussian Reform era:

A revolution, therefore, in its positive meaning, leading straight to the greatest of aims, the ennoblement of mankind through government's wis- dom rather than through violent impulses from within or from abroad, — this is our aim, the principle which guides us. Democratic principles in a monarchical government.18 Revolutions in German History: 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90 25

This gave the enlightened bureaucrac-v, regarded by Hegel as a 'general estate' that could intermediate between the interests of state and society, an almost fundamental position and shaped the concept of a state-led revolution 'from above', thus continuing traditions of bureaucratic reforms as part of eighteenth-century enlightened absolutism. Yet whereas Prussia after 1806 achieved a great deal of socioeconomic modernisation by abolishing feudal serfdom and introducing the right to carry out businesses and trade, its political and constitutional development stagnated after 1813/15. Prussia, unlike the South West German states, remained without a constitution until 1849, and yet, 'revolution' soon provoked conservative opposition. For the former German Jacobin Joseph von GOrres in 1819 it meant 'crisis' and 'illness', and he anticipated a state of inevitable anarchy and violence as a result of it:

not before everything has been overthrown, everything solid destroyed, everything high brought down, all property changed ... will an external or domestic catastrophe, after one full turn of the circle has been completed, guide the extremes to the middle ground again. This is the way the English,. French and all other revolutions have gone, and a German one would be no exception to this natural rule.19

The Pre-March democratic and radical opposition regarded a German revolution as a possible and 'natural' strategy if political and social conditions had to be altered in line with historical progress. However, even in this context the concept of a 'legal revolution' pointed to an ideal of progress that would avoid the French experiences in Germany. In the context of the Hambach Festival of 1832 and the perception of the English Reform Bill of 1832, the student Karl Braggemann wrote:

If a people feels that its constitution no longer corresponds to its inner nature but is instead a burden, it will destroy the old order in accordance with any state's natural need to progress. ... Accomplishing such a revolution in a legal manner is a real moral advance. Germany wants and needs to have a revolution; if her people is decided, it will be able to bring about her revolution legally, just as England is doing at present.2°

Regarding the close connection between the realm of the state and the concept of progress, Arnold Ruge in 1838 pointed to the particular problem arising from a potentially reform-oriented state, as demonstrated by the gradual constitutionalisation in many German states since 1815. Ruge underlined that this reformist state was by no means equivalent to the French counter-revolutionary power of the Ancien _RiAime, which a revolution would seek to replace. The German problem seemed to be a revolution without an object: 26 JOrn Leonhard

If the revolution takes place, then this violence is necessary to aid progress. However if progress is never halted and retarded, if, on the contrary, the state follows the same reform principle as in Prussia, then there is no necessity, not even a possibility of a revolution.21

In 1848 these differing concepts of revolution were confronted with a temporary freedom of political action. The I Ossi sche Zei //mg of 14 July 1848 defined revolution as 'the upheaval of a state against the will of its ruling forces'. For the liberal Heidelberg Professor Gervinus, member of the Frankfurt National Assembly, revolution stood for the 'transition of a people from one sphere of activity to another'. He regarded it as inevitable, 'that a great people breaking its way through to an independent political existence, to freedom and power, will necessarily have to experience the crisis of revolution', as demonstrated 'by the dual example of England and France which is so full of internal and external analogies'.22 However, the majority of moderate and constitutional liberals did not favour a revolutionary strategy in 1848. Their concept of legalising and channelling a political and social protest movement by elected parliaments led to a growing gap between moderate liberalism and democratic radicalism. For the former, political legitimacy could not be based on a violent revolution, but only on a compromise with the existing state governments on the basis of political participation, exercised by a qualified political elite of educated state-citizens. This stood behind the liberal Friedrich Wassermann's notion of 1848: We do not have a tabula rasa in Germany, we have given circumstances, and reform, not revolution is called for.' 23 The majority of moderate liberals in 1848 remained reluctant revolutionaries, 'Revolutionäre wider Willen'. When the counter-revolutionary forces regained power in late 1848, the majority of constitutional liberals were not prepared to appeal to the masses of the street, which they identified with the anarchical potential of a 'red' social republic. The same strategy characterised the new Prussian March ministry of 1848. Its leader, the Rhineland industrialist Ludolf Camphausen, openly refused to hon- our the victims of the March fights, because this could have been interpreted as a symbolic recognition of the revolution itself, a public acceptance, in his eyes, of the breach of legitimacy and revolutionary coups, 'as we know them from the history of the English Revolution in the seventeenth century and from the French Revolution in the eighteenth century'. 24 Friedrich Engels, criticising the liberal course in Berlin in 1848, spoke of a 'half revolution, only the beginning of a long revolutionary movement'. The people would be able to achieve much more than this: 'The most important conquest of the revolution is the revolution itself.' 25 Bismarck's concept of a kleineleutsch nation-state, as a response to the political failure of 1848 to create both a unified nation-state and a constitutional political Revolutions in German History: 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90 27

system, seemed for many contemporaries to be revolutionary in itself, since it brought with it the open breach of the traditional principle of legitimacy. As early as 1866 Bismarck had declared: 'If there is to be a revolution, then we pre- fer to make it than suffer from it.'26 The Prussian annexation of Hanover and Frankfurt in 1866/67 put this kind of a 'revolution from above' into reality In founding the North German Confederation in 1867 and the German Empire in 1871, it was basically the state that brought into being that which two generations of liberals and democrats had been fighting for since the Prussian King Frederick William III's promise of a constitution in 1810. Now, in 1867 and again for the whole kleindeutsch nation-state in 1871, the state granted universal and equal suffrage to elect representatives to the _Reichstag. Here Bismarck acted very much in the spirit of Hardenberg, who in his Riga Memorandum of 1807, had aimed at a 'positive' revolution, based on 'democratic principles within a monarchy', as a prophylactic against a potential revolution from below as had occurred in France. Thus Bismarck, in the 1860s and early 1870s, became regarded as a `White revolutionary',27 mistrusted by his fellow Junkers, as the conservative anti-bureaucratic nobles had mistrusted the supposedly 'Jacobin' Hardenberg. The notion of the White revolutionary' combined ideological conservatism with revolutionary tactics and strategies, though the basic difference between Stein and Hardenberg on the one side and Bismarck on the other remained: the liberal utopia of the earlier Prussian Reform era, the wide ethical horizon, was missing in the 1860s and 1870s. Stein had, in his own words, underlined the 'moral and spiritual strength' with which he had aimed at counterbalancing the 'relative weakness of the Prussian monarchy'.28 Bismarck replaced this concept by a nat- uralism of political interests that found its expression in the _Realpolitik of the day. Still, the revolutionising effect Bismarck had on the course of German history can hardly be denied, and the 'German revolution' of the international system, which the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli pointed to in 1871,29 had also far-reaching internal consequences, in that it defined a specific relation between state and society: on the one hand, in terms of internal nation-building, the 'White revolutionary' Bismarck created, in the words of Hagen Schulze, 'a bureaucratic authoritative educator-state, which, with the help of civil servants cured of their liberal origins, placed society under their guardianship in its own interest'.3° On the other hand, the modern elements of the new German Empire, as the early development of a social policy initiated and guaranteed by the state, its efficient bureaucracy and its independent judiciary, proved in the eyes of many contemporaries that modernisation was possible without a 'revolution from below'. As Gustav Schmoller put it in 1875: 'The whole progress in history consists of replacing revolution by reform.'31 In 1918, Friedrich Ebert, commenting on the October reforms by which the Second Empire became a parliamentarian monarchy even before the revolution- 28 JOrn Leonhard

ary crisis of November, saw the advent of a change of system with enormous consequences,32 but the social-democratic government soon adhered to the `principle of organic growth, 33 rejecting a Soviet model of a revolution in per- manence.34 The valkisch and nationalist opposition during the 1920s, the intellectual avant-garde of which called itself Conservative Revolution, attacked the `ovemberrevolfition'N as a mistaken, semi-revolution. 35 Such connotations could be taken up by the national-socialist concept of revolution, replacing the supposedly negative connotation of 1918 by the positive Wampfbegriff of a national and total revolution. In June 1933 Hitler stated that the law of national revolution is not yet expired. Today its dynamic dominates development in Germany, leading inexorably to a completely new order of German life. However, he also underlined that revolution is not a permanent state of things. ... One has to channel the stream of revolution into the safe bed of evolution.36 This short overview indicates that a strong antagonism between reform and `revolution developed in the nineteenth century, and that the experiences of discontinuity and radical change in the twentieth century made even a minimal consensus about the meaning of revolution and its historical legacy impossible. The concepts semantics rather reflected the fragmentation and polarisation of political culture.

1848: complexity and ambiguity of the German Doppelrevolution

The deterioration of the German governments political legitimacy in 1848 was due to a number of factors: a disillusionment of expectations for further political and constitutional reforms, including steps towards the creation of a German nation-state after 1815 and the implementation of an increasingly restrictive and repressive policy after 1830, a general stalemate in the national question, and the inability of successive governments to respond adequately to the consequences of social transformation, as had become obvious in the frequent pauperism crises of the 1840s.37 Under the impact of developments in Paris in February 1848, the revolution in Germany started with a double burden and only a temporary union of revolutionary activists: the constitutional liberals aim was to elect a national parliament on the basis of a constitutional monarchy and to create a German nation-state. But as the Pre-March developments after the experience of the French July Revolution 1830 had already demonstrated, the opposition against the existing governments consisted already of a heterogeneous spectrum of different political and social interests, bound together only by the increasing dissatisfaction with the current state of politics. The different pro- Revolutions in German History: 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90 29 grammes and strategies expressed by moderate liberalism and democratic radicalism reflected a pluralism of interests in a transitional society and could no lonerg be easily integrated. 38 Following Georges Lefebvres analysis of the French Revolution of 1789 as the result of different revolutions, including that of the pauperised urban lower classes, symbolised by the 14 July 1789, that of the countryside during the Grand Peur of August 1789, and that of the reform-oriented parts of the middle classes and the aristocracy in Versailles, highlighted by the abolition of feudalism and the Declaration of the Civil Rights in August 1789, 39 the revolution of 1848 also consisted of different levels of revolutionary action and communication that determined its complex character:4°

(a) A basic revolutionary movement with nation-wide demonstrations, protest meetings and spontaneous actions against feudal landlords dominated in spring 1848. Recent research has underlined the importance of the agrarian movement in this context, which, after the abolition of the last feudal relics in German territories, withdrew its support from the opposition movement as early as summer 1848. After its stimulating effect in spring this led to a temporary ease of revolutionary dynamics. (b) On the level of associations and the political press, a revolution in communication occurred, leading to a fundamental politicisation, but also demonstrating the spectrum of essentially different, if not already antagonistic, political and social interests in a changing society. This ranged from conservatism and constitutional liberalism, republican radicalism and political Catholicism to the early beginnings of the socialist workers movement. (c) The channelling and legalising of the revolution found its expression in the various parliamentarian assemblies in Frankfurt, but also in Vienna and Berlin and other single German states, causing a multiplicity of political centres. The National Assembly in Frankfurt was by no means an unpolitical parliament of naive and inexperienced university professors but showed all the signs of modern parliamentarism with organised parliamentary factions and working committees. On the one hand, this explains the impressive compromise over the constitution of 1849, based on a kleindefitsch German nation-state, a Prussian hereditary monarchy, a national parliament elected according to an unrestricted franchise, and a codification of basic civil rights (Gruntirechte). On the other hand, the Frankfurt Assembly and its provision- al executive under the Reichsvernieser Erzherzog Johann was burdened with a double function, to work on the constitution and to implement practical decisions, especially concerning the creation of a unified German nation- state. As the crisis over Schleswig Holstein in September 1848 proved, when the Assembly had to rely on Prussia to carry out its will, and Prussia signed 30 JOrn Leonhard

the Malmo-armistice, giving up Schleswig, the Assembly was left without a real executive power. The resulting conflict in Frankfurt deepened the crisis between the radical left and the lower classes on the one hand and constitutional liberalism and the middle classes on the other, who feared a social revolution from below. (d) The so-called March ministries, in which mostly moderate liberals dominated, followed a strategy of compromise with the traditional powers in the bureaucracies, the military and the diplomacy, in that they tried to terminate the revolution on the basis of the legal and constitutional achievements of March 1848. (e) Finally, the revolutionary movements in spring 1848 had stopped in front of the thrones and had not questioned the fundaments of monarchical power, which lay in the ministries, the diplomatic service and the military Since the National Assembly did not succeed in swearing in the Prussian and Austrian armies to the elected Reichsvenveser, the military became the strongest basis from which counter-revolutionary actions could start from autumn 1848 onwards.

Although moderate middle-class liberals were first prepared to use the lower orders mounting opposition from the streets in order to put the existing cabi- nets under pressure, they were reluctant revolutionaries, if revolutionaries at all. Their strategy both in the single states and in Frankfurt aimed at controlling and, legalising the opposition movement by channelling the pressure into parliamentarian assemblies and using the political position gained in the March ministries in the single states to secure the achievements of spring 1848. On the occasion of the Heidelberger Voiparlament, which prepared the elections to the National Assembly in Frankfurt, the radical lefts attempt to instigate a further revolutionary action failed, causing the short-lived April-uprising in Baden, a first revolution within the revolution that further distanced the radical left from constitutional liberalism. Many moderate liberals defended their position by arguing that there had actually not been a political revolution at all in Germany. They pointed to the fact that the German Confederation itself had transferred its power to the elected National Assembly in Frankfurt, thus somewhat reforming itself. By constantly referring to the idea of a continuity of institutions and the notion of a continuing legitimacy, liberals tried to distance themselves from the revolutionary uprisings of March and April 1848. The readiness of many constitutional liberals to co-operate with the existing monarchs and their fear of a social revolution, a mass movement of the streets, meant that their strategy consisted of elements from above and from below. This reflected both their Pre- March experiences in many German parliaments and the revolutionary events in spring 1848, and their continuing hope of avoiding the repetition of a French Revolutions in German History; 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90 31

Revolution in Germany if there was a reform-oriented state. Following the crisis of September 1848, however, it became clear that the executive weakness of the parliaments, the dependency on the old institutions of diplomacy, ministries and military that had not been affected by the changes, played into the hands of the counter-revolutionary forces, as events in Prussia and Vienna showed. The revolution's imminent failure resulted from the complexity and ambigui- tV of 1848: on the one hand, large parts of the European continent, and especially Central Europe, were facing a fundamental crisis of socioeconomic development, caused by a demographic revolution, high unemployment in traditional crafts, pauperism and early signs of industrialisation, and resulting in a heterogeneous political and social protest movement that after an initial phase of apparent coherence soon disintegrated. This was due to essentially different experiences and expectations, and a dichotomy of social projections: constitutional monarchy or republic, a society of equal state-citizens shaped by middle- class values and interests, or a society with equal political and social rights for all its members? On the other hand, the German states as well as their European neighbours in 1848/49 experienced a crisis of political emancipation and participation, in which a middle-class-based constitutional movement tried to free itself from the relics of a traditional corporative society by progressive institutions such as parliaments, political associations and a free press. It is basically this ambiguity of 1848 that has led Hans-Ulrich Wehler to include both aspects in his concept of a German `Doppeirevo/ution' between 1845 and 1849. Despite its imminent political and national failure, the revolution proved to be a catalyst for important long-term developments: it completed the abolition of the last feudal relics and it brought Prussia's and Austria's constitutionalisation – although constitutions took the form of an octroy 'from above' and included a limited franchise. Without the revolution Germany's industrial take-off would have encountered larger obstacles. The experience of a dynamic politicisation, by far transcending the educated and economic middle classes, found its expression in a developed political culture of distinct parties, associations and the political press. The impressive work of the Frankfurt National Assembly, despite the pressure of time and increasing counter-revolutionary action, resulted in the first German constitution, and the fact that revolutionary masses had fought for a liberal or even a democratic nation-state had an enormous impact on the period after 1849/50. As Hans-Ulrich Wehler states:

The standards which it set for the constitution of state and society, for rights to freedom and equality, retained thereafter the luminosity of an ideal that, for many people, remained binding, in spite of all the setbacks after 1848 – and that is why, as a basic fact, it could not be circumvented in the longer term. 41 32 JOrn Leonhard

1918: revolutionary origins of an improvised republic?

The German revolution of November 1918, the largest revolutionary mass movement outside Russia, was not, as earlier interpretations pointed out, a mere `upheaval' or a 'period of transition' between the Second Empire and the Weimar Republic, but a social-democratic revolution, based upon the transfer of power in the Reich as well as in the single German states and on the mass-organisations of the soldiers' and workers' councils. It was military defeat in 1918 that caused a fundamental crisis of legitimacy characterised by the triple threat of external pressure, political destabilisation and social disintegration. This was the situation in which the Social-democrats under Friedrich Ebert and Philipp Scheidemann took over power.42 To end the war in late 1918 was the central aim that soon radicalised the movement from below, as demonstrated by the development of the workers' and soldiers' councils after October 1918. This process was accompanied by a rapid disintegration in the legitimacy of the old elites' and the Hohenzollern monarchy It also created a temporary freedom of action for the left in 1918. The erosion of legitimacy since October 1918 weakened the ruling elites and eventually led to the end of the monarchy. The alternative options in 1918 were represented by the majority of the Social-democrats (MSPD) and the independent Social-democrats (USPD): a representative democratic and republican system on the basis of an elected parliament or a further social revolution led by socialist cadres following the pattern of the Soviet Bolsheviks in 1917 and leading to a dictatorship of the proletariat. The MSPD as well as the Progressive Liberals favoured the constitutional monarchy's parliamentarisation. From their perspective the actual change of the constitution had already taken place before the revolutionary transfer of executive power: in October 1918 the German Empire became a parliamentarian monarchy, following the military elite's pressure to fulfil the American President Wilson's Fourteen Points in order to pre- pare the way for an immediate armistice. The revolutionary transfer of executive powers on 9 November 1918, brought about by the collective movement of the workers' and soldiers' councils, was accompanied by an exclusion of the respective counter-elite: military defeat and the dramatic end of the Hohenzollern monarchy in November 1918 traumatised and, at least temporarily, paralysed the conservative and monarchical elites. For Ebert and Scheidemann, the seizing of executive power by the MSPD and the creation of a Council of People's Representatives (Rat der I Olksbealiftragteli) by both MSPD and USPD was primarily an act of emergency in order to safeguard law and order, political stability and social tranquillity and Revolutions in German History: 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90 33 was not regarded as the beginning of a further social revolution. Far more successful in its early stages than in 1848, the revolutionary legitimacy that existed for some weeks between November 1918 and January 1919 was neither used by thegovernments nor by the councils, which instead concentrated on demobili- sation andproviding for the revival of industries. 43 The interregnum, according to MSPD and the councils majority, should not be used to anticipate the constituent assemblys or the parliaments decisions. This made it necessary in the eyes of the MSPD to guarantee various sub-elites a large degree of autonomy Following Max Webers sociological analysis and Rainer M. Lepsius application of it to 1918, which did not focus on a historically determined line of events, but interpreted collective actions as the result of the particular interests of political, military, administrative and social elites, the Weimar Republic owed its political existence to a number of compromises and agreements between the new government and sub-elites:44

1. The Interfactional Committee (Interaktioneller Aussch4, created as early as Jule 1917, instigated a close co-operation between Majority Social-democrats, Catholic Centre Party and Progressive Liberals, reflecting the growing demand for a further constitutional reform of the German Empire. This practical political co-operation included a network of personal relations, which not only survived the revolutionary events between October and December 1918, but remained active until 1923/24 on the federal level, and even until 1932 in Prussia. The fundamental consequences of this political reform-agreement between the three parties in 1917, anticipating the later Weimar Coalition, lay in the continuity of political personnel in the federal ministries – there was no purge of administrative elites following the political take-over in November – and in the political enforcement of a National Constituent Assembly, thus channelling and legalising the protest movements of October and November 1918. This went hand in hand with a decision not to implement further, more radical reforms using the temporary power vacuum between November 1918 and February 1919, for example the nationalisation of core industries, political control of the military, the creation of a loyal republican militia or a far-reaching replacement of administrative or military elites. 2. The second compromise was negotiated between the Employers' Associations and the Free Trade Unions, following the already semi-official recognition of the Trade Unions in the KriegsWegeset of 1916. The so-called Stinnes-Legien Pact (Zentralarbeitsgemeinscheftsabkommen) included a guarantee of property-rights, which ruled out any option for a nationalisation of heavy industries such as coal and steel. It safeguarded the employers industrial autonomy and their political influence resulting from this autonomy. The 34 JOrn Leonhard

Trade Unions, on the other hand, gained their official recognition as representatives of the workers interests. The agreement also anticipated the concept of economic democracy (frirtschaftsdemokratie) on the institutional basis of works councils (Betriebsriite) and a Federal Economic Committee (Reichswirtschaftsrat). 3. The third basic agreement affected the relation between the leaders of the Social-democrats and the military supreme command (Oberste Heeresleitfing OHL). With the Ebert-GrOhner Pact, the OHL recognised the new cabinet and the republican form of government after the end of monarchy and the handing-over of political power from the last chancellor Max von Baden to Friedrich Ebert, leader of the MSPD, on 9 November 1918. On the one hand, the Social-democratic leaders won military support in order to control and, if necessary, to suppress potential communist uprisings and could therefore concentrate on preparing the elections to the National Constituent Assembly in early 1919. On the other hand, the SPD recognised the military supreme commands autonomy and abstained from creating an independent republican military force. Thus the old military elite remained in control of the arms monopoly. Basically the governments executive powers relied on military units and Free Corps, organised and led by officers returning from the front. This led to a violent conflict between the MSPD-dominated executive and the Socialist Councils movement, highlighted by the conflict over the Christmas fights in Berlin which resulted in the USPDs withdrawal from the Council of the Peoples Representatives. The increased tension between moderate Social-democrats and disappointed radical Socialists and Communists also explained why the developments between early 1919 and 1923 were characterised by a much more violent polarisation both within the left and between left- and right-wing extremism than in the period between October 1918 and February 1919. 4. The basic decisions on the federal level of the Reich were also reflected by constitutional changes in the single German states. Furthermore, the federal character of the new political system, although making the federal government financially much more independent from the individual states by a new tax-system, gave the Liinder an important part in political decisions. 5. Following the agreements between the SPD leaders and the military supreme command, the Social-democratic government also closely co-oper- ated with the ministerial bureaucracies of the former Imperial Federal Offices (Kaiserliche Reichsiimter). Thus the administrative elites of the Second Empire survived the change in the form of government. Leading Social- democrats regarded the administrative elites continuity as a precondition for a minimum of social tranquillity and political stability in an emergency situation, caused by military defeat, enormous external pressure, the end of monarchy and the imminent danger of civil war. Revolutions in German History: 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90 35

The constellation of 1918 excluded the conservative parties and the nationalist associations. Neither the Kaiser nor the head of the last military supreme command, Erich Ludendorff, had an important role to play after the formal parliamentarisation in October 1918 and the proclamation of the republic on 9 November 1918. The revolution of 1918 can be described as a transfer of executive power from the hitherto politically dominating right to the left, prepared by an actual loss of power by the conservative and right-wing middle-class parties and a subsequent seizure of power by the political left, a temporary union that soon disintegrated. The MSPD of 1918 saw itself in a position of a temporary emergency government, abstaining from anticipating the work of the Constituent Assembly and the parliament.45 The early stages of the revolution proved to generate lasting results: the end of the monarchy was irreversible, a democratic electoral law was passed that gave all women the right to vote, and the Weimar constitution was regarded as an exemplary basis for the first German democracy. The republics social policy meant the recognition of the Trade Unions as representatives of the workers, and political participation seemed to be mirrored by social participation and the expansion of the interventionist welfare state. At the same time, the anti-republican and anti-democratic forces on the right and on the extreme left remained hostile. Recovering from the trauma of November 1918, the nationalist right began its fight against the republic, as demonstrated by the extreme right-wing terrorism, the Kapp-Putsch of 1920 and the Hitler-Putsch in November 1923. The communists, on the other side, regarded the Social- democrats compromises and concessions as a betrayal of the revolution. This polarisation, symbolised in the stab in the back myth and the hope of a German October revolution, fuelled anti-democratic opposition at both extremes. This constellation, the result of the revolution of 1918, made the first German democracy vulnerable from within, a fragile political and socioeconomic system, which even in the relatively short periods of economic and foreign political stabilisation never succeeded in creating a democratic and republican consensus.

1989/90: Biirgerrevolution, national unification, and socioeconomic change

When historians approach 1989/90, they usually point out the unexpected character of the events. 1989 seems to fall into the category of an unverbei" historical event.46 From an analyticalperspective, the events in 1989/90 consisted of three interrelated revolutionary levels: (1) a heterogeneous political protest 36 JOrn Leonhard

movement resulting in a Biirgerrevothtion, (2) a national revolution that led to the unification of the two Germanies, taking the form of an accession of the GDR to the FRG on 3 October 1990, and (3) a long-term social transformation with fundamental long-term socioeconomic and sociopsychological consequences. The apparently stable post-Stalinist GDR lost its legitimacy in a rapid and dynamic crisis that was not at all anticipated in early 1989. From a European perspective, the processes in Poland and Hungary included both pressure for revolution from below and reforms from above, resulting in what Timothy Garton Ash has labelled `revolution'. However, for the developments in Berlin, Prague and Bucharest, the term 'revolution' seems more appropriate, since in these cases the rapid and radical character of delegitimisation of the real-socialist regimes' ruling elites, the replacement of the old nomenklatura and the subsequent political change transcended the criteria of 'refolution'.47

`Revolution from below: the democratic protest movement and the Biirgerrevolution of October/November 1989

The forced and ultimately rapid transfer of power in the late GDR was put into effect by a democratic revolution, a BUrgerrevolution, although other factors contributed to the demonstrators' success as well, especially the paralysation of the repressive state apparatus and the Soviet Union's refusal to intervene. Only a combination of long-term collective dissatisfaction caused by stagnation and relative decline of living standards, the real-socialist regime's repressive reactions to opposition circles and the positive West German counter-model could create a situation in which the potential crisis of summer 1989 transformed into a manifest crisis of legitimacy. Similar to 1918, the trigger: lay abroad and did not primarily come from within the GDR's opposition movement: in early May 1989, the Hungarian government announced the opening of the Iron Curtain and in June began opening up the borders. In combination with the official revocation of the Brezhnev Doctrine by Gorbachev, which meant that the GDR's nomenklatura could no longer, as in June 1953, rely on a Soviet intervention, this caused a serious crisis, when hundreds and thousands of East German holiday-makers sought refuge in the West German embassies in Budapest and Prague. Difficult negotiations between the two German governments led to the granting of exit permits for these refugees — a step that rapidly intensified the political opposition's pressure on the GDR's Ancien gime. In order to avoid potential demonstrations prior to and during the pompous celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the GDR in October, the SED regime was prepared to make this concession, Revolutions in German History: 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90 37

but this reaction also raised expectations of further concessions that in turn fuelled the actions of the pt.blic opposition. 48 One is tempted to apply Alexis de Tocqueville's concept of the timing of revolutions to this scenario: in the 1850s the French historian had described the political crisis in the late 1780s as a result of rising expectations which the Ancien Regime had first provoked by political concessions but was then unable to meet, thus causing a serious crisis of legitimacy.49 The events in the GDR can equally be described rather as a consequence of a relative instead of an absolute deprivation. The opposition movement in the GDR consisted of different groups, rang- ing from anti-militarist and ecological circles to civil rights movements. New forms of collective actions, for instance the peace-prayers under the churches' shelter, soon transformed into a public forum for far-reaching political reforms and a replacement of the old communist elite. The Monday-demonstrations that had started in Leipzig, but soon spread over other major GDR cities, became vis- ible points of crystallisation for the growing dissatisfaction with the regime.5° Organised by the new opposition groups such as Neues Forum, Demokratie JetV and Demokratischer Aebruch, the demonstrations' motto ' Ire are the people' expressed the wish for thorough political reforms within the GDR. In this early phase the embassy-crisis had created a particular context for public protest, in that the regime now reacted from a defensive position and was not at all inter- ested in disturbances of the official festivities of the GDR's 40th anniversary, which would have attracted even more Western media attention. Yet, despite careful preparations, the official celebrations were already accompanied by spontaneous demonstrations. While a growing number of East Germans were prepared to leave their country, the GDR's opposition insisted on reforms within the real-socialist system, a strategy that found its expression in the motto ' Ve stay here'. Within days, the crisis of legitimacy forced the nomenklatura to make more substantial concessions: on 18 October 1989 Erich Honecker was replaced by Egon Krenz. The rapid erosion forced nearly all leading members of the old nomenklatura to resign soon after, reminding one of Jacob Burckhardt's dictum of 'rapid rot (Seib/le/pi/10' – a process that, in the words of Hans Magnus Enzensberger, left Egon Krenz and later Hans Modrow the position of 'heroes of retreat (Heltlen des Rick7gs)'.51 This delegitimisation was further accelerated when the extent of corruption and the nomenidatura's privileges, symbolised by the political elite's retreat in Wandlitz, were revealed by GDR journalists. The `success' of this early phase, demonstrated first by the `Ausreise2velle', then by mass demonstrations and finally by the concessions from an increasingly discredited regime, was also due to an almost completely paralysed state apparatus that, despite all preparations for the repression of 'counter-revolutionary elements', proved unable to rescue the regime. The Stasi's almost hypertrophic doc- 38 JOrn Leonhard

trine of security, now detached from the repressive shelter provided by the Brezhnev Doctrine, had largely contributed to this development by systematically criminalising potential opposition in the GDR society As openly admit- ted by a Stasi officer, socialism, in this sense, had been destabilised by the Staatssichetheit. Mielke's successor, General Sch-wanitz, even went so far as to make `deformations within the late NIfS' responsible for the GDR's crisis in late 1989. Although the regime's delegitimisation and the creation of a public forum for protest led to a peaceful transfer of power, which apparently contradicts the notion of a revolution, the radical and almost complete deprivation of the SED's power by a collective protest movement and the subsequent end of the old system justify referring to the events in summer and autumn 1989 as a revolution. The period between summer and December 1989 basically included three different levels of action, again underlining the pluralism of revolutionary situa- tions: first, the end of the _Ancien Regimes nomenklatura was made possible by mass demonstrations, imminent, though only potential use of force and an almost complete paralysation of counter-revolutionary forces. Secondly, and in contrast to the earlier protest movements of autumn 1989, the subsequent Round Table meant a first attempt to institutionalise the movement by gathering the whole spectrum of opposition circles, representatives of the churches and those of the new government.53 Its work concentrated on the idea of a new consensus still based on a 'third way' of democratic socialism and depending on the international independence and sovereignty of the GDR. Thirdly, after the res- ignation of Krenz, the new Modrow government stood for the will to achieve both political reforms and a fresh start for the SED. The party, however, did not dissolve, but only redefined its programme under the new label of PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism). These attempts concentrated on a reform of the existing socialist system without abandoning the GDR's independence, a strategy, which eventually collapsed under the impact of an imploding economy and an increasingly discredited political alternative of a 'third way'.54 From this perspective, the 9 November 1989 and the opening of the Berlin Wall meant a fundamental turning-point:55 it shifted public attention away from the possibility of a reform of the GDR and towards a future unification, accelerated by Chancellor Helmut Kohl's presentation of the `Zebnpunktep/an' as early as November 1989, which called for a confederation and even a future unification of the two Germanies. The direct comparison between GDR and FRG, now possible for all GDR citizens, began to undermine the support for an independent GDR. These factors characterised the developments leading to the free elections to the Volkskammer in March 1990, a process fundamentally strength- ened by the existence of an apparently successful West German counter-model. Indeed, this positive projection was actively cultivated by West German policy. Forced by international isolation, economic crisis and political pressure, the Revolutions in German History: 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90 39

Modro-w cabinet finally accepted the terms of Kohls proposed currency union, which meant that the GDR gave up economic and monetary sovereignty. Internationally, the United States pressure on Gorbachev made the Soviet Union withdraw its political support for the GDR in January 1990 in order to achieve a better position in negotiations with the West. After the revocation of the Brezhnev Doctrine, this ultimately put into question the GDRs international existence.56 The growing dissatisfaction with the option of a third way also became obvious in the oppositions fragmentation. The strategy of a reformist consensus as developed by members of the Round Table talks was replaced by the creation, or re-creation, of political parties, supported by their West German counterparts. The institutions and forums of transformation had changed again: whereas the early phase -until October and November 1989 had been dominated by mass demonstrations, the period up to the elections in March 1990 was shaped by the ever more important role of political parties, overshadowing and replacing the Round Table discussions.

German unification from above? The national revolution between November 1989 and October 1990

What distinguished the German developments in 1989/90 from the transformation in other eastern European countries was the specific problem of German national unity. It was certainly not a new aspect of German revolutions that they were characterised by a dual dimension of political change and nation- state building. In 1989/90 the short period of a Biirgerrevolation thus transformed the democratic `Aebrucb' into a process of international and domestic activities leading to the formal end of the post-war order, the accession of the GDR to the FRG and Germanys fizll sovereignty. The 'Weide in der Wentle' was already obvious by late 1989. The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 transformed the oppositional movement more and more into a pro-unification movement, fuelled by the lack of international support for an independent GDR and by the economic crisis that left no alternative options for the Modrow government and by the pressure of Chancellor Kohls politics following the Zebnpunkteplan.57 The Round Tables aim to work out a new constitution for the GDR soon became outdated, further eroding the position of independent opposition circles. In Leipzig the Monday-demonstrations changed into patriotic mass-meetings: We are the _people' became Ire are one people'.58 40 JOrn Leonhard

The emerging new parties of the GDR reflected this development in their respective programmes: the CDU-led Alliance for Germany demanded national unity by fast joining West Germany, avoiding a long-term process in stages, as favoured by the SPD, and rejecting further conditions for unity, as formulated by the PDS. In the first free l -o/kskammer elections of March 1990, the Alliance for Germany gained a clear victory, demonstrating the impact of this second revolution.59 The decision in favour of an economic, monetary and social union between the two states at the earliest possible date, preceding political unification, meant that the ministerial bureaucracies of West Germany dominated the process. It is not exaggerated to characterise the work on the treaty creating the C iFirtschafts-, IFiihrungs- i-md Soialunion, dominated by the West German minister of the interior Wolfgang Schduble, as an administrative revolution from above. 6° The West German executive used an exceptional freedom of action in. order to direct theprocess.61

Discontinuity and continuity in post-1990 Germany: long-term socioeconomic change and persistence of mentalities

By no means less revolutionary than both the democratic Thirgerrevolution and the unification of October 1990 were and still are the effects of long-term social and economic change. 62 From this perspective, the dissolution of the GDR and the transformation of a state-planned socioeconomic system into a market economy after 1990 caused a rapid modernisation but also a number of persistent problems, since the traditional GDR industries did not survive the change, resulting in persistent and high unemployment while new sectors of employ- ment were taking a long time to develop. The transfer of West German financial aid and the GDRs institutional incorporation into the German political, legal and economic system made and still makes the new Lander heavily dependent on federal support. On the one hand, the dramatic transformation of an actual one- party system into a pluralist parliamentarian democracy, the change from a cen- tralised state economy into a market economy and that from a legal system, sub- servient to the SED regime, into a state founded on the rule of law, meant a dramatic discontinuity in every individuals biography. On the other hand, post-1990 unified Germany is characterised by a strong persistence of mentalities shaped by forty years of GDR socialisation, as underlined by the particularly high esteem for an authoritarian state and a paternalistic welfare system among many East Germans.° Revolutions in German History: 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90 41

Following the I O/kskammer elections in March 1990 and the socioeconomic and monetary union of summer 1990, a conservative modernisation took place which affected nearly all institutions and apparent achievements of the GDR, possibly with the exception of the churches. This process was characterised by a strong element of a revolution from above, largely directed by the West German ministerial bureaucracy.64 With regard to the labour market, three fifths of the entire working population were confronted with serious changes: 21 per cent had to change jobs, 16 per cent had to work part-time, 8 per cent lost their jobs immediately, and 10 per cent were forced to take early retirement. 65 It is obvious that this had enormous impacts on the East German populations sociocultural mentality. The dramatic end of the traditional GDR economy, characterised by relatively even wages and a privileged position of the party func- tionaries, led to severe conflicts of economic distribution.66 An evengreater element of discontinuity lay in the change of political, administrative, economic, legal and scientific elites when many of the 1.5 million staatsnahe cadres were replaced.67

1848, 1918 and 1989/90: similarities, differences, and the changing pattern of revolutionary experiences in modern German history

This chapter was not intended to deny the fundamentally different contexts, constellations and historical pauses of 1848, 1918 and 1989/90. Yet the comparative analysis reveals important similarities and differences that help to describe and explain the changing pattern of revolutionary experience in modern German history. 1848/49 consisted of a dual revolution, in that the long-term socioeconomic transformation and the erosion of the traditional corporatist society as well as the imminent crisis of the German governments political legitimacy overlapped. In contrast, the change from constitutional monarchy to republican democracy in 1918 was the result of military defeat and the dynamic development of an anti-war movement from below which, in the short term, became radicalised only after the political system had already transformed into a parliamentarian monarchy as a consequence of the reforms introduced in October 1918. In 1989, long-term dissatisfaction with the political and economic conditions in the GDR transformed into a manifest crisis of legitimacy when Hungary began to dismantle the Iron Curtain and caused a wave of GDR refugees, while the previous revocation of the Brezhnev Doctrine helped to paralyse the state apparatus. The rapid delegitimisation of the old nomenklatura and the handing over of power was possible because a window of opportunity was effectively used by a protest mass movement. 42 JOrn Leonhard

Returning to the six analytical factors mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, similarities and differences of the three revolutionary turning-points in modern German history can be summed up:

Crises of legitimag and disintegration of revolutionag union: the particular causes and origins of the crises in 1848, 1918 and 1989 derived from different historical circumstances and contexts, combining long-term factors and short-term aspects: a transitional society, facing a blockade of political participation and reforms as well as socioeconomic change, and the impulse given by the Parisian February Revolution in 1848; military defeat, a radicalising mass movement to end the war, and the inability of both the military elite and the monarch to take responsibility in 1918; and long-term dissatisfaction with the GDRs real-socialist regimes economic performance, experience of political repression, triggered by the imminent crisis of summer 1989. Thus external impulses – the Parisian events in February 1848, Wilsons Fourteen Points, and the dismantling of the Iron Curtain by Hungary in summer 1989 – played an important role in creating a framework for collective action, but the essential crises themselves were of a primarily political character. Both in 1918 and in 1989, the political and sociocultural system seemed to be relatively stable until very shortly before its collapse, and both revolutions were unexpected. In all cases, the apparent union of opposition, which had been decisive as a manifest or potential collective force, soon began to disintegrate, giving way to new polarisations: in 1848/49 between constitutional liberals and democratic radicals as well as between peasants, petty bourgeoisie and middle classes; in 1918 between MSPD and USPD as well as between the pro-republican left and the anti-republican conservative and nationalist right. In 1989/90, the early union of opposition movements soon changed into fragmented interests and was finally channelled into a party system that, with the exception of the PDS, reflected the West German model. Given the growing political antagonism over the primacy and the constitutional form of unification, the Round Table was unable to maintain a dominating political position.

Levels of revolutionag actions: 1848, 1918 and 1989 consisted of different revolutions, the combination and interrelation of which explain each revolutions particular complexity. None of these can be regarded as solid blocs. 1848 combined a peasants movement against feudal relics, an attempt to create an egalitarian republic on the basis of unrestricted political and social participation, and the middle class liberals strategy to channel and legalise the process by dominating parliaments on the basis of far-reaching compromises with the existing old powers. Like 1848, 1918 was characterised by developments on both the federal level and in the single German states with particular interactions between the revolutionary centres (Frankfurt in 1848 and Berlin in 1918) and the Lãnder, as demon- Revolutions in German History: 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90 43 strated in 1848 by the counter-revolutionary shift in Prussia in late 1848, and in 1918 by the polarisation between left and right in Bavaria as well as by the conflict between the Berlin government and the Communists in the Ruhr district. The attempt to make 1918 the starting point for a German October revolution, as advocated by the minority of Spartakists and Communists, failed and deepened the antagonism within the left. The revolution primarily meant a change in the form of government and a transfer of power, and on the side of the MSPD it was characterised by a careful avoidance of any further steps. On the contrary, the MSPD was prepared to guarantee a maximum of autonomy to the military and administrative elites, corresponding to its ideal of representative parliamentarian democracy instead of a Bolshevik model of socialist revolution. For the conservative right, the events of November 1918 meant a traumatic experience, and the November system, in their eyes brought about by the Socialist stab in the back of the German army, remained the primary target of anti-republican and nationalist propaganda. Finally, 1989/90 started off as a democratic Biirgerrerobition, first aimed at a third way for a socialist GDR, at reforms from within, but then became more and more overshadowed by a second revolution, symbolised by the 9 November 1989 and completed on 3 October 1990. After the March elections of 1990, the level of political action shifted again, in that the international Two plus Four negotiations were accompanied domestically by a strong West German executive which directed the course towards political, administrative, legal and socioeconomic unification. In contrast to these dimen- sions, long-term socioeconomic changes, but also the persistence of particular mentalities shape the post-1990 East German reality.

Co5lict and compromise, reform and revolution: all three revolutions are characterised by a particular combination of strategies of conflict and compromise. Both the constitutional liberals in 1848 and the SPD in 1918 concentrated on controlling and damming the protest movement from an early stage onwards. They were prepared to co-operate closely with the still existing institutions and the diplomatic, administrative and military elites, leaving their position and influence untouched. This particular disposition reflected their respective political socialisation and their actually anti-revolutionary political practice, be it the liberals Pre-March strategy of gradual reforms in an alliance with reform-oriented ministries, or the SPDs evolutionary development into the Second Empires strongest parliamentarian force prior to 1914, despite the partys revolutionary rhetoric. Thus, 1848 and 1918 turned out to be revolutions with reluctant revolutionaries, anxious to control and channel the collective movement into representative bodies and not prepared to use the revolutionary freedom of action for further steps, a replacement of elites, the creation of loyal militias, not to men- 44 JOrn Leonhard

tion actions that could be associated with a social revolution. In contrast to such expectations, constitutional liberals in 1848 and the SPD in 1918 distanced themselves ever more from the radical left and its concept of a revolutionary legiti_ macv, be it the social republic in 1848 or a German October revolution in 1918/19. Moderate liberals after March 1848, Social-democrats in 1918 and also the political opposition of 1989 aimed at reforms within the system. In 1918 and 1989 more radical strategies and demands developed only after the regimes had proved to be incapable of enacting convincing reforms, namely after October 1918 and after October/November 1989. The collapse of the system then opened the way for a transfer of political power. 1989/90 was characterised by the peaceful and gradual transfer of power, completed by the elections of March 1990, following the delegitimisation of the ruling elite in October and November 1989. The Round Table symbolised the temporary attempt to find a compromise between the different oppositional groups on the basis of a sovereign GDR and an independent third way of socialism. But this compromise strategy soon became absorbed by the second revolution, the protest movements transition into a pro-unification movement. This determined the chances of maintaining the GDR as a sovereign state. The process after November 1989 was therefore increasingly determined by compromises between political and economic arguments, as for instance in the question of the 1:1 conversion rate for GDR Mark to Deutschmark, and the West German executive. The process in 1989/90 started off as a Biirgerrevolution, but the transformation itself, both the international and domestic preparation of German unification and the long- term socioeconomic changes, has a predominantly reformist character. Democratisation in the later twentieth century, as demonstrated by the transfor- mations in Greece, Spain and Portugal, but also by the Latin American examples, rather takes the route of gradual reform. Collective upheavals and violent mass movements that dominated the revolutions until 1918 are no longer a precondition for successful transformation; the classical antagonism between revolution and reform is no longer a valid interpretative pattern to understand and explain democratisation in the later twentieth century.68

`Revolution from above: all three German revolutions included elements of a revolution from below and those of a revolution from above. In 1848/49 most constitutional liberals were prepared to co-operate with the old powers to control and channel the revolutionary movement and to prevent a further social revolution. In 1918 the MSPD found itself, rather than leading a social revolution, in the position of organising the military and political bankruptcy of both the Hohenzollern monarchy and the Empire. Both in 1848 and in 1918 a strategy of early compromises and co-operation left large parts of the old order, the military as well as the diplomatic and administrative elites, intact. Both in 1848 and 1918, though under different circumstances, the revolution stopped short of a large- Revolutions in German History: 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90 45

scale replacement of elites, providing counter-revolutionary forces and anti- republican forces with a stable basis. In 1848 this became obvious after the September crisis, and in 1918 it left the republican government dependent on a politically partial judiciary and on the Reichsniehr's loyalty, thereby strengthening its position as a 'state within the state'. Both the Kapp-Pfitsch of 1920 and the Hitler- Putsch of 1923 underlined the government's vulnerability in this respect. In 1848 and 1918 the combination of early compromises and concessions also alienated large parts of the oppositional spectrum and thus contributed to the fragmentation of the revolutionaries, as could be seen in the case of the republican left in 1848, and the USPD and the Communists in 1918. However, in spite of there being a strong revolutionary movement from below in all three cases, there did not exist politically experienced counter-elites to take over power. In 1848 many liberal March ministers and the Frankfurt executive remained dependent on old bureaucratic institutions and elites, not to mention the military. In contrast, in 1918 the workers' and soldiers' councils were, at least temporarily; in a position to take over power and control military and civil institutions. They could rely on the political and organisational experience of the workers' movement, the SPD and the Trade Unions before 1914. In 1989, on the contrary, the GDR opposition did not include a politically experienced elite to fill the power vacuum after the collapse of the SED regime. This gave not only the so-called 'reformers' of the PDS and the previous 'block parties', but also the West German executive an extraordinary opportunity to dominate the political process. The national revolution after November 1989 and especially after March 1990 was shaped by strong elements of a 'revolution from above', without which the rapid unification process, both internally and internationally, could not have been successful- ly managed. But, as in 1848 and 1918, this also meant that large parts of the former opposition could no longer positively identify with the direction the changes took.

Counter-revolutionary forces: in contrast to 1848 and 1918, 1989/90 was a peaceful revolution, due to the earlier revocation of the Brezhnev Doctrine and – in strik- ing contrast to 1848 and 1918 – the paralysation of the GDR's state and security apparatus, a factor that proved to be decisive for the ultimate success of the revolution in 1989. Unlike 1848 and also unlike 1918, despite the constitutional change from monarchy to republic, 1989/90 brought a major replacement of political, military and administrative elites. Whereas parts of the old order could survive in 1848, and also in 1918, 1989/90 meant the incorporation of a state into the political, legal and socioeconomic system of its counter-model, a process that reminds one rather of the circumstances of 1871. 46 JOrn Leonhard

Short- and long-term impacts: at first sight, success and failure of the revolutions seem to be measured by short-term political results: in 1848 neither a constitutional order nor a unified nation-state was achieved; 1918 brought a republican change of government and a transfer of power to the left; it generated a democratic electoral law, and the Weimar constitution was an impressive basis for the first German democracy. But the revolution also led to an extraordinary polarisation of political culture, which became a major burden for the Weimar democracy. 1989/90 meant the end of the GDR by its accession to the FRG. Yet these results do not take into account more complex long-term consequences: the success of collective politicisation and the communicative revolution in 1848, the fundamental polarisation between left and right and between Communists and Social-democrats, the poisoning of political culture after the experience of November 1918, and the mixture of almost complete replacement of institutions and the persistence of mentalities, a particular Gleich7it*eit des Ungleicheitigen' in post-1990 unified Germany. The SED and its particular style of paternalistic dictatorship neither led to a completely new society nor did it succeed in a total replacement of collective values, but it certainly enhanced tra- ditionally strong respect for an authoritarian state and a negative image of party politics and a pluralist society. Collective attitudes of many East Germans towards the new political and socioeconomic system after 1989 are shaped by a persistently high esteem for a strong state and paternalist welfare system – a pattern of mentality reflecting both the long-term experience of a real-socialist society and reactions to the economic needs of the day. All German revolutions were, directly or indirectly, turning-points in the history of German nation-state building. This meant that domestic and international developments were inextri- cably linked with each other. The attempt to achieve both a constitutional and a unified nation-state in 1848 proved to be a doub _el burden for the Frankfurt Assembly, as demonstrated by the September crisis of 1848. The Prussian kings refusal of the Imperial Crown in 1849 consequently marked the failure of both the constitutional and the national project, since the majority of liberals were not prepared to rely on another street revolution in order to rescue the new constitution. In 1918, military defeat, the terms of the Treaty of Versailles as well as the subsequent attempt to start a German October revolution were identified by large parts of the middle classes with the creation of the new republic. Somewhat ex negativo, the national question could be directed against the Weimar Republic, as became obvious with the stab in the back myth and the nationalis- tic agitation against the supposed November system. Eventually it was Hitler who by his very concept of a national revolution referred to the November system. The notion of a Third Reich, founded by the legal revolution of 1933, denied the Weimar Republics claim to represent the German nations interest. In 1989/90 the national revolution occurred as a Wende in der Tri nde' and combined Revolutions in German History: 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90 47 a fundamental change in the international order with a unification process in Germany largely directed by the West German executive. Finally, whereas 1848 only marked a social revolution in that it completed the long-term process of de- feudalisation, and whereas 1918 did not bring a social change of elites, 1989 meant the beginning of long-term socioeconomic transition, which is in many ways still a characteristic mark of the unification processs lasting effects and problems. The complexity of the German revolutions of 1848, 1918 and 1989/90 evades the paradigm of a simple anatomy of failure. In this context it would be important to approach the model of apparently successful revolutions in Europe in 1688/89, 1776 and 1789 more critically. A careful deconstruction of these models in a comparative analysis could reveal some of the mechanisms by which historiographic stereotypes and conceptional myths are generated. For example, a comparison between Germany and France in the period between 1770 and 1820 comes to the conclusion:

Comparison no longer allows revolution and reform to appear as contrary paths to modernity. To formulate it in an exaggerated way and paradoxi- cally: The French revolution takes on reformist aspects and the era of reform in Germany takes on revolutionary ones.69

With regard to 1848, there were certainly no fewer violent conflicts in Germany than in other European countries.7° The crucial difference between the German and Western experiences lies not so much in the revolutions themselves but in the collective memory of them. 71 1688, 1776 and 1789 marked the beginning of a positive tradition-building in British, American and French history. In contrast, the commemoration of 1848 focused on apparently naive professors in the Frankfurt National Assembly and on lessons of Realpolitik to be derived from the failure of apparent political idealism of liberals and democrats. The self- image of the Weimar Republic was not so much based on a positive understanding of November 1918 but on ways of overcoming the revolution and its polarising consequences. Social-democrats openly distanced themselves from the revolution. Philipp Scheidemann, who had proclaimed the republic from a balcony of the Reichstag, starting his speech with the words The German people have won all along the line, tried to interpret the event in a completely different way in his memoirs of 1928, now speaking of a decision between democracy and Bolshevism. Now he no longer placed the Social-democrats at the head of the revolution, as in 1918, but presented the defence against Bolshevism as a republican and defensive motive. 72 With regard to the revolutions of 1848 and 1918 there is hardly any German lieu de memoire with an uncontested positive connotation. Instead the complex overlapping of memories linked with the 9 November 1918, 1923 (Hitler-Putsch) and 1938 (anti-Semitic pogroms) made it 48 JOrn Leonhard impossible to make the 9 November 1989 the central date to commemorate the German Bill-gen-awl/it-ion and the beginning of the German unification process. There is certainly no reason to glorify the revolutions in German history, but the notion of missing or missed revolutions in modern German history is equally misleading. Rather this chapter has argued that revolutions played a fundamental role as historical turning-points in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Germany, and that the dominating pattern of a German deviance from a Western model' still tends to overshadow the long-term achievements of a democratic and constitutional tradition, of which important aspects of 1848, 1918/19 and 1989/90 form a fundamental part. However critically one inter- prets the later stages in the German unification process and its long-term implications, one should not forget the fundamental place of autumn 1989 in this context, described by Jens Reich in January 1990:

They [the autumn days] belong to those wonderful moments of German history, in which 'the people' has itself, as a single, acting unit, determined its own fate with imagination and resolve, after 45 years (and more) of foreign interference, faint-heartedness, cowardice, conformity and resigna- tion.73

However, whether the frequent experience of defeat and collapse in modern German history, the pattern of a distinct ' Z usammenbruchsgeschichte ,7 4 allows the development of a public culture of memory, keeping a balance between the commemoration of crimes of dictatorships with that of liberal and democratic traditions, remains an open question. But any understanding of this problem directly refers to the complex legacy of revolutions in modern German history.

Notes

1 See for the impact of this experience on historical research and for the broader context of comparing revolutions Goldstone, J. A., Gurr, T. R. and Moshiri, F., Revolutions of the Late Twentieth Centmy (Boulder, Westview Press, 1991); East, R., Revolutions in Eastern Europe (London, Pinter Publishers, 1992); Tilly, C., European Revolutions, 1492-1992 (Oxford, Blackwell, 1993); Todd, A., Revolutions, 1789-1917 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998); Tismaneanu, V. (ed.), The Revolutions of 1989 (London, Routledge, 1999); Wende, P. (ed.), Crop Revolutionen der Veltgeschichte. Von der Friih.vit bis .zur Gegenwart (Munich, Verlag C. H. Beck, 2000); Donald, M. and Rees, T. (eds), Reinterpret* Revolution in Thentietb-Centuo, Europe (New York, St. Martin's Press, 2001), in particular Rees, T., Yet Another Failed German Revolution? The German Democratic Republic 1989-90', ibid. See also Fukuyama, F., The End of History and the Last/Ilan (New York, Free Press, 1992) and Revolutions in German History: 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90 49

Burns, T. (ed.), After History? Francis Fukzgama and his Critic's (Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield, 1994). See Bracher, K D., Die deutsche Diktatur. _Entstebung, Struletur, Fagan des Nationalso.zialismus, 6th edn (Frankfurt/M., Ullstein Verlag, 1979); Broszat, M., The Hitler State. The foundation and development of the internal structure of the Third Reich (German edn, 1969; London, Longman, 1993); Jasper, G., Die gescheiterte Zillymung. .zur Machteigreifung Hiders 1930-1934 (Frankfurt/M., Suhrkamp Verlag, 1986); Gradmann, C. and von Mengersen, 0. (eds), Das _Entle der IFeimarer Republik und die nationalsazialistische Machtergreifung (Heidelberg, Manutius Verlag, 1994) and Gregor, N. (ed.), Nazism (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000), especially part B/iii. 3 See Glaser, H., Kiilturgeschichte der Bundesrepublik, vol. 2 (Munich, Hanser Verlag, 1986); Rolke, L., Protestbemeguqen in tier Bundesrepublik.: Line analytiscbe So'.zialgeschichte des politischen Widerspruchs (Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1987); KleBmann, C., Zn'ei Staaten, eine Nation. Deutsche Geschichte 1955-1970 (Gottingen, Vandenhoeck Lind Ruprecht, 1988); Gilcher-Holtey, I. (ed.), 1968. Vom Ereignis Gegenstand der Geschichtsmissenschaft (Gottingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1998) and Gilcher- Holtey, Die 68er Beivegung. Deutschland, Vesteuropa, USA (Munich, Verlag C. H. Beck, 2001). 4 See Gildea, R., The Past in French History (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1994). 5 See Vogel, R (ed.), Preuflische Reformen 1807-1820 (KOnigstein/ Taunus, Verlagsgruppe Athendum, 1980); Berding, H. and Ullmann, H. -P. (eds), Deutschland 7ischen Revolution und Restauration (KOnigstein/Taunus, Verlagsgruppe Athenaum, 1981); Voss, J. (ed.), Deutschland and die Franesische Revolution (Munich, Artemis Verlag, 1983); Weis, E. (ed.), Reformen im rheinbiindischen Deutschland (Munich, Oldenbourg Verlag, 1984) and Nolte, P., Staatsbilclung als Gesellschaftsr form. Politzlsche Reformen in Pre4en und den slicideutschen Rheinbundstaaten 1800-1820 (Frankfurt/M., Campus Verlag, 1990). 6 For this concept, see Nora, P. (ed.), Les lieux de memoire, 7 vols. (Paris, Gallimard, 1984-1992) and Francois, E. and Schulze, H. (eds), Deutsche Erinnerungsorte, vol. 1 (Munich, Verlag C. H. Beck, 2001). 7 See the chapter by K. Jarausch in this volume. 8 See Stadelmann, R. Tom geschichtlichen Wesen der deutschen Revolutionen, Zeiin'ende, 10 (1934), pp. 109-6; Stadelmann, Das geschichtliche Selbstbe2m tsein der Nation (Tubingen, 1934), pp. 20-1. 9 Stadelmann, R., Deutschland und die westeuropdischen Revolutionen', in Stadelmann, Deutschland und Westeuropa (Laupheim, 1948), p. 17; see Rurup, R., `Problems of Revolution in Germany, 1525-1989', in Rtirup (ed.), The Problem of Revolution in Germany, 1789-1989 (Oxford, Berg, 2000), p. 182 and Blackbourn, D. and Eley, G., The Pecularities of German History. Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth- Century German History (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1994). 10 See Winkler, H. A., Der large Tres each Wester?, vol. 2: Deutsche Geschichte vom Dritten Reich' bis fur Viedervereining (Munich, Verlag C. H. Beck, 2000), p. 650-51. 11 See Lowenthal, R., Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie in Weimar und heute. Zur Problematik der "versdumten" demokratischen Revolution, in Lowenthal, So:zialismns /Ind aletive Demokratie. Essay .7 ihren POrausset7nsen in Deutschland 50 JOrn Leonhard

(Frankfurt/M., Fischer Verlag, 1974), pp. 97-115; Lowenthal, The "Missing Revolution" in Industrial Society. Comparative Reflections on a German Problem, in Berghahn, V. R. and Kitchen, NI. (eds), Germany in the Age of Total IF:zr (London, Groom Helm, 1981), pp. 240-57. 12 For theoretical approaches see Wolf, D. and Ziirn, M., aevolutionstheorien, in Nohlen, D. and Schultze, R.-O. (eds), Lexikon der Politzk, vol. 1: Politische Theorien (Munich, Verlag C. H. Beck, 1995), pp. 552-61. 13 See Hettling, M. (ed.), Rerolution in Deutschland? 1789-1989. Sieben Beitriige (Gottingen, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1991) and Riirup, Problems, see also Opp, K.-D., DDR 89: Zu den Ursachen einer spontanen Revolution, Kaner Zeitschift fir Sofziologie und Soialpgchologie, 43 (1991), pp. 302-21; Weitman, S., Thinking the Revolutions of 1989, British journal of Sociology, 43 (1992), pp. 11-24 and Francisco, R. A., Theories of Protest and the revolutions of 1989, American Journal of Political Science, 37 (1993), pp. 663-80. 14 See Dunn, J., Revolution, in Ball, T., Farr, J. and Hanson, R. L. (eds), Political inno- vation and conceptional change (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989). 15 See Griewank, K., Der neueitliche Revolutionsbegriff. Entstehung told Eniwicklung, ed. by Horn-Staiger, I., (Frankfurt/M., Deutsche Verlags Anstalt, 1992) and for the following quotations Koselleck, R., Revolution, in Brunner, O., Conze, \\ -7. and Koselleck, R. (eds), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon .7r politisch-soialen Sprache in Deutschland, vol. 5 (Stuttgart, Klett Verlag, 1984), pp. 653-788, especially pp. 714-88. 16 (D. Fassmann) Geipriich zjvischen Heinrich 1/111 von Engel/anti and Soliman H., tlirkischer Kaiser, quoted in Koselleck, Revolution, p. 722. 17 Oelsner, K. E., Einleitung, Kith 1 (1795), pp. 3-4 . 18 Furst von Hardenberg, K A., Denkschrift fiber die Reorganisation des preuBischen Staates (12 September 1807), quoted in Winter, G. (ed.), Die 1?eorganisation des pretischen Staates /inter Stein und Hardenberg, vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1931), pp. 306-7. 19 von GOrres, J., Deutschland und die Revolution (1819), in von GOrres, Gesammelte Schn:ften, vol. 13 (Cologne, 1929), pp. 100-101. 20 (K. H. Bruggemann) `Selbstverteidigung des Studenten K. H. Bruggemann vor dem Berliner Kammergericht, quoted in Valentin, V., Das Hambacher Nationaffest (Berlin, 1932), p. 108. 21 Ruge, A., Die Denunciation der Hallischen Jahrbiicher (Schla), Hallische Jahrbficher fir deutsche Trissenschqft und K/Inst, 1/2 (1838), pp. 436-72. 22 Gervinus, G. G., Deutsche Zeitung, No. 42, 11 February 1848. 23 Bassermann, E D., Speech of 19 June 1848, in Wigard, F. (ed.), Stenographische Berichte der Deutschen Nationalversammlung, vol. 1 (Frarkfurt/M., 1848), p. 381. 24 Camphausen, L., Speech of 8 June 1848, in Stenographische Berichte fiber die Perhandlungen der fur Vereinbarung der pretOlschen Staatsvelfassuq bergfenen Versammlung, vol. 1 (Berlin, 1848), pp. 173 and 184. 25 Engels, F., Die Berliner Debatte abet . die Revolution (14, 15, 16 June 1848), in Marx, K. and Engels, F., Verke, vol. 5 (Berlin, Dietz Verlag, 1959), pp. 65-71. 26 Bismarck in a letter to E. von Manteuffel, dated 14 August 1866, in First von Bismarck, 0., Die gesammelten Werke, vol. 6 (Berlin, 1929), p. 120. Revolutions in German History: 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90 51

27 See Kissinger, H. A., The White revolutionary, reflections on Bismarck', in Daedalus (1968), pp. 888-92 and Gall, L., Bismarck. Der weifie 1?evolutioniir (Frankfurt/M., Propylden Verlag, 1980). 28 Freiherr vom Stein, K, `Verfassungsdenkschrift fur den Kronprinzen (5 November 1822)', in Freiherr vom Stein, Briefe End amtliche Schriften, vol. 4 (Stuttgart, Kohlharnmer Verlag, 1974), p. 118. 29 Quoted in Hansard, House of Commons Debates, third series (9 February 1871), pp. 81-2. 30 Schulze, H., 'The Prussian Reformers and their Impact on German History', in Blanning, T. C. W and Wende, P. (eds), Reform in Great Britain and Germag 1750-1850 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 61-77, quotation: p. 75. 31 Schmoller, G., 'Cher einige Grundfragen des Rechts und der Volkswirtschaft. Ein offenes Sendschreiben an Herrn Professor Dr. Heinrich von Treitschke', offprint taken from jahrbacher fiir Nationakkonomie find Statistik, 23/24 (1874/75), p. 91. 32 Ebert, F., 'Speech of 22 October 1918', in Haschke, G. and TOnnies, N., Friedrich Ebert. _On Leben fiir Deutschland (Preetz/Holstein, E. Gerdes Verlag, 1961), p. 107. 33 Ebert, F., 'Speech of 12 February 1919', in Haschke and TOnnies, Ebert, p. 133-4. 34 Cohen, M., 'Speech of 6 February 1919', in Kolb, E. and Rurup, R. (eds), Der

Zentralrat der Deutschen So5zialistischen .Republik 19.12.1918-8.4.1919. LOm ersten `ZUNI

..(‘,yeiten Riitekongre! (Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1968), p. 588. 35 -van der Bruck, A. M., Das dritte Reich (1st edn 1923, 3rd edn ed. by Hans Schwarz, Hamburg, 1931), p. 16. 36 Hitler, A., 'Speech of 14 June 1933', in Domarus, M., Hitler. Reden und Proklamationen 1932-1945, vol. 1 (Wiesbaden, LOwit Verlag, 1973), p. 280 and 'Speech of 6 July 1933', ibid., p. 286. 37 For Prussia, see Koselleck, R., Preiflen wischen Reform und Revolution: _Allgemeines Landrecht, Venvaltung und soiale Beniegung, 4th edn (Stuttgart, Klett Verlag, 1987). 38 On 1848 see Stadelmann, R., Social and Political History of the German 1848 Revolution (Athens, Ohio University Press, 1975); Sperber, J., 'Echoes of the French Revolution in the Rhineland, 1830-1849', Central European History, 22 (1989); Sperber, J., Rhineland Radicals. The Democratic _Movement and the Revolution of 1848-1849 (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1991); Gailus, M., Strafe und Brot. Sazialer Protest in den deutschen Staaten enter besonderer Berlicksichtigung Preigens, 1847-1849 (Gottingen, Vandenhoeck Lind Ruprecht, 1990); Hachtmann, R., Berlin 1848. Eine Politik- und Gesellschaftsgeschichte der Revolution (Bonn, Dietz Verlag, 1997); Siemann, W, The German Revolution of 1848-49 (New York, St. Martin's Press, 1998); Faulenbach, B. and Potthoff, H. (eds), Die Revolution von 1848/49 und die Tradition der sazialen Demokratie in Deutschland (Essen, Klartext Verlag, 1999); for the latest state of research, see also the literature quoted in note 70. 39 See Lefebvre, G., Ouatre-vingt-nelf (1st edn 1939, Paris, Editions Sociales, 1970). 40 See Siemann, Revolution, pp. 55-7. 41 Weller, H. -U., Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, vol. 2: Von der _Reformiira bis fzur inch's- triellen und politischen Deutschen Doppelrevolution, 1815-1845 /49 (Munich, Verlag C. H. Beck, 1987), pp. 759-79; see Riirup, 'Problems', p. 189. 42 See Angress, W. T., Stillborn Revolution: The Communist Bid for Power in Germany, 52 JOrn Leonhard

1921-23 (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1963); Burdick, C. B. and Lutz, R. H. (eds), The Political Institutions of the German Revolution, 1918-1919 (New York, Praeger, 1966); Mitchell, A., Revolution in Bayern 1918/79 (Munich, Oldenbourg, 1967); Riirup, R., Problem der Revolution in Deutschland 1918/19 (Wiesbaden, Steiner Verlag, 1968); Riirup, Problems of the German Revolution, 1918-19', Journal of Contemporary History, 3 (1968); Carsten, F. L., Revolution in Central _Europe, 1918-1919 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1972); Kocka, J., Klassengesellschaft im Krieg, 2nd edn (Gottingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1978); Mommsen, W J., 'The German Revolution 1918-1920: Political Revolution and Social Protest Movement', in Bessel, R. and Feuchtwanger, E. J. (eds), Social Change and Political Development in Weimar Germany (London, Croom Helm, 1981); Kluge, U., Die deutsche Revolution 1918 /19 (Frankfurt/M., Suhrkamp Verlag, 1985); Winkler, H. A., Vet' mar 1918-1933. Die Geschichte der ersten deutsche,/ Demokratie (Munich, Verlag C. H. Beck, 1993), pp. 13-108; Rurup, R., Die Revolution von 1918/19 in der deutschen Geschichte (Bonn, Dietz Verlag, 1993) and Kolb, E., Die IF'imarer Republik, 4th edn (Munich, Oldenbourg, 1998; British edition: London, Unwin Hyman, 1988). 43 See Kolb, E., Die Arbeiterriite in der deutschen Innenpolitik 1918 bis 1919 (Dusseldorf,

Droste, 1962) and Kluge, U., Soldatenriite find Revolution. Studien fur il/filitiirpoli i;7 Deutschland 1918 /19 (Gottingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1975). 44 See Lepsius, R. M., `Machttibernahm.e und Machtubergabe. Zur Strategie des Regimewechsels 1918/19 mid 1932/33', in Lepsius, Demokratie in Deutschland So.7/ologisch-historische Konstellationsanalysen. Ausgeniihlte Alfseit.ze (Gottingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1993), pp. 80-94. 45 See Winkler, H. A., Die So:zialdemokratie und die Revolution von 1918/19: _Ein Riickblick

Hach seck-ig Jahren (Berlin, Dietz Verlag, 1979); Winkler, Von der Revolution /11- Stabilisierung. Arbeiter Ina Arbeiterbewegung in der TrNmarer Republik 1918 bis 1924 (Berlin, Dietz Verlag, 1984) and SchOnhoven, K., Reformismus und Radikalismus. Gespaltene Arbeiterbewegung im 117eimarer So.zialstaat (Munich, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1989). 46 See Jarausch, K., The Rush to German Uni'y (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1994), enlarged German version: Die unverhoffte Einbeit 1989-1990 (Frankfurt/M., Suhrkamp Verlag, 1995); see also Glaessner, G.-J., and Wallace, I. (eds), The German Revolution of 1989. Causes and Consequences (Oxford, Berg, 1992); Glaessner, G.-J., The Unification Process in Germany. From Dictatorship to Democracy (New York, St. Martin's Press, 1992); Bahrmann, H. and Links, C. (eds), The Fall of the nlk The Path to German Reunification (Berlin, Links Verlag, 1999); Richter, M., Die Revolution in Deutschland 1989/90: Anmerkungen 7m Charakter der 'Mende' (Dresden, 1995). 47 See Ash, T. G., The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of '89 'Pi/messed in Varsan, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague (New York, Random House, 1990); Ash, In _Europe's Name. Germany and the Divided Continent (New York, Random House, 1993); Dahrendorf, R., Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: In a Letter intended to have been sent to a Gentleman in Varsam (New York, Times Books, 1990) and Jarausch, Einbeit, pp. 114-15. 48 See Marcuse, P., A German Fig of Revolution (Berlin, 1990); Gwertzman, B. and Kaufmann, M. T. (eds), The Collapse of Communism (New York, Times Books, 1990); Lemke, C. and Marks, G. (eds), The Crisis of Socialism in Europe (Durham, Duke Revolutions in German History: 1848/49, 1918 and 1989/90 53

University Press, 1992); Kumpf, C., Faktoren des Zeifalls. Die Regimekrise in der ehemali- ogen DDR: eine sofzio-paitische Analyse (Frankfurt/NI., Peter Lang Verlag, 1995); Maier, C. S., _Across the Wizil. Revolution and Reunification of Germa/DI (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1995); Maier, Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germag (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1997). 49 See de Tocqueville, A., L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution, ed. by J.-P. Mayer (Paris, Gallimard, 1967), book III. 50 See Zwahr, H., Ede einer Selbst.\-erstOning. Le prig mid die Revolution in der DDR (Gottingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1993) and Kuhn, E., Der Tag der Entscheidung: Leipzig, 9 Oktober 1989 (Berlin, Ullstein Verlag, 1992). 51 See Jarausch, Einheit, p. 113. 52 See Mittler, A. and Wolle, S. (eds), Ich lithe _Birch dock ale! Befehle und Lay,eberichte. des 11/IFS JanNar-November 1989 (Berlin, Basis Druck/Elefanten Press, 1990) and Auerbach, T., Vorbereitung (le' den Tag X Die geplanten Isolierungslager des MJS. (Berlin, der Bundesbeauftragte air die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemali- gen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, Abteilung Bildung and Forschung: 1994); see also Geyer, M. and von Hallber, R. (eds), The Responsibiliyt of the Intellectuals. State Sault, Services and Intellectual Life in the Former GDR (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1995). 53 See Jarausch, Einheit, pp. 113-4. 54 For contemporary sources see Angepafit oder miinelig? Briefe an Christa If7off im Herbst 1989 (Frankfurt/M., Luchterhand Literaturverlag, 1990); Blanke, T. and Erd, R., DDR. Lin Staat veigeht (Frankfurt/M., Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1990); Henrich, R., Der vormundschaftliche Staat (Reinbeck, Rowohlt Verlag, 1989); Heym, S., Die sanfte Revolution: Prosa, Lynk, Protokolle, Erlebnisberichte, Reden (Leipzig, Kiepenheuer Verlag, 1990); Klier, F., LiigVaterland. Er7jehung in der DDR (Munich, Kindler Verlag, 1990); Krenz, E., 'Fenn 214(zuern fallen. Die friedliche Revolution — Vorgeschichte, ...-4blaif, Auswirkungen (Vienna, Neff Verlag, 1990); Neues Forum Leipzig (ed.), Demokratie — letV oder nie. Leip.ziger Herbst 89 (Leipzig, 1990); Schneider, W, Leipiger Demotagebuch (Leipzig, Kiepenheuer Verlag„ 1990); Schuddekopf, C. (ed.), 1Fir sind das Volk. _Fkschriften, Ai-i-ile und Texte einer deutschen Revolution (Reinbek, Rowohlt Verlag, 1990); Philipsen, D. (ed.), 'Fe were the People': -Voices from East Germany's Revolutiona' Autumn of 1989 (Durham, Duke University Press, 1992) and Greenwald, G. J., Berlin 'Fitness. An American Diplomat's Chronicle of East Germany's Revolution (University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993). 55 See Aanderud, K.-A., Die eingemauerte Statit. Die Geschichte der Berliner Mauer (Berlin, Links Verlag, 1990); Hertle, H.-H., Chronik des Maueifalls. Die dramatischen Ereignisse

/1177 den 9 November 1989 (Berlin, Links Verlag, 1996); Hertle, Der Fall der Mauer. Die unbeabsichtigte SelbstaelOsung des S.ED-Staates (Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1996); Hertle and Gerd-Rudiger, S. (eds), Das Ende der SED. Die letten rage des Zentralkomitees (Berlin, Links Verlag, 1997). 56 See Gorodetsky, G., Soviet .Foreign Policy, 1917-1991: A Retrospective (London, Frank Cass, 1994) and Falin, V., KoVilete im Kreml. Zur Vorgeschichte der deutschen Einheit und der Agflösung der Sonjetunion (Berlin, Siedler Verlag, 1997). 57 See Jarausch, Einheit, p. 174-7. 54 JOrn Leonhard

58 See Hanrieder, W. E, Germaig, _America, Europe. Forty Years of German Foreign Police (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1989); Rotfeld, A. D. and Statzle, W (eds), Germag and Europe in Transition (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991); Weidenfeld, W and Forte, K. -R., (eds), HandmOrterbuch fur deutschen Einheit (Frankfurt/NI., Campus Verlag, 1992); Dieter Grosser (ed.), German Unification. The Une.\pecteel Challenge (Oxford, Berg, 1992); James, H. and Stone, M. (eds), 117 en the nil Came Doivn. Reactions to German Unification (London/New York, Routledge, 1992); Szabo, S. F., The Diplomacy of German Unification (New York, St. Martin's Press, 1992); Beschloss, \'I. R. and Talbott, S., At the Highest Levels. Me Inside Stop, of the End of the Cold IT71/- (Boston, Little Brown, 1993); McAdams, J., Germany Divided. From the IfW/ to Reunification (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993); Merkel, P., German Unification in a European Context (University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993); Pond, E., Beyond the KW. Germag's Road to Unification (Washington DC, Brookings Institution, 1993); Hancock, M. D. and Welsh, H. A. (eds), German Unification. Process and Outcomes (Boulder, Westview Press, 1994); Griinbaum, R., Deutsche Einheit (Opladen, Leske und Budrich, 1999). 59 See Conradt, D. P., United Germaiy at the Polls: Political Parties and the 1990 Federal Election (Washington, American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 1990) and Dalton, R. J. (ed.), The New Germany Votes. Unification and the Creation of the New Germany Part, System (Providence, Berg, 1993). 60 See Jarausch, Einheit, pp. 303-6. 61 On the debate about the form of unification see Guggenberger, B. and Stein, T. (eds), Die 1/eifassungseliskussion im Jahr der deutschen Einheit. Analysen, Ilintel:grinde, Materialien (Munich, Hanser Verlag, 1991). 62 See Ritter, G. A., Continui0 and Change. Political and Social Developments in Germany after 1945 and 1989/90. The 1999 Annual Lecture of the German Historical Institute London (London, German Historical Institute, 2000). 63 See Geipel, G. (ed.), The Future of Germany (Indianapolis, Hudson Institute, 1990); Hamilton, D., After the Revolution (Washington, 1990); Borneman, J., After the 11-'7/il. East Meets Vest in the Nen, Berlin (New York, Basic Books, 1991); Breuilly, J. (ed.), The State of Germany: The National Idea in the Making, Unmaking, and Remaking of a Modern Nation-State (London, Longman, 1992); Daedalus (ed.), Germa;y in Transition (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994) and in particular A. Bauerkamper's contribution and the section on socioeconomic problems in this volume. 64 For critical views on the transformation and unification process see Jesse, E. (ed.), Eine Revolution und ihre Folgen. 14 Biii:gerrechtler iehen Bilan (Berlin, Links Verlag, 2001). 65 See Habich, R. et al., "'En unbekanntes Land": Objektive Lebensbedingungen Lind subjektives Wohlbefinden in Ostdeutschland', Alps Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 32 (1991), pp. 13-17. 66 See Rohrschneider, R., Learning Democracy. Democratic and Economic Values in Unified Germany (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999). 67 See GrOhler, 0., Tersonentausch in der neuesten deutschen Geschichte', in Klaus Siihl (ed.), T/ergangenheitsbewiiltigung 1945 und 1989: Ein unmO,:oficher Vagleich? (Berlin, Verlag Volk und Welt, 1994), pp. 175-6; Maier, A., Abschied von der sozialistischen Revolutions in German History: 1848/49, 1918 anc 1989/90 55

S tändeges ells chafe, Ails Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 16/17 (1990), pp. 3-10; see Jarausch, Einheit, p. 304-5. 68 See Rurup, Problems', p. 194-7. 69 Berding, H., Francois, E. and Ullmann, H.-P. (eds), Deutschland End fi-ankreich im Zeitalter der Fran.zb:rischen Revolution (Frankfurt/NI., Suhrkamp Verlag, 1989), p. 18; see Riirup, 'Problems', p. 196. 70 See the state of research in Dowe, D., Haupt, H.-G. and Langewiesche, D. (eds), Europa 1848. Revolution und Reform (Bonn, Dietz Verlag, 1998); Hardtwig, W (ed.), Revolution in Deutschland und Europa 1848/49 (Gottingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1998); Sperber, J., Revolutionary Europe, 1780-1850 (London, Longman, 2000) and Evans, R. J. W. and Pogge von Strandmann, H. (eds), The Revolutions in Europe 1848-1849. From Reform to Reaction (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000). 71 See Keil, W, 'Speech of 14th February 1919 on the revolutions in 1848 and 1918', in Vethandlungen der Ifeassuna gebenden Nationalversammlung, vol. 326 (Berlin, 1920), pp. 72-6 and Langewiesche, D., 1848 mid 1918 - .jvei deutsche Revolutionen (Bonn, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 1998). 72 See Jessen-Klingenberg, M., 'Die Ausrufung der Republik durch Philipp Scheidemann am 9 November 1918', Geschichte in Vissensche and Unterricht, 19 (1968), pp. 649-56; Scheidemann's quotation, in Scheidemann, P., Memoiren eines Sazialdemokraten, vol. 2 (Dresden, 1928), pp. 313-14; see Riirup, 'Problems', p 193, 73 Reich, J., Riickkehr nach Europa. Bericht fur neuen Lage der deutschen Nation (Munich, Hanser Verlag, 1991), p. 204; see Riirup, Problems', p. 192. 74 See Langewiesche, D., `Staatsbildung und Nationsbildung in Deutschland - ern Sonderweg?', in von Hirschhausen, U. and Leonhard, J. (eds), Nationalismen in Europa. Vest- und Osteuropa im Vergleich (Gottingen, Wallstein Verlag, 2001), pp. 11 62, especially pp. 56-61.