Germany: A New History

368 Pages·1998·27.958 MB·English

by  Hagen Schulze

Germany:
A New History

Germany:
A New History
Hagen Schulze
Translated by
Deborah Lucas Schneider
Harvard Cambridge, Massachusetts
University London, England
Press 1998
Copyright © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard*College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Originally published as Hagen Schulze, Kleine Deutsche Geschichte,
© C. H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, München 1996.
Illustrations from the German Museum of History. Publication
of this work has been subsidized by Inter Nationes, Bonn.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schulze, Hagen.
[Kleine deutsche Geschichte. English]
Germany : a new history / Hagen Schulfze ;
translated by Deborah Lucas Schneider,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-674-80688-3
I. Germany—History. I. Schneider, Deborah Lucas.
II. Title. DD89.S39613 1998
943—dc21 98-23629
Contents
Preface vii
1 The Roman Empire and German Lands (to 1400) 1
2 Transitions (1400—1648) 31
3 Twilight of the Empire (1648—1806) 69
4 The Birth of the German Nation (1806—1848) 101
5 Blood and Iron (1848—1871) 123
6 German Possibilities: A Digression 147
7 A Nation State in the Center of Europe (1871—1890) 155
8 Unification and the Dream of World Power (1890—1914) 169
9 The Great War and Its Aftermath (1914—1923) 191
10 Weimar: Brief Glory and Decline (1924—1933) 215
11 German Megalomania (1933—1942) 245
12 The End of the Third Reich
and a New Beginning (1942—1949) 277
13 A Divided Nation (1949-1990) 299
14 Epilogue: What Is the German’s Fatherland? 333
Suggested Readings 341
Illustration Credits 346
Index 348

Preface
Earlier generations of Germans were in no doubt
about what their history was. It began with Hermann of the Cherusci,
who defeated the legions of Quinctilius Varus in battle in the Teu-
toburg Forest in the year a .d. 9 and was unquestionably a hero.
The sword at the monument to him near Detmold still bears an
inscription in gold letters: “Germany’s unity—my strength, my
strength—Germany’s might.” From Hermann and his battle German
history swept in a great, clearly defined arc down to their day. There
was Theoderic, king of the Goths, celebrated in German sagas and
legends as “Dietrich of Bern”; then came Charlemagne— Karl der
Große—who became Roman emperor and transformed the Ro­
mans’ empire into a German one. There followed the Staufen em­
peror Frederick Barbarossa and his grandson Frederick II, who, in a
mysterious amalgamation, slumber in the Kyffhäuser, the magic
mountain, awaiting the day when they will return to rescue Germany
in its hour of greatest need.
Next came Martin Luther, the “German nightingale,” and Emperor
Charles V, on whose dominions the sun never set; Frederick the Great
and Maria Theresa, who battled one another when disunity among
the German tribes reached its tragic climax; Baron vom Stein and
Blücher, nicknamed “Marshal Forward,” and finally Bismarck, the
“Iron Chancellor,” who forged the new German Reich, a direct descen-
dant of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. It made for
an imposing gallery of ancestral portraits, in which Germans took
pride.
But then came what the historian Friedrich Meinecke called the
“German catastrophe,” Hitler’s Reich and the Second World War,
which left the German nation state shamed, occupied, and divided.
The Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt had earlier referred tartly to
German historians’ tendency to “paint their country’s history in the
colors of victory”; these colors had now cracked and peeled, simulta­
neously rupturing the context in which German history had been in­
terpreted. The shining legend of the unbroken ascent of Germany
from empire to empire was replaced by the black legend of evil and
its ruinous divergent path (Sonderweg), in which the only true Ger­
many consisted of the Third Reich and its crimes, except when some
declared it was pointless to write national history at all or mourned
the “loss of history” with Alfred Heuss.
For a time the inhabitants of West Germany were quite content to
repress all thoughts of their history and simply enjoy the present, with
its high rates of industrial growth and increasing mass prosperity; they
observed with mild astonishment the rest of the world, where the
principle of national identity still held unbroken sway and offered
\
daily proof of its political effectiveness. Although West Germans oc­
cupied an extremely exposed position in world affairs, they seemed
to express only one wish in all their political decisions—a desire to be
left alone and not required to make any decisions. In the German
Democratic Republic, on the other hand, people were served up their
history by the politburo of the Communist party; it was dictated by
party ideologists, adapted to fit changing political circumstances, and
not open to discussion.
However, the state of comfortable domestic prosperity and blessed
lack of responsibility for foreign affairs vanished overnight when the
Wall came down and a new German nation state came into being, one
whose mere existence has changed Europe. This has created a need
VIII Preface
for Germany to explain, to both its own citizens and the rest of the
world, what kind of country it sees itself as being. If Germany is to
have a future in the center of Europe, we must know the past on
which the German present rests. One can never begin anew but only
pick up the threads of the past and continue. People who believe they
have undertaken something completely new in fact do not really
know what they are doing.
In order to answer the “German question” for Germans them­
selves, for their neighbors in Europe, and for the rest of the world, we
must explain what Germany is, and what it can and should be. This in
turn requires a retelling of German history. And since not everyone
has the time or patience to plough through volumes of scholarly trea­
tises, it is my aim here to present this history in brief summary, with
an eye to its most essential aspects.
Even a short survey of German history cannot be accomplished with­
out assistance from many quarters. Ina Ulrike Paul, Uwe Puschner,
and my wife, Ingrid, read the manuscript with care and made correc­
tions. The first chapter benefitted from a critical reading by Joachim
Ehlers, and Detlef Felken edited the book with great commitment
and a wealth of knowledge. To Christoph Stölzl, director of the Ger­
man Museum of History in Berlin, I owe not only the illustrations but
the idea and encouragement to write this book. My thanks go to all of
them.