Germany and the League of Nations PDF
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Germany and the J League of Nations Christoph M. Kimmich The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London Germany and the League of Nations The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London ° 1976 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 1976 Printed in the United States of America 81 80 79 78 77 76 987654321 Christoph M. Kimmich taught at Columbia University and is now associate professor of history at Brooklyn College, CUNY. He is the author of The Free City: Danzig and German Foreign Policy, 1919-1934 and coeditor of Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik, 1918-1945. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Kimmich, Christoph M Germany and the League of Nations. Bibliography: p. 1. League of Nations—Germany. I. Tide. JX1975.5.G3K54 341.22*43 75-36400 ISBN 0-226-43534-2 Contents Preface vii 1 “The Only Way to Peace,” 1918-19 1 Germany Outcast, 1919-23 23 To Locarno, 1923-25 49 Germany Joins the League, 1926 76 Stresemann and the League 92 Rhineland and Reparations, 1926-29 106 The Minorities Problem, 1928-31 131 Equality of Rights, 1932 150 Germany Leaves the League, 1933 173 10 Conclusions 194 List of Abbreviations 208 Notes 209 Bibliography 251 Index 261 Preface The Germans enjoy the distinction of being the first nation represented in the United Nations by two govern ments. The two Germanies were admitted to membership in September 1973, twenty-four years after the two states had been established, as a consequence of an accommodation West Ger many had reached with her eastern neighbors. West Germany had been active in United Nations affairs since the early fifties, and formal admission merely ratified what already amounted to membership in all but name; for East Germany, admission sig nified coveted international recognition of her equal and sovereign status. For years West Germany had vigorously opposed East Ger many’s admission, even at the price of her own, for fear that United Nations’ acknowledgment of the division of Germany would cost her her strategy for reunification. In fact. West Ger many had acted as if the foremost reason for her presence in the United Nations was to bar the admission of East Germany. Whenever she thought this interest threatened, she exerted pressure in the technical agencies, made special contributions to the budget, and instructed her permanent observer to lobby behind the scenes. On the other hand, she did little to support those activities which specifically advanced the goals of the United Nations—the promotion of international cooperation and compromise. The West German public itself seemed not unsympathetic to the new world organization; thus it is the more significant that the entire German political establishment and the press virtually ignored the United Nations and held neither its functions nor its promise in high esteem. This undistinguished record bears striking resemblance to Germany’s relationship with the League of Nations. From 1926 to 1933 Germany was an active member of the League, and the vii viii Preface League figured prominently in Germany’s revisionist foreign policy. The Germans considered membership an opportunity to reestablish their position as a great power, rebuild international confidence in their motives and intentions, and cultivate close contact with representatives of the leading member-states. Stresemann put membership in the service of his efforts to free Germany of the punitive provisions of the peace treaty and to restore her economic prosperity, territorial integrity, and mili tary strength. Brüning, Papen, and Schleicher, committed to a different revisionist strategy, tried to use the League’s disarma ment conference to reduce and then eliminate restrictions on Germany’s armed forces. Hider thought the League a hostile alliance, inimical to his ambitions, and he withdrew from it within a year of coming to power. All German statesmen from Stresemann to Hider regarded the League as a means for ad vancing German interests, and all endorsed it to the extent that it in fact advanced these interests. None prized it for the advan tages and protection it could offer a defeated and disarmed country; none recognized it as a new approach to old problems of international disorder and insecurity. German policy toward the League, the premises of this policy no less than its implementation, was always an issue in domesdc politics. Few Germans were convinced that the League’s ideals of open diplomacy, collective security, and equality of nations had much practical value. Most believed that German membership ought to yield tangible results (whether, as in 1918-19, an easy peace, or, as after 1926, an early revision of the peace terms), and they never conceded that Germany might have to give more than assurances of good will in return. These public assumptions put the government under an obligation to justify its policy with one success after another—or face attack. Conversely, when this policy was successful, these same assumpdons could be exploited, and no government failed to publicize its achieve ments for its own purposes. German policy toward the League, then, was as much a response to public pressures as it was an instrument for manipulating public opinion. The League was a challenge to established traditions of foreign policy. The Germans’ assumpdons about the League, their formulation of policy, and the style of their diplomacy all show that they never truly understood this novel system of con ducting internadonal affairs. German diplomats were always ill ix Prtface at ease in Geneva, always on the defensive when they reported back to Berlin. Though they were not the only traditionalists in the corridors of the new diplomacy, they differed from the others.in significant ways. They were committed not only to traditional diplomacy but also to traditional objectives. The re visionism to which they had committed themselves could not be realized within the framework of the League and the new di plomacy. Thus the diplomatic commitments which kept the Ger mans from supporting the League also made them accessory to undermining the vitality of the League and hastening its decline. The fortunes of this traditionalist power in the League explains in no small measure the ill fortunes of the League in the traditionalist world of the interwar years. This book attempts to reconstruct and interpret Germany’s relationship with the League—her policy at Geneva, the in terplay of policy and politics, and the attitudes and opinions that inspired both policy and politics. I have received much help along the way. At the Library of the Foreign Office in London, Ronald Wheatley guided me expertly through the vast store of filmed German documents. The ar chivists of the Politisches Archiv in Bonn and the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz advised me helpfully and provided me with abun dant material. At the Library of the European Office of the United Nations in Geneva, Norman Field and his staff admitted me to the archives of the League of Nations, which were then in the midst of being reorganized. Grants from the Council for Research in the Social Sciences, Columbia University, enabled me to visit these archives and to film much of their holdings. The Dunning Fund of the Department of History, also of Columbia, defrayed the expenses of copying the manuscript. John Fox, Bernd Klinkhardt, Michael-Olaf Maxelon, and Paul Wehn lent me their dissertations on various aspects of German diplomacy between the wars. Christine Fraser very kindly sent me a copy of her thesis on Germany’s relations with the League in 1933. Emery Kelen, who observed life in Geneva at first hand, permitted me to reproduce some of his drawings. Felix Gilbert shared his knowledge and recollections of Weimar diplomacy with me in several conversations. He, Hans Mommsen, and David Felix read and criticized the manuscript with much care. Rudolph Binion went through it painstakingly, x Preface challenging every dubious point and every infelicitous phrase. His moral support sustained me throughout. After seeing an early version, Fritz Stern urged me to rethink my approach and to enlarge my focus. His advice prompted me to cast the book into its present form. My wife, Flora, was part of this undertaking from start to finish. Taking time away from her own work, she joined me in the archives, in assessing the evidence, in forging the arguments. She read various drafts, and each was the better for it. The book bears the marks of her collaboration on every page.
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