The Defeat of the Weimar Republic
LANDAUER, CARL
The Defeat of the Weimar Republic Unconscious Motives and Democratic Germans By Carl Landauer STEPHEN LANCASTER hu dona > useful Job in calling attention to the possible role of subconscious...
...Any International comparison of unemployment la notoriously difficult, but all the figure* I have seen point to the conclusion that the percentage of unemployed in the working population waa greater in Germany than in any other largo country, except the United States...
...Should not some attention bo paid to the model institutions of social welfare which the Republic created, and which were not merely valuable in themselves but alto a sign of strength...
...The Republic initiated land reform, increasing the annual addition to peasant acreage aa accumulating experience permitted more efficient work, but 15 turbulent years were toe Short a time to achiev*' substantial success...
...The Defeat of the Weimar Republic Unconscious Motives and Democratic Germans By Carl Landauer STEPHEN LANCASTER hu dona > useful Job in calling attention to the possible role of subconscious motive* in the controversy on peace term* for Germany, in Th* New Leader of Jan...
...If theaa people are to be judged, is it legitimate to concentrate on their failures and not to recognise their successes ? How about the defense of the Republic against the Kapp rebels of 1920 ? Or tM weathering of the grave international crisis of 1921...
...I am still unaware of what better method* could have been applied...
...The government .appealed to the democratically minded workers...
...I am certainly for disarmament of the Reich...
...Germany bad to struggle with a huge foreign debt...
...Of course they wars not faultless...
...The government then called upon all who were ready to bear arma for the Republic...
...The experience of the past, of course, does not by itself settle the problems of the future...
...At least two-thirds of all coBcg* trained men and women in Germany were anti-democratic—a product of the great tension between tha working class and tha middle class...
...or between that day and Hitler'* secession t» power would have been a more glortsM Way far the Republic to perish, bat it waa aot a way to aava demaency...
...In spite of hi* criticism of the Vaniittartiita, Lan-caatar give* them credit for (bowing "that the German democratic tradition was too weak to keep the Weimar Republic alive," that "th* economic strains on Germany were little, if any, greater than in England and Eiam...
...4. TA* Gorman democrat* did not fight pAyst**!** for the Republic...
...Unlike pre-revolutionary Russia, where the mediaeval neighborhood relationship of the peasant village and the lord's manor has been preserved, the large estates dissappeared in Western and Southern Germany and most of the peasants disappeared in Northeastern Germany during the 18th and 19th centuries...
...This kind of settlement is difficult and costly, therefore by necessity a slow process...
...This blunder prove* that the supporters of the Weimar Republic had no unfailing judgment It doss not prove that they were cowards, weakling*, fainthearted people, or crypt*, reactionaries...
...He far now a kaetnrar in Economic* at (he University of California Publications in Knglish include: "The American Way: How It Laoka to aa Emigre From Germany, and "Theory af National Economic Planning...
...the democratic part of the German people dij aot have t** slightsst chance in a physic.I strag...
...and the position of a conservative who sees hi* world crumble, or of a liberal who must defend his ideals by killing fellow-humans of another nation, ia certainly apt to foster ail aorta of psychic twist...
...The depression hit Germany after moat of the savings of the common peopl* had been destroyed by inflation (France, it is true, also experienced an inflation...
...troop, and the Keichsw.hr, which obeyed Blades...
...for aix yeara ha waa associate editor of Miinchener Fsof, a Social Democratic aswspaper...
...Wa all must do a lot of beartsearch-ing in order to discover, a* far as humanly possible, the amotion* and desire* behind our word* and deads, and aubject them to critical examination...
...They were not the right kind of soldiers for a democratic republic, but they prevented the overthrow of democracy by the Communists...
...s 3. The German democrat* did not break up the Junker estate...
...her currency waa reduced to one-fifth of its original value—German currency dropped to one-billionth...
...He left that position to become aa editor of Dor Dauitth* Valktwirt (The Gorman Economist), an economic weekly, and later Associate Professor in Economics at the (allege ml Commerce in Berlin...
...When later on the Social Democrats wanted to purge the army of reactionaries, the attempt was unsuccessful...
...Yet this i* by no mean* th* whole story...
...Qne need not be guided by unconscious' motives to deny that th* Weimar Republic died of its own weakness...
...But anybody who compares Use Weimar Republic in the llSTs with the Third French Republic Ansa it* origin to the Dreyfus affair will cease to the conclusion that in Germany the demo era tie regime waa mar* Irmly established—and th* French, certainly, had a democratic tradition, tier man democracy did not die af weakness, it waa killed by an economic catastrophe...
...Their most serioua mistake—and I barn a personal share in it— waa the exaggerated fear of inflation which prevented them from fighting tha depression which a large-seal*, deficit financed program of work relief...
...When the depression came, German industry was still in its period of readjustment to the conditions which the peace had created for Germany (reparation payment*, loss of raw-material deposits, etc...
...Ia Germany, it ia true, the democratic tradition, long before the Weimar period, had been forced to recede from th* universities and th* drawing rooms of the middle class to the working clam qaartera...
...and "that the failure of the Weimar Republic waa mad* almost Inevitable by the timid blunders of the German democracy...
...Attempts to break the educational monopoly of the middle class through stipends for working class students also failed of full success...
...A physical fight on the famous 20th af July, 1932...
...The opposition of the well-educated classes wait'one of the major difficulties of the Weimar Republic...
...I am not s "pleader for the good Germans" in the sense that I would dispense with tangible guarantees against • revival of the aggressive spirit in Germany...
...They play a role In interesting individual cases, but I doubt that they are important in the motivation of tha anti Vansittartist* as a group —or of the Vansittartists either...
...The other parties, including the republican Catholics, felt that a country whose armament had been reduced to a fraction of the strength of comparable nations had to make the most of its small m my and could not afford to tamper with its technically efficient officer corps...
...The Prussian State government experimented with the use of trad* union officials in poets of high administrative responsibility, but man with sufficient native ability to overcome their deficiencies in formal education were too scarce to permit this method to be applied on a large scale...
...Those who came were the old imperial oflY-ers and their personal following among the enlisted men...
...burf...
...They failed to follow the call, because they had just come home from the war with the determination never to touch a rifle again...
...Tin situation would not have bo*SI Materially different, even if unity with the Coma>aniaU had beta possible, which was not th* case...
...We are all in danger of being guided by motives of " which we are not a War...
...Against tha cembtned faces*) at the Nasi Stsra...
...Bat ia the light af the German election Agar** it seem* certain that the Republic would still stand if the economic depression had ended in...
...It would be a hard task for an economist ta implement the proposition that the economic difficulties of Germany, ia the but phase of the Weimar Republic, were not substantially greater than those of England and Franca...
...defore earning to this country in 1934, Carl Laadauer wss aa active member af th* Social Democratic Party in Germany...
...The democratic government faced the choice of either forming a force of its own or being ousted by an armed minority...
...To this day, I have failed to see what other course the government could have taken in 1918-1919...
...Who in tha Western countries will throw the first stone at these men...
...Or the struggle against Nazis, Communists, and French-protected Separatists—all at the same time—in 1923...
...I was also not merely being polite when I said that Lancaster did something uaeful in calling attention to the role of on-conscious motives...
...DlD the German democrats commit no mistakes at all...
...It is so surprising that these conditions, which did not exist in other countries to snything like the same extent, provided the margin of effectiveness for antidemocratic propaganda which made Hitler the master of the country, while elsewhere Father Coughlin, Quisling, Doriot, Degrelle, et al, never became mora than rabble rousersf The weak news af the German democratic tradition ia regarded aa an obviaa* truth by moat *b-aarvara...
...The agricultural structure of Germany is very unfavorable for land reform...
...say, the spring of 1M1...
...Consequently, the breaking up of the Junker estates requires the founding of new villages with roads, schools, and churches, and to a large extent the transplanting of peasants (or peasants' sons) from the SoutR and the West to the Northeast...
...Needless to say, I have never been in favor of this argument, but would it not, under equal condition*, have been just as effective in France, or in England, or in PolandT 2. The German* retained too many eivH otrvant* of th* monmreky...
...The higher civil icrvice must be recruited from people with higher education...
...The "timid blunders of the German democrats" t Lancaster did not specify this accusation, but he probably agrees with the usual indictment, and that would mean with the following charges: 1. The German democrat* permitted the army (a tome under the control of reactionary officer: The Reich*w«hr originated in the civil war against the Communists...
Vol. 28 • April 1945 • No. 16
