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11 - Rathenau, Wilhelm II, and the perception of Wilhelminismus
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- By Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, Teaches Nineteenth- and Twentieth-century European History, University of Oxford; Official Fellow and Praelector University College, Oxford
- Edited by Annika Mombauer, The Open University, Milton Keynes, Wilhelm Deist
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- Book:
- The Kaiser
- Published online:
- 24 July 2009
- Print publication:
- 17 November 2003, pp 259-280
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Summary
Walther Rathenau, one of Germany's leading industrialists, bankers, and widely read authors, has often been regarded as a critic of his time in general, and of Wilhelmine Germany in particular. However, his vigour of criticism with regard to the latter was not in the same league as that of his one-time friend, Maximilian Harden, the editor of the influential paper, Die Zukunft, or that of the political left. In the field of politics, Rathenau restricted himself to complaints about some constitutional deficits and about the Prussian state's treatment of the Jewish minority in Germany. Despite these criticisms he identified strongly with the pre-war political system and Wilhelmine Germany in general. He did not want to overthrow anything. His liberal reformist aims were to strengthen Wilhelmine Germany abroad and to integrate the entirety of the German population more strongly with the state. This dialectic approach to politics and to affairs of society in general raises the question as to whether the label Wilhelminist is an appropriate one to describe his position.
Given his close identification with the Wilhelmine epoch, it was not surprising that Rathenau was deeply shocked by the military and political collapse of Imperial Germany in November 1918. One of his reactions to the newly developing political and social circumstances was the publication, among many articles and booklets, of a tract in March 1919 with the title Der Kaiser. In the first parts of this book he analysed the monarchy under Wilhelm II in Germany.
3 - The Liberal Power Monopoly in the Cities of Imperial Germany
- Edited by Larry Eugene Jones, Canisius College, New York, James Retallack, University of Toronto
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- Book:
- Elections, Mass Politics and Social Change in Modern Germany
- Published online:
- 05 January 2013
- Print publication:
- 28 September 1992, pp 93-118
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Summary
In the past historians have often started from the assumption that the decline of the liberal parties during the last decades of the nineteenth century indicated a lack of liberal sentiments and liberal commitment in German society. According to this view political liberalism never really established itself in Germany. Consequently the so-called liberal era of the 1860s was followed by a return to conservative politics during the 1880s and 1890s. The resurgence of the conservative parties combined with a shift in Bismarckian policies to produce what some historians have called the second or conservative foundation of the German Empire. Some historians have also argued that contemporary chauvinist, antisemitic, and conservative authors encouraged this supposed development with their attacks on economic and political liberalism. However it is difficult to assess how extensive their influence really was. Other historians have pointed to the economic crisis after 1873 as another possible cause for the shift towards conservatism in the 1880s. As a consequence economic and, in its wake, political liberalism were apparently weakened. Although a case can be made in favor of this rather deterministic view, it does not do justice to the complex relationship between economic and political liberalism and its place in Imperial Germany. Other historians have tended to emphasize a change in political style and political attitudes. According to them the constitutional practice of the new German Empire, Bismarck's manipulative and authoritarian style of politics and the continuation of Junker predominance in Prussia were responsible for a shift towards conservatism in the 1880s. In addition, ostracism of the socialist party and of the trade union movement has been seen as a sign of a repressive regime which felt strong enough to withstand the gradually declining challenge of political and economic liberalism.