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Modern Germany. Society, economy and politics in the twentieth century
History of European Ideas, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 331-344, 1984. Pergamon Press Ltd. Printed in Great Britain.
BOOK REVIEWS Modern Germany. Society, Economy and Politics in the Twentieth Century, V. R. Berghahn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), xi + 314 pp., $34.50. Berghahn's scholarly analysis of modern German history reflects the continuing fascination that Germany has exerted on scholars and public alike. Avoiding an exclusive focus on narrative political history, he has tried to strike a balance among the four central aspects of modern German development: society, economy, domestic politics and foreign policy. Using standard classics as well as the most current research results, Berghahn offers his own broad structural analyses as well. Unusually useful is the appendix section which contains the basic economic, social and political data needed for a rational comprehension of Germany's lines of development in the twentieth century. Such statistical information provides the reader with a sound understanding of Germany's economic performance, industrial relations, living standards, demographic shifts and voting patterns during the last hundred years. In this relatively short study of Germany's history, Berghahn tries to highlight the fact that the rapid industrialisation, which the country experienced from the late nineteenth century onward, led to a destabilisation of the social and political system from 'below'. Had those in possession of economic and political power been prepared to adopt reformist policies, then the growing instability could have been prevented from ending in civil turmoil. But in the first half of the twentieth century the forces of reform remained too weak to assert themselves against those who opposed even minimal change. German society, according to Berghahn, can be seen as an entity in which socioeconomic and political power were quite unevenly distributed. He emphasises that there is no simplistic dividing line between those who own the means of production and those who do not. Rather, he stresses that an individual's or group's position in the market is merely one criterion for comprehending stratification inequalities. A sound analysis, Berghahn insists, should include questions of social esteem, perception and consciousness of existing hierarchies as well as the cultural traditions specific to a particular group. In Germany, his analysis indicates, a class society existed, hut without a ruling class. A gulf existed between the working and middle classes, not surprising in the context of European socio-economic developments. In Berghahn's view, what is unusual is that there was no cohesion at the top. Separate 61ites possessed vast economic and political power, but were definitely not united over how to deploy their own superiority in the interests of preserving their own status by avoiding revolution from 'below'. Consequently, the 61ite groups could not seem to forge coalitions. Domestic and external politics were the battlegrounds on which the varied solutions to these complex social and political problems were fought out. The 61ite groups were willing to resort to high levels of violence, directed at times toward the outside and sometimes toward the 'internal enemy'. Because of this phenomenon, Berghahn has determined that it is impossible to separate domestic from foreign policy as well as civil from foreign war in twentieth-century German history. Berghahn unrelentingly pursues the themes of social and political conflict along with the adopted modes of resolution within the parameters of Germany's peculiar sociopolitical order during the era of industrialisation and on into the twentieth century. His focus on Nazi Germany is lamentably brief, hut probably unavoidable due to the limits
331
332
B o o k Reviews
on the length of the book. Still in a succinct fashion he connects the Nazi anti-semitic political programme with the terroristic methods of the totalitarian machine and simultaneously focuses on the economic recovery of the Third Reich to help explain its popular support. Berghahn carefully develops the theme that consumer pressures forced Hitler into the construction of a military system designed for short Blitzkrieg wars rather than extended campaigns. He also offers the reader an understanding of the political structure of Hitler's Germany by highlighting the Sicherheitsdienst reports on German morale as well as the psychodynamics behind Goebbels's propaganda. The analysis of the 'Final Solution' is cogently presented. By direct quotes and by using reliable scholarly works, Berghahn concludes that a significant number of Germans knew of the Death Camps in the East. So many surveys of German history end in 1945. Thus, it is refreshing to read a work that continues the strands of Germany's development up to the present, concluding even with some observations on the political forces led by such leaders as Franz Josef Strauss. Concluding his study, Berghahn maintains that given the current demographic balance, the possibility of a return to violent solutions still exists, but is unlikely to happen as long as the economy remains healthy. Throughout his text, the author carefully uses the most reliable research available to diagnose a Germany that is more than a mere 'political entity'. Donald J. Dietrich University of Wisconsin -- Stevens Point
The Fiction of Humanity: Studies in the Buildungsroman from Wieland to Thomas Mann, Michael Beddow, Anglica Germanica Series 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), x + 325 pp., £25.00. Michael Beddow is evidently not persuaded by the claims of post-modernist fiction, not sharing a belief that fiction is about fiction, fictionality, independent of 'real' life. The five novels he treats in the nicely titled The Fiction of Humanity, derive their force, so he argues, from their analysis of what it means to be human. Their concern is not ultimately 'the development of the hero' (p. 2), but 'a particular understanding of the nature of humanity' (p. 5). Such an understanding is, in itself, bound up closely with developing attitudes to scientific models of the world, attitudes which Dr Beddow sees as highly influential in the narrative and philosophical strategy of the Bildungsroman. The novels, in order, are Wieland's Geschichte des Agathon, Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, Stifter's Der Nachsommer, Keller's Der gr~ne Heinrich and Thomas Mann's Der Zauberberg. Probably only the last work is known to a non-specialist audience of any size, and one is tempted to wonder whether history is not just in this respect. The group chosen for close reading are the five novels that constitute the core of the German Bildungsroman, a curiously German manifestation of the picaresque in some respects, and yet distinctive in their essentially philosophical foundation. Yet this is not to say that their authors would have done better to write philosophy, for, as Dr Beddow persuasively argues, their cultural point lies in the fact that they are fictions that demand comparison with life. Hardly an original claim, surely; Wieland scholars like Fritz Martini, Herman Meyer and Hans-Heinrich Reuter explore, from different standpoints, just this purpose in all Wieland's work. And it is unlikely that of all writers Goethe would not have thought his Meister a representative figure, if not in the sense Schiller would have liked. I wonder then, whom this book is for. Except for terms like 'facticity' it addresses stylistically the non-specialist, yet in much too narrow a manner. And I am dubious
BOOK REVIEWS Modern Germany. Society, Economy and Politics in the Twentieth Century, V. R. Berghahn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), xi + 314 pp., $34.50. Berghahn's scholarly analysis of modern German history reflects the continuing fascination that Germany has exerted on scholars and public alike. Avoiding an exclusive focus on narrative political history, he has tried to strike a balance among the four central aspects of modern German development: society, economy, domestic politics and foreign policy. Using standard classics as well as the most current research results, Berghahn offers his own broad structural analyses as well. Unusually useful is the appendix section which contains the basic economic, social and political data needed for a rational comprehension of Germany's lines of development in the twentieth century. Such statistical information provides the reader with a sound understanding of Germany's economic performance, industrial relations, living standards, demographic shifts and voting patterns during the last hundred years. In this relatively short study of Germany's history, Berghahn tries to highlight the fact that the rapid industrialisation, which the country experienced from the late nineteenth century onward, led to a destabilisation of the social and political system from 'below'. Had those in possession of economic and political power been prepared to adopt reformist policies, then the growing instability could have been prevented from ending in civil turmoil. But in the first half of the twentieth century the forces of reform remained too weak to assert themselves against those who opposed even minimal change. German society, according to Berghahn, can be seen as an entity in which socioeconomic and political power were quite unevenly distributed. He emphasises that there is no simplistic dividing line between those who own the means of production and those who do not. Rather, he stresses that an individual's or group's position in the market is merely one criterion for comprehending stratification inequalities. A sound analysis, Berghahn insists, should include questions of social esteem, perception and consciousness of existing hierarchies as well as the cultural traditions specific to a particular group. In Germany, his analysis indicates, a class society existed, hut without a ruling class. A gulf existed between the working and middle classes, not surprising in the context of European socio-economic developments. In Berghahn's view, what is unusual is that there was no cohesion at the top. Separate 61ites possessed vast economic and political power, but were definitely not united over how to deploy their own superiority in the interests of preserving their own status by avoiding revolution from 'below'. Consequently, the 61ite groups could not seem to forge coalitions. Domestic and external politics were the battlegrounds on which the varied solutions to these complex social and political problems were fought out. The 61ite groups were willing to resort to high levels of violence, directed at times toward the outside and sometimes toward the 'internal enemy'. Because of this phenomenon, Berghahn has determined that it is impossible to separate domestic from foreign policy as well as civil from foreign war in twentieth-century German history. Berghahn unrelentingly pursues the themes of social and political conflict along with the adopted modes of resolution within the parameters of Germany's peculiar sociopolitical order during the era of industrialisation and on into the twentieth century. His focus on Nazi Germany is lamentably brief, hut probably unavoidable due to the limits
331
332
B o o k Reviews
on the length of the book. Still in a succinct fashion he connects the Nazi anti-semitic political programme with the terroristic methods of the totalitarian machine and simultaneously focuses on the economic recovery of the Third Reich to help explain its popular support. Berghahn carefully develops the theme that consumer pressures forced Hitler into the construction of a military system designed for short Blitzkrieg wars rather than extended campaigns. He also offers the reader an understanding of the political structure of Hitler's Germany by highlighting the Sicherheitsdienst reports on German morale as well as the psychodynamics behind Goebbels's propaganda. The analysis of the 'Final Solution' is cogently presented. By direct quotes and by using reliable scholarly works, Berghahn concludes that a significant number of Germans knew of the Death Camps in the East. So many surveys of German history end in 1945. Thus, it is refreshing to read a work that continues the strands of Germany's development up to the present, concluding even with some observations on the political forces led by such leaders as Franz Josef Strauss. Concluding his study, Berghahn maintains that given the current demographic balance, the possibility of a return to violent solutions still exists, but is unlikely to happen as long as the economy remains healthy. Throughout his text, the author carefully uses the most reliable research available to diagnose a Germany that is more than a mere 'political entity'. Donald J. Dietrich University of Wisconsin -- Stevens Point
The Fiction of Humanity: Studies in the Buildungsroman from Wieland to Thomas Mann, Michael Beddow, Anglica Germanica Series 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), x + 325 pp., £25.00. Michael Beddow is evidently not persuaded by the claims of post-modernist fiction, not sharing a belief that fiction is about fiction, fictionality, independent of 'real' life. The five novels he treats in the nicely titled The Fiction of Humanity, derive their force, so he argues, from their analysis of what it means to be human. Their concern is not ultimately 'the development of the hero' (p. 2), but 'a particular understanding of the nature of humanity' (p. 5). Such an understanding is, in itself, bound up closely with developing attitudes to scientific models of the world, attitudes which Dr Beddow sees as highly influential in the narrative and philosophical strategy of the Bildungsroman. The novels, in order, are Wieland's Geschichte des Agathon, Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, Stifter's Der Nachsommer, Keller's Der gr~ne Heinrich and Thomas Mann's Der Zauberberg. Probably only the last work is known to a non-specialist audience of any size, and one is tempted to wonder whether history is not just in this respect. The group chosen for close reading are the five novels that constitute the core of the German Bildungsroman, a curiously German manifestation of the picaresque in some respects, and yet distinctive in their essentially philosophical foundation. Yet this is not to say that their authors would have done better to write philosophy, for, as Dr Beddow persuasively argues, their cultural point lies in the fact that they are fictions that demand comparison with life. Hardly an original claim, surely; Wieland scholars like Fritz Martini, Herman Meyer and Hans-Heinrich Reuter explore, from different standpoints, just this purpose in all Wieland's work. And it is unlikely that of all writers Goethe would not have thought his Meister a representative figure, if not in the sense Schiller would have liked. I wonder then, whom this book is for. Except for terms like 'facticity' it addresses stylistically the non-specialist, yet in much too narrow a manner. And I am dubious