Problems of Identity and Consensus in a Fragmented Society: The Weimar Republic

Abstract

The recourse to the political culture of the Weimar period is interesting for several reasons (see Megerle and Steinbach 1981/82). For one thing, we can assume that the values and behaviours formed within the authoritarian state of imperial Germany dominated (see Chapter 3); at the same time, however, these were changing, perhaps even weakening. Addressing this issue in a comprehensive study of the period, Hagen Schulze remarks in his concluding statements regarding the failure of the Weimar Republic: ‘Tersely stated, it is clearcut: the general population, groups, parties and responsible individuals allowed the Weimar experiment to founder because of wrong thought and thus wrong behaviour’ (Schulze 1982, p. 425). Second, the Weimar Republic represents a state whose political explosiveness and legacy are noticeable in two different forms even today. The NSDAP (National Socialist Party) placed itself in negation and opposition to the Weimar ‘system’, which it hated and which lacked the support of large sections of the population. Based on this negation, it was able to mobilize a following which was later interpreted as an extreme expression of the anti-democratic and authoritarian German ‘national character’. This legacy is still apparent in the sensibility towards occurrences of rightwing extremism (see Chapter 10). In contrast, the Bonn democracy returned to a certain extent to the socio-political order of Weimar. It rested in part on the Weimar democratic elite, but it broke with the most extreme opponents of the Weimar state, and fixated on the selfimage: ‘Bonn is not Weimar!’.