Elections, Election Campaigns, and Democracy

One of the phenomena of the Weimar Republic most in need of explanation is the rapid change from an initially widespread and overwhelming approval of the republic, to vast parts of society turning away from democracy just a few years later. This chapter explores the Reichstag elections and political communication around them as a manifestation of political group affiliations, traditions, and political expectations. Voting rights were expanded significantly, with democratic inclusion taking on new dimensions. However, this did not fundamentally challenge traditional affiliations to political camps. The radicalization of the electorate was a process that largely occurred within the political camps. This resulted in a culture of antagonism becoming more dominant, which, at the same time, clashed with the widespread longing for a homogeneous ‘people’s community’ and organic leadership.

The Reichswehr and Armament Policies

The Reichswehr had a specific place in the history of the Weimar Republic, as it was pivotal for every attempt to rebuilt full national sovereignty vis-à-vis the stipulations of the Treaty of Versailles. At the same time, state-sponsored armed forces were a crucial prerequisite for attempts to crack down on the localized civil war waged by the radical left in 1919/20, and to defend the German border in the East. The chapter analyses the Reichswehr as an attempt to create a modern, professional army that aimed to accommodate the insights gained by the introduction of machine warfare since 1916. Yet the armament policies of the Reichswehr also relied on the self-mobilization of society for defence, whether through the Home Guards in 1919/20 or through the clandestine build-up of the ‘black’ Reichswehr.

German Jews in the Weimar Republic

The chapter discusses the social and demographic profile of the Jewish minority in Germany from 1918 to 1933, the political preferences and perspectives of German Jews during this period and German Jewish cultural production in multiple spheres. The chapter argues that Weimar Jewish history represented both a continuation and intensification of the dynamics of German Jewish history more generally, in which the forces of inclusion and exclusion, as well as the tensions between universalism and particularism, became even more pronounced. As Weimar-era Jews redefined their notions of belonging, many reclaimed a particularism without renouncing the humanistic and liberally inflected notions of Deutschtum, continuing to work toward shaping a culture in which they could be at home. Yet during the final years of the Republic, their notion of Deutschtum diverged ever more from that held by increasing numbers of other Germans.

Social Policy in the Weimar Republic

Social policy was immensely important in Weimar Germany. In this area the republic, defining itself as a welfare state, frequently clashed with the expectations of its citizens. In fact, Weimar’s social policy was progressive and ambitious, for instance implementing unemployment welfare and collective bargaining agreements as two of its key pillars. But the tight economic constraints in which the Weimar state was operating also meant that the minimal support for pensioners, disabled war veterans, and war widows during the hyperinflation created true and lasting hardship. Furthermore, many citizens experienced the assessment of their claims as unfair and humiliating. Social policy in Weimar Germany was severely burdened by the limited financial possibilities the state had available. Ultimately, the republic failed in adequately communicating why it could not match public expectations.

Architecture, Town Planning, and Large-Scale Housing Estates

Architecture and urban planning were facing great challenges during the Weimar Republic, given the difficult economic context of the time. The housing conditions in Germany had already been problematic prior to the First World War. In the Weimar Republic, their improvement was defined as a communal, not-for-profit task. New urban quarters emerged and a new urban infrastructure had to be created, while many historic urban cores changed into a ‘city centre’ dominated by business and consumerism. In the optimistic, euphoric situation of societal renewal after the war, many architects produced visionary projects. Yet at the same time, they had to develop pragmatic approaches for a cost-saving, industrialized type of housing construction. Large settlements in Berlin and in Frankfurt, or the experimental Weißenhof settlement in Stuttgart as well as the Bauhaus represented the ideas of an architectural avant-garde that was internationally connected. The protagonists of modernism, the so-called Neues Bauen, dominated contemporary coverage and contributed, once they had been forced into exile in 1933, to the global reach of this current. Yet in reality, architecture and housing construction in the Weimar Republic were not dominated by the Neues Bauen. They can rather be described as multiple modernity, which showed fluid boundaries and permeability between radical modernist forms and traditionalist elements.

Federalism, Regionalism, and the Construction of Spaces

The Weimar Republic was a democratic and a federal state. The Reich had significantly more powers than it had had in Prussian-dominated Imperial Germany. Not only the Reich, but also the Länder (states) were structured democratically. Neither the plans for a reorganization of the Reich nor those for ending the dualism between the Reich and Prussia came to fruition. The unitarian leanings of the democrats ran against the will of the democratic state governments to assert themselves. The 1920 Reich Finance Reform reversed the course of fiscal federalism by creating a nationwide centralized system of taxation replacing the older Länder tax codes. The Reich and the Länder shared revenues which put the Länder at risk in the crisis after 1930. A range of economic, social, and cultural dynamics changed Germany’s spatial order. No longer were the Reich’s financial administration and unemployment-insurance system oriented toward state borders. The same applied to transport areas and tariff zones, which were oriented towards rationalization and optimization. The Heimat movement found the essence of the nation in an ethnically and culturally defined peoplehood, which brought it close to the völkisch movement. A sharp nationalism prevailed in the Heimat movement putting border regions more and more at the center of national imagination.

German Literature, 1918–1933

This chapter charts the development of literature during the years of the Weimar Republic. Three tendencies were particularly important. (1) Literature turned towards politics with an unprecedented intensity, attempting to influence the republic’s political and social development. It became a ‘weapon’, fostering the ‘formation of a frontline’ between different political, social, and cultural camps. This included the dispute over the lost war and the revolution. (2) A broad Zeitliteratur (literature of that time) on modern life emerged—on the metropolis, the world of industrial labour, being a white-collar employee, women’s emancipation—but also on tensions between progressive and conservative forces, and between metropolis and province. (3) All three literary genres, lyric, drama, and epic, showed new approaches by productively connecting innovative and traditional creative patterns, particularly in the exemplary works of Alfred Döblin, Gottfried Benn, and Bertolt Brecht, that represented a new kind of ‘reflective modernity’.

Liberalism

Weimar liberalism reflects the difficulties of political and economic liberalism to adapt to parliamentary democracy and the economic consequences of the First World War. These difficulties pushed liberalism into a crisis that led to new liberal formations on an organizational and intellectual level. The two main liberal parties experienced a steady decline, resulting in their political insignificance at the end of the Weimar Republic. This process was accompanied by liberal controversies over the benefit and mischief of democracy and capitalism, calling established liberal ideals into question. Liberals considered the restriction of parliamentary politics, of unbounded economic activities, liberal internationalism, and the coordination of capitalism as possible solutions to contemporary challenges. These controversies disillusioned many former adherents of liberalism, but also provoked a renewal of liberal concepts in various fields.

Republican Groups, Ideas, and Identities

By redirecting our attention away from the political extremes and to those who passionately supported and defended the republic, this chapter demonstrates that the republicans were an important factor within Germany’s political landscape. As energetic supporters for Weimar’s young state, they showed their commitment publicly at local and national level and actively mobilized support. The chapter examines the different republican groups and alliances, what they expected of the republic and how ambivalences and differences emerged within the republican camp. A focus on Weimar’s republicans as significant political agents does not rewrite the history of Weimar Republic as a success story, but it adds an important dimension to the history of Germany’s first republican democracy.

National Socialism

National Socialism was a political and social movement built on ideas and traditions that were already prevalent throughout Imperial Germany. In the early years of the Weimar Republic it was just one of many antisemitic splinter groups of the völkisch and ultranationalist right, yet it had emerged as Germany’s most successful political party at the polls by 1932. This chapter argues that the National Socialists achieved this remarkable success not only through cunning political propaganda and successful exploitation of the post-1929 economic crisis, but even more so because they managed to present themselves as a genuine people’s party. By setting up a multitude of party-affiliated organizations, they penetrated different milieus of German society. For many voters it was ultimately the NSDAP’s promise of individual success as part of a wider national renewal that proved most attractive, rather than the party’s antisemitic platform that was key for the mobilization of party activists.