Original Approaches to German History;

Original Approaches to German History;
Social History has a Place

Chickering, Roger, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914-1918
NY, Cambridge University Press, 1998
Kaplan, Marion A., Between Dignity and Despair; Jewish Life in Nazi Germany NY, Oxford University Press, 1998
Kershaw, Ian, The Hitler Myth; Image and Reality in the Third Reich
NY, Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press, 1987

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Fundamental to our understanding of both the origins and consequence of war is the study of the effect war has on civilians. While many monographs have been written regarding soldiers and military schemes surrounding WWI, fewer concerning public impact have been successful in reaching the erudite shelves of universities. A growing academic validation and interest in social history, however, has somewhat rectified this problem resulting in a number of solid scholarly works that directly address the experience of the public during war time. Chickering, Kaplan, and Kershaw have contributed much in this regard offering different viewpoints for consideration.

Roger Chickering’s Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914-1918 is a succinct overview with an extraordinary range. What makes this work a “New Approach to European History” as the series title would infer, is that within his two hundred odd pages Chickering places much emphasis on public response to the actions of bureaucrats and the military alike. Chickering shows that society was largely divided before, during and after the war on many issues; that the German government made efforts but largely failed to bridge the gaps for a more unified, supportive German public. With a federation of twenty five states, Germany as such was divided from the onset of the constitution and had much administrative and political ground to cover before it could act as a unified nation, mirroring a diverse and uncoordinated military establishment. Moreover, public institutions that most immediately affected the lives of the German population were not run on a federal level. Amenities such as transportation, justice systems, communication systems, public health, education and welfare varied in quality, scope and availability from region to region. Religious organisations and beliefs varied across state borders with no one religious following for cohesion (as found in twentieth century Spain). Protestant German rulers tried to reduce the autonomy of the Catholic Church in German territories, as Protestants believed that the Catholic Church’s loyalties rested with the Pope and not the Keiser. Democratic rule was desired, but was not to be found in Parliamentary, federal, state or local government. Thus, social conflict was ubiquitous and questioned legitimacy and integration of Imperial Germany, possibly lending to the coming of the rise and loyalties Hitler Youth in the years ahead. The single thing the public and the government could agree on was an enemy target, be it domestic or foreign. Jews, Catholics, and Socialists were considered the enemy targets and traitors who must be ousted in order to find unity and cohesion in the nation. This prejudicial attitude extended to books, church sermons, and exclusion from venues both public and private. By 1914, war seemed to be the natural cleanser and readjustment needed to unify the country. Patriotism swept the country as Germans hoped the war would bring all classes together for the larger cause of backing military efforts.

But as Chickering demonstrates, WWI did little if anything to unify Germany. In many ways the war served to exacerbate the differences in class, creating wider cleavages and more questions of legitimacy for the government to handle constituting a “total war”. With the emphasis on war time munitions production, the broad-spectrum industrial boom that Germany had seen was now selective; workers unskilled in making goods that were needed in battle could rarely hold their jobs. While upper class munitions investors reaped the benefits of a windfall of added income, middle class white collar workers not only lost their positions, but also their invested wealth as inflation soared. Salaried workers now had to find hand work to support their families, leading to an increased conflict over a downshift in their class. Urban workers sought no harmony with the rural and backwards workers who produced their raw goods.

Women found new ways to support their families in factories and handiwork as men were sent off to war, causing traditional gender and role related conflict. In positions previously held by men, administrative seats in charitable organisations were now held by women, meaning more jurisdictional friction. Many group organisations and associations that had flourished prior to the war simply dissolved due to lack of funding or able bodied members. Women’s organisations devised to assist the needy, however, grew exponentially. Old people who needed their family’s assistance were frequently left to fend for themselves, either from their tending offspring gone to war or from lack of sufficient income. With food, soap, and coal at a premium, men, women, and children went hungry, dirty, and cold as they were forced to accept food and goods rations, indirect taxes, and suffrages of all kinds.

No group seemed to suffer as greatly, however, as did the Jews surrounding WWII as evidenced in Marion Kaplan’s Between Dignity and Despair. For a tiny portion of the population, the Jewish people of Germany suffered enough for the entire country for generations to come. Kaplan makes her point early and clear; that Jews braced themselves for the worst; but they never expected the unthinkable, the patently inhumane. By 1933 the destruction of the Jew was in effect, argues Kaplan; it did not begin in 1939 as so many of her colleagues posit.

Kaplan uses the testimony and personal memoirs of contemporary Jewish women as the basis of her argument for total annihilation. In excruciating detail we learn of the indignities Jews experienced on a routine daily basis. We also read the horrors of Nazi Germany as can only be told buy those who experienced it. This is no monolithic yet succinct survey of war, this is up close and personal, detailed, and it is riveting.

Led by Hitler’s invective speeches of Jews as biologically specimens, Christian Germans treated German Jews in a most unchristian manner. Jews were thrown out of public parks, clubs and businesses. They were ridiculed and criticised for their anatomical features, their religion, and their cultural habits. Tormented by Germans who were following the anti-Semitic propaganda of the Third Reich, Jews suffered exclusion from everyday life, and experienced death of their souls long before their physical deaths in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

Christian neighbours and friends once known to happily dine and socialise together with Jews now became their enemies. Germans shunned even the closest of friends, stating that they could not stand the risk of association. Most disturbingly, desperate to survive the wrath of the Nazis, Jews reported fellow Jews to Nazi authorities. Families were torn apart trying to survive and many died in an attempt to escape being found. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 stripped Jews of their citizenship, preventing Jews from owning land, voting, and kept them out of all positions of public office. But the torment did not end with anti-Semitic treatment from Christian Germans on the street, it continued at home and on a personal level when the individual could no longer support his or her family and had to resort to drastic measures to survive.

While women appear to be more seldom targeted for violence in Kaplan’s study, they too felt the brunt of intolerance and hate. Moreover, the cruel psychological mistreatment was on a daily basis and done by former friends and acquaintances. Women who were traditionally kept from violent treatment by Nazis in the beginning of the war took advantage of that protection and rushed to assist their persecuted and prosecuted husbands. Kaplan tells many a tale of a woman who saved her husband’s life by throwing herself in the path of danger. And it was the women who had the courage to emigrate more readily than men in general, according to Kaplan. Fear of the unknown must have seemed welcome when compared to fear of what they knew could happen if they stayed and were discovered by Nazi regime; especially if they were both a Communist and a Jew. In addition, women bared the burden of making do with less while keeping up morale while men faced emasculating circumstances for their culture. Many Jewish men would not take menial jobs when they had been trained as doctors or lawyers, professionals and scholars, and even those who were willing to emigrate found retraining undesirable and demeaning. Women, however, generally had less invested in formal training and were more eager to start life anew, taking any opportunity that occasioned. Gender roles during the Nazi regime were frequently reversed, if not twisted and caused cultural upheaval within the community and home.

New community groups were formed by ambitious Jews in an effort to keep Jewish culture and religion available to bolster morale for those who could take part. However, forced to helplessly watch even their children be tirelessly persecuted, many Jews became drained of self worth and hope. As many attempted or succeeded in suicide, their death went unnoticed or seen as a best result to non- Jewish Germans. Anyone who thinks Germans didn’t know about Jewish persecution hasn’t read this book; it is compelling and disturbing in every way. Most disturbing of all, it brings to light the question of the possibility of persecution happening again in modern western society. If good Christians could nearly destroy an entire “race” in the first half of the twentieth century, what is to stop it from happening again? Surely no one at the time thought the horrors of the concentration camps would become the truth….did they?

Ignoring the truth is a dangerous endeavour, as Kershaw also demonstrates in The Hitler Myth: Image and Reality in the Third Reich. Kershaw does a marvellous job of explaining that Germans didn’t connect the Fuhrer with all the negativity associated with the Third Reich. After reading Chickering’s book one might understand that German society was desperate for a leader who could unify Germany and win the war the middle classes needed to consolidate a capitalist nation. The public was told Hitler didn’t know about Jewish persecution and atrocities; they believed it was the SS that held the blame, and thought, “if the Fuhrer only knew.” It was trust in Hitler himself and not the Nazi party that sent subjects loyally into battle, despite food shortages and huge casualties. Thus, the sources of Hitler’s immense popularity have to be sought in Hitler’s adoring public rather than the leader himself. It is the reception of his image by the German people that fascinates Kershaw, and because it is so well written, the reader as well. He claims that the manipulative purpose of the Hitler Myth was present from the onset, a ploy to lure them away from socialism and towards a counter-revolutionary mass movement. And mass move they did, from the standard “Heil Hitler!” greeting to goose stepping in parades, Hitler’s image gathered more support than any number of political sabotage, threats or jailings could possibly garner.

Kershaw also makes the point that after all the industrial revolution could bring in the way of economic growth, Germany still needed a leader that would unite the country. Hitler’s dynamic speeches on the insistence of Lebenstraum and anti-Semitism were effective and promised a unified, genetically improved nation that would win wars, put a chicken in every pot, and solve the nation’s problems of fragmented administrative political and policies. Even those who were against the policies of the regime wanted Hitler in power. Even in the face of the “crucifix action” Hitler reigned supreme. That is until the image machine could not sustain the defeat in Stalingrad in 1943 with a surrender of nearly one hundred thousand German soldiers. Yet this was still not enough on its own, according to Kershaw, to fell the hero. This defeat, however, when combined with the treatment of starving people on the home front due to army takings, a loss of hope for the war’s end and African military reserves, Hitler’s image finally felt the blow. The public began to openly malign Hitler for the first time. It was the beginning of the end for Hitler as rumours began to circulate that Hitler had ignored all warning from his military advisors. Hitler’s determination and narrow mindedness previously seen as focus, was now seen as a liability and was beginning to bite him in the back.

The Hitler propaganda spin is eerily reminiscent of the propaganda associated with George Bush today. They both have distanced themselves from any culpability for wrongdoing, from the horrific acts of the Nazi party to Hurricane Relief efforts going awry and missing weapons of mass destruction; neither Hitler nor Bush was to blame; it is their staff, they claim, who has made these errors and placed them in unfortunate positions. Bush doesn’t seem to be able to end the war any more than Hitler could.

What is clear in this examination of these three efforts is that public or social history is seminal in the understanding of how nations come to the point of war. By reading these monographs we can see what war did to the people; how government decisions were reflected in the population and vice versa. We can see how propaganda disguises the truth and warps the sensibility of otherwise intelligent people looking for an answer to their troubles. It is also clear that studies of the people at ground level can illuminate the experiences of those who survived the war, and perhaps help us to learn how needful it is to avoid war at all costs. It has been said that men and ants are the only creatures capable of war. After reading Kaplan’s book, that is an even more plausible finding. I doubt those women writing their remembrances of Nazi Germany would bend to include war as an alternative to negotiation. But as gender roles twist further away from the traditional norm and more women take on the roles, and in many cases the characteristics of men, perhaps we have more to worry about in the future.

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Amanda von Argyriadis is a second year PhD student at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. She holds a BSFS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and an MA in Early Modern European history from George Mason University. Her current work reflects a blend of studies, with a major in American cultural history and a minor in European cultural history. Both areas of study are based in the Twentieth century, with an emphasis on immigration topics.