We Men Who Feel Most German: A Cultural Study of the Pan-German League, 1886-1914
Roger Chickering
Language: English
Pages: 397
ISBN: 0049430300
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The Pan-German League was the most radical of all the patriotic societies in Imperial Germany, the most ferocious voice of German nationalism. Its program clearly anticipated that of the Nazis in calling for German expansion on the European continent and overseas, in branding Jews as members of an inferior yet dangerous race, and in advocating a German national community in which internal antagonisms of whatever character would dissolve. This study presents the first systematic analysis of the cultural sources of this organization's appeal and influence in Imperial Germany. It focuses on the symbolic dimensions of the Pan-German League's literature and activities, in an attempt to explain the remarkable attraction of the League's aggressive ideology to certain select social groups. The study examines, in addition, the relationship between the League and other patriotic societies in Imperial Germany; and it analyzes the processes by which the organization succeeded, on the eve of the First World War, in mobilizing a broad 'national opposition' to the German government. The study draws on concepts from psychology and anthropology, and its documentary foundation includes archival material in both East and West Germany
the influence of Max \Vebcr. Historians no\\-' investigated more closcl)i the extent of the Pan-Gcrn1an League's influence; they exan1incd its ties to various pll\vcrful interest groups and. through these groups, to the Gern1an goverrunent itself. \\/hilc 1nany of the specific conclusions of Fischer and his students ren1ain in dispute, fe\\' historians douht any longer that the Pan-Gern1an Leagu: played an in1portant role in the Ger1nan political S:'.'/Stem ~>n the .eve of the ~.var. Its
Imperial Germany cannot be described in any other way), who shared the League's viev.1s on the proper scope of wo1nen's activism. 121 The impression they made was particularly lasting if they deported themselves appropriately on the podium. One who did was a 'brave, engaging' woman who spoke to the chapter in Gi1ttingen on the role played by the pioneering wives uf German settlers during the uprising in Southwest Africa: her description of her experiences. the reporter commented, was 'plain,
in the affairs of CJern1an-speaking people outside the Empire, whom he [J 1 regarded as a potential threat to his attempts to stabilize the settlements of 1866 and 1871. 11 The I1nperial constitution reflected Bismarck's attitude; it provided that the citizenship of any Gennan would lapse auton1atically after ten consecutive years' residence outside the Reich. indifference toward Germans outside the Reich became increasingly difficult to maintain, in large part because of the i1npact that the
foundation of the (Jerman Empire itself had on emerging patterns of ethnic conflict in Central and Eastern Europe. (Jerman unification encouraged the developn1ent of ethnic consciousness not only among Germans outside the Empire, hut among many other groups as well ~ Magyars, Czechs, Poles, Italians, and Slovenes, to name only some of the major ones. This process was already well underway in 1871, and it was lent impetus not only by the unification of the German states, but by social and
\.VaL and the resernblance of the League's den1ands to prograrns that led to the horrors of the Nazi era have all n1adc this organization one of the niost intensively studied phenon1ena in n1odern German history. At least a dozen monographs and dissertations have been devoted to iL and countless other studies have dealt extensively \Vith its activities. Paradoxically, though, the Pan-Cierman League rcn1ains in crucial respects an enigma. Funda111ental questions remain open about its dy·namis111