Skip to main content
  • 12 Accesses

Abstract

On July 31, 1919, Cardinal Archbishop Felix von Hartmann of Cologne established a new organization, Neudeutschland, for all Catholic students in the secondary schools of Germany. The attention of most Germans on that day, however, was riveted on the city of Weimar, where the new German constitution was being adopted, so that no popular outburst of either joy or chagrin accompanied the announcement.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 49.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. For the anxiety for the future, for the fear of the influence of socialist secularism within the Church’s view of its sphere of influence — including the Catholic schools — see the contemporary account by: Otto Zimmerman, S. J., “Revolutionäre Trennung von Kirche und Staat,” Stimmen der Zeit, Bd. 96 (1919), 345–359.

    Google Scholar 

  2. For an excellent analysis of the social structure of the Wilhelmian period, see: Arthur Rosenberg, Entstehung der Weimarer Republik (Frankfort A. M.: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1961), 11–34. Also of importance for both the Wilhelmian and Weimar periods is: Karl Dietrich Bracher, Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik (Stuttgart: 1955), 1-581.

    Google Scholar 

  3. All three are analyzed in: Walter Z. Lacqueur, Toung Germany (New York: Basic Books, 1962), 2–73. Also

    Google Scholar 

  4. Felix Raabe, Die Bündische Jugend (Stuttgart: Brentano Verlag, 1961, 12–22, 82-84.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Information on the history of the school organization and youth organization prior to 1904 can be found in: J. Alden Nichols, Germany After Bismarck (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958), 155–188

    Google Scholar 

  6. Robert Herndon Fife, The German Empire Between the Wars (New York: Macmillan, 1916), 319–358; Joseph Hess, Der Kampf um die Schule in Preussen, 1872-1906 (Köln, 1912).

    Google Scholar 

  7. An uncritical and laudatory work on Esch giving the basic facts of his life is: Helmut Holzapfel, P. Ludwig Esch, Ein Leben für die Jugend (Würzburg: Echter-Verlag, 1963).

    Google Scholar 

  8. Ludwig Esch, Neudeutschland, Sein Werden und Wachsen (Saarbrücken: Saarbrücker Druckerei und Verlag A. G., 1927), 9.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Prussia was still closed to Jesuits before World War I. For the history of the Jesuits in Germany and the controversy surrounding their activities in Prussia and Germany, see: Heinrich Brueck, Geschichte der Katholischen Kirche in Deutschland, Vol. IV (Mainz: Verlag von Franz Kirchheim, 1901), 121–137. The Jesuits were not completely freed from restrictions — particularly concerning the schools — until April, 1917. See

    Google Scholar 

  10. Ernst Christian Helmreich, Religious Education in German Schools: An Historical Approach (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959), 83.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Heinrich Lutz, Demokratie im Zwielicht. Der Weg der deutschen Katholiken aus dem Kaiserreich in die Republik, 1914–1925 (München: Koesel-Verlag, 1963), 133. He cites: Michael von Faulhaber, Der Krieg im Lichte des Evangeliums (1915), 4.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Heinrich Lutz, “Die deutschen Katholiken in und nach dem ersten Weltkrie Hochland, 55. Jahrgang, No. 3 (1963), 200–201.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Lutz, “Die deutschen Katholiken,” 205-6. Also: John L. Snell, “Benedict XV, Wilson, Michaelis, and German Socialism,” Catholic Historical Review, Vol. XXXVII (1951), 155–60.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Hans Beyer, “Der ‘religiöse Sozialismus’ in der Weimarer Republik,” Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, No. 11-12 (1960), 1464–5.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Georg Schreiber, “Deutsche Kirchenpolitik nach dem ersten Weltkrieg, Gestalten und Geschehnisse der Novemberrevolution 1918 und der Weimarer Zeit,” Historisches Jahrbuch, LXX (1950), 296–333.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Leuchtturm (October, 1929), “Report on the Fulda Bund Meeting,” 197. For one analysis of the concept of Volk, see: George Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1964). It is to be noted that according to Mosse’s analysis of the concept of the Volk and its development in the German mentality, it would be impossible for a Catholic — particularly a priest — to be völkisch. See in particular pp. 31-51.

    Google Scholar 

  17. For an analysis of Scheler’s thought, see: John Raphael Staude, Max Scheler, 1874-1928 (New York: Free Press, 1967).

    Google Scholar 

  18. See the various articles by Martin Spahn cited by: John K. Zeender, “German Catholics and the Concept of an Interconfessional Party 1900–1922,” Journal of Central European Affairs, Volume XXIII, No. 4 (1964), 430.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Wilhelm Hedemann, “Die geistigen Strömungen in der heutigen deutschen Studentenschaft,” Akademisches Deutschland, Vol. III (Berlin: 1930-31), 387–88. Cited by

    Google Scholar 

  20. Robert G. L. Waite, Vanguard of Nazism, the Free Corps Movement in Postwar Germany, 1918-1923 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952), 207–8. Many of the first leaders of Neudeutschland came from the same generation that produced the FreeCorps members.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Friedrich Thimme, “Das Verhältnis zwischen Staat und Kirche und seine Veränderung durch die Revolution,” in: Friedrich Thimme und Ernst Rolffs (hsgb.), Revolution und Kirche (Berlin: Verlag von Georg Reimer, 1919), 35–40. Another recent account of the impact of Hoffmann’s activities is in

    Google Scholar 

  22. Rudolf Morsey, Die Deutsche Zentrumspartei, 1917-1923 (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1966), 110–124.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Helmreich, Religious Education, 105-6. Also: Herman Giesecke, “Sozialdemokratische Schulpolitik, 1918-19,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 13. Jahrgang, Heft 2 (1965), 162–177.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Georg Schreiber, Zwischen Demokratie und Diktatur: Persönliche Erinnerungen an die Politik und Kultur des Reiches von 1919-1944 (Münster: Regensbergsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1949), 60–61.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Thimme, “Das Verhältnis,” 29. Hoffmann left the Ministry at the end of December, and Haenisch determined that nothing further would be done and that those decrees already issued would not be implemented until the National Assembly met. The elections for the Assembly were held January 19, 1919; on February 3, 1919, the Central Council of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviets formally handed over its power to the Assembly; on February 6, 1919, the Assembly convened. For information on Hoffmann, see: S. William Halperin, Germany Tried Democracy (New York: W. W. Norton, 1965), 129–131.

    Google Scholar 

  26. For the fears against the revolutionary actions, and the secularization clauses of the Constitution, see: Bischöfliche Arbeitsstelle für Schule und Erziehung, Das Ringen um das Sogenannte Reichsschulgesetz (Koeln: J. P. Bachern, 1926). This source contains not only the various forms of the various bills but the Reichstag debates held over each. Another source of the changes and proposed changes in the educational structure is

    Google Scholar 

  27. Isaac L. Kanden and Thomas Alexander (translators), The Reorganization of Education in Prussia: Based on official Documents and Publications (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University Bureau of Publications, 1927). For information on the workings of the revolutionary regime in Berlin, see

    Google Scholar 

  28. Charles B. Burdick and Ralph H. Lutz (eds.) The Political Institutions of the German Revolution, 1918-1919 (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966).

    Google Scholar 

  29. For a description of the school system, see: Helmreich, Religious Education, 53-100. Also: Wilhelm Roessler, Jugend im Erziehungsfeld (Düsseldorf: Pädagogischer Verlag Schwann, 1957), 162–174. For a sociologist’s point of view, see

    Google Scholar 

  30. Helmut Schelsky, Die skeptische Generation, eine Soziologie der deutschen Jugend (Düsseldorf: Eugen Diederichs Verlag, 1957), 39–57.

    Google Scholar 

  31. John K. Zeender, “The German Catholics and the Presidential Election of 1925,” Journal of Modern History, Vol. 35 (1963), 370. Zeender cites: Consul Stocky to Carl Trimborn, October 12, 1918: Bachern Papers, Vol. LXXXIII. For an analysis of the mentality behind the need for such a party, see

    Google Scholar 

  32. Paul Arnold van Leewen, “Konservativer Nationalismus,” Die Schildgenossen, Jg. VII (1927) 61–65.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Klaus Epstein, Matthias Erzberger and the Dilemma of German Democracy (Princeton: University Press, 1959), 285–90. Further testimony to the opposition to the socialist stand on education can be found in: Kanden and Alexander, The Reorganization of Education in Prussia, 10-19; and

    Google Scholar 

  34. Franz von Papen, Memoirs (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1953), 91–92.

    Google Scholar 

  35. For the developments in the Volksverein and the struggle over its goals, see: Emil Ritter, Die Katholischsoziale Bewegung, Deutschland im Neunzehnten Jahrhundert und der Volksverein (Köln: J. P. Bachem, 1954). Ritter, a strong supporter of the Volksverein approach, criticized the bishops severely for their attitude as he believed strongly that the future of the church lay in its social activities, rather than those purely religious.

    Google Scholar 

  36. This concept of the “youth kingdom” was adopted from the pre-war experience of the Wandervogel. See: Waldemar Gurian, Die deutsche Jugendbewegung (Habelsschwerdt: Frankes Buchhandlung, 1924), 28–40. Youth kingdom connotes the uniqueness of being young and of youthful needs and fulfillments.

    Google Scholar 

  37. Rosenberg, Imperial Germany, 42-43. Also: Klaus Epstein, “Erzberger’s Position in the Zentrumsstreit before World War I,” The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. XLIV (April, 1958), 1–15. Finally: Lutz, “Die deutschen Katholiken,” 193-216.

    Google Scholar 

  38. For another area in which indecision as to the future course of organized Catholics — in this instance the Center Party, which also sought to find its place in the changed circumstances — see: Josef Becker, “Eine Niederschrift Joseph Wirths über seinen Eintritt in das Reichskabinett 1920,” Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, Bd. 112 (1964), 243–250. Further: Rudolf Morsey, “Die Deutsche Zentrumspartei zwischen Novemberrevolution und Weimarer Nationalversammlung,” in: Dona Westfalica, Georg Schreiber zum 80. Geburtstage, dargebracht von der Historischen Kommission Westfalens, 1963.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1970 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Warloski, R. (1970). The Establishment of Neudeutschland. In: Neudeutschland, German Catholic Students 1919–1939. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0781-3_1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0781-3_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-015-0260-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-015-0781-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics