Jeffrey R. Smith. A People's War: Germany's Political Revolution, 1913-1918. Lanham: University Press of America, 2007. 213 pp. Bibliography, index. $32.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-7618-3642-1.
Reviewed for H-German by Jason Crouthamel, Department of History, Grand Valley State University
Locating a Vernacular Revolution in German History
Germany's defeat in 1918 is often seen as a political rupture that resulted from social, cultural, and economic crisis that fragmented a traumatized society, making it more susceptible to the rise of National Socialism. Jeffrey Smith's new book argues that historians need to revise their perception of November 1918 as a moment of "disunity" in response to a lost war. Instead, he sees 1918 as a culmination of a growing "nationalist vernacular sphere," a movement of popular activism that unified Germans across social and political lines, shattering the monarchy. The term "revolution," Smith argues, should be applied to the 1913-18 period as a whole, with the war as a catalyst, rather than a rupture, in facilitating the expansion of this "vernacular public sphere." Ultimately, he suggests, the mobilization of popular activism in a struggle to wrestle sovereignty from the kaiser constitutes an underlying continuity between the Kaiserreich and the Third Reich (p. 21). Relying on police records from Berlin, Munich, and Hamburg, as well as newspaper accounts of imperial authorities' clashes with citizens, Smith claims to avoid the rather narrow focus on nationalist pressure groups and elite political leaders found in the enormous historiography ranging from Fritz Fischer and Hans Ulrich Wehler to David Blackbourn and Geoffrey Eley (p. 8). In a thorough overview of this scholarship, Smith boldly claims to "overcome the inherent shortcomings of the revisionist historiography" by demonstrating that new links between the state and society were being forged since 1914, with citizens seizing political initiative in ways that replaced Wilhelm II's authority with that of "a newly enfranchized German Volk" (pp. 8-9). However, the significance of Smith's own argument needs to be further developed, as his goal to provide a "third view" of this watershed period, distinct from the scholarship of the 1960s and 1980s, could be more fully realized. Though Smith makes an interesting attempt to write a history of German politics without becoming engrossed in the machinations of "the state," his conception of the "vernacular public sphere" needs to be defined with more nuanced argumentation and more effective use of primary sources.
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Wolfgang, Hofmann; Hübener, Kristina; Meusinger, Paul (Hrsg.): Fürsorge in Brandenburg. Entwicklungen - Kontinuitäten - Umbrüche (= Schriftenreihe zur Medizingeschichte 15). Berlin: be.bra Verlag 2007.ISBN 978-3-937233-36-9; geb.; 476 S.; EUR 29,90.
Rezensiert für H-Soz-u-Kult von:
Kurt Schilde, Universität Siegen
E-Mail: [mailto]schilde@sozeuro.uni-siegen.de[/mailto]
Als Fürsorge werden - dem im 19. Jahrhundert gebräuchlichen Begriff der Armenfürsorge entlehnt - in Deutschland Hilfeleistungen bezeichnet, die Not leidenden Menschen durch private und/oder öffentliche Einrichtungen gegeben werden. Das Zusammenwirken der privaten und öffentlichen Träger stellt dabei bis heute ein Grundprinzip der Sozialen Arbeit dar. Die Aufgabe, Bedürftige mit dem Lebensnotwendigen zu versorgen, wenn sie dazu selbst nicht in der Lage sind, ist somit zwischen Staat und Zivilgesellschaft aufgeteilt. Während der Begriff der Fürsorge als übergeordnete Bezeichnung der Hilfen in der Weimarer Republik durch den Begriff der Wohlfahrtspflege und später durch den Begriff Sozialarbeit (heute: Soziale Arbeit) ersetzt worden ist, hat er sich in den Spezialbereichen lange Zeit erhalten: z.B. in der Familienfürsorge, Jugendfürsorge, Säuglingsfürsorge, Gesundheitsfürsorge, Wohnungsfürsorge, Betriebsfürsorge, Erwerbslosenfürsorge oder Flüchtlingsfürsorge.
Insgesamt sind die sehr vielfältigen und wechselhaften Bezeichnungen in der Sozialen Arbeit weder logisch noch systematisch zu begründen, sondern nur historisch abzuleiten. Deshalb ist die historische Rekonstruktion der Sozialen Arbeit sowohl im Bereich allgemeinerdisziplin- und professionsgeschichtlicher Darstellungen [1] ebenso wie im Bereich regionalhistorischer Studien [2] auch immer eine Beschäftigung mit der Bedeutung und Zuordnung bestimmter Begriffe und Bezeichnungen.
Die Publikation zur Geschichte der Fürsorge in der Region Brandenburg-Berlin von Hofmann, Hübener und Meusinger macht da keine Ausnahme, allerdings präsentiert sie durch die Betonung des eher ungebräuchlichen Begriffs der Daseinsfürsorge eine Besonderheit. In seinen einleitenden Worten stellt Wolfgang Hofmann die Daseinsvorsorge der Fürsorge gegenüber: Soziale Fürsorge wird als "Hilfe für einzelne Hilfsbedürftige" und öffentliche Daseinsfürsorge als "Vorsorge für die Lebensbedingungen aller" (S. 46) definiert. Damit grenzt er - wie üblich und angemessen - die Leistungen der Sozialpolitik und Sozialversicherung (Daseinsfürsorge) von den Hilfen der Sozialen Arbeit (Fürsorge) ab - ohne allerdings seine spezifische Wortwahl einer systematischen oder regionalen Begründung zu unterziehen.
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Tenfelde, Klaus; Czikowsky, Karl-Otto; Mittag, Jürgen; Moitra, Stefan; Nietzard, Rolf (Hrsg.): Stimmt die Chemie? Mitbestimmung und Sozialpolitik in der Geschichte des Bayer-Konzerns. Essen: Klartext Verlag 2007. ISBN 978-3-89861-888-5; Gebunden; 472 S.; EUR 29,90.
Rezensiert für H-Soz-u-Kult von:
Ralf Stremmel, Historisches Archiv Krupp
E-Mail: [mailto]Stremmel@hak-krupp-stiftung.de[/mailto]
Die Chemie stimmt, zumindest zwischen den Wissenschaftlern und den "Praktikern" (Vorwort, S. 8), die mit dem vorliegenden Sammelband eine interessante Gemeinschaftsproduktion erstellt haben. "Praktiker" - das sind konkret Funktionsträger der heutigen Industriegewerkschaft Bergbau-Chemie-Energie bzw. der vormaligen IG Chemie-Papier-Keramik, die zum größten Teil auch Ämter in Mitbestimmungsorganen des Bayer-Konzerns besaßen oder besitzen. Es handelt sich also um Mitgestalter von Mitbestimmung und um Zeitzeugen. Der Kreis der Wissenschaftler setzt sich ganz überwiegend aus Historikern zusammen, zu einem guten Teil aus dem "Institut für soziale Bewegungen" an der Ruhr-Universität Bochum, dessen Direktor Klaus Tenfelde an der Spitze der Herausgeber steht und der einleitend einen höchst informativen Abriss über Mitbestimmung und Unternehmenskultur in der Chemieindustrie gibt. Tenfelde sorgt dabei für begehbare Schneisen im Dschungel der Ereignisse. Er macht insbesondere darauf aufmerksam, dass innerbetriebliche Mitbestimmung durch "staatliche Intervention", "und zwar stets auf den Druck der Arbeiterbewegungen hin" (S. 21), umgesetzt und durch die allgemeinen politischen Verhältnisse stark beeinflusst wurde.
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Jens Ivo Engels. Naturpolitik in der Bundesrepublik: Ideenwelt und politische Verhaltensstile in Naturschutz und Umweltbewegung 1950-1980. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2006. 480 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. EUR 58.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-3-506-72978-1.
Reviewed for H-German by Sandra Chaney, Department of History, Erskine College
Nature and the Environment in West German Political Culture
Jens Ivo Engels's published Habilitationsschrift is a welcome addition to the growing body of literature on nature and environmental protection in postwar Germany.[1] With a nuanced analysis of the political conduct of groups and individuals involved in protecting nature and the environment, Engels makes a unique contribution to the larger story of changes in West German political culture over a generation. Making creative use of impressive archival research, Engels shows how conservation went from being a minority, elitist cause of social conservatives in the 1950s to becoming an important component of the modern environmental movement, which found support from citizens across the political spectrum in the 1970s. The increase in support for nature and environmental protection, Engels writes (concurring with Franz-Josef Brüggemeier), makes this political project one of the most successful in recent times. Central to its success was the willingness of activists--at home in a pluralistic society by the 1970s--to forge alliances uniting diverse constituencies behind a shared cause.Ironically, Engels states, this change in strategy was part of a more general change in political behavior in West Germany, from a consensus model that used protest as a last resort, to a confrontational one that made protest an integral part of daily life. Throughout the period the state remained an important partner in negotiations, leading Engels to conclude that in a civil society, "environmental protection without the state" is "an illusion" (p. 426).
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E. P. Hennock. The Origin of the Welfare State in England and Germany, 1850-1914: Social Policies Compared. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. xviii + 381 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $99.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-521-59212-3; $35.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-521-59770-8.
Reviewed for H-German by Andreas Fahrmeir, Historisches Seminar, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
Local or National Special Paths to the Welfare State?
In 1987, E. P. Hennock published a magisterial book comparing the development of social insurance in Britain and Germany.[1] At the time, the comparison of social services across national boundaries was a frequently discussed subject,[2] in line with the historiographical preferences of the day. International comparisons were a favored methodology; the examination of social insurance and welfare services coincided with an interest in the history of social inequality and in quantitative history more generally, while the political relevance of responses to inequality and injustice appeared unquestionable in the context of broader debates regarding the competitiveness of existing welfare states or their compatibility with the ideas and ideals of European economic cooperation.
Twenty years on, much has changed. The history of social conflict and of social inequality has lost much of its appeal, given the novel attraction of middle-class, and, more recently, nobility studies.Quantitative approaches have been displaced to a certain extent by in-depth analyses of qualitative sources in the framework of the new cultural history, and challenges to the nation-state as the main framework for analysis have questioned the value of comparing developments in two or more nation states, with each treated as a homogenous entity.
Twenty years later, E. P. Hennock presents us with another comparative study of two national paths towards modern welfare states far broader chronologically and conceptually than its predecessor. Comparing Britain and Germany appears particularly instructive for a number of reasons. Both are seen as opposite poles among industrialized and wealthy European countries. While Germany, a late-comer to industrialization, was a pioneer in comprehensive schemes of state-run social insurance, Britain, although it industrialized sooner, held back. Where the German insurance system quickly acquired a reputation for generosity, and was often described as the natural predecessor of the Bonn republic's model,[3] the British welfare state frequently serves as a metaphor for inadequate benefits. In Germany, the creation of national insurance schemes that limited differences in state practices is often seen as one of the decisive elements of the "second foundation" of the German Empire in the 1880s. In Britain, by contrast, the national insurance and assistance system appears to have done little to turn the United Kingdom into a more homogenous nation-state, and was only moderately successful in reducing regional imbalances in wealth and services. Hennock's book sets out, however, to question whether such perceptions, based largely on a sometimes simplified view of the present, are valid for the period in which both paths towards modern welfare states began.
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Knortz, Heike: Diplomatische Tauschgeschäfte. "Gastarbeiter" in der westdeutschen Diplomatie und Beschäftigungspolitik 1953-1973. Köln: Böhlau Verlag 2008. ISBN 978-3-412-20074-9; 248 S., 23 SW-Abb.; EUR 32,90.
Rezensiert für H-Soz-u-Kult von:
Patrice G. Poutrus, Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung, Potsdam
E-Mail: [mailto]poutrus@zzf-pdm.de[/mailto]
Heike Knortz, Privatdozentin am Institut für Sozialwissenschaften der Pädagogischen Hochschule Karlsruhe, hat kürzlich ein Buch vorgelegt, das dem Leser eine neue Sicht der "Gastarbeiter"-Anwerbepolitik der Bundesrepublik verspricht. Wie die Autorin wiederholt betont, beruhe ihre Arbeit auf bisher nicht zugänglichen bzw. nicht ausgewerteten Quellen. Aus deren Untersuchung und der Bezugnahme auf Debatten der zeitgenössischen Volkswirtschaftslehre leitet sie zwei sich gegenseitig stützende Thesen ab.
Erstens meint Knortz, aus der von ihr festgestellten "neuen" Quellenlage eine veränderte Interpretation der Geschichte der Einwanderung in die Bundesrepublik entwickeln zu können. Sie argumentiert, dass die eigentlichen Impulse für die Anwerbung von so genannten "Gastarbeitern" nicht von der bundesdeutschen Industrie und der steigenden Nachfrage auf dem Arbeitsmarkt ausgegangen seien. Hauptverantwortlich sei vielmehr das Auswärtige Amt gewesen, das von Italien, Griechenland, Spanien, Portugal und später auch der Türkei zu Anwerbeabkommen gedrängt worden und aus historisch bedingten Rücksichtnahmen im Anwerbeverfahren auch federführend geworden sei. Explizit spricht Knortz für dieses Politikfeld von einem Primat der Außenpolitik (S. 9, S. 140).
Zweitens sieht die Autorin Einwanderung schlechthin als eine Fehlentwicklung in der Volkswirtschaft oder besser Nationalökonomie der Bundesrepublik, durch welche lediglich veraltete Industriekomplexe wie der Kohlebergbau oder die kleinteiligere Textilindustrie mit billigen Arbeitskräften aus dem Ausland künstlich am Leben erhalten worden seien.Als Beleg für diese angebliche Verzögerung des langfristigen Strukturwandels führt sie kontrastierend, aber allzu knapp das Beispiel Japan an. Aus wirtschaftshistorischer Perspektive betrachtet Knortz die Geschichte der frühen Bundesrepublik nicht als Erfolg, sondern als Vorgeschichte der sich ab Mitte der 1970er-Jahre abzeichnenden Krise.
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Walter Mühlhausen. Friedrich Ebert 1871-1925: Reichspräsident der Weimarer Republik. Bonn: Dietz, 2007. 1064 pp. List of abbreviations, pictures, notes, bibliography, name index. EUR 48.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-3-8012-4164-3.
Reviewed for H-German by Gary Roth, Department of History, Rutgers University at Newark
The Rehabilitation of Friedrich Ebert
Despite Walter Mühlhausen's considerable efforts, the portrait that emerges from this biography of the Weimar Republic's premier statesman is not especially favorable. At every turn, Friedrich Ebert hesitated to make bold decisions, exhibited a slavish adherence to rules and formality that often placed him in a moral realm all his own, and seemed unable to judge situations independently of conceptions formed in other circumstances. More than any other individual, he bears responsibility for the failure of the political system he helped to bring into existence. He symbolizes much of what was hoped for in Weimar, but also much of what was compromised. As the leader of the Social Democratic Party, he oversaw its precipitous fall from grace; from its pinnacle of popularity during the November 1918 revolution, when virtually the entire working class showed its support, to the elections eighteen months later, when the Social Democrats lost nearly half their base and received only 22 percent of the vote. As Weimar's leading politician, Ebert failed to utilize one opportunity after another to strengthen its democratic institutions.
Mühlhausen's book treats each of Ebert's limitations and failures with great candor, but Mühlhausen's attempts to provide a firm rationale for Ebert only seems to cement an impression of someone who was constantly led by events but never able to lead them himself. At the root of the problem, for Mühlhausen, is a conception of statesmanship stripped to its most elemental form. Ebert is portrayed as Weimar's sole proponent of the modern democratic state, a man who persisted despite all opposition, even from within his own party, and who strove at all times to unite the many and divergent political and economic tendencies into a cohesive parliamentary system. For Mühlhausen, Ebert was Weimar's unsung hero, misunderstood in his own time and unfairly neglected ever since. Since Mühlhausen has gone to such great lengths in this carefully researched, elegantly written, thousand-page tome to rehabilitate Ebert, it is worth picking apart this political history in some detail to see if a more compelling (or perhaps, less partisan) explanation emerges.
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Karin Hunn. "Nächstes Jahr kehren wir zurück...": Die Geschichte der türkischen "Gastarbeiter" in der Bundesrepublik. Moderne Zeit: Neue Forschungen zur Gesellschafts- und Kulturgeschichte des 19. und 20.Jahrhunderts. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005. 598 pp. Tables, bibliography. EUR 46.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-3-89244-945-4.
Reviewed for H-German by Nina Berman, Department of Comparative Studies, Ohio State University
De-ethnicization of Social and Political Issues
Karin Hunn's meticulously researched, highly informative, and well-structured study is a substantial scholarly accomplishment that justifies its claim of telling the history of Turkish "guest-workers"in the Federal Republic. The study appeals to a broad range of academics, including historians, social scientists, and literary scholars, and contributes to a better understanding of the genesis of the Turkish-German community, which currently has about three million members. Especially welcome is the wealth of information about the interdependency of economic, political, social, and cultural developments, which challenges the often narrow focus on questions of culture and identity in many explorations published over the past decade or so.
Hunn's interdisciplinary, comparative methodology allows her to sketch the complexity of conflicting intentions and actions of the various actors involved in the process of Turkish labor immigration and the emergence of Turkish-German life. She draws on data taken from German and Turkish contexts, ably demonstrating that not only German but also Turkish policies are responsible for creating often unbearably difficult situations for individuals involved in the migration process. Economic and political factors have determined the policies pursued by the governments of the Federal Republic and Turkey for dealing with immigration of laborers from Turkey. Hunn examines the period from 1961 until unification. During this time, foreign policy played a decisive role in promoting German treaties with Turkey and other non-European countries, such as Morocco and Tunisia. In addition to political and economic data, Hunn draws on ethnographic studies and self-representations by Turkish-Germans. By relating political and economic developments to cultural analysis, Hunn is able to contextualize processes of ethnicization (Fremd-Ethnisierung) and self-ethnicization (Selbst-Ethnisierung) and to shed light on the functioning of cultural differences in this particular case.
*************************Lars Fischer. The Socialist Response to Antisemitism in Imperial Germany. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. xix + 252 pp. Notes, bibliography, index. $80.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-521-87552-3.
Reviewed for H-German by Barnet Hartston, Department of History, Eckerd College
A Flawed Legacy
It has long been acknowledged by historians that antisemitism, at least in its mildest forms, was present to some extent in almost every social and political stratum of the German Kaiserreich. The old orthodox view that large swaths of German society had been largely immune to anti-Jewish prejudice because of ideological or confessional orientation has been repeatedly and successfully challenged over the past several decades. As early as 1949, Paul Massing rejected the notion that German Catholics were immune to antisemitism and instead argued that leaders and supporters of the German Center Party held much more complex and problematic attitudes toward the "Jewish Question" than previously acknowledged.[1] In recent years, several scholars have sought to push the critique of various formerly "immune" populations even farther. Olaf Blaschke's recent work on German Catholicism in the Kaiserreich, for example, made the controversial argument that anti-Jewish prejudices were so deeply embedded in the worldview of Catholic laypeople, priests, and political leaders that we should be careful not to draw too sharp a distinction between the attitudes of German Catholics and their Protestant countrymen.[2]
What about antisemitism within the Imperial German Social Democratic Party? Like the work of Blaschke, the present book by Lars Fischer seems intent on painting an even darker picture of anti-Jewish prejudices within German socialism than previous revisionist scholars such as Rosemarie Leuschen-Seppel, Robert Wistrich, Jack Jacobs, and Schlomo Na'aman have done.[3] According to Fischer, not only did socialist leaders fail to take a stand in defense of German Jews, they often made explicit use of antisemitic rhetoric and anti-Jewish stereotypes in their own speeches and writings. As Fischer states in his introduction, "we must fundamentally reconsider our approach to the anti-antisemitism of Imperial German Social Democracy. We need to determine on a case-to-case basis whether any given instance of Social Democratic opposition to antisemitism hinged on genuine opposition specifically to the antisemites' stance vis-à-vis 'the Jews' and how effectively (if at all) it did so. Once we do so, Imperial German Social Democracy's publicly articulated anti-antisemitism very quickly dries up to little more than a barely discernable trickle" (p. 17).