James N. Retallack. The German Right 1860-1920: Political Limits of the Authoritarian Imagination. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006. 429 S. $37.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8020-9419-3.
Reviewed by Michael Chad Wallo (Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Central Michigan University)
Published on H-German (October, 2007)
Authoritarian Types with Democratic Gloves
Friedrich Naumann's above statement (quoted on p. 67) corresponds to one of the important assertions in James Retallack's new book. Retallack maintains that the German Right, and more specifically the German Conservative Party, on which he focuses, had an "authoritarian imagination" or a broad and often vague concept of authority that dominated its politics. Hence, various attempts by German Conservatives to increase their numbers within federally, regionally, and locally elected bodies were not examples of their faith in a democratic system, but rather a means to further their authoritarian imagination by supporting the monarchy, a rigid social hierarchy, the army, or the nation. Building on this point, Retallack argues that the German Right's transition from "notable" (Honoratiorenpolitik) to mass politics did not occur in the 1890s. Following Geoff Eley, he argues that no one decade of imperial Germany's existence had a "moment of fission" (p. 8).[1] Instead, Retallack traces a more gradual transition from notable politics to attempts to mobilize voters for the German Right through new political strategies such as attracting antisemites to the party, appealing to urban conservatives, showing greater independence from the imperial government, and making efforts, albeit halfhearted, to gain support from women. Hence, Retallack's book, based on a collection of previously published articles and book reviews, continues scholarship that depicts the German Right in the Kaiserreich not as stuffy, backward conservatives but rather as active politicians.
The first third of Retallack's book reviews scholarly literature, and the number of studies that he scrutinizes attests to the breadth of his knowledge. Of the three chapters in this section, Retallack's first chapter is the most saturated by secondary literature. This chapter, which focuses on Robert Berdahl's studies on Prussian Junkers, Wolfgang Schwenker's work on conservatives' increasing activity in politics after 1848, and Willi Füßl's analysis of the "greatest conservative thinker" at the middle of the nineteenth century, Friedrich Julius Stahl (p. 36)--and indeed this entire first section--will undoubtedly help those who want to understand the historiography of nineteenth-century German conservatism.[2]
Retallack's second chapter examines the terms "populism" and "demagoguery," which he argues convincingly are no longer useful in examining the politics of the Second Reich because they pigeonhole political groups into subjective categories.[3] For instance, one politician's statements may be demagogic to one voter and popular to another, but Retallack maintains that historians very often unfairly attribute populism only to liberals of the Wilhelmine Reich. In addition, "populism" is regularly viewed in a positive sense instead of negatively in the sense of "fishing for popularity" or solely catering to popular positions (p. 77). Retallack's critical appraisal of these definitions in no way belittles the increased use of demagoguery and populist methods during Imperial Germany. This type of politics was characteristic of a more radical, reckless conservatism in comparison to previous forms and culminated in the National Socialist dictatorship, which of course relied greatly on claims of popular appeal. Even the National Socialists, however, relied on the "politics of the old" and "club life" during the 1920s (p. 99).
Just as Retallack views the populism-demagoguery dichotomy as a more complex issue than many historians admit, he also reveals a more intricate history of the time period by examining regional and not just national politics. For Retallack, region goes beyond the legal boundaries of a state. He describes it best when he calls it a "sense of place" constructed at the regional level (p. 147). Thus, he expounds on the creation of identities at the regional level and specifically the effects of state power on regional identities and considers Germans' reactions to national authority's entrance into realms that state and local authorities previously controlled. In the case of Saxony, the region Retallack scrutinizes most, studying the Pan-German League in Dresden and Leipzig offers historians a possibility to scrutinize relationships between regional and national politics and between identity and power. Although some members of these organizations saw themselves as struggling against a national "politics of notables," others wanted to conform to the Pan-German League's larger, national mission, which regional loyalties restricted (p. 150).
On national and regional levels, Retallack's work also deals with the topic of reform in Wilhelmine Germany, especially suffrage reform. Retallack argues that on a national level, many Germans opposed constitutional and political reform because they feared governmental upheaval. Retallack even claims that liberals as a rule sought political stability, especially during the last chaotic years of the First World War (p. 122). On a regional level, however, using the example of Saxony, Retallack shows that politicians accomplished regional voting reforms on multiple occasions. But they were not always the most democratic reforms. For instance, Retallack correctly argues that although the Suffrage Bill of 1868 in Saxony gave certain citizens the right to vote for the Landtag, it allowed gerrymandering and created a tax threshold of one Taler to disenfranchise the poorer classes who voted for Social Democrats (pp. 179-180). Thus, to help maintain their power, German Conservatives in power reformed suffrage in favor of citizens' "quantitative contributions to the state" (p. 201). The upper classes whom this reform benefited saw it as just compensation for high taxes and their support for community institutions such as hospitals, museums, and theaters, which benefited the less fortunate.
Examining regional culture and politics also helps to confirm one of the more seminal arguments of Retallack's book, namely that antisemitism pervaded the German Conservative Party earlier in its existence and to a greater extent than previously thought. Retallack believes that antisemitism was prevalent in this party from its beginnings in the late 1860s (p. 277). Indeed, Retallack contends that it was difficult in many cases to differentiate between antisemites and other members of the party because, although some national party members publicly discouraged antisemites from attacking Jews, many were privately just as antisemitic as their more openly prejudiced colleagues. Retallack claims that antisemitism in the German Conservative Party was first salient on a regional level, but as the nineteenth century progressed, party members increasingly adopted more openly antisemitic positions in efforts to expand the party on a national level outside of its Prussian base. Unfortunately, antisemitism resonated with some Germans in elections; Retallack thus seems to be arguing for the pervasiveness of antisemitism in the rise of mass politics. Although the process was a long one, full and open antisemitism became prominent in the German Conservative Party around 1890, according to Retallack's information on party congresses (p. 337).
Retallack's most interesting chapter examines conservative periodicals and journalism in Imperial Germany. Retallack argues that conservative parties were not as adept as liberal ones at mobilizing magazines and newspapers for political mass influence. Most of their ineffectiveness lay with their distaste for democracy and their cultivation of elitism, both of which ran counter to the basic assumptions of a democratizing press. Although liberals tended to think more highly of the journalistic profession than most conservatives, most Germans had a poor opinion of the vocation. Some journalists and publishers had success trying to improve their professional standing by forming professional organizations, and pursuing more serious reporting, but in the main, their social status was still never particularly high.
This last section is typical for the appealing topics in Retallack's book, and in general, his writing has a humor sorely lacking in most academic prose: in one instance, he broaches imperial Germans' penchant for comparing government stasis with bodily cramping and constipation. At points throughout the book, however, one wishes that Retallack had made his statements more precisely. For example, in reference to the Right's distaste for journalists, Retallack comments that the conservative social commentator Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl once said "'whoever wants to reap without having first sown becomes a Literat'" (quoted on p. 238). The German meaning of a Literat encompasses not only just the English meaning of "journalist," but rather the much broader meaning of a "writer." At another juncture, Retallack writes that Saxony's suffrage reform in 1868 allowed "nearly universal" voting (p. 170). However, within the same paragraph, he states that only 10 percent of the population and only males could vote after 1868, making suffrage in Saxony hardly close to "universal" at that time (p. 170).
Despite these minor issues, historians of Imperial Germany and German conservatism in general should not be discouraged from reading James Retallack's book. He does scholarship a service by challenging commonly held beliefs and clarifying others about the German Right during the mid-to-late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Notes
[1]. Geoff Eley, "Anti-Semitism, Agrarian Mobilization, and the Conservative Party: Radicalism and Containment in the Founding of the Agrarian League, 1890-93," in Between Reform, Reaction, and Resistance: Studies in the History of German Conservatism from 1789 to 1945, ed. Larry Eugene Jones and James Retallack (Providence: Berg, 1993), 187-227, and idem, "Notable Politics, The Crisis of German Liberalism, and the Electoral Transition of the 1890s," in In Search of a Liberal Germany, ed. Konrad H. Jarausch and Larry Eugene Jones (New York: Berg, 1990), 187-216.
[2]. Robert M. Berdahl, The Politics of Prussian Nobility: The Development of a Conservative Ideology, 1770-1848 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988); Wolfgang Schwentker, Konservative Vereine und Revolution in Preußen 1848/49. Die Konstituierung des Konservatismus als Partei (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1988); and Wilhelm Füßl, Professor in der Politik. Friedrich Julius Stahl (1802-1861) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1988).
[3]. Retallack relies heavily on David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley's analysis of these two terms in The Peculiarities of German History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984).
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Citation:
Michael Chad Wallo. Review of Retallack, James N., The German Right 1860-1920: Political Limits of the Authoritarian Imagination.
H-German, H-Net Reviews.
October, 2007.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=13772
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