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Did Weimar Fail? Review by: Peter Fritzsche The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 68, No. 3 (Sep., 1996), pp. 629-656 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2946770 . Accessed: 16/09/2014 16:52 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

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ReviewArticle Did WeimarFail?* Peter Fritzsche University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Whatis Weimarwithoutthe Republic?Not much,it seems,sincefor mostGerman historiansthe plot thatholds the storytogetherhas been fragiledemocracyandits demise."Weimar" is, as numeroussubtitlesinformus, the "historyof the firstGeror failed.'The dramaof man Democracy,"the site wheredemocracysurrendered twentieth-century Germanyhas largelyturnedon the failureof the WeimarRepublic. All the grandscholarlyinvestmentsin the studyof big-businessrelations,smalltown clubs,EastElbianprovinces,and a staggeringvarietyof interestgroupsand politicalpartieshavebeen undertakento explainmore successfullythe frailtiesof the Republic.This focus has been meritorioussince it has guidedpoliticalselfin postwarGermanyandindicatedpossiblelimitsto the legitimacy understandings of modemdemocraciesgenerally.EventhenotablepoliticalguruKevinPhillipshas invokedWeimarto warnhis Republicanclients not to forget"MiddleAmerica.2 with the fate of the Republichas been so single-mindedthatit But preoccupation * I would like to thank Fred Jaher,Harry Liebersohn, Glenn Penny, and Joe Perry for their helpful readingsof this article.The following books are underreview: FrankBajohr,WernerJohe, and Uwe Lohalm, eds., Zivilisation und Barbarei:Die widerspriichlichePotentiale der Moderne (Hamburg,1991); Shelley Baranowski,The Sanctity of Rural Life: Nobility, Protestantism,and Nazism in WeimarPrussia (New York, 1995); RichardBessel, Germanyafter the First WorldWar (Oxford, 1993); JiirgenFalter,Hitlers Wdhler(Munich, 1991); Donna Harsch, Gennan Social Democracy and the Rise of Nazism (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1993); Elizabeth Harvey,Youthand the WelfareState in WeimarGermany(Oxford, 1993); Anton Kaes, MartinJay,and EdwardDimendberg, eds., The WeimarRepublicSourcebook(Berkeley,1994);Alf Liidtke,Eigen-Sinn:Fabrikalltag, Arbeitererfahrungenund Politik vom Kaiserreichbis in den Faschismus (Hamburg,1993); Hans Mommsen, Die verspielte Freiheit:Der Wegder Republikvon Weimarin den Untergang 1918 bis 1933 (Berlin, 1989); Mary Nolan, Visions of Modernity:American Business and the Modernizationof Germany(New York, 1994); JonathanOsmond, Rural Protest in the Weimar Republic: The Free Peasantry in the Rhineland and Bavaria (New York, 1993); GerhardPaul, Aufstdndder Bilder: Die NS-Propagandavor 1933 (Bonn, 1990); WolframPyta, Gegen Hitler undfiir die Republik:Die Auseinandersetzungder deutschenSozialdemokratiemit der NSDAP in der WeimarerRepublik(Dusseldorf, 1989); Comelie Usbome, ThePolitics of the Body in Weimar Germany:Women'sReproductiveRights and Duties (Ann Arbor,Mich., 1992); and HeinrichAugust Winkler, Weimar,1918-1933: Die Geschichte der ersten deutschen Demokratie (Munich, 1993). ' Winkler;KarlDietrichErdmannand Hagen Schulze, eds., Weimar:Selbstpreisgabeeiner Demokratie(Dusseldorf, 1980); Ian Kershaw,ed., Weimar:WhyDid GermanDemocracyFail? (New York, 1990). 2 JuanLinz, "PoliticalSpace and Fascism as a Late-comer:ConditionsConduciveto the Success or Failureof Fascism as a Mass Movementin Inter-warEurope,"in Who Werethe Fascists: The [TheJournalof ModernHistory 68 (September1996): 629-656] C 1996 by The Universityof Chicago. 0022-2801/96/6803-0005$01.00 All rights reserved.

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has tendedto assignGermanythe partof the twentieth-century delinquentwhose role is to certifythe basicpoliticalvirtueof France,Britain,andthe UnitedStates, in whatmightbe dubbed"NATOhistory."3 This assignmentnot only misconstrues politicaldevelopmentsin theWestbut alsoreducespoliticsin theWeimarerato the questionof supportfor or oppositionto parliamentary liberalism,therebyturning the 1920s into a politicaluniversethatrevolvesaroundthe Reichstagon the Platz derRepublik. Did the Republicreallymeanthatmuchto GermansafterWorldWarI? Thereis considerableevidencethatit did not.In the firstplace,politiciansandvotersrepeatedly averredthat the crucialquestionsfacing Germanydid not turnon a formal choice betweenrepublicanismor monarchismbut ratheron the qualityof social relationsthatmadeupthenation.A look atthepoliticaldiscourseof the 1920s,when contenderspeddledconceptssuch as "economicdemocracy"(Wirtschaftsdemokraor a moreconservative"corporate tie), "nationalcommunity"(Volksgemeinschaft), state"(Standestaat), suggeststhatneitherliberalismnorilliberalismprovidesa helpAn intensereexamination of socialgroups,culturalrepresentations, ful benchmark. andpoliticalinstitutionsin the last fifteenyearshas fundamentally challengedthe extentto whichhistoricalchangemaybe usefullyjudgedagainstnormativeconcepA greatdeal of the politicaldynamicin the 1920sis obscured tions of liberalism.4 by the telos of Weimar'scollapse.At the grassrootslevel, Weimar'sfavoritesons anddaughters-working-classsocialists-now appearmoreattractedto nationalist sentimentsandmass-cultural diversions,while history'smuggers-middle-classinsurgents-appearfar less pathologicalandmuchmoresocial reformist.Moreover, growingnumbersof historiansacknowledgethe broadpopularityof the Nazis,who areno longersimplyunderstoodas creaturesof crisisanddislocation.At the same time, the left-liberalreformerswho constructedEurope'smost elaboratesocialwelfarestatein theyearsafter1918wereby no meansconsistentlyguidedby repubaboutcollectiveresponsibility licanideals.Infact,theysharedcommonassumptions andnationalhealthwith theirright-wingchallengers,who, for all the noxiousness as scholarsonce assumed.5 of theirbeliefs,werenot nearlyas backward-looking Social Roots of European Fascism, ed. Stein Ugelvik Larsen, Bernt Hagtvet, and Jan Petter Myklebust(New York,1980), pp. 153-89; and Kevin Phillips,Post-conservativeAmerica:People, Politics, and Ideology in a Timeof Crisis (New York, 1982). 3See Michael Geyer and KonradH. Jarausch,"The Futureof the GermanPast: Transatlantic Reflections for the 1990s,"and Michael Geyer,"HistoricalFictions of Autonomy and the Europeanization of National History,"Central EuropeanHistory 22 (1989): 232-34, 326-33. See also David Blackbournand Geoff Eley, The Peculiarities of GermanHistory: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth-CenturyGermany(New York, 1984). 4The liberal Republic remains central to most approachesto Weimar,althoughthe normative standardof liberalismhas been underattackfor morethanten years.See KonradJarausch,"Illiberalism and Beyond: German History in Search of a Paradigm,"Journal of Modem History 55 (1983): 268-84; as well as Blackbournand Eley. The concepts of liberalismand illiberalismare most closely associated with Fritz Stem, The Politics of CulturalDespair: A Study in the Rise of the GermanicIdeology (Berkeley, 1961), and The Failure of Illiberalism:Essays on the Political Cultureof Modern Germany(New York, 1972). 5A similartrendcan be detected in Americanhistoriography.See Michael Kazin, "The GrassRoots Right:New Historiesof U.S. Conservatismin the TwentiethCentury,"AmericanHistorical Review 97 (February1992): 136-55.

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It is not surprisingthatthe red threadof progressis easy to lose when matters so liberal.Indeed, aredescribedas being "notnearly"so clear-cut,so reactionary, the provocativeconsequenceof recentWeimarhistorieshas been to disconnect modernismfrom liberalismand to rethinkwhatreally is modem or antimodern. Radicalnationalists,right-wingaesthetes,illiberaljurists,and even NationalSocialistsnowjostle with Social Democrats,Bauhausarchitects,andCommunistintellectualsas hyphenatedmodernists.In turn,classicaltermslike politicalreactionaryandsocialprogressivehaveincreasinglylost theirresonance;historicalactions appearmore indeterminateand open-ended.And once the protagonistsand retardantsof progresscan no longer be identifiedwith certainty,it becomes more difficultto see the WeimarRepublicas a failureor to deny the ThirdReich status civilization.Just how as a legitimate,if extreme,outcomeof twentieth-century muchthe narrativeof the Weimaryearshas strayedfromthe well-markedpathof creation,crisis, and collapse is evident in the newly cherishedvocabularythat "culturalexperiments," drawsattentionto theproliferationof "politicalblueprints," and "socialinitiatives"on the Left and the Right and summarizesWeimaras the Mostlymintedby DetlevPeukertin the midlaboratoryof "classicalmodernity."6 1980s, and widely circulatedsince, this languagecalls into questionthe whole notionof failure.If Weimaris conceivedin termsof experimentsdesignedto manage (howeverdeleteriously)the moderncondition,thenthe failureof politicaldemocracyis not the same as the destructionof the laboratory.Indeed,the Third Reich can be regardedas one possible Weimarproduction.Perhapsthe longawaited"newparadigm"for Germanhistoryhas arrivedin the form of the disavowalof the masternarrativeof the Republicin the nameof the eclectic experimentalismof Weimar. Scholarlyrevaluationsof aestheticsand power have preparedthe new frameworkfor interpretingthe Weimaryears.On the one hand,the politicalaspirations of social groupsare no longerregardedin simpletermsof class.7The "linguistic turn"has indicatedthe extentto which subjectsthinkaboutthe politicalworldin bear waysthatare not accuratereflectionsof social reality.These representations the tracesof past traditions,linguisticconventions,and culturalmedia, and they becameconstituentpartsof thatreality.8Moreover,individualsenteredthe public spherein a varietyof social identities.Metalworkers,to take one examplediscussedat lengthby Alf Ludtke,werenot simplytradeunionistsand(often)Social 6 Kaes, Jay, and Dimendberg, eds., p. xviii; and Detlev Peukert, The WeimarRepublic: The Crisis of Classical Modernity,trans.RichardDeveson (New York, 1989). 7William SheridanAllen, "Farewellto Class Analysis in the Rise of Nazism: Comment,' Central EuropeanHistory 17 (1984): 54-62; Peter Baldwin, "Social Interpretationsof Nazism: Renewing a Tradition'"Journal of ContemporaryHistory 25 (1990): 5-37. 8 The best effort for Germanhistory is still Thomas Childers,"The Social Languageof Politics in Germany:The Sociology of Political Discourse in the WeimarRepublic,"AmericanHistorical Review 95 (1990): 331-58. See also the broaderstatementsby KathleenCanning,"FeministHistory afterthe LinguisticTurn:HistoricizingDiscourse and Experience,"Signs: Joumnalof Women in Cultureand Society 19 (1994): 368-405; Roger Chartier,"Texts,Printings,Readings,"in The New CulturalHistory,ed. Lynn Hunt (Berkeley,1989), pp. 154-75; and JohnE. Toews, "Intellectual Historyafterthe LinguisticTurn:The Autonomyof Meaningand the Irreducibilityof Experience,"AmericanHistorical Review 92 (1987): 879-907.

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Democrats,but also husbandsand fathers,veteransand Germans,gymnastsand gardeners.As such,theyrespondedto anynumberof compellingvisionsaboutthe legitimateorderof society,the properroles for men andwomen,andthe futureof the nation.Emotionalaffinitiesto the nation,in particular, mobilizedconsiderable politicalsentiment.It is now clearthatsubstantialnumbersof workers,including longtimeSocial Democrats,votedfor the Nazis in 1930 and 1932, andthose who did not still respondedpositivelyto nationalistappealsin the yearsthatfollowed andaccommodated themselvesmoreor less easilyto theNationalSocialistregime. The reachof variousnationalistmobilizationswas far greaterthanclassic social of the WeimarRepublichavesuggested.In the handsof "newculinterpretations tural"historians,postwarpoliticsis as muchthe productof desireandimagination as of functionandinterest.Intricatewebs of contingencynow obscurefromview the previouslyconspicuousSonderweg,the peculiarlyGermanpath of illiberal modernization thatorientedmost historiansin the 1960s and 1970s.9 The imaginationof the nationis centralas well to the "newpolitical"history thathas eschewedstrictlyparty-politicalquestionsaboutthe rise of NationalSocialismor the collapseof liberalismor the fate of Social Democracyandexpanded theveryconceptof politicalpower.Innovativestudiesof socialwelfare,education, andhealthduringtheWeimarperiodhavefocusedon the waysin whichindividual bodieswereworkedon in the nameof the nationalbody,or Volkskdrper Whilethe emancipatory potentialof social legislationis not overlooked,the centralthemeof this scholarship(and many more studies are in press) is the regimentationand disciplineof citizens in often dangerouslyimaginativeways.A Foucauldianperspectiveon the links betweenindividualand nationalbodies not only establishes significantcontinuitiesbetweenthe Weimareraandthe ThirdReichbut also indicates how malleablepostwarsocial life hadbecome.Ratherthana modelbattlegroundbetweenmodernliberalsandantimodernauthoritarians, Weimaris the fascinatingforegroundagainstwhichto trackthe darkshadowsof modemity. The Weimarthatemergesfromrecenthistoriography is strikinglyopen-ended. Thisis notto suggestthatdemocracyas suchcouldhavesurvived.GeraldFeldman is probablyrightto arguethatthe Republicwas, fromthe beginning,a "gamble whichstoodvirtuallyno chanceof success."10But muchmorethanparliamentary democracywas at stake.An astonishingvarietyof dreamersandadventurers prosperedin the postwaryears.The fact thatWeimarcame withoutoperatinginstruc-

9 The classic statementsof the Sonderwegare Ralf Dahrendorf,Society and Democracyin Germany(GardenCity,N.Y., 1967); and Hans-UlrichWehler,The GermanEmpire,1871-1918, trans. Kim Traynor(LeamingtonSpa, 1985). BlackbournandEley,Peculiarities,providedthe most comprehensivecritique, and the resulting debate is recapitulatedand assessed in Robert G. Moeller, "TheKaiserreichRecast?Continuityand Changein Modem GermanHistoriography," Journalof Social History 17 (1984): 442-50; James N. Retallack,"Social History with a Vengeance?Some Reactions to H.-U. Wehler's 'Das Deutsche Kaiserreich,"' German Studies Review 7 (1984): 655-83; and Jurgen Kocka, "GermanHistory before Hitler: The Debate about the German Sonderweg,"Journal of ContemporaryHistory 23 (1988): 3-16. See also Helga Grebing, Der "deutscheSonderweg"in Europa, 1806-1945: Eine Kritik(Stuttgart,1986). '?GeraldD. Feldman,"Weimarfrom Inflationto Depression:Experimentor Gamble?"in Die Nachwirkungender Inflation auf die deutsche Geschichte, 1924-1933, ed. Gerald D. Feldman (Munich, 1985), p. 385.

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tions (Gebrauchsanweisungen), as AlfredDoblin once put it, encouragedexperimentationas muchas it hobbleddemocracy.At the end of WorldWarI, previously authoritative instructionsaboutlaw,legitimacy,andcommunityno longerseemed applicable;new blueprintsandexperimentsfilled in the emptyspaceandgavethe Germanfutureof the 1920s its uncertainand promiscuousaspect.The common noteto the politicalandculturalhistoryof the periodis the widespreadconviction thatthe materialworldcould be designed:BertoltBrechtbelievedthat it would becomepossiblefor peopleto be takenapartandputbacktogetherlike machines, CarlSchmittcitedGeorgesSorelto redeempoliticswithmyth,Bauhausarchitects plottedout "regulatinglines"thatwouldrefurbishsocial life, radicalnationalists envisionedfantastictechnologiesto circumventVersailles,geographersredrew schoolbookmapsto revealGermany'sessentialcapacities,andsocialworkersenergeticallyrenovatednationalhealth.Giventhis industriousinventionof the future, 1933 is not simplya tragicand dramaticforeclosurebut an indicationas well of the fullnessandthe contingencyof historicaldevelopment.As is evidentfromthe booksunderreviewhere,historianscontinueto watchWeimarclosely,andtheydo so not leastbecauseit is a place wheremodemhistoryappearsremarkablycontingent. The WeimarRepublicremainscompellingnot because of the glimpses of socialdemocracyandsocialwelfareit offersbutbecauseits publiclife was formed so forcefullyby the sense thatnothingwas certainandeverythingpossible. REPUBLIC AS HERO

andcounterrevoluGiventhe fact thatthe Weimarperiodwitnessedrevolutionary tionaryassaultsin Hamburg,Berlin,andMunich,a black-flaggedfarmers'insurpartiesandpararectionin the northernprovinces,the formationof "antisystem" militarygroupsin almosteverytown andvillage, the largestCommunistpartyin the West, and clumsy but nonethelessdeterminedefforts at reinvigoratingstate authorityby ChancellorsBriuning,Papen,and SchleicherbeforeAdolf Hitlerand the NationalSocialistsrapidlyestablishedone-partydictatorship,politicalinitiative was anythingbut restricted.Yet rifts, obstacles,and otherimmovablelandmarkscharacterizethe politicaltopographydescribedin the majorsynthesesby two prominenthistorians,HeinrichAugustWinklerand Hans Mommsen.What was blocked,of course,were republicanpossibilities,not politicalinitiatives.It is this misleadingcorrespondence betweenthe fate of the Republicandthe dramaof Weimarthat keeps these two majorhistoriesrestrictedmainly to parliamentary politics in Berlinand ratheruncertainabouthow to treatthe dramaticmovement of so manyGermansawayfromthe establishedparties. The centraltheme in Winkler's"historyof the first Germandemocracy"is a tragicbutredemptiveone:thecooperationbetweenlaborandindustryandbetween Social Democratsand modernconservativesthat eluded Weimar'shardworking politiciansandis now the proudachievementof thosein Bonn.Recognitionof the necessityfor compromiseis, for Winkler,the markof democrats,andin his view Weimarhadmanymoreof themthanwe mightat firstimagine-a discoveryWinkler wantsto reinvestin the prospectof newly reunifiedGermany.Social Democratsgamerpraisefor turningagainstthe annexationistwar,resistingthe undemo-

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cratic council movement,joining with bourgeoiscoalition partnersin difficult circumstancesand, despitesocial and economic sacrifices,keepingdesertionsto the CommunistLeft modest.Less consistent,but praiseworthynonetheless,is the moderateRight. Winkleremphasizesthe scope of the social peace that ensued consensus" duringthe "inflationconsensus"of 1919-21 and the "rationalization of 1924-30. Economicstabilizationafter1924providesWinklerthe opportunityto stepback frompoliticalnarrative.But the highly informativechapteron the deep divisions in Germansociety afterHindenburg'selection in April 1925 does not keep him fromgiving the Republica realchancefor survival.He is rightlyimpressedby the unemploymentinsurancethata bourgeoiscoalitionlegislatedin 1927. Moreover, Winkler'sdramatization of the GreatDepressionas a singulardisasterhighlights the achievementof stabilitythatit concluded.It was economiccatastrophe,more forcesthathadquietlyfurtheredtheir thananythingelse, thatgavethe "antisystem" aimsin highplacesthe chancetheywouldotherwisenot havegotten.In 1929 and 1930, more and more industrialistscame to sharethe ideologicalpredispositions of right-wingnationalists,Reichswehrofficers,and Hindenburgcronies,viewing democracy(particularlyonce the YoungPlan had been safely signed) as an economic liability.The result was the breakdownof a center-leftcoalitionand the chancellorshipof HeinrichBruningin March 1930, a breakwith parliamentary Althoughthe democracythatWinklerfollowsArthurRosenbergin emphasizing.1I numbersof Vernunftrepublikaner (republicansof the headratherthanof theheart) haddwindledby 1929almostto a singleman-Gustav Stresemann,whois accordingly well honoredhere-Winkler does not see the makingsof broadantisystem insurgencybefore 1930. He notes but does not makemuchof the rise of splinter parties,the activityof the Stahlhelm,andthe rumblingsof Landvolkprotest.As a result,thereis little sense of the radicalnationalismthatGeoff Eley,RudyKoshar, Germanpoland othershaveregardedas a centraldynamicin twentieth-century itics.'2

ForWinklerit is the GreatDepressionthatdestroyedthe close-to-evenoddsthat economicstabilizationhad offeredthe firstGermanRepublic.Withoutthis disaster,Winklerimplies,democracymighthavestumbledalongandevenwonconverts. Indeed,as Winklerpointsout in a highly originalline of argument,the proofthat basic lessons of democracyhad been learnedby ordinaryGermansis the very successof the NationalSocialistswho, after1930,positionedthemselvesas represchemers.In 1932, as in 1918, most sentativesof the people againstauthoritarian this promisinginsight Germansdemandedpopularrepresentation. Unfortunately, is not complementedby a moredetailedinvestigationof middle-classvoters,who remainindistinct.As for the SocialDemocrats,theywerecaughtup in a gamethey " ArthurRosenberg,A History of the GermanRepublic(New York, 1965). 12 Geoff Eley, "Conservativesand Radical Nationalistsin Germany:The Productionof Fascist Potentials, 1912-1928," in Fascists and Conservativesin Europe, ed. MartinBlinkhorn(London, 1990), pp. 50-70; Rudy Koshar,Social Life, Local Politics and Nazism: Marburg, 1880-1935 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1986); and Peter Fritzsche,Rehearsalsfor Fascism: Populism and Political Mobilizationin WeimarGermany(New York, 1990).

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could not win: honorably supporting constitutional legalism, but doing so in a way that kept them from giving voice to popular indignation at increasingly ineffective presidial regimes. In these final chapters, then, the Nazis emerge as populists, railing against unrepresentative, distant rulers and generating a sense of collective unity. Winkler ends his elegantly written book with allusions to grassroots expectations and collective persuasions that are neglected in the body of this largely political history. That Weimar was burdened by the archaic political traditions and intense social conflicts of the Wilhelmine period forms the foundation of Mommsen's history of Weimar as much as it does Winkler's. But Mommsen sees little of the democratic development that Winkler cherishes. Right off, the reader is informed of the "extreme autism" of the German public (p. 9). Indeed, Mommsen is more generous to politicians in the capital than to constituents in the provinces. He has little patience with the million-headed public that allows itself to be mobilized first by imperial nationalists before 1914, then by the Vaterlandspartei, in 1918 the largest mass organization in Germany,and finally in the 1920s by polemical antiparliamentarians and volkisch demagogues. In other words, democracy was threatened from the outset by broad-based chauvinist sentiments that the collective traumas of military defeat, revolution, and inflation only hardened. This is the Germany that cheered Ludendorff, applauded the Freikorps, voted for Hitler, and opposed the other, mostly working-class Germany, which stood for social justice and democracy yet grew alienated from the Republic. The confrontation of these two nations left little room for effective statecraft, and Ebert and Stresemann accordingly play much more subdued roles in Mommsen's narrative. Instead, the emphasis falls on bynow familiar middle-class anxieties, collective traumas, and humiliations of statusconscious elites, all of which were easily mobilized by extremists such as Hitler who made the resentments of the public their own. The result is a dramatic history in which readers find epic engagements between ideological enemies who play out Wilhelmine scripts with more exaggerated Weimarian gestures. The title-"Squandered Freedom"-notwithstanding, there is little in this book about workable social coalitions, republican margins of safety, or stabilization-era consensus. Virtue is reserved for social groups, notably, the organized working class, rather than the political practitioners whom Winkler commends. Although Mommsen recognizes the break of 1929/30, it takes the form of a culmination of frustrationsratherthan the singular catastrophe of depression. There is something satisfying about the active tense of this deeply felt history. Strong-armed verbs and colorful adjectives bring to life the paramilitary groups and volkisch speechmakers who appear only sporadically in Winkler's narrative. Cultural politics are taken seriously in the form of fantasies, traumas, and Feindbilder:And yet Mommsen risks caricaturing Hitler's Germany.It comes too readymade from the Wilhelmine past. Collective inheritance overwhelms collective identity, and readers get little sense of political transformationsor social exchanges over time. Most middle-class Germans appear dead-set against the Republic, completely at odds with the cultural experimentation of the metropolis, and utterly incapable of reacting except defensively or resentfully-though at least workers get to be alienated. Thus, the National Socialists stand in line, hand-in-hand, with

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all sortsof reprehensiblenationalistgroupsfromthe Wilhelmineperiod.Mommsen is quiteclear:the Nazis' successwas not a simplefunctionof economiccatastrophe.But withno positiveideologicalappeal,theymadeno claimon Germany's intellectualheritage.Weimarbecomes the final measureof politicalopportunism andmoralindifference. Politicalautismalso providesthe concludingnote to RichardBessel's recent studyof demobilization,Gernanyafterthe First WorldWarThis comprehensive troubledtransitionfromwarto peaceis a grandlyimpresexaminationof German's sive piece of social historythatends with curiouslyidealisticconclusionsin the realmof politicalcivics. Marshalingten yearsof archivalresearch,Bessel examines the widespreaddesirefor a returnto normalcy,notes the thoroughlyinadefor demobilization,andexploresin detailthe improvisedeffort quatepreparations thateventuallytook place in autumn1918. The unexpectedlyabruptdemobilization in Novemberand December1918 had threeimportantconsequences:it got six million soldiershome withouttoo much trouble,put the postwartransition largelyin the handsof industryandorganizedlabor,andpushedthe government to subsidizeindustrialproductionand welfareexpenditureson a massivescale in an attemptto wardoff social disorderby meansof full employment.Thatwartime inflationgave way to postwarinflationexpressedthe classic Weimardilemma: the economic policies of demobilizationwere "bothtemporarilysuccessfuland politicallynecessary,"butthey"putoff the evil daywhenthe economicandpolitical bill for the warwould have to be paid"(p. 124). Likewise,"measureswhich wereprobablyeconomicallynecessaryforthe long-termhealthof thecountrywere politicallyimpossiblein the shortterm"(p. 123).Thus,the mainchaptersof Bessel's story,in whichhe surveyslabor,agricultural,andhousingconditions,delineate a surprisinglyorderlyreturnto economicnormalcy.Large-scaledisruptions wereavoided,andgovernmentcontrolson the economygraduallylifted.Although the socialpeacethatinflationpurchasedprovidedthe Republica marginof survival in the firstyearsaftertheRevolution,"3 it also supportedtheillusionthattherecould be a returnto 1913. If the extremedislocationof the warembellishedthe fantasyof a largelypatriarchal world of security,the relativelymodest dislocationsof demobilizationenhancedits plausibility,burdening,in the long run,the WeimarRepublicwith expectationsthatcould not possiblybe met. ForBessel, it was preciselythe ease of demobilizationthatkept Germansfromcomingto termswith the costs of the war and thus led them to adoptan agendaincreasinglycenteredon moralissues to accountfor theirpoliticalimpotence.As a result,politicalpracticein the Weimar erawas cloudedby mythsthatcherishedthe securityof prewarlife andcastigated republicanconspiratorswho withheldit. Theserecastthe horrorsveteransexperiencedin the trenchesintoheroics,the welcometheyin factreceivedinto shameful andthe relativeease withwhichtheyreintegratedthemselvesin the mistreatment, postwareconomyintobewilderingchaos. In the end, Bessel sounds a ratherfamiliartheme:dreamypoliticalmyth de13 See also Winkler,p. 144; GeraldD. Feldman, The GreatDisorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the GermanInflation,1914-1924 (New York, 1993), pp. 249-50.

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stroyedresponsiblepolitical discourse.Bessel repeatedlyindicatesthe extent to which Germansdid not care to take a "soberlook" at accomplishmentsattained anddifficultiesahead.Insteadof engagingin "openpoliticaldiscussion,""millions of Germansretreatedintoirresponsiblepoliticaldemagogy,intothe antidemocratic politicsof propagandaandillusion"(pp.282-83). Bessel'sassumptionhereis that politicsusuallyis andcertainlyoughtto be about"realsocial needs andeconomic priorities"(p. 282). Whilethe link betweensoberpolitics andrepublicansurvival maybe credible,it is not at all clearthatpolitics is usuallyconductedsoberlyor thatmythsandfictionsarenot regularconstituentsof worldviews.In the end, the sharp,normativedistinctionbetweenresponsibilityanddemagogyconfusesanalysis of popularmotivations.A closer look suggeststhat"demagogicpolitics"may be antidemocratic, and surelysidestepspainfulchoices-but it is effective.Even as Bessel acknowledgesthe force of mythand fantasy,he avoidsconcludingthat Weimardemonstrates preciselythe degreeto whichpoliticalmobilizationis rooted in the imagination.To dismiss this as "playingto the gallery"is to take a very limitedview of politics.14 A morenuancedif less ambitiousdiscussionof nostalgicmythsandantirepublican politics is Shelley Baranowski'sTheSanctityof RuralLife: Nobility,Protestantism,and Nazismin WeimarPrussia.Baranowski'selegant,almostelegiachistory shows how the rise of Nazism in Pomeraniawas rootedin pastoralmyth, a findingthatchallengesthe repeatedemphasisin the last yearson the radicalnature of fascism.At the centerof heranalysisis the "myth"of the "sanctityof rurallife" thatultimatelyboundestateownersand agriculturallaborers.The resultis a fine illustrationof how cultureshapespolitics in ways that are not rationalor sober. Baranowskiis mindfulof ruralclass conflicts,but she arguesthateconomichardship in the 1920s reinforcedsocial conventionsof deference,which remained economyof the estatevillage.Whatmadevillages widespreadin the nonmonetary of social harmonyinto seedbedsof politicalmilitancewere the unsettlingmarket relations,big-citymorals,andharshsecularismof the WeimarRepublic.Oncethe Nazis madetheirpeace with local elites, theyquicklyemergedas the best guarantorsof rurallife. Baranowskiis surely rightto remindhistoriansof the degree to which Nazis were tied to local conventionsandlocal hierarchies.Hitler'sbrownshirtswere not hadbeen, andtheirpopulismwas not adventurousoutsiders,as the Freikorpsmen socialism.Nonetheless,the differencesbetween the Nazis and the conservative GermanNationalistswhom they displacedso dramaticallyadd up to more than "familyquarrels"(p. 163). The problemis not to explainwhy estateownerssupportedthe Nazis (withvaryingdegreesof enthusiasm),but why theydid not seem to haveanyotherchoice.Why did all the "familyquarrels"of the early 1930s end so resoundinglyin NationalSocialistvictories?Thisfamilyseems moreextended, recombined,andtroubled,and,by extension,the Nazis seem moreintrusivethan Baranowskiallows. Unfortunately,a more comprehensiveunderstandingof the 14RichardBessel, "Why Did the WeimarRepublic Collapse?"in Kershaw,ed. (n. 1 above), p. 122. See also Richard Bessel, "Die Krise der WeimarerRepublik als Erblast des verlorenen Krieges,"in Bajohret al., eds., pp. 98-114.

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Nazis is underminedby the difficultyBaranowskihas-despite her'bestefforts in giving a voice to agriculturallaborersand peasantvillagers,and thus to the majorityof Pomerania'sNazi voters.Extensiveresearchin local, regional,and churcharchivesdoes notremovethefocusof thisfascinatingstudyin ruralpolitical culturefromcolorfulbutsmallnumbersof estateownerssuchas thevonKrockows with whomthis book opens andcloses. A usefulcorrectiveis JonathanOsmond'sinvestigationof peasantprotestin the Rhinelandand Bavariain the early 1920s.WhereasBaranowskiexaminesestates andestatevillages,Osmondlooks at independentpeasants.Examininggrassroots politics,Osmondveryplausiblyarguesin favorof anincreasinglyradicalmobilizationthattookplaceduringthe warandearlypostwaryears.Peasantslearneddemocraticforms and emergedas self-assertivepoliticalcontenders.Whethermonarchist, nationalist,or voilkisch,groupslike the FreePeasantrystudiedhere madea virtueof mobilizationand quicklyovershadowedthe more deferentialPeasants' Associations and AgrarianLeagues. The increasinglydense organizationand pricklyself-relianceof peasantsis persuasiveandindicatesthatthe persistenceof prewarsocialhierarchythatBaranowskisees in Pomeraniadoes not holdfor small farmersin the West. Insubordinatepopulismthus remainsa crucialpart of the of Weimarpolitics. Unfortunately,Osmonddoes not completely transformation succeedin animatinghis peasantsor theirpolitics.This is a slightbook thatlooks at organizedgroupsbutnot at villagesandis basedlargelyon a readingof governmentreports.AlthoughOsmond'sanalysisreachesan interestingclimaxwhen he examinesthe separatistactionsof the Free Peasantryin 1923, the dramais quite secondaryto the disorderwroughtby the Landvolk-the ruralpeople'smovement in northernGermany-some yearslater.Giventhe Landvolk'sexpressivelocalism and explosivepolitics,it is surprisingthatthe movementhas been completelyignoredby recentworkon Germanrurallife.15A muchneededinvestigationof the Landvolkwouldrevealmuchmoreclearlythanhasbeendonepreviouslyhow selfrelianceand politicalradicalismwent hand-in-handand challengedboth liberal republicansandconservativenationalists. Nonetheless,the virtueof local studiessuch as Baranowski'sand Osmond'sis that the governingframeof the fate of the Republicis much less evident.They illuminatethe full complexityof Weimareraconstituents.Whenpeasantsin Plotzig or Pinnasensopposed Berlin democrats,they did so on the basis of robust activismandsturdyculturalassociationsthatcanhardlybe describedas autistic.In otherwords,the elaborationof publiclife in whichconstituentssoughtto construct collectivemeaningsand pursuecollectiveinterestsdid not lead to a strongerdemocracy-pace the classicsociologicaltraditionof Tocqueville,Weber,andDurkheim.As long as the fate of the Republicremainsthe emotionalcenterof Weimar '5The Landvolkappearson the horizonof Baranowski'sstudy but, astonishinglyenough, is not treatedin RobertMoeller,ed., Peasants and Lordsin Modem Germany:RecentStudiesinAgricultural History (Boston, 1986). Conan Fischer, The German Communistsand the Rise of Nazism (New York, 1991), examinespolitical affinitiesbetween the Communistsand the Nazis but ignores entirely the Landvolk,which both groupscelebratedand courted.The best study of the Landvolk is Michelle Le Bars, Le mouvementpaysandans le Schleswig-Holstein,1928-1932 (Bern, 1986).

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history, the widespread political mobilization of working- and middle-class Germans and the political dynamic that culminated in the Nazi victories of 1930 and 1932 will remain misunderstood. At issue in the 1920s was not simply the recovery of social stability or economic prosperity but questions of cultural value, political entitlement, and nationalist sentiment that are not easily parsed in terms of support for or opposition to parliamentary democracy. Weimar voters were much more ideological, unpredictable, and, indeed, interesting figures than the anguished wanderers among the postwar ruins to which we continue to be introduced in even the best syntheses. Of course, it would be foolish to diminish estimates of the disruption caused by the war. Richard Bessel effectively tabulates the costs of a war in which more than thirteen million men-fully one-fifth of the total population-served in the German army and, in most cases, actually fought at the front. At home, long working hours, poor hygiene, and unnourishing meals created horrible suffering. Moreover, wartime inflation served as a daily reminder that "the fixed relationships of the prewarworld had been destroyed."16 There was good cause for Germans to look back nostalgically on the years before the war. Nonetheless, postwar politics cannot be reduced to the recovery of social order. World War I generated a web of institutional practices and ideological ties that connected citizens to the nation in novel ways. Even as historians have overdrawn the popular resonance of patriotic community in August 1914,17 it is clear that Germans developed new emotional affinities to the nation, found a mostly deferential monarchism wanting, and experimented with new, more democratic political practices. The war provided the opportunity to reimagine national forms, and it wrecked more than refurbished the legitimacy of the prewar world. Indeed, Bessel acknowledges and Winkler emphasizes that most Germans had lost faith in the monarchy and the military by 1918. Much of the subsequent electoral volatility of middle-class voters, who distrusted social reactionaries as much as social revolutionaries, was the result of wartime experiences that enfranchised as well as conscripted citizens in a multitude of meaningful ways. At the same time, workers mobilized to protect their interests but also supported the national struggle. While the November 1918 revolution cannot be understood without reference to growing radicalism on the shop floor and at the market square, the years that followed cannot be understood without acknowledging how wartime experiences upholstered nationalist identities. Reflected in images of disciplined soldiers, skilled workers, patriotic sisters, complex machines, and self-made heroes such as the ace Oswald Boelcke, Chief of Staff Erich Ludendorff, and even the people's favorite, the Supreme Commander, Paul von Hindenburg, Germany at war increasingly recast itself in plebian terms. Unfortunately,working-class nationalism has been virtually ignored by historians, who focus instead on the quality of social-welfare arrangements that originated during the war and were expanded in the 1920s, inquire whether the political victory of the Social Democrats in November 1918 proved Bessel, Germanyafter the First WorldWar,p. 31. Wolfgang Kruse, Krieg und nationale Integration:Eine Neuinterpretationdes sozialdemokratischenBurgfriedensschlusses,1914/15 (Essen, 1994). 16 17

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too economicallyburdensomein the long run,andemphasizethe degreeto which the legitimacyof the Republicrestedon social legislation.'8The resultis thatthe storyof workersin the 1920s is drivenby the fortunesof the Republic.However, a series of new studiesquestionsconventionalassumptionsthat see workersas alliedto the Republicandlargelyimmuneto nationalistsentiments.Now thatit is evidentthateven socialistworkersvoted for the Nazis in considerablenumbers, of theWeimarperiodand historianswill haveto reconsider"socialinterpretations" paymoreattentionto the nationalistimagination. EMBRACES SOMEAWKWARD A discussionof nationalistsentimentis bestbegunwitha presentationof empirical evidence.In a readable,tightlyarguedexpositionof his detailedstatisticalanalyses thatin Septemon Weimarelections,JuirgenFalterhas indisputablydemonstrated ber 1930, 13 percentof all workersvotedfor the Nazis;by July 1932, the number had increasedto 27 percent.At these sametimes,workersrepresented27 percent and 28 percentof the respectiveNazi electorates.These areveryhigh figurescutting againstthe grainof long-heldassumptions.Evenif ruralworkersarefactored out, the Nazis madeconsiderablegains amongindustrialand urbanworkersand were, in fact, Germany'slargestproletarianpartyfor most of the year 1932 (pp. 220, 224,225, 229). Oneof everysix SocialDemocraticvotersin the 1930election abandonedthe partyfor the Nazis two yearslater,so thateven politicaltradition did not immunizeworkers.One of every ten Nazi votersin the summerof 1932 was an ex-Social Democrat(p. 111).Clearly,the Nazi messageresonatedamong left-wingworkers,andhistorianshaveto figureout why.Falteralso confirmsearlier findingsby ThomasChilders:white-collaremployeeswere surprisinglydisinclined to vote for the Nazis, while Protestantcivil servants,retailers,artisans,and farmerswere muchmore predisposedto do so. "TheNationalSocialists,"Falter concludes,"recruitedtheirelectoratefromso manysocial groupsthatthe NSDAP is best describedwith Childersas a partyof collectiveprotest"(p. 289). Faltergoes on to evaluatehis dataagainstthreeexplanatorymodels:the classbasedanalysisof SeymourMartinLipset,who underlinedthe lower-middle-class natureof the Nazi electorateandpresumedthe immunityof industrialworkersto NationalSocialism;the mass-societyhypothesisof ReinhardBendix,who located Nazi gains among previouslyunmobilizedgroupssuch as first-timevoters and previousnonvoters;andWalterDeanBurnham'sargumentaboutthe role of political confessionin regulatingelectoralbehavior.Weighingtheprosandcons of each, modelmostcompletely.Evenif BurnFalterfindsthatthe evidencefits Burnham's hamunderestimated the susceptibilityof CatholicandSocialDemocraticvotersto the Nazis, he underscoredthe degree to which the Protestantbourgeoisparties 18 David Abraham,The Collapse of the WeimarRepublic: Political Economy and Crisis, 2d rev. ed. (New York, 1986); Peukert,The WeimarRepublic (n. 6 above), pp. 129, 253-54; Knut Borchardt,"Constraintsand Room for Manoeuvrein the GreatDepression of the Early Thirties: Towardsa Revision of the Received Historical Picture,"in his Perspectives on Modern German EconomicHistory and Policy, trans.PeterLambert(Cambridge,1991), pp. 143-60.

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wereunableto hold ontotheirs.Forthis reason,Burnhamcalls Germany'sProtesBut if the bourgeoisbloc is expandedto includethe tantburghers"unchurched." Nazis,it suddenlydisplaysconsiderablecoherence,withonly veryfew votersleaving the fold overtime.'9This is confirmedby the remarkablefindingthatthe best predictorof the resultsof Hitler's1932 presidentialcampaignagainstHindenburg was, in fact, Hindenburg'sshowing againstWilhelmMarx in 1925. For Falter, these two elections are among"themost fascinatingand historicallysignificant" in Germanhistory(p. 123), indicatingthe degreeto which supportfor Hitlerwas prefiguredin bourgeoiscoalitionswell before the Depressionand was confined mostlyto a politicallycoherentif sociallyheterogeneous"burgherbloc."Falteris quickto pointout thatSocial Democraticandeven Catholicvotes were important in 1932.Nonetheless,the mainoutlineof the Nazi electo Nazi totals,particularly toratebecomesclearif the politicalratherthansocialoriginsof votersareemphasized.Thisis reasonenoughto questionthecurrentassumptionthattheNazis were Falter'scorrelationsindicatethatNazism simply "a catch-allpartyof protest."20 restedon a broadnationalistinsurgency. The sweep of Nazi gains among even Social Democraticworkerschallenges of Germanfascism. Conventionalsocial the value of a class-basedinterpretation categoriessuch as worker,shopkeeper,or employee,and the politicalmarkersof Left and Right or socialistand bourgeoisthey encompass,simply did not make sense of the dynamicof Germanpolitics afterWorldWarI. To understandthe primacyof politics that seems manifesthere, historianshave little choice but to of collective identities,culturalpracventureout onto the flimsy superstructure tices, andnationalistsentiments. It is usefulto examinewhatthe NationalSocialistsofferedvotersthatthe Social largestparty Democratsdidnot,particularlysincetheNazisemergedas Germany's in 1932, exactlytwentyyearsafterthe socialistshad. Both partieswere the main contendersfor theheartsandmindsof Germanvotersin theearly1930s.TheNazis not only won over large numbersof Social Democratsbut, in addition,as Falter shows, the Social Democratshad alreadybenefitedfrom formerNazi votersin 1928 and 1930 (one in six 1928 socialistvotershadvotedNazi in December1924 [p. 111]). Indeed,there are strikingsimilaritiesbetween the Social Democratic Party(SPD) and the NationalSocialist GermanWorkers'Party(NSDAP):each partyacknowledgedthe powerof the other,andthe SocialDemocratsprovidedthe NationalSocialistswith the basic modelof politicalorganization.Moreover,both partiesleft considerablenumbersof votersdisappointed.The Nazi partynot only suffereda revolving-doormembershipbut also, in November1932, lost two mil19Falter,pp. 114-17. See also SeymourMartinLipset, "Fascism-Left, Right, and Center,"in his Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (GardenCity, N.J., 1960), pp. 127-79; Reinhard Bendix, "Social Stratificationand Social-Power,"American Political Science Review 46 (1952): 357-75; and WalterDean Burnham,"PoliticalImmunizationand Political Confessionalism:The United StatesandWeimarGermany,"Journalof InterdisciplinaryHistory 3 (1972): 1-30. See also the excellentessay by BerntHagtvet,"TheTheoryof Mass Society and the Collapseof the Weimar Republic:A Reexamination,"in Larsenet al., eds. (n. 2 above), pp. 66-117. 20 ThomasChilders,TheNazi Voter:TheSocial Foundationsof Fascism in Germany,1919-1933 (ChapelHill, N.C., 1983), pp. 264-65.

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out of their lion voters.At the sametime,SocialDemocratshaddifficultybreakiing traditionalworking-classmilieu and failed to respondto the growingnumberof Germansdisillusionedwith parliamentary politics.AlthoughDonnaHarschdoes not explicitlysay so, her first-classanalysisof the engagementbetweenthese two politicalmachines,GennanSocial Democracyand the Rise of Nazism,indicates thatbothpartiesmobilizedunfulfilledreformistexpectations.(Accordingto Falpoliticalexchangebetweenthe soter'scorrelations[p. 111], the much-reported called extremes,the Nazis and the Communists,did not take place.) The Nazis were more successfulthanthe Social Democratsbecausethey effectivelyrepresenteda nationalidentitythatwas appealingpreciselybecauseit promisedto break witholdercollectiveassociationsidentifiedwiththepoliticsof failure.In a strange twist thatHarschmighthavediscussedat greaterlength,nationalismcame to denote a radicalismdeemed necessaryto achieve a thoroughrenovationof catastrophicsocial andeconomicconditions.21 Thetroublewiththe SocialDemocrats,Harschargues,is thattheydidnoteffectively embracetheir radicaldemocraticnature.Althoughthe party'selectorate looked forwardto an ambitiouspolitical agendathat would addressGermany's pressingproblems,Social Democraticleadersdithered.Harschis perfectlyaware of the difficultpoliticaland economicclimatein the early 1930s.And the movementitself was constitutedby heterogeneouselements:party,tradeunion,andthe Reichsbanner.Nonetheless,"Prussianreformers"and orthodoxMarxistsin the partyleadershipkept the Social Democratsfrom deliveringa moreattractiveand moreradical(butnon-Marxist)messageto the Germanelectoratein the depthsof the Depression. period of Harschis not alwaysclear aboutwhat a "republican-parliamentary (p. 62) mighthavelooked reform"(p. 45) or a "boldprogramof democratization" like, but she is certainlymakingthe right inquiries.She calls on a minorityof radicalssuch as JuliusLeber,Theo Haubach,and CarloMierendorffto testify to the party'sinabilityto develop a coherentsocial programor a critiqueof "real Whilethepublic"cravedaction"(p. 62) to overcome existing"parliamentarianism. the SPD foughtto protectunemployment benefitsor else declined unemployment, to doctora sick capitalismaltogether.A militantclass-against-classrhetoricwas feeble compensationfor reformistpractices,withthe resultthatthe Social Democratsneithersatisfiedloyal supportersnor won new adherents.The party'sfailure to adoptthe Woytinsky-Tarnow-Baade publicworksplanproposedby tradeunion leadersin spring1932 was indeedwhatHarschrightlycalls a "momentousblunder"(p. 190).The Nazis adoptedit instead. Unableto assesstheradicaldisillusionmentof voters,the SocialDemocratsmisreadtherise of theNazis,whomtheydismissedas reactionariesandcapitalistsand whose supportersthey regardedcondescendinglyas deludedand irrational.Only a few observersacknowledgedthe popularresonanceof the NSDAP'sreformism. Yet when Social Democratsin Hesse and Hamburgexperimentedin 1932 with a more confidentstyle of agitation,replacedproletarianwith nationalmotifs, and appealedto the Volkin the nameof freedomratherthanof theRepublic,theresults 21

See also Fischer.

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were encouraging. These partial successes in the face of broader Social Democratic failures indicate just where the Nazis outmaneuvered their foes. What the National Socialists offered the public was the simple, constantly reiterated promise that present circumstances would be radically altered for the benefit of the entire nation. This proved effective against both the traditional Right and the traditional Left. The Social Democrats, by contrast, were tied to a discursive, rational language that resonated deeply among working-class supportersbut withheld an immediate and indignant response to the crisis. For all the differences, however, the impression remains that many voters judged the National Socialists in terms of longer-term disappointments with, rather than outright opposition to, Social Democracy, and regarded the two parties not as polar opposites but as more and less able reformers. By focusing on the confrontation between Social Democracy and National Socialism, Harsch highlights the conceptual differences between the two movements, reexamines the broad appeal of radical reform, and thereby makes a provocative and timely contributionto the study of German politics. But where Harsch suggests that the Republic was not a terribly important issue for voters and faults the SPD for compromising its otherwise appealing democratic radicalism by its attempt to steady parliamentaryinstitutions, Wolfram Pyta commends the party for its consistent and energetic efforts on behalf of the Republic. It is not clear why Pyta undertakes this exhaustive study, since the SPD's basically good intentions have not been in doubt. But along the way, the author makes some importantpoints. Like Harsch, he is struck by the clumsiness of SPD thinkers who generally could not comprehend the charisma of Hitler or the racism of the Nazi message. The Social Democrats saw what they wanted to see: the anticapitalist sentiment of Nazi voters who would eventually come around to the real thing. As a result, Pyta argues, the rise of the Nazis confirmed rather than challenged the SPD's proletarian socialism. Given this scenario, there was no need for the party to formulate a more populist Gemeinschaftsgedanke, to repair the economy with public works plans, or to contest at the grass roots the Nazis' ferocious opposition to the conservative Catholic chancellor, Heinrich Brining. Pyta describes the SPD's official policy of tolerating Briining in 1930-32 as a strategy of postponement, during which time the masses would continue their anticapitalistjoumey, moving from the Nazi to the Marxist camp. In the meantime, Social Democratic civil servants tried valiantly to dispel the notion that National Socialism was inevitable. Unfortunately, efforts at republican enlightenment were sporadic and always compromised by uncooperative bourgeois functionaries. This is importantterritoryfor Pyta to cover, for he is interested in whether Social Democrats passed the test in defending the Republic. It becomes clear that they did, but it is not so clear why this is such a crucial standard for evaluation. Did Social Democratic supporters expect such vigilance? Probably not, since the constitutional legalism the SPD defended so vigorously during the Brining chancellorship left the party without a strategy to confront directly the Nazis or to press for radical improvements in the lives of ordinary voters. To be sure, Pyta carefully outlines the ways in which the SPD's legalism was counterproductive,but he fails to factor these into a concluding analysis. Astonishing as well is his assumption that the Social Democrats could have made a more energetic pitch to the middle classes,

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who Pyta sketches in as ratheropportunistic,ignoring their basic disposition againstthe left-wingparty.By takingthe survivalof theRepublicas the mainissue andreviewingthe policy optionsof the Social Democratsin thatlight,Pytashows little feel for Weimarvotersthemselves.It is unlikelythatthe Social Democrats couldhavejumpedout of theirpoliticalskinsto adoptthe brashstyle of the Nazis, reanimateradicalworkers,win over shopkeepers,and,at the same time, continue to defendthe constitutionalorder. Radicalandnationalmotifsfigureprominentlyin GerhardPaul'sintriguingand powerfullyarguedanalysisof the NationalSocialists'publicface. InAufstandder Bilder:Die NS-Propagandavor 1933 (infelicitouslytranslatedas Insurrectionof whichwas aimedat creatImages),Pauldoes not simplyanalyzeNazi propaganda, ing an emotionallypowerfulworldof illusions designedto (re)conquerworkers for nationalistends;he demonstratesthe vital role of imageryin politics as well. of the verytermsof WeiHis well-writtenstudyis a pathbreaking reconsideration marpolitics,whichfavoredthosecontenderswho workedin the subjunctivemood of the imagination.Paulhas little patiencewith contemporarycriticslike Bertolt Brechtwho dismissedNazi propagandaas pure illusion. "Awhitewashsatisfied importantneeds,"Paulcounters;imagesreferredto "mythicandutopiansymbols" andmobilizedemotionsagainst"thearidlanguageof democracyandrationaldiscourse"(p. 13).AlthoughPauloccasionallydescribesthis mobilizationof pictures as "counterrevolutionary," he is moreintenton uncoveringthe full registerof politics. As CarlSchorskearguedlong ago, masspoliticshadincreasinglybecomean aestheticform,a modernistgenre.22 A few characteristic figuresconstitutedthe mainelementsof visualpropaganda. Large-formatcurbsidepostersdepictingable-bodiedworkers,frontlinesoldiers, overfedbureaucrats, and subhumanBolsheviks,as well as the visualandacoustic spectacleof uniformedranksof NationalSocialistmarchers,createdan "illusionaryworldof existentialthreatsandeminentapocalypse,of a radicaltransformation and a brownfuture"(p. 213). More thananythingelse, such visuals conveyeda AlthoughHarschpointsto sense of the movement'smilitanceand determination. in SocialDemocraticpostersbeforeCarloMierthepathetic,groaningproletarians endorffandSergeiChakotindevelopeda moreconfidentstyle, Paulsees little differencebetweenthe musculargiantsin standardleft-wingand right-wingpropaganda.23With their unshakableconvictionsand vigilant poses, these oversized fantasyfiguresenteredthe publicsphereto protectanddestroy,not to debateand discuss. In them,the Nazis foundan appealingrevolutionarysubject,confirming the streetwiseabilitiesof Hitler'scampaignersand signalingthe social-reformist intentionsof his regime.In the end, whatthe Nazis did was to steal fromthe Left, takingthe "redof theirflags and posters"as well as their "slogans,catchwords, and allegories"(p. 257)-inserting them into new contexts,to be sure,but also projectinga diffusesocialistfuturebeyondWeimarwhichmanyworkersevidently foundappealing. 22 Carl E. Schorske, "Politics in a New Key: An AustrianTriptych,"in Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture(New York, 1980). 23 Harsch,pp. 177-78.

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Paulis keenly awareof the limits of aestheticmobilization.Particularlybefore 1933, the carefullychoreographedcompositionshe describeswere marredby streetbattles,andunrulyor drunkenpartymembers.And counterdemonstrations, by autumn1932, even Nazi sympathizershadbecome dulledto the party'svisual effects. Moreover,therewere as manyconstituentswho did not need Goebbels's flim-flamto persuadethemto vote for the Nazis as therewere organizedworkers andruralCatholicswho dismissedthe hooplaaltogether.And yet Paulhas accomplisheda greatdeal. He outlinesNazi assessmentsof the crucialrole thatpropagandaplayedin mobilizinghomefrontpublicsin WorldWarI andclass allegiances considersthese assumptionsquiteplausible:he demonin 1918 and,furthermore, images spokeeffectivelyto utopianyearningsfor a strateshow twentieth-century more prosperousfutureand a greatersense of nationalbelonging.At the same time, Paulhotes the entirelysubordinaterole of politicaldiscourseandpublished tracts. In urban areas, electoral battles were fought primarilyby posters and which the Left speeches.Goebbelsreferredagainand againto the "Plakatkrieg" had won in the early 1920s but from which the Nazis would eventuallyemerge victorious.By contrast,the writtenword,whichone leadingNazi namedthe "stepchild of the movement"(p. 180), was associatedwith interest-groupentitlements andparliamentary politics.GerhardPaulpresentsan extremelyrichargumentindicatingthatthe "sociallanguageof politics"mightnot havebeen as importantas the emotionalvocabularyof collectivedesire.24 Pauldoes notattempta receptionanalysisof Nazi visuals,butthegrittyproletarian politics thatAlf Luidtkeexploresconfirmhow effectively symbolic gestures and nationaltableauxenrolledworkersin NationalSocialism.In a series of importantessaysthathaveappearedoverthelastten years,Ludtkeundertakesnothing of the politicaluniverseof the Germanworking less than a reconceptualization class. He wantsnot only to expandthe emotionalregisterof politics in ways entirely compatiblewith the work of Donna Harschand GerhardPaul but also to enlargethe terrainof politics so thatthe GrossePolitikof nationalaffairsmay be understoodalso in termsof the Kleinpolitikof shop-floorrelations,tenancyfights, subsistencestruggles,and,Liidtkemightwantto add,genderroles.Peopledo not entergrandpolitics as autonomousindividualsmakingrationalchoices, nor are they simplymanipulatedobjects;rather,theyparticipatein a varietyof contestsin whichtheirengagementwith authoritymighttakethe formof withdrawal,stealthy subversion,direct engagement,or even loud agreement.He introducesthe term "Eigensinn,"a kind of freedom stakedout in these cautious and occasionally pricklyrelationsto power,to understandthe readinessof workersto supportthe wareffortin 1914,theirbroadacceptanceof NationalSocialismsometwentyyears later,and also their revolts, boycotts,and all-aroundstubbornnessin the years 1918-20. The public sphereis not necessarilya place Ludtke'sworkersenterwillingly. The desireto be amongone'sown kind,withworkmates,family,andfriends,often supersededallegiancesto formalorganizationsandfrequentlyreflecteddifficulties or in findinga stableliveliin dealingwith stateofficialsandwelfarebureaucrats 24

Childers,"The Social Languageof Politics" (n. 8 above).

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hood or even in procuring bread. The fact is that the "attention and energy of male and female workers and housewives was still very much absorbed by the daily strain of survival" (p. 296). As Ludtke works it back into the stream of day-to-day life, politics remains central to workers, but the "partyline," the regime, and other civic virtues are often peripheral. At the same time, reserve toward the powerful could easily give way to trust. Ludtke wonders what effect the Nazi slogan "Bread and Work" had on those adults who in winter 1932 once again tasted the bitter rations of 1916 and 1923 and surely hoped for a social order that would finally banish such misery (pp. 232-33). To consider workers' acceptance of the Nazi regime in light of the trauma of the wartime "Steckriibenwinter"(pp. 263, 296) is the bold move of Ludtke'sAlltagsgeschichte in which the clear lines between interest, ideology, and politics give way to unstable, tenuous, and mediated actions that are much more faithful to the complexity of people's lives.25 Harsh economics are not everything, however. Drawing on the work of Barrington Moore, Ludtke insists that workers operate in public with a robust sense of honor.26This can express itself in rebellious actions in the name of social justice, as in the November Revolution, but also in an entirely personal sense of achievement grounded in supporting a family, spending a little extra on weekends, and advancing from one skill grade to another. Although Luidtke'sarguments would have been enhanced had he disentangled male honor from working-class honor, he persuasively shows how easily Grosse Politik could draw legitimacy from Eigensinn. Iconic representations of muscle and sweat honored the labor of the worker and recognized his mastery of material and machine. In both World War I and World War II, such a "Bilder-Sprache" (p. 334) composed powerful images of "German Quality Work" from countless discerning and proficient hands on the shop floor. These images at once esteemed labor and enrolled laborers into the "(whole"-into the nation and the Volk.And "Nationale Arbeit" was not idle propaganda; already circulated by Social Democrats in the 1910s, patriotic images of labor allowed workers to reconcile vocational with collective identities and to connect quality on the workbench to prosperity around the corner, and they facilitated working-class acceptance of the National Socialists.27 For all the book's rich insight, its usefulness is somewhat limited by its tentative nature. Although the subtitle promises "Ergebnisse"-research results-the volume is a collection of essays, most of which are argumentative ratherthan empirical, intriguing rather than persuasive. Yet the great promise of Luldtke'sforcefully argued agenda is to take seriously previously "scare-quoted" concepts such as "Ehre,""Gemeinschaft,""Volk,"and "Nation." Conceptions of what it meant to labor on the shop floor, to support a family in hard times, and to be a German, fears of winter rationing and hopes for a better life-all were politically complicit

25 See also Geoff Eley, "Labor History,Social History,Alltagsgeschichte:Experience,Culture, and the Politics of the Everyday-A New Direction in GermanSocial History?"Journalof Modem History 61 (1989): 297-343. 26 BarringtonMoore, Injustice:The Social Bases of Obedienceand Revolt (New York, 1978). 27 See Luidtke,pp. 307-9, 328-29, 334-35.

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dramatizationsthat could be mobilized in the public sphere. The thoughtprovokingconclusionthatLudtkereachesis thatNationalSocialismwas extensively "coproduced" (p. 332) by the culturalpracticesof everydaylife. Whatrecentstudiesof Weimarworkersand NationalSocialistsrevealare degrees of affinitythat have not been taken seriouslyuntil now. To be sure, the working-classappealof the Nazis shouldnot be overstated;afterall, a majorityof Social Democraticvotersremainedloyal to the party.Nonetheless,the historians underreviewherehaveprovidedcompellingevidencethatworkersrespondedpositivelyto nationalistappeals.Germanworkersrepeatedlyidentifiedtheirown fate with thatof the nationandin some cases used nationalismto reenchantradicalism. At issue is notthe dutifulpatriotismof "yellow"unionsor small-townapprentices, but an imaginativerenderingof the commonwealththatcontaineda compellingif unsystematiccritiqueof Germansociety and politics. In otherwords,thereis no betweensocial reformandrepublicanpolitics.Weimaris not simcorrespondence ply thestoryof theRepublic,andthedemiseof themoderateandrepublicanparties shouldnot be regardedas symptomaticof electoralpanic and dislocation.In the minds of millions of voters,the Nazis figuredas a movementthat promisedto introduceradicalreformsbenefitingall non-JewishGermans.As a result,National Socialismwas not a politicalchoicethatnecessarilyrevokedtheprogressivesocial and economicaspirationsthatworkershad long cherished.Moreover,the Nazis' successdemonstratesthe extentto whichmodempoliticsis not simplya matterof interestbut also one of imagination.The studyof the Weimaryearscontinuesto developthe post-Marxistpropositionthatinterestsneed mythsto speakfor themselves. Whathistoriansare left with is not one single Weimarstory,but multiple versionsin whichtheconstitutiveroleof thenationandthecommunityencouraged politicalmobilizationalongvariousfronts. If preoccupationwith the fate of the Republicfails to catchthe broadmobilization of interestand sentimentin the postwaryears,it also neglectsthe exuberant confidencein designthat"middlingmodernists"in the stateadministration shared with high-mindedintellectualsin the avant-garde.In light of the ambitiousattemptsto renovatethe social body,to improvenationalhealth,and to modernize the Germaneconomy,Weimaris less a cumulativefailurethan a series of bold experimentsthatdo notcome to an endwiththeyear1933.Theceaselessimprovementof nationalcapacitieswas all the moreessential,since twentieth-century circumstancesof totalwar,imperialrivalry,andcommercialcompetitionappearedto underscorehow endangeredGermanyhad become.A shelf of recentbooks has attemptedto take the measureof this imaginationof design. Heretoo the stress is on the open-endednatureof mobilization,on the supererogatory, ideologically complicitassumptionsthatworkedandreworkedthe Volkskorper. DESIGNING THE NATION

termVolksAlreadyin use duringthe Weimaryears,the ominouslyauthoritarian korperhasbeenrecirculatedby present-dayhistoriansto drawattentionto theways in which the ambitiouspracticesof newly professionalizedgroupssuch as engi-

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neersanddoctorsmeshedwiththe growingresponsibilitiesof the stateto renovate usefulbecauseit keepsin focus two the nationfor collectiveends.It is particularly developments:an open-endedone in the form of fundamentaltwentieth-century innovationmadepossibleby the applicationof science andtechnology,and a delimitingone in the formof increasingabsorptionwith the fate of the nation.The crucialquestionin Germanhistoryis to accountfor the enclosureof the modernist by the nationalcollectiveat the expenseof the individual spiritof experimentation Twocentraltextsby Detlev Peukerthavebecomeindispensable andthe particular. to this inquiry:The WeimarRepublic:The Crisisof ClassicalModernity,andthe It is worthrecollectionof essaysentitledMax WebersDiagnoseder Moderne.28 viewing Peukert'scontributionbefore assessingthe most recentliteratureon the designof the nation. Peukert'suntimelydeathin 1990 left us with an exceptionallyrichbutbasically incompleteanalysisof modernity.His most coherentstatementscan be found in his synthetichistoryof the WeimarRepublic,and yet these were supersededby essayson Weber.Peukertrefersto darkersuspicionsexpressedin his untranslated potential, The emancipatory theWeimaryearsas "acrisisof the classicalmodern'" democraticpractice,social reformism,and economicand technologicalrationalizationthatPeukertidentifieswith modernizationcame all at once, in compressed and intense form, in the first three decades of the twentiethcentury.Moreover, thesewere accompanied,after1929, by a severeeconomicdownturn.This fateful coincidencePeukertcomparesto a "worst-case"scenarioof the failureof a complex system(he makesan explicitreferenceto Chernobyl).Economicstagnation exclusive,and andculturalandpoliticalcrisis led to an increasinglyauthoritarian, statefully realizedin NationalSocialism.In this line of argument, discriminatory Germanyis differentnot because it is burdenedby a specific twentieth-century nationalpast-the Sonderweginterpretation-butbecause it is simply an extremecase. Whatwas innovativeaboutPeukert'sapproachwas his attentionto the serious In his view,the supposedlyproproblemsof andmisgivingsaboutmodernization. gressivesocial-welfarecomplex,for example,restedon normativehierarchiesof humanworththatwould be fully articulatedby more repressiveregimes.At the sametime,Peukertacknowledgedwaysin whichan allegedlyantimodern"politics of culturaldespair"constitutedinsightfulresponsesto the incompletenessof modern rationalism.29 Because the pressuresof modernistexperimentationwere inits variationswere politicallydiverseandincludedthe comtenselycontradictory, Moreover,Peukert's fortsof nostalgiaas well as the temptationsof totalitarianism. workdeliberatelyplacedGermanyin a Westerncontextanddistinguishedthe most ominouscatastrophesof the modernerafrommodernityitself. But Peukertpermitsothersreadings.In his brilliantessays on Max Weber,for example,he repeatedlyinvokesthe "Janusface"of modernityanddrawsattention anddisorientationthathaveinvariablyaccompaniedindusto the disenchantment 28 Detlev Peukert,Max WebersDiagnose der Moderne(Gottingen, 1989), and The WeimarRepublic (n. 6 above). 29Peukert,The WeimarRepublic,p. 188.

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HerePeukertdoes somethinghe generallyavoidsin his history trialdevelopment.30 of the WeimarRepublic:he plays with the equationof modernityand crisis, a plotline in which Germanybecomes the archetypicalexpressionof the very essenceof modernityratherthana moreisolatedexampleof its mostserioustroubles. In this case, upheavalis the prevailingexperienceof the modem. And it is not only individualswho feel themselvesfreed from conventionor marginalizedby industrialdevelopment;professionalelites, politicalinstitutions,andthe stateitself respondto the moderncondition.These actorsacknowledgethe precariousnature of social structurebut also recognizethe far-reachingabilityto reformand renoaredistinctivemodernistpractices,butbevate.31Renovationandexperimentation cause they presumeboth the extrememalleabilityand the impermanenceof the materialworldand are also often undertakenin conditionsof apprehension,they can servedangerouslyadventurousends.This darkervision of modernismis compelling but not wholly persuasive.It is questionable,for example,whetherthe "spiritof science"introducesquite so automaticallya "discourseof segregation" withoutthe applicationof racistpolitics.32Doesn'tpoliticschoose its own science at least as muchas scienceprefigurespoliticalregimes?And while the dangerous embraceof crisis andrenovationmakesintuitivesense, it cannot,by itself, explain the dynamicof modernistmovements,which do not simplyemergeout of a "diabutaredeeplyimplicatedin the particularexperiencesof lectic of Enlightenment" totalwarandeconomicexhaustion. Shiftingbetweena close examinationof the crisis of Weimarandbroadermeditationson catastrophe,Peukert'sworkraises questionsaboutthe very natureof modernity:to whatextentarereformistpracticesinvariablycollusionsin disciplinary regimes,and to what extentdo they turnominousonly in the extremeconditions that war,militarydefeat, and economic devastationproduce?Peukertalso suggestsan alternateapproachto the historyof the WeimarRepublic,which he views as a well-developedregime that articulatedvariousstrategiesto organize sociallife. Thisfunctionalistreadingof the modernstateputsthe accenton adminthe volumeof esistrativeinnovationratherthanpoliticalcollapse.Unfortunately, says preparedas a memorialto Peukert,Zivilisationund Barbarei:Die widerspruchlichePotentiale der Moderne,is disappointing.There is little sustained engagementwithPeukert'sworkandinsufficientreflectionby the authorson what modernitymightbe. Therefore,the allegedcontradictionsof the modernareoften confusedwith unpleasantevents.One exceptionis Geoff Eley'sopeningchapter, 30 See, in particular,"Die 'letzten Menschen':Beobachtungenzur Kulturkritik im Geschichtsbild Max Webers,"originally published in Geschichte und Gesellschaft 12 (1986): 425-42, and "DerJanusgesichtder Moderne,"both now in Max WebersDiagnose. 31 See Modris Eksteins, The Rites of Spring: The Great Warand the Birth of the Modem Age (Boston, 1989); PeterFritzsche,"Landscapeof Danger,Landscapeof Design: Crisis andModernism in WeimarGermany,"in Dancing on the Volcano:Essays on the Cultureof the WeimarRepublic, ed. ThomasW. Kniescheand StephenBrockmann(Columbia,S.C., 1994), pp. 29-46; and Paul Rabinow,FrenchModem: Normsand Formsof the Social Environment(Cambridge,Mass., 1989). 32 Detlev J. K. Peukert, "The Genesis of the 'Final Solution' from the Spirit of Science," in Reevaluatingthe ThirdReich, ed. Thomas Childersand Jane Caplan(New York, 1993), pp. 23452, here p. 249.

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whichlocatesthe developmentof the disciplinarypracticesthatfashionthe Volksrise of administrative sciences such as psykorperin the late nineteenth-century chology and psychiatryand in "thepriorityof the social"in popularnationalism (p. 29). Not a deficitof modernitybutthe verymodem"scientificandtechnocratic ambitions"of social policy preparedthe groundfor NationalSocialism (p. 54). RichardBessel, in contrast,seems ratheruninspiredby Peukertand sanguinely identifiesbenignmodernismon one side of WorldWarI and deleteriousdisorder on theother.Yetit is disorderthatlegitimizedall themorecompletelytheintroduction of disciplinaryrenovation,althoughscholarsdebatewhetherrepressivenormas the excellentessay ativeregimesare the functionof long-termrationalization, by Adelheidvon Saldernimplies,or of economicemergency,as the morenarrowly focusedchapteron the economicemergencyby Uwe Lohalmindicates.33 Recentworkon Weimarsocial policy has tendedto takea middleroad,unwilling to reducesocial policy to social disciplinewithouttakingthe politicalmotivations of practitionersinto accountbut mindfulas well of the normativestandards thatinvariablyaccompanythe organizationof social life. Historiansdo agreethat the focus of almostall social reformwas on the nation-state.Fromthe national efficiencycampaignsof the 1890s to the elaborationof social welfareand maternity policies in the 1920s to the alarmingcivil defense exercises of the 1940s, citizens were assessed,categorized,mobilized,treated,and improvedinsofaras theywerepotentiallyproductivemembersof the nation.Giventhe intenseinternationalcompetitionfor imperialspoils andcommercialadvantage,andthe increasingly technicalchallengesof daily life, the period 1870-1945 standsout; at no practicestargetedEuropeansin termsof time beforeor since have administrative theirrespectivenationalitiesso relentlessly,with so much foreboding,and with suchabandon. is at the centerof CornelieUsbome'sengagingandwelcome The Volkskorper analysis,ThePolitics of the Body in WeimarGermany.Usborneis well awareof the fact thatwomen'sbodies have playedkey roles in effortsto protectthe body politic from social diseases since the nineteenthcentury.In the last yearsbefore WorldWarI, especially,discussionsaboutthe conditionof the nationwere medicalizedas doctorsidentifieddemographiccrisesandeugenicdebilitiesand,in turn, recommendedappropriate therapies.But it was the waritself thatled to the draneo-Malthusian stimulationof the birthratein maticshiftfroman undifferentiated WilhelmineGermanyto obsessiveeugenicconcernwiththe qualityof the population in the WeimarRepublic.Evermoretotalmobilizationrevealedthe stakesnot Usborne merelyin creatingmorebutin fashioningbetterGermans.Unfortunately, does not examinebiomedicaldiscourseduringthe war,whichwouldhaverevealed the rapidexpansionof interventionisttechniquesto constructthe nationalbody. 33 Geoff Eley, "Die deutsche Geschichte und die Widerspricheder Modeme: Das Beispiel des Kaiserreiches,"pp. 17-65; Richard Bessel, "Die Krise der WeimarerRepublik als Erblast des verlorenenKrieges,"pp. 98-114; Adelheid von Saldem, "'Statt Kathedralendie Wohnmaschine': Paradoxiender Rationalisierungim Kontext der Moderne,"pp. 168-92; and Uwe Lohalm, "Die Wohlfahrtskrise,1930-1933: Vom okonomischenNotprogrammzur rassenhygienischenNeubestimmung, pp. 193-225, all in Bajohret al., eds.

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The inattentionto the warand the exclusivefocus on the postwaryearscasts Usborne'stherapistsin a decidedlydefensivelight as they deal with postwarshortthe waysin ages, veterans,andrefugees.Yetit was the warthatbest demonstrated could be created,made urgentthe state'sduty to which a functionalVolkskorper do so, and generateda consensusfromLeft to Rightthatindividualbodies were subordinateto the nationalcollective.Totalwardid not simplypose organizational challengesbut generatedimaginativepossibilitiesto reinventthe nationas well.34 In a clearandpersuasiveexposition,Usborneexaminesthe waysin whichWeimarwomenwerethe targetsof interventionin fourdifferentareas:maternity,sexuality,contraception,andabortion.She findsconsiderableagreementamongsocialists, liberals,andright-wingmoraliststhatthe statehada responsibilityto preserve nationalhealthby fortifyingan ideology of motherhood,regulatingsexuality,and otherwiseencouragingeugenic behavior.Even as the lives of women improved with the extensionof social-welfareservices, maternitybenefits,and the ready soldtwenty-fourmillion availabilityof contraception(a singleBerlinmanufacturer condomsin 1928, mostly for the home market),these measurescontaineda prescriptiveaspect.Theycast womenin a "domesticratherthana publicrole"for the sakeof the collectivegood (p. 210). Onlya few womendoctorsarguedthatwomen had the rightto controltheirbodies as individuals.However,Usborneis careful not to demonizethe politicsof the body andusefullycomparesWeimardebatesto the muchless informeddiscussionin England.She recognizesthe commitmentof the republicangovernmentto improvethe lives of mothersand commendsthe churchesfortheiropenattitudesin sexualmatters.Butin the end,Usborneemphasizes the creationof a biologicalimaginationin which the individualbody was It madeto conformmoreandmorecompletelyto the demandsof the Volkskorper. of the nationalbody thata fundais on the basis of this qualitativereconstruction mentalcontinuitybetweenWeimarand Nazi Germanycan be identified.While Nazi practicewas infinitelymorecoercive,segregationof "defectives"and sterilization of the "unfit"received official sanction well before 1933. This wellconceivedand unpretentiousbook is the firstto map out the politics of the body for this periodandstandsas a majorcontributionto Germanhistory. The welfarestatehas as muchto do withthe conductof warfareandtherationalization of the workforceas it does with materialgains to benefitdisadvantaged citizens. Today,its history is no longer writtensimply in terms of the political balancebetweenleft-wingreformersand the opposingright-wingemployers.As site for fittingpeople Usbornedemonstrates,welfarewas a crucialadministrative into variouspublicand privateroles regardedas crucialfor the healthydevelopmentof the nation.Thepoliticsof thebodydidnotfollow conventionaldifferences betweenLeft andRight,for even whenpoliticalenemiesdisagreedaboutmorality or capitalismthey sharedbasic assumptionsaboutthe collective ends of public policy.No less importantthanthe protectionof healthymarriedmotherswas the 34 See the pathbreakingargumentsin Michael Geyer, "The Stigma of Violence, Nationalism, and Warin TWentieth-Century Germany,"GermanStudiesReview (Winter1992), pp. 86-91; and also PaulWeindling,Health,Race and GermanPolitics betweenNational Unificationand Nazism, 1870-1945 (Cambridge,1989), pp. 9, 281-97.

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creationof a disciplinedlaborforce.Inherfineanalysisof adolescentyouth,Elizabeth Harveyexploresthe borderseparatingthe core of "regular(usuallymale) workers,"who enjoyedfull-timeemploymentand benefits,and the peripheryof "thoseworkers,often youngand/orfemale, who were employedcasually"(p. 6). Both Social Democratsandtheirbourgeoisopponentsdeployedtechniquesof supervisionandeven coercionto imposehealthyandproductiveformsof behavior. Thesenormativepracticeswerenot alwaysobjectionableandincludedindividualized counseling,vocationalschooling,andjob trainingas well as the usualadmonishmentsagainsthedonismandconsumption,buttheyall restedon the assumption thatwhattheyconsideredto be disorderlylives shouldbe ordered.Withthecoming of the GreatDepression,welfareauthoritieshit "thelimits of social discipline," drasticallydelimitedthe pedagogicalsphere,and reclassifiedmore and more inrates soared;efforts at reformand tractableyouthsas uneducable.Incarceration However,economicstringencydidnot createhierarchies dwindled.35 rehabilitation of humanworth;it simply gave themincreasinglydangerousimplicationsas the stateturnedfromdisciplineto triage. Both UsborneandHarveyfollow Peukertto emphasizethe role of the Depression in giving momentumto eugenicpropositionsaboutwho was worthinvesting in and who was not. Budgetcuts reducedor eliminatedwelfareprogramsafter 1930;andthreeyearslaterthe Nazi seizureof powerresultedin the purgeof thousandsof socialist and Jewishwelfareofficials.Politicalrevolutionthus enforced the tendencyof financialconstraints:the raucousdebatesthathad shapedWeimar socialpolicy cameto a quickend.The sadresultwas legislationbasedexclusively on the principlesof negativeeugenics.The period1930-33 is thusa crucialwatershed. Nonetheless,the longer-termcontinuitiesbetweenWeimarand Nazi Germanycannotbe ignored.Beginningin WorldWarI, the social body was widely interventionas the recognizedas a nationalconcernthatjustifiedadministrative stateattemptedto standardizethe role of women,disciplineyoungadults,andconsiderthe segregationof allegedly"worthless"humanmaterial.(Euthanasiain the late 1930s was oftenjustifiedby pointingto the high deathratesin Germanasylums and old-age homes that were the resultof food shortagesand professional neglect duringWorldWarI.) Whetherto amelioratethe lives of the underprivileged,to meetthe challengesof anincreasinglyrationalizedcapitalistmarketplace, or to preparefor war,Menschenokonomie regulatedthe way stateauthoritiesapproachedcitizens,who were regardedin increasinglyproductivistand functional terms.In these analyses,social policy hadthe effect of creatinga nationalsubject of production. The most basic continuitybetweenWeimarandNazi policy lies in the assumption thathumanmaterialcouldandshouldbe remolded.It is the idea of mobilization ratherthanthe particularaims of mobilizationthat constitutesthe common groundbetweenthe two regimes.WeimarreformersandNazi eugenicistsshareda genuineoptimismaboutthe possibilityof renovatingsociety,althoughthis optimismwas temperedby the acknowledgmentof the pervasiveinstabilityof human 35 See also Detlev J. K. Peukert, Grenzen der Sozialdisziplinierung:Aufstieg und Krise der deutschenJugendflrsorge, 1878 bis 1932 (Cologne, 1986).

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relations.Therefore,bothwereobsessedwith "shiftless,unskilledboy laborersand sexualizedgirls"as well as asocialadults36-the frailmarginsof a socialbodythat requiredvigilantsocialpolicing.Indeed,the moreseriousthe emergency,the more Weimarimagesof the legitimatesocialreformwas consideredto be. Characteristic crippledveteran,the unemploymentline, the destitutemiddle-classcreditor,the facadeall providedstarktestimonyto theimpermanence tumbledownmetropolitan Historyhad of the materialworldbut also to the tractabilityof its reconstruction. neverappearedso dangerousor so open-endedas when it was viewed from the midstof the ruinsof the postwaryears. as anongoingexperJusthow muchWeimarwas appreciatedby contemporaries imentin socialrenovationbecomesevidentin the restlessself-criticismimplicitin theirappraisalsof the UnitedStates,which is the subjectof MaryNolan'silluminatingnew study,Visionsof Modernity:AmericanBusinessand theModernization of Germany.Before WorldWarI, Americawas not particularlyrelevantto Germans, who had few majordoubtsabouttheirown itineraryof nationaldevelopment.Once the Wilhelminefuturewas challengedby the upheavalof warandthe humiliationof defeat, however,the very newness of Americaoffered Germans ways out of the binds of failed history.Americaindicatedthe magnitudeof the possibilityof renovationand the open-endednessof futuredevelopment.For this reasonthe "imaginativevision of Germany'sfuturewas shaped... by the perception of America'spresent"(p. 5) in waysthatwerenot as pertinentto thevictorious powers, GreatBritainand France.AmericafascinatedGermanynot simply becauseit offeredpotentialversionsof modernitybutalso becauseAmerica'sexuberantliberationfromtraditioncorrespondedmost closely to Germany'scalamitiesin the 1920s.Afterthewarit appearedthatGermanyhadlittlechoicebutto reimagine itself in the futuretense. The taskof reinventingthe nationwas undertakenwithenthusiasm.By the mid1920s, tradeunionists,liberaleconomists,engineers,andbusinessleadersall had a greatdeal to say aboutthe Germanfuturethey saw prefiguredin America.Of course,therewas no consensusaboutthe Americathat shapedthese Germanvisions, and Nolan expertlydistinguishesthe views of laborleaders,who saw an efficienteconomy gearedtowardmass consumption,from the antiunionoutlook of business,which stressedthe free handof factoryownersand the diligenceof factoryhands,fromthe visions of engineers,who admiredthe scale andefficiency of production.Germanideology consistentlyreshuffledthe Americanexperience to emphasize,in turn,consumption,discipline,andtechnology.And yet the itineraries of Germanvisitors to the United States were very much the same. The Americathey saw was urban,industrial,and midwestern.Indigenousburdensof historyand povertythatwere plain to see in the Southwouldhave obscuredthe triumphover historythatthe massivehumanworkof Chicagoand Detroit-and, most of all, HenryFord'sfactories-seemed to reveal.Technologyratherthannature,monumentalmovementratherthanpristineinactivity,attractedthe German eye. Rightor Left, the emphasiswas on the techniquesof mobility. Nolanconcludesthatthe GermanobsessionwithFordismandthe greatpromise 36

Harvey,p. 297.

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did of rationalization endedwith the GreatDepression.Thereafter,"Americanism she writes,"andutopianaspirations notprovidean appealingmodelof modernity," (p. 232). Politics, couldno longerbe expressedin the languageof rationalization" Nolan adds,ratherthaneconomicsor technology,seemedto providesolutionsto Germany's pressingproblems.ThattheNationalSocialistsrejectedmerelytechnocraticandmanagerialapproachesand emphasizedthe priorityof explicitlyideological and racial strategiesis beyond dispute.And yet the primacyof politics Forthe restedon the assumptionthatsocietycouldbe mobilizedandtransformed. Nazis as muchas for Weimarreformers,the globalcrisessince the outbreakof the Weiwarhad invalidatedpast historyandrevealeda vast arenafor improvisation. mar'spoliticalsciences-geopolitics, the mythof thefriendandthefoe-its social sciences-welfare legislation,maternityprograms,eugenics-and its intellectual cultures-radical nationalism,Bauhaus,Neue Sachlichkeit-rewrotethe material worldin increasinglyplasticterms.The fiscal frustrationsof the late 1920s only heightenedthe urgencyof improvisation,as hadthe emergencyof waranddefeat a in the 1910s.ThisBaulehre-or whatPeukerthas termed"Machbarkeitswahn," of Weimarreformerson the Right headysense of the possible-was characteristic rationalists, andon the Left.37Forcity planners,welfareexperts,business-minded andextremenationalists,engineeringof one sortor anotherservedas the basis for of the Volkskorper The commonnote in the the mobilizationand transformation explorationsundertaken by Usborne,Harvey,andNolanis the centralityof design in the politicalimaginationof the WeimarRepublic. is also the keynoteof the beautifullycompiledsourcebookedited Improvisation by AntonKaes,MartinJay,andEdwardDimendberg.Thirtychaptersarrange327 documentson Weimarthemesas diverseas sexuality,consumption,radio,Jewish life, right-wingnationalism,inflation,and prisons.And while certainomissions mightbe noted,such as the absenceof thematiccomplexesthattreatquestionsof or of tradition,shock,or novelty,the editorshaverightlyplacedthe representation, As a "laboratory for modernity"(p. xvii), the Weiemphasison experimentation. marexperienceappearsas a "frantickaleidoscopicshufflingof the fragmentsof a nascentmodernityandthe remnantsof a persistentpast"(p. xviii). The generally punchystyle of the manifestos,vignettes,and declarationsreflectsthe impressof formidableforces that have acted thoroughly(defeatsare utter,strikesgeneral, strugglesgreat),with greatpower(industryis concentrated,culturemonotone,the masses overwhelming),and with tremendousspeed and surprise(people are left alone andpanicked,thingsare tornand tattered).In the face of so muchnovelty, witnesses feel variouslydisorientedand abandoned,endangeredand delighted. Only a few commentatorssuch as KurtTucholskydebunkthese postwarpretensionsto theendof historyandcynicallyexposetheimmobilityof so muchGerman culture.Thereis also little writingthatseeks to safeguardor restoreor commemorate,andthesedocumentscome mostlyfromthe politicalcenter.The textsassembled hereare not lachrymoseor nostalgic.Forthe most part,a sense of exuberant possibilityenchantsthe landscapethey describe.Artists,technicians,politicians, 37 Peukert,Max WebersDiagnose, pp. 69, 110-11. See also Fritzsche, "Landscapeof Danger, Landscapeof Design,"pp. 29-46.

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scientists,and athletes,among many,manyothersin this collection, cast themandpioneers.Of course,thejuxtapomuckrakers, selves as searchers,adventurers, sitions and collages thatthe discontinuityof postwarexperiencecreatedare precisely the things thatmakeWeimarso aestheticallyinteresting,and postmodern intellectualfashionsof the presentday have shapedthe selectionof texts, as the editorsfreely admit.In this regard,the texts are a little too canonical:Weimar perennialslike WalterBenjaminandKurtTucholskyappearfive timeseach;Ernst for a "sourcebook" is JungerandCarlvon Ossietskythreetimes.Also unfortunate the relianceon so manyessays ratherthanon blueprints,courtcases, directives, and manuals.The sources are mostly opinionsthat imaginebut do not enforce power,and fully 12 percentof the texts come fromtwo left-wingjournals,Weltbuhneand Das Tagebuch.Nonetheless,this volumeis a splendidarchaeologyof modernism.It revealsa greatdeal abouthow historywas viewed duringthe Weimaryearsandhow thosepromiscuousviewingsarmedthe politicalimaginationin dangerousways. remainsan intellectualpreoccupation at the endof thetwenExaminingWeiimar tiethcenturybecauseWeimarprovidessuch a compellingversionof history.As is evidentfromthe mostrecenthistoricalstudies,modernGermanyis a placewhere the imaginativefoundationsof politicsappearparticularlymanifest.Onedramatic illustrationof the assumptionthatsocial life could be designedis the arrayof adThe fascinaministrativepracticespresupposedby the notionof the Volkskorper tion with experimentation pervadedintellectualand culturallife as well, as The WeimarRepublicSourcebookmakesclear.Thatthe historicalprocesswas widely Germanyis not surprising.By regardedas inherentlyunstablein twentieth-century the end of the nineteenthcentury,Germanyseemedthe quintessentialproductof manufacture:railroads,factories,retail goods, and sprawlingcities had literally createda secondnaturemoreextensiveandmorecompletethanelsewherein Europe. War,revolution,and economiccollapse appearedto confirmthe impermanence of the materialworld. Of course, Britainand Franceenduredsubstantial socialandeconomicupheavalsas well. ButWeimar'spoliticalandintellectualculture was distinctivefor the exclusivenessof its identificationwith the circumstancesof contingency.And it is this identificationthatmakesthe 1920s so recognizablymodem. Ontheone hand,postwarGermanshadthe senseof livingamongruins,a nostalgic stateof mindthatnourishedreactionarypoliticsof the sortthatBessel explores, thoughone that also exhibitedan aestheticfascinationwith fragments,margins, andthetemporariness of life which,in the handsof WalterBenjamin,for example, puncturedthe claims of masternarrativesand commonsenserealism.38On the otherhand,Germansfrom all politicalcampsrecognizedthe possibilitythatcollapsing structuresmight be steadied,at least for a time. Emergencyconditions offeredopportunitiesfor amelioration.As mobilizationduringWorldWarI suggested,healthiercitizenscouldbe fashioned,moreproductiveworkerstrained,and unworthydelinquentssortedout. Laterin the 1920s, CarlSchmittelaboratednew 38 David Frisby,Fragmentsof Modernity:Theories of Modernityin the Workof Simmel, Kracauer and Benjamin(Cambridge,Mass., 1986).

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collectivemythsto forgenationalconsensus,a thoroughlymodernistgesturesince he acknowledgedthe exhaustionof traditionalbelief structureseven as he triedto banishthe moralrelativismthathad replacedthem with the purelyarbitrarydistinctionbetweenfriendandfoe.39Schmitt'sconstructivemythbuildingwas a conscious disavowalof nostalgia'sessential passivity.From this perspective,it appearedthat contingencycould be managedto the nationaladvantage;the very maraudingmovementsof historypromisedto reanimateits multiplepossibilities. Whatstill needsto be explained,however,is why the managementof contingency so oftentook the formof fiercenationalistrevivals.Few intellectualsechoedHelitinerancy, muthPlessner,the Weimarsociologistwho embracedthe "anonymity, [and]dispersion"of modemlife becauseit openedup a new "horizonof possibility."40Strikinga remarkablypostmodernpose, Plessnercelebratedthe multiple provedunwillingto embarkon self-stylizationsof the self. But his contemporaries this stimulatingvoyage.Again and again, in the face of the collapse of history, criticsas diverseas Schmitt,ErnstBloch, andGeorgLukaicsattemptedto retrieve communityin totalistcollectivitiessuch as class, nation,andVolk.Thesedramatiof empowerment" thatenrolledindividuals zations,in turn,generated"narratives in compellingways.41Weimarwas the postwarworkshopin whichthese moreor less fierceversionsof the futurewere constructed.Thatdemocracyfailed or that Plessnerremainedalonein his searchdid not diminishthe operationsof thisplace. The comingof the ThirdReichin 1933 was not so muchverificationof Weimar's singularfailureas the validationof its dangerouspotential.

39Wolfgang Essbach, "Radikalismusund Modernitzet bei Jiinger und Bloch, Lukacs und Schmitt,"pp. 145-59; and ManfredGangl, "Mythosder Gewaltund Gewalt des Mythos:Georges Sorels Einfluss auf rechte und linke Intellektuelleder WeimarerRepublik,"pp. 171-95, both in in der the excellent collection edited by ManfredGangl and GerardRaulet,Intellektuellendiskurse Zurpolitischen Kultureiner Gemengelage(Frankfurt,1994). See also Norbert WeimarerRepublik: Bolz, Auszugaus der entzaubertenWelt:PhilosophischerExtremismuszwischenden Weltkriegen (Munich, 1989). 40 See Helmuth Plessner, Grenzen der Gemeinschaft:Eine Kritik des sozialen Radikalismus der Kdlte:Lebensversuchezwischenden Kriegen (Bonn, 1924); HelmuthLethen, Verhaltenslehren (Frankfurt,1994), pp. 8-9; and Michael Makropoulos,"HaltloseSouveranitat:Benjamin,Schmitt und die Klassische Modernein Deutschland,"in Gangl and Raulet, eds., pp. 197-211, who also discusses the managementof contingency. 41 Geyer,"The Stigma of Violence,"p. 76.

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