Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic
Author(s): Sheri Berman
Source: World
Politics, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Apr., 1997), pp. 401-429
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE
COLLAPSE OF THE
WEIMAR REPUBLIC
BySHERIBERMAN*
PRACTICALLY
everywhere one looks, from social science mono
graphs to political speeches to People magazine, the concept of "civil
society" is in vogue. A flourishing civil society is considered to have
helped bring down the Evil Empire and is held to be a prerequisite for
the success of post-Soviet democratic experiments; a civil society in de
cline is said to threaten democracy in America. Tocqueville is the the
orist of the decade, having noted a century and a half ago that
"Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition are
forever forming associations." Further, he linked such behavior to the
robustness of the nations representative institutions. "Nothing," he
claimed, "more deserves attention than the intellectual and moral asso
ciations in America_In democratic countries the knowledge of how
to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its
progress depends that of all the others."1
Today neo-Tocquevilleans such as Robert Putnam argue that civil
society is crucial to "making democracy work,"2 while authors like
Francis Fukuyama and Benjamin Barber (who differ on everything
else) agree that it plays a key role in driving political, social, and even
economic outcomes.3 This new conventional wisdom, however, is
flawed. It is simply not always true that, as Putnam (for example) puts
it, "Tocqueville was right: Democratic government is strengthened, not
*
The author would like to thank Peter Berkowitz, Nancy Bermeo, David P. Conradt, Manfred
Halpern, Marcus Kreuzer, Andy Markovits, Anna Seleny, Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, Carolyn Warner,
and especially Gideon Rose, for helpful comments and criticisms.
1 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), 513, 517.
2
Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton Univer
sity Press, 1993); see also idem, "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital," fournal of
Democracy 6 (January 1995); idem, "The Prosperous Community," American Prospect, no. 13 (Spring
1993); and idem, "The Strange Disappearance of Civic America," American Prospect, no. 24 (Winter
1996).
3
Fukuyama, Trust: Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York Free Press, 1995); and
Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld How the Planet Is Both Falling Apart and Coming Together?and What This
Means for Democracy (New York: NY Times Books, 1995).
World Politics 49 (April 1997), 401-29
402 WORLD POLITICS
weakened, when it faces a vigorous civil society."4 This essay will show
how a robust civil society actually helped scuttle the twentieth century s
most critical democratic experiment, Weimar Germany.
Associational life flourished in Germany throughout the nineteenth
and early in the twentieth century. Yet in contrast to what neo-Tocque
villean theories would predict, high levels of associationism, absent
strong and responsive national government and political parties, served
to fragment rather than unite German society. It was weak political
institutionalization rather than a weak civil society that was Germany's
main problem during the Wilhelmine and Weimar eras. As Samuel
Huntington noted almost three decades ago, societies with highly active
and mobilized publics and low levels of political institutionalization
often degenerate into instability, disorder, and even violence;5 German
political development provides a classic example of this dynamic in ac
tion. During the interwar period in particular, Germans threw them
selves into their clubs, voluntary associations, and professional organi
zations out of frustration with the failures of the national government
and political parties, thereby helping to undermine the Weimar Repub
lic and facilitate Hitler s rise to power. In addition, Weimar s rich asso
ciational life provided a critical training ground for eventual Nazi
cadres and a base from which the National Socialist German Workers'
Party (NSDAP) could launch its Machtergreifung (siezure of power). Had
German civil society been weaker, the Nazis would never have been
able to capture so many citizens for their cause or eviscerate their op
ponents so swiftly.
A striking implication of this analysis is that a flourishing civil soci
ety does not necessarily bode well for the prospects of liberal democ
racy. For civil society to have the beneficial effects neo-Tocquevilleans
posit, the political context has to be right: absent strong and responsive
political institutions, an increasingly active civil society may serve to
undermine, rather than strengthen, a political regime. Political institu
tionalization, in other words, may be less chic a topic these days than
civil society, but it is logically prior and historically more important. As
Huntington put it, a well-ordered civic polity requires "a recognizable
and stable pattern of institutional authority
. . .
political institutions
[must be] sufficiently strong to provide the basis of a legitimate politi
cal order and working political community." Without such political in
stitutions, societies will lack trust and the ability to define and realize
4 Putnam (fn. 2, Making Democracy Work), 182.
5 Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1968).
COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC 403
their common interests.6 Political scientists need to remember that
Tocqueville himself considered Americans' political associations to be
as important as their nonpolitical ones, and they need to examine more
closely how the two interact in different situations.7
Neo-Tocquevillean Theories
The logic of neo-Tocquevillean theories bears closer examination.
Contemporary scholars, it turns out, are not the first to "rediscover" the
great Frenchman, nor even the first to link group bowling and political
development.8 After World War II several social scientists also claimed
to have found in associational life a key to understanding democracy's
success or failure.
During the 1950s and 1960s social scientists such as William Korn
hauser and Hannah Arendt helped turn the concept of "mass society"
into a powerful theory for explaining the disintegration of democracy
and the rise of totalitarianism in Europe.9 This school believed that
Europe's slide into barbarism was greased by, among other factors, the
collapse of intermediate associations across much of the Continent dur
ing the interwar years; the epigraph to Kornhausers Politics of Mass So
ciety was Tocqueville s warning that "if men are to remain civilized or to
become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in
the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased."10
6
Ibid., 82-83,5-25.
7 Michael W. Foley and Bob Edwards, "The Paradox of Civil Society," Journal of Democracy 1 (July
1996); Larry Diamond, "Rethinking Civil Society: Toward Democratic Consolidation," Journal of
Democracy 5 (July 1994); Theda Skocpol, "The Tocqueville Problem: Civic Engagement in American
Democracy" (Presidential address for the annual meeting of the Social Science History Association,
New Orleans, October 12, 1996); and idem, "Unravelling from Above," American Prospect, no. 25
(March-April 1996). 8 A distinction apparendy belonging to Max Weber; see fn. 23 below.
9 William Kornhauser, The Politics of Mass Society (Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1959); and Hannah
Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973). See also Sig
mund Neumann, Permanent Revolution (New York: Harper, 1942); Karl Mannheim, Man and Society
in an Age of Reconstruction (New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980); Erich Fromm, Escape from
Freedom (New York: Rinehart, 1941); Edward Shils, "The Theory of Mass Society," in Philip Olson,
ed., America as a Mass Society (New York: Free Press, 1963); and E. V. Walter, "'Mass Society': The
Late Stages of an Idea," Social Research 31 (Winter 1964). It should be pointed out that the concept of
mass society has a variety of different interpretations. Apart from the one discussed here, the most well
known usage of the term is associated with Jos? Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses (New York:
W. W. Norton, 1994), and other theories of cultural decay. For a recent discussion of this latter usage,
see Neil Mclnnes, "Ortega and the Myth of the Mass," National Interest (Summer 1996). For general
overviews of the mass society literature, see Patrick Brantlinger, Bread and Circuses: Theories of Mass
Culture as Social Decay (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983); and Salvador Giner, Mass Soci
ety (New York: Academic Press, 1976).
10 On the intellectual history of mass society theories, see Walters (fn. 9), 405; and Sandor Haleb
sky, Mass Society and Political Conflict: Toward a Reconstruction of Theory (New York: Cambridge Uni
versity Press, 1976).
404 WORLD POLITICS
Drawing on Durkheim, and to a lesser degree on Marx, the mass soci
ety theorists argued that industrialization and modernity estranged cit
izens from one another, leaving them rootless and searching for ways of
belonging. Ripped from their traditional moorings, masses were avail
able for mobilization by extremist movements?unless, that is, individ
uals could develop communal bonds through organizational affiliations
and involvement. Without "a multiplicity of independent and often
conflicting forms of association," Kornhauser wrote, "people lack the
resources to restrain their own behavior as well as that of others. Social
atomization engenders strong feelings of alienation and anxiety, and
therefore the disposition to engage in extreme behavior to escape from
these tensions."11
Civil society, according to these theorists, was an antidote to the po
litical viruses that afflicted mass society. Participation in organizations
not only helped bring citizens together, bridging cleavages and foster
ing skills necessary for democratic governance, but it also satisfied their
need to belong to some larger grouping. According to this view, a key
reason for the collapse of the Weimar Republic was its status as a clas
sic mass society, which made it susceptible to the blandishments of to
talitarian demagoguery. Hitler s supporters were drawn primarily from
alienated individuals who lacked a wide range of associational mem
berships and saw in the NSDAP a way of integrating themselves into a
larger community; had German civil society been stronger, the republic
might not have fallen.12
The empirical evidence did not support such a causal sequence. For
this and other reasons (such as the advent of newer and trendier theo
ries), by the late 1960s social scientists had moved on and the concept
of mass society had fallen out of vogue. Beginning in the 1970s, how
ever, a third wave of democratization swept across the globe,13 and
scholars sought to identify its causes, as well as those factors that deter
mined democratic success more generally. Several were drawn to the
sameTocquevillean insights that had attracted Kornhauser, Arendt and
others a few decades earlier. Putnam's Making Democracy Work was par
11 Kornhauser (fn. 9), 32; see also Arendt (fn. 9), 315-23. For a general review of the literature on
this point, see Joseph R. Gusfield, "Mass Society and Extremist Politics," American Sociological Review
17 (1982).
12 On mass society theories and the Weimar Republic, see the excellent essay by Bernt Hagtvet,
"The Theory of Mass Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic: A Re-examination,w in Stein
Larsen, Bernt Hagtvet, and Jan Petter Myklebust, eds., Who Were the Fascists? Social Roots of European
Fascism (Bergen, Norway: Universitetsforlaget, 1980).
13 Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1991).
COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC 405
ticularly important for the revival of interest in the role played by pri
vate, voluntary associations in sustaining vibrant democracy.14
Like the mass society theorists, recent neo-Tocquevillean analyses
stress the way individuals relate to each other and their society when
explaining why democratic regimes function well. To measure and ex
plain the success of democracy, Putnam, for example, uses the concepts
of civic community and social capital; for both of these the key indica
tor is what might be termed associationism, the propensity of individ
uals to form and join a wide range of organizations spontaneously.
According to Putnam:
Civil associations contribute to the effectiveness and stability of democratic
government.
. . both because of their "internal" effects on individual members
and because of their "extemaT effects on the wider polity. Internally, associations
instill in their members habits of cooperation, solidarity, and public spiritedness.
. ..
Externally
... a dense network of secondary associations . .. [enhances the
articulation and aggregation of interests and] contributes to effective social col
laboration.15
Associations "broaden the participants' sense of self, developing the T
into the 'We.'" "Networks of civic engagement," meanwhile, "foster
sturdy norms of generalized reciprocity and encourage the emergence
of social trust," which help resolve dilemmas of collective action and
smooth economic and political negotiations.16 For Putnam almost any
type of secondary association will serve these functions, as long as it is
not organized around vertical bonds of authority and dependency. As
he puts it: "The manifest purpose of the association [need not] be po
litical."17 "Taking part in a choral society or a bird-watching club can
teach self-discipline and an appreciation for the joys of successful col
laboration," he writes, thus contributing to the efficiency of regional
government in Italy; the decline of league bowling, similarly, signals the
decay of democracy in the United States.18 In sum, for Putnam and oth
14 Recent neo-Tocquevillean analyses are somewhat different in emphasis, however, from their ear
lier mass society counterparts. In particular, they focus?as Putnam's title states?on what "makes
democracy work," that is, what makes some democracies healthier than others; there is no explicit dis
cussion of the possibility of a new descent into totalitarianism. For Putnam and his counterparts, in
other words, the dependent variable is the strength or effectiveness (it is unclear which) of democratic
institutions, while for mass society theorists the dependent variable was the slide into totalitarianism.
15 Putnam (fn. 2, Making Democracy Work), 89-90. On social capital, see also James Coleman, Foun
dations of Social Theory (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1990).
16 Putnam (fn. 2,1995), 67. See also idem, "Tuning In, Tuning Out: The Strange Disappearance of
Social Capital in America," PS (December 1995); and idem (fn. 2, "The Prosperous Community"). 17 Putnam (fn. 2, Making Democracy Work), 90. For a separate argument on the consequences of
organizations' internal structures, see Harry Eckstein, "A Theory of Stable Democracy," in Eckstein,
Division and Cohesion in Democracy: A Study of Norway (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966).
18 Putnam (fn. 2, Making Democracy Work), 90; idem (fn. 2,1995), 70.
406 WORLD POLITICS
ers in the new generation of neo-Tocquevillean analysts, associationism is
both an indicator of healthy democracy and a prerequisite for it.
Testing the Theory
This neo-Tocquevillean thesis has attracted much attention, especially
in its application to the contemporary American scene. Nevertheless,
there has actually been little in-depth analysis by political scientists of
the "internal" and "external" effects associations actually have on indi
vidual members and the wider polity.19 This essay therefore sets out to
test the claims of the theory?specifically, by probing the effects of as
sociationism on the political life of one country (Germany) over the
course of almost a century (from the mid-1800s to the Nazi takeover in
1933). The investigation is facilitated by the work of historians of Ger
many, who, largely unnoticed by political scientists, have fought their
own battles over some related issues: those debates provide extensive
evidence of the vigor of German civil society, along with documenta
tion of its causes and effects.
One might counter, of course, that a theory based on only a single
case is inherently problematic and that, moreover,20 German political
development during this period was certainly influenced by a
range of
factors extending beyond civil society, many of them highly particular.
Nevertheless, there are several reasons why an inability of neo
Tocquevillean analysis to account for the central features of this case
should be significant and troubling. First, scholars have long viewed
the Weimar Republic and its collapse as a crucial theoretical testing
ground. The disintegration of democracy in interwar Germany is so
central to our understanding of comparative politics and so critical for
the history of modern Europe that we should at the least be wary of any
theory of political development that cannot explain it. Second, the
19
Putnam, for example, cites some development and economic studies to buttress his points, but
much less empirical research has been carried out on associationism s political effects, whether on citi
zens or societies. The old mass society literature did, however, spur sociologists to investigate some of
these questions. See, for example, Nicholas Babchuk and John N. Edwards, "Voluntary Associations
and the Integration Hypothesis," Sociological Inquiry 35 (Spring 1965); David E. W. Holden, "Associ
ations as Reference Groups: An Approach to the Problem," Rural Sociology 30 (1965); Maurice Pinard,
"Mass Society and Political Movements: A New Formulation," American Journal ofSociology (July
1968); and also Sidney Verba, "Organizational Membership and Democratic Consensus," Journal of
Politics 27 (August 1965). Some political scientists are beginning to investigate these questions. See
Dietland Stolle and Thomas Rochon, "Associations and the Creation of Social Capital," in Kenneth
Newton et al., eds., "Social Capital in Western Europe" (Manuscript, 1996); and idem, "Social Capi
tal, Associations and American Exceptionalism," in American Behavioral Scientist (forthcoming). 20
Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in
Qualitative Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 209-12.
COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC 407
postwar neo-Tocquevilleans highlighted precisely this case as an exam
ple of the impact of associationism (or lack thereof) on political out
comes. And third, while the United States has been considered the
homeland of associationism ever since Tocqueville, comparable honors
could also be bestowed on Germany, making it resemble a most likely
case for determining the reliability of the neo-Tocquevillean theory.
The extraordinarily vigorous associational life of Wilhelmine and
Weimar Germany was frequently commented on, so much so in fact
that contemporaries spoke of the Vereinsmeierei (roughly, associational
fetishism or mania) that beset German society and joked that whenever
three or more Germans gathered, they were likely to draw up by-laws
and found an association.21 The German passion for forming organiza
tions was so characteristic that it became the butt of several well-known
satires, including Kurt Tucholskys classic poem "Das Mitglied" (The
Member).22 Max Weber, Germany's most perceptive analyst during this
period, took note of his countrymen's predilection for voluntarily join
ing together in groups; recognizing the significance of this phenome
non for political development, he urged his colleagues to study German
organizational life in all of its manifestations, "starting with the bowling
club [!]... and continuing to the political party or the religious, artis
tic or literary sect." Yet Weber also observed that German association
ism, unlike its American or British counterparts, did not lead directly to
responsible citizenship, much less to liberal or democratic values. "The
quantitative spread of organizational life," he argued, "does not always
go hand in hand with its qualitative significance." He explicitly noted
that participation in, say, a choral society did not necessarily promote
true civic virtue: "A man who is accustomed to use his larynx in voicing
powerful sentiments on a daily basis without, however, finding any
con
nection to his actions," he said of singing group members, "that is a
man who ...
easily becomes a good citizen in the passive sense of the
word."23
21
James J. Sheehan, German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Hu
manities Press, 1995), and Thomas Nipperdey, "Verein als soziale Struktur in Deutschland im sp?ten
18. und fr?hen 19. Jahrhundert: Eine Fallstudie zur Modernisierung," in Nipperdey, Gesellschaft, Kul
tur, Theorie: Gesammelte Aufs?tze zur neueren Geschichte (G?ttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1976).
22 Kurt Tucholsky, "Das Mitglied," in Mary Gerold-Tucholsky, ed., Zwischen Gestern und Morgen:
Eine Auswahl aus seinen Schriften und Gedichten (Hamburg: Taschenbuch, 1952), 76.
23 Max Weber, "Gesch?ftsbericht und Diskussionsreden auf den deutschen soziologischen Tagun
gen," in Weber, Gesammelte Aufs?tze zur Soziologie und Sozialpolitik (T?bingen: J. C B. Mohr, 1924),
442, quoted in Rudy Koshar, Social Life, Local Politics, and Nazism: Marburg, 1880-1935 (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1986), 4, emphasis added. See also Margaret Levi, "Social and
Unsocial Capital: A Review Essay of Robert Putnam's Making Democracy Work,n Politics and Society 24
(March 1996).
408 WORLD POLITICS
This essay
now proceeds to explore the internal and external effects
of German associationism, focusing on the Protestant middle classes in
particular because of the critical role they played in the disintegration of
the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazis.24 The results show that
the postwar neo-Tocquevilleans were wrong in their assertion that an
absence of civil society paved the way for the collapse of democracy and
the rise of totalitarianism in Germany. I find, to the contrary, that par
ticipation in organizations of civil society didlink individuals together
and help mobilize them for political participation (just as current neo
Tocquevillean scholars claim), but in the German case this served not
to strengthen democracy but to weaken it. And finally, I show that the
NSDAP rose to power, not by attracting alienated, apolitical Germans,
but rather by recruiting highly activist individuals and then exploiting
their skills and associational affiliations to expand the party's appeal and
consolidate its position as the largest political force in Germany. The
essay concludes by probing the broader implications of the German
case for theories of political development.
Civil Society in Bismarckian and
wllhelmine germany
German associational life grew rapidly during the late eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. Spurred by changes in the legal code, the break
down of preindustrial corporate traditions, and growing social wealth
and diversification, an increasingly dense network of private voluntary
associations spread throughout the country. This trend was pronounced
enough for many to comment that Germany was in the grips of an "as
sociational passion" on the eve of the 1848 revolutions. Voluntary asso
ciations were active in public life, in areas ranging from education to
land preservation policy; in particular, they helped a growing and self
assertive bourgeoisie pursue its social and economic interests. Many
historians, therefore, have interpreted German associational life from
the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century as a "symptom of
24 For a review of the literature on the middle classes and fascism, see Bernt Hagtvet and Reinhard
K?hl, "Contemporary Approaches to Fascism: A Survey of Paradigms," and Reinhard K?hl, "Precon
ditions for the Rise and Victory of Fascism in Germany," both in Larsen, Hagtvet, and Myklebust (fn.
12). See also Hans Lebovics, Social Conservatism and the Middle Classes in Germany, 1914-1933
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969); Hans Speier, German White Collar Workers and the Rise
of Hitler (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986); and J?rgen Kocka, Die Angestellten in der deutschen
Geschichte, 1850-1980 (G?ttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1981). For reasons detailed in the text
and notes below, observations about bourgeois Protestant associationism do not necessarily apply to
its labor or Catholic counterparts, among others.
COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC 409
the rise of bourgeois society and ... a factor serving to accelerate" its
development.25
The next spurt of German associational growth began in the 1870s.
One contributing factor was the constitution adopted by the new Ger
man Reich in 1871: the granting of universal suffrage encouraged a
wide variety of groups to form organizations in order to give themselves
a voice in the political sphere. More importantly, just as the institu
tional structure of the Reich was prompting certain kinds of organiza
tional activity, the prolonged economic downturn that began in the late
1870s highlighted the vulnerability of different groups and increased
demands for state aid. During the following two decades almost all sec
tors of German society engaged in a frenzy of associational activity,
with heavy industry, small business, the Mittelstandy and white-collar
groups all forming their own organizations.26 The fight over protec
tionism was certainly a key reason for the emergence of new associa
tions, but the Great Depression, as contemporaries referred to it, did
more than merely highlight the divergent interests of different socio
economic groups. It led many to recognize that Germany was at a his
torical turning point, poised between a traditional agricultural existence
and industrialized modernity. The tension between these two visions
stimulated the formation of a wide variety of organizations, many of
which (such as patriotic societies, sports and reading clubs, and neigh
borhood associations) were designed to foster certain values and
lifestyles, rather than directly engage the political process.
In practice, the political system set up in 1871 only widened the
existing cleavages within German society, since political parties were
25
Nipperdey (fn. 21), 182; see also David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley, The Peculiarities of German
History: Bourgeois Politics and Society in Nineteenth-Century Germany (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1992), 194ff.; David Blackbourn, "The German Bourgeoisie: An Introduction," in David Black
bourn and Richard J. Evans, eds., The German Bourgeoisie (London: Roudedge, 1993); J?rgen Kocka,
"The European Pattern and the German Case," in J?rgen Kocka and Allan Mitchell, eds., Bourgeois
Society in Nineteenth Century Europe (Oxford: Berg, 1993); Karl-Erich Born, "Der soziale und
wirtschaftliche Strukturwandels Deutschlands am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts," in Hans-Ulrich
Wehler, Moderne deutsche Sozialgeschichte (Cologne: Kiepenheuer und Witsch, 1966); and Vereinswesen
und b?rgerliche Gesellscaft in Deutschland, special issue of Historische Zeitschrift, ed. Otto Dann (Mu
nich: R. Oldenburg Verlag, 1984).
26 Hans-Ulrich Wehler, "Der Aufstieg des Organisierten Kapitalismus und Interventionsstaates in
Deutschland," in Heinrich August Winkler, ed., Organisierter Kapitalismus: Voraussetzungen und An
fange (G?ttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1974); Heinrich August Winkler, Mittelstand,
Demokratie und Nationalsozialismus: Die politische Entwicklung von Handwerk und Kleinhandel in der
Weimarer Republik (Cologne: Kiepenheuer und Witsch, 1972), 47ff.; Dirk Stegmann, Die Erben Bis
marcks: Parteien und Verb?nde in der Sp?tphase des Wilhelminischen Deutschlands (Cologne: Kiepenheuer
und Witsch, 1970); David Blackbourn, "Between Resignation and Volatility: The German Petite
Bourgeoisie in the Nineteenth Century," in Geoffrey Crossick and Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, eds., Shop
keepers and Artisans in Nineteenth Century Europe (London: Methuen, 1984); and J?rgen Kocka, Facing
Total War: German Society, 1914-1918 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984).
410 WORLD POLITICS
organized around discrete, particularistic social groups and since na
tional political structures were not strong or responsive enough to over
come social divisions. Under these conditions, associational activity
occurred largely within each sector of society and helped lock in the
fragmentation of the Reich.
These developments continued apace
as the power bloc that had
dominated the Reich since 1871 fell apart and German politics entered
a new phase. Bismarck had been able to hold together a majority coali
tion based on antisocialism and a protectionist logroll serving the
interests of "iron and rye." By the early 1890s, however, the Iron Chan
cellor had been dismissed and mounting contradictions within the
dominant classes (industry versus agriculture, protectionists versus free
traders, exporters versus producers for the domestic market) threatened
to rip apart the ruling coalition. The lower and middle classes, more
over, were becoming increasingly mobilized: electoral participation in
creased from 50.7 percent of those eligible in 1871 to 77.2 percent in
1887, and participation in Reichstag elections averaged more than 75
percent from then until the outbreak of war in 1914.27 This posed a
challenge to traditional political structures in general and to existing
political parties such as the National Liberals in particular.28
Liberals had been the dominant force in Germany in the years after
unification, but their political organizations, like those of other estab
lished groups, found it difficult to adapt to the changing environment
in which they had to operate. Until the 1890s most parties (with the
exception of the Social Democratic Party of Germany [the SPD] and to
a lesser extent the Catholic Zentrum) were informal collections of
notables {Honoratioren). These parties had little in the way of formal
organization, especially at the grassroots level, and were really active
only at election time; their institutional structures were simply not up to
the task of performing well in the hurly-burly that was now German
politics.29 The failure of the National Liberals in particular to adjust to
the new conditions left many of their potential constituents, particu
larly in rural areas and among sections of the middle class, searching for
other ways of expressing their social and political aspirations. This
27
Stanley Suval, Electoral Politics in Wilhelmine Germany (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1985), esp. chap. 2.
28 The following section draws heavily on Geoff Eley, Reshaping the German Right: Radical Nation
alism and Political Change after Bismarck (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994). See also
Blackbourn and Eley (fn. 25), 144-55; and Koshar (fn. 23), esp. 46ff.
29 Liberals did make some attempts to respond to the challenges of popular mobilization and the
political organization of workers by the SPD, but these proved unsuccessful. See Eley (fn. 28), 2; and
Sheehan (fn. 21), pt. 6.
COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC 411
helped spur yet another burst of associational growth in Germany, as
organizations designed to appeal to a wide variety of disaffected groups
sprang up
across the country.
By the end of the nineteenth century, therefore, a distinct and trou
bling pattern had already begun to appear in Germany?the growth of
civic associations during periods of strain. When national political in
stitutions and structures proved either unwilling or unable to address
their citizens' needs, many Germans turned away from them and found
succor and support in the institutions of civil society instead. Because
weak national political institutions reinforced social cleavages instead
of helping to narrow them, moreover, associational activity generally
occurred within rather than across
group lines. Under these circum
stances, associational life served not to integrate citizens into the polit
ical system, as neo-Tocquevilleans would predict, but rather to divide
them further or mobilize them outside?and often against?the exist
ing political regime.
As the liberal parties stumbled, their natural constituencies were left
unorganized, and many of their natural activists found themselves
adrift and in search of alternative ways of becoming involved in public
affairs. As one observer has noted, "Members of the middle strata may
have looked with disdain on parties and elections, but they participated
with extraordinary vigor in a dense network of other institutions
through which they sought political influence, social identity and eco
nomic advantage."30 Many of these activists played critical roles in
forming and staffing the nationalist associations that became so
popu
lar in Germany in the decades before World War I.
The nationalist associations, as Geoff Eley argues, are best viewed as
"symptoms and agencies of change. They were formed as distinctive or
ganizations within a space which the difficulties and obsolescence of an
older mode of dominant-class politics had opened up."31 They targeted
a broad swath of German society and attempted to provide new chan
nels for participation in public life. Many of these groups
were not di
rectly "political" organizations, however. Their primary goal was not to
participate in the Wilhelmine political system, and indeed, they often
defined themselves in direct repudiation of existing political institutions
and structures, arguing that they were Volksvereine (people's associa
tions) devoted to cross-class solidarity and national unity. Another dis
tinctive characteristic of these groups
was that, in contrast to old-style
^Sheehan?fn^l)^.
31Eley(fn.28),xix.
412 WORLD POLITICS
Honoratioren organizations and parties, they placed the idea of popular
legitimacy front and center. The Navy League and Pan-German
League, for example, broke new ground in terms of mass participation
and activism. Both emphasized membership involvement in discussion
and decision making, and both were more willing than the Honora
tioren organizations to offer "particularly deserving" individuals the op
portunity to rise to leadership positions. In many ways, the nationalist
organizations conform to the type of civil society institutions neo
Tocquevillean scholars hold up
as exemplary: "horizontally" organized,
stressing equality and community, devoted to overcoming narrow
par
ticularistic interests.
Even though increasing numbers of Germans turned away from na
tional politics during the Wilhelmine era, this hardly meant that they
were becoming apolitical. Quite the contrary, in fact: the population
was increasingly mobilized and politically active. Some observers failed
to note the change, however, because the popular energies of the
Protestant middle classes in particular were channeled into arenas out
side of national political structures and organizations.32 Some took
refuge in local government, for example, an arena in which liberals and
the middle classes more generally felt they could play an important
role. A National Liberal parliamentarian and former mayor of Berlin
named Arthur Hobrecht captured this feeling in his observation that
"the citizenship which is derived from common endeavors in the organs
of local government becomes increasingly valuable for us the more the
conflict of material interests fragments contemporary society as a
whole."33 In general, though, the discontented middle and rural strata
of the German population turned to the organizations of civil society.
Some of these were drawn into political life and developed ties with ex
isting political parties; most however viewed themselves as a sanctuary
from traditional politics. The "various organizations to which members
of the Protestant middle strata belonged, therefore, helped to deepen
32 Workers and Catholics, by contrast, were efficiendy organized through and by the SPD and the
Zentrum, respectively. In contrast to the liberal parties, both the SPD and the Zentrum were able to
create their own affiliated associations in most areas of social life. One consequence of this, however,
was the further fragmentation of German society, as the associations affiliated with these parties were
so encompassing as to create "subcultures" that hived off their members from other groups. Referring
to the SPD in particular, Dieter Groh has termed such behavior "negative integration"; see Groh, Neg
ativeintegration und revolution?rer Attentismus (Frankfurt: Verlag Ullstein GmbH, 1973). The litera
ture on the socialist and Catholic subcultures in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany is immense; good
places to begin are the bibliographies in Eberhard Kolb, The Weimar Republic (London: Unwin
Hyman, 1988); and Hans Mommsen, The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 1996).
33 Sheehan (fn. 21), 237.
COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC 413
the divisions within their ranks and furthered the debilitating fragmen
tation of liberalism's social base."34
On the eve of World War I, practically all Germans were discon
tented with national political life. The then chancellor Bethmann
Hollweg would later write of this period:
While the storm-clouds gathered ever more heavily on the world horizon, an al
most inexplicable pressure weighed on the political life of Germany. . . .
[M]alaise and dejection imparted a depressing tone to political party activity,
which lacked any progressive impulse. The word Reichsverdrossenheit [dissatis
faction with the imperial state] rose up out of the darkness.35
With the national government unresponsive to calls for economic and
political change and traditional political parties unable to adjust to the
era of mass politics, civil society offered an outlet for the demands and
aspirations of an increasingly restive German populace. This growth of
associations during these years did not signal a growth in liberal values
or democratic political structures; instead, it reflected and furthered the
fragmentation of German political life and the delegitimization of na
tional political institutions. State-society relations thus took an omi
nous turn during the Wilhelmine era, with consequences that would
plague the Weimar Republic in later decades.
Civil Society in the Weimar Republic
The democratization of Germany at the end of World War I opened
up a new phase in the country's associational life. Hitherto unrepre
sented and unorganized groups began to form their own organizations,
and the Weimar years witnessed feverish associational activity at prac
tically every level. The number of local voluntary associations grew
throughout the 1920s, reaching extremely high levels as measured by
both historical and comparative standards.36 National associations also
34
Ibid., 237-38. See also Thomas Nipperdey, "Interessenverb?nde und Parteien in Deutschland vor
dem Ersten Weltkrieg," in Wehler (fn. 25).
35 Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, Betrachtungen zum Weltkrieg, vol. 1 (Berlin: R. Hubbing,
1919-21).
36 William Sheridan Allen, The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town,
1922-1945 (New York: 1984); Peter Fritzsche, Rehearsals for Fascism: Populism and Political Mobiliza
tion in Weimar Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); and Koshar (fn. 23). For cross-na
tional comparisions of the impact of civil society activity on democracy, see Nancy Bermeo, "Getting
Mad or Going Mad? Citizens, Scarcity, and the Breakdown of Democracy in Interwar Europe" (Paper
presented at the annual meeting of the APSA, San Francisco, 1996); Nancy Bermeo and Phil Nord,
eds., "Civil Society before Democracy" (Manuscript, Princeton University, 1996); and Dietrich
Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democ
racy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), esp. 113-14.
414 WORLD POLITICS
grew rapidly, and participation in professional organizations reached
very high levels among the middle classes in particular.37 Yet, as in Wil
helmine Germany, the rise in associationism signaled, not the spread of
liberal values or the development of healthy democratic political insti
tutions, but rather the reverse. The parties of the bourgeois middle had
reconstituted themselves after the war and proclaimed their commit
ment to becoming true "people's parties" and reintegrating German so
ciety. But these parties found it increasingly difficult to hold on to their
constituencies in the face of growing economic, political, and social
conflicts during the 1920s. Once again this created a vicious circle. The
weakness of the bourgeois parties and national political structures drove
many citizens looking for succor and support into civil society organi
zations, which were organized primarily along group lines rather than
across them. The vigor of associational life, in turn, served to further
undermine and delegitimize the republic's political structures. The re
sult was a highly organized but vertically fragmented and discontented
society that proved to be fertile ground for the Nazi's rise and eventual
Machtergreifung.
The German revolution raised hope among the middle classes that
the "divisive" and "unrepresentative" parties of the Wilhelmine era
would be replaced by a single Volkspartei capable of unifying the nation's
patriotic bourgeoisie and confronting the menace of social democracy.
Popular support for such a course was strong, but institutional jeal
ousies and elite divisions prevented its adoption. Instead, Weimar's
early years saw, along with a strengthened conservative movement, the
formation of two main liberal parties (the German Democratic Party
[DDP] and the German People's Party [dvp]) and of several smaller re
gional parties, as well as reconsolidation of the Catholic Zentrum. The
nonsocialist portion of Germany's political spectrum was thus perma
nently divided among a large (and eventually increasing) number of
parties, which soon began to squabble among themselves.38
The failure of the bourgeois parties to form a single movement or
even to agree on important issues of the day did not dull the desire of
the German middle classes for some form of antisocialist unity and a
37 Kocka (fh. 26); idem, "The First World War and the 'Mittelstand': German Artisans and White
Collar Workers," Journalof Contemporary History 8 (January 1973); Gerald Feldman, "German Inter
est Group Alliances in War and Inflation, 1914-1923," in Suzanne Berger, ed., Organizing Interests in
Western Europe: Pluralism, Corporatism, and the Transformation of Politics (New York: Cambridge Uni
versity Press, 1981); Rudy Koshar, "Cult of Associations? The Lower Middle Classes in Weimar Ger
many," in Rudy Koshar, ed., Splintered Classes (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1990); and Hagtvet (fn.
12).
38
Larry Eugene Jones, German Liberalism and the Dissolution of the Weimar Party System, 1918-1933
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988).
COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC 415
greater role in the political, social, and economic life of the republic.
Throughout the 1920s "burghers from all social stations [continued] to
demand more effective representation and a more direct political voice"
and refused to abandon the ideals of bourgeois unity and community.39
In this context, bourgeois social life took on a renewed vigor and sense
of urgency. "More voluntary associations attracted more members and
did so in a more active fashion than ever before. Just as retailers, bakers,
and commercial employees had organized into economic interest
groups,
so also did gymnasts, folklorists, singers and churchgoers gather
into clubs, rally new members, schedule meetings, and plan a full as
sortment of conferences and tournaments."40
At first, this activity occurred in conjunction with, or at least parallel
to, traditional party politics, since the newly reconstituted liberal par
ties tried to improve their grassroots organization, cultivate broader
ties, and even achieve the status of a "people's party." By the middle of
the decade, however, the attempt to reshape the relationship between
national political life and civil society had failed, with the Great Infla
tion of 1922-23 being the turning point. Economic historians may dis
agree
over which socioeconomic groups suffered the most, but there is
little doubt that the middle classes suffered gready, even if the pain was
more psychological than material.41 This was followed by the crushing
stabilization of 1923-24, which hit white-collar workers and the mid
dle classes particularly hard. "By the end of the 1920s the economic po
sition of the independent middle class had deteriorated to such an
extent that it was no longer possible to distinguish it from the prole
tariat on the basis of income as a criterion."42
The economic dislocations made all groups more jealous of their so
cioeconomic interests and more strident and narrow in their political
demands, while making the middle classes increasingly resentful of
both workers and big business, who were seen as having a dispropor
tionate influence over the national government and political parties. By
fighting for measures such as the eight-hour day and better wages, the
39 Fritzsche (fn. 36), chap. 2, quote at 21. On the middle classes and the revolution, see also Arthur
Rosenberg, A History of the German Republic (London: Methuen, 1936); Winkler and Kocka (fn. 26).
40 Fritzsche (fn. 36), 76.
41 The most comprehensive treatment of almost all aspects of the Great Inflation and its aftermath
is Gerald Feldman, The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics and Society in the German Inflation,
1919-1924 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). On the psychological aspects in particular, see
J?rgen von Kr?dener, "Die Entstehung des Inflationstraumas: Zur Sozialpsychologie der deutschen
Hyperinflation 1922-23," in Gerald Feldman et al., eds. Consequences of Inflation (Berlin: Colloquium,
1989).
42
Larry Eugene Jones,
"
'The Dying Middle': Weimar Germany and the Fragmentation of Bour
geois Politics," Central European History 5 (1972), 25; see also Kocka (fn. 37).
416 WORLD POLITICS
SPD was considered to be serving the class interests of its core con
stituency above all else; the contrast between real (if limited) SPD suc
cess and the political impotence of the middle classes generated further
paroxysms of antisocialist fervor.43
Middle-class groups also became increasingly frustrated with the un
willingness or inability of liberal and conservative parties such as the
DDP, DVT and DNVP (German National People's Party) to recognize
their needs and act as their representatives on the national political
stage. These parties came to be seen as the tools of big capitalists and
financial interests, and the ideal of the people's party faded as the tradi
tional parties of the middle and right seemed to be run by and for an
unrepresentative elite.44 Local-level organizations and associational af
filiations, furthermore, were allowed to languish or break away. Not
surprisingly, the vote share of the traditional bourgeois parties dropped
precipitously throughout the 1920s. In 1924 the DVP and DDP together
managed to attract only about 15 percent, and splinter parties were
forming to capture their increasingly alienated and fragmented con
stituency. By 1928?the high point of economic stabilization and sup
posedly the "golden age" of the Weimar Republic?the splinter parties
were outpolling the traditional parties of the middle.45
As before, middle-class tension and frustration sparked a growth in
associational activity. During the 1920s middle-class Germans threw
themselves into their clubs, community groups, and patriotic organiza
tions while increasingly abandoning the seemingly ineffectual liberal
parties. By the middle of the decade both the style and the substance
of bourgeois social life in Germany had begun to change:
43 The SPD itself did much to preserve its image as a worker's rather than a people's party. See
Richard Hunt, German Social Democracy, 1918-1933 (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1964); Donna
Harsch, German Social Democracy and the Rise of Fascism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1993); Heinrich August Winkler, "Klassenbewegung oder Vblkspartei?" Geschichte und
Gesellschaft, vol. 8, 1972; Hans Kremdahl, "K?nnte die SPD der Weimarer Republik eine vblkspartei
werden?" in Horst Heimann and Thomas Meyer, eds., Reformsozialismus und Sozialdemokratie (Berlin:
Verlag J.H.W. Dietz, 1982); and Sheri Berman, Ideas and Politics: Social Democracy in Interwar Europe
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, forthcoming). 44 The 1920s even saw something of a resuscitation of the old Bismarckian coalition of iron and rye,
which like its predecessor was able to secure a wide range of subsidies and tariffs, the most infamous of
which was the Osthilfe. See Dietmar Petzina, "Elemente der Wirtschaftspolitik in der Sp?tphase der
Weimarer Republik, Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte 21 (1973); and Gerald Feldman, Vom Weltkrieg
zur Weltwirtschaftskrise (G?ttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1984).
45
Jones (fnn. 38, 42); idem, "In the Shadow of Stabilization: German Liberalism and the Legiti
macy of the Weimar Party System," and Thomas Childers, "Interest and Ideology: Anti-System Par
ties in the Era of Stabilization," both in Gerald Feldman, ed., Die Nachwirkungen der Inflation auf die
deutsche Geschichte (Munich: R. Oldenburg Verlag, 1985). See also Hans Mommsen, "The Decline of
the B?rgertum in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Germany," in Mommsen, From
Weimar to Auschwitz (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).
COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC 417
Spurred by growing political tensions, social organizations helped to lead an un
precedented surge of apoliticism that escaped the control of bourgeois elites....
[M]any spokesman for Weimar apoliticism argued that social organizations
would do more than cushion political strife?they would bind together a moral
istic, antisocialist, "folk community" of disparate classes and strata. . . . [T]he
middle and late 1920s ... thus saw not only an acceleration of tensions that had
originated in the Empire but also an unprecedented rupture between the social
and the political authority of the local bourgeoisie.46
What occurred in Germany was no less than an inversion of neo-Toc
quevillean theory; not only did participation in civil society organiza
tions fail to contribute to republican virtue, but it in fact subverted it.
"[A]s the middle class became more and more disenchanted with and
hostile towards the republic, their energies ceased to be channeled into
proto political organizations and party political organizations of the
center and right which the old elites had traditionally headed. Instead
the radicalized troops of the middle class deserted these organizations
and their leaders."47
Private associations were correctly seen to offer benefits that the tra
ditional bourgeois parties were failing to provide, such as a sense of
community and unity. While the DDP, DVP and DNVP had trouble shak
ing their image as Honoratioren parties dominated by business and agri
cultural elites, many private bourgeois associations brought together a
relatively wide range of individuals and created a sense of purpose that
transcended socioeconomic divisions.
For many provincial burghers, associational life facilitated social contacts and
friendships and muffled party differences. Repeatedly, the club was lauded for
reconciling burghers. As an officer of a bourgeois choir in Hesse's Marburg
commented, in "a time of both internal and external antagonisms, it is the Ger
man
song that binds together members of the folk..." In a similar fashion, the
summer festival of Celle's riflery club offered the mayor a happy example of
unity between "burgher and civil servant."48
A fine example of these trends can be found in the World War I vet
erans organization known as the Stahlhelm. One of the largest and
most politically powerful organizations during the 1920s, the
Stahlhelm reached a peak membership of between five and six hundred
thousand and played an important role in Hindenburg's election to the
presidency. It had a relatively diverse membership, attracting support
46 Koshar (fn. 23), 166. See also Gerald Feldman, "German Interest Group Alliances in War and
Inflation, 1914-1923," in Berger (fn. 37); and Charles Maier, "Strukturen kapitalistischer Stabilit?t in
den zwanziger Jahren," in Winkler (fn. 26).
47 Dedev J. K. Peukert, The Weimar Republic (New York: Hill and Wang, 1989), 230.
48 Fritzsche (fn. 36), 76.
418 WORLD POLITICS
from different socioeconomic groups, regions, and both the liberal and
conservative camps. In addition, the organization encouraged a high
level of membership participation, had a relatively democratic internal
structure, and maintained contacts with other clubs and associations. In
the early years of the republic the Stahlhelm developed ties with par
ties of the center-right and right, viewing such links as the best way to
ensure the success of its nationalist, antisocialist agenda. By the mid
19205, however, the organization was becoming disillusioned with tra
ditional party politics and began to emphasize a nationalist and
populist communitarianism. Many burghers began to transfer their pri
mary political loyalties to it from center-right and right political par
ties, helping to eradicate these parties' authority at the grassroots level.
The nature of the organization is captured well by a 1927 manifesto,
which declared:
Stahlhelm does not want to form or become a new party. But it does want... for
its members to acquire the possibility and the right of decisive participation in
all positions of public service and popular representation, from the local com
munity to the national government.... Stahlhelm opposes all efforts and con
ceptions that seek to divide the German people. It esteems highly the experience
of old comradeship at the front and unity and wants to develop out of it a na
tional sense of unity. . . . [I]n full recognition of the value and the vital unity
among enterprise, entrepreneur, and fellow workers, Stahlhelm will not hinder
an honest and decisive settlement of conflicts of interest. It demands, however,
the maintenance and preservation of the transcending interest of the German
community.49
After 1928 the Stahlhelm began to lose membership and influence,
in part because it allied itself more closely with the DNVP, but mostly
because it was unable to adjust to the increasing mobilization and rad
icalism that was sweeping Germany during the late 1920s and early
1930s. The organization remained tied to the memory of the wartime
generation and was not very successful in attracting those who came of
age later. It had trouble operating amid the accelerating disintegration
of traditional political structures and did not manage to cultivate ties to
49
Among the other goals of this neo-Tocquevillean paragon, it is interesting to note, were rearma
ment, the extirpation of degeneration and foreign influence, and the acquisition of Lebensraum.
"Berlin Stahlhelm Manifesto," first published in Stahlhelm und Staat (May 8,1927), reprinted in Anton
Kaes, Martin Jay, and Edward Dimendberg, eds., The Weimar Republic Sourcebook (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1994), 339-40. On the development of the Stahlhelm, see Fritzsche (fn. 36),
chap. 9; Volker Berghahn, Der Stahlhelm: Bund der Frontsoldaten, 1918-1935 (D?sseldorf: Droste,
1966); and J. M. Diehl, Paramilitary Politics in Weimar Germany (Bloomington: University of Indiana
Press, 1977).
COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC 419
either the new bourgeois splinter parties or their constituencies. Ironi
cally, therefore, while the Stahlhelm had played a crucial role in infus
ing nationalist populism into the German political system and further
weakening the traditional bourgeois parties, it was the Nazis and not
the Stahlhelm who would be the ultimate beneficiaries of these trends.
As the Great Depression spread throughout Europe, Germany found
itself with weak political institutions and a fragmented but highly or
ganized civil society; this, not the atomized anomie of a
pure "mass so
ciety," would prove
to be the ideal setting for the rapid rise to power of
a skilled totalitarian movement.
The Rise of the nsdap
During the 1920s the Nazi Party (the NSDAP) was stagnant?low on
funds and unable to fill meeting halls or amass a significant share of the
vote. By 1926 the situation had become so dire that the party began to
move toward a major shift in strategy. Where previously the NSDAP had
focused primarily on urban areas and working-class voters, it now re
oriented its appeal toward the middle classes, nonvoters, and farmers,
while proclaiming itself above the group divisions that plagued the
country. Thus, as late as the 1928 elections the Nazis polled only 2.6
percent, whereas four years later they were the largest party in the
Weimar Republic.50 What enabled the Nazis to make such spectacular
inroads into the German electorate? The depression, the weak response
to it from mainstream parties, Hitler's charisma and political savvy?all
these clearly played a role. A significant part of the answer, however,
lies with contemporary German civil society.
As voters abandoned traditional bourgeois parties during the 1920s
and then grappled with the ravages of the depression, a political vac
uum opened up in German politics, a vacuum that offered the Nazis a
golden opportunity to assemble an unprecedented coalition. To this
end, the NSDAP exploited its increasingly strong position in Weimar's
50 A good summary of the history of the Nazi party during this time is provided by Dietrich
Orlow, The History of the Nazi Party, 1919-1933 (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press,
1969). Good English-language treatments of the formation of the Nazi constituency include Thomas
Childers, ed., The Formation of the Nazi Constituency (London: Croom Helm, 1986); idem, "The Mid
dle Classes and National Socialism," in Blackbourn and Evans (fn. 25); Peter Stachura, ed., The Nazi
Machtergreifung (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983); and Thomas Childers, The Nazi Voter: The
Social Foundations of Fascism in Germany (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983). Per
haps the most up-to-date analysis in German is J?rgen W. Falter, Hitlers W?hler (Munich: Verlag C.H.
Beck,1991).
420 WORLD POLITICS
rich associational life. The dense networks of civic engagement pro
vided the Nazis with cadres of activists who had the skills necessary to
spread the party's message and increase recruitment. Those networks
also served as a fifth column, allowing the NSDAP to infiltrate and mas
ter a significant sector of bourgeois society before emerging to seize
control of Germany's national political structures. As one scholar notes:
Path-breaking work in recent years on the rise of National Socialism has stressed
the importance of local newspapers, municipal notables, and voluntary associa
tions, and points to the buoyancy and vigor of civic traditions. Had bourgeois
community life been overly disoriented and fragmented, the body of new evi
dence indicates, the Nazis would never have been able to marshal the resources
or plug into the social networks necessary to their political success.51
During the second half of the 1920s the Nazis concentrated on at
tracting bourgeois "joiners" who had become disillusioned with tradi
tional party politics. Like the neo-Tocquevilleans, Hitler recognized
that participation in associational life provided individuals with the kinds
of leadership skills and social ties that could be very usefid in the political
arena.52 Civil society activists formed the backbone of the Nazis' grass
roots propaganda machine. The party also skillfully exploited their or
ganizational contacts and social expertise to gain insight into the fears
and needs of particular groups and to tailor new appeals to them?
using them, in other words, as "focus groups." The activists, finally, pro
vided the movement with unparalleled local organizations. In contrast
to the other bourgeois parties, the Nazis were able to develop flexible
and committed local party chapters that enabled full and accurate two
way communication between the national party and its frontline troops.
Recent research into local life in interwar Germany details the cru
cial role played by bourgeois "joiners" in paving the way for the Nazi
rise to power. Rudy Koshar's excellent study of Marburg, for example,
shows that party members were an unusually activist bunch. "Before
September 1930 there existed at least 46 Nazi party members with 73
cross-affiliations. For the period before 30 January 1933 overall, there
were at least 84 Nazi students and 116 nonstudent party adherents with
375 cross-affiliations to occupational associations, sports clubs, non
party municipal electoral slates, civic associations, student fraternities
51 Fritzsche (fn. 36), 13.
52
Rudy Koshar, "From Stammtisch to Party: Nazi Joiners and the Contradictions of Grass Roots
Fascism in Weimar Germany? Journal of Modern History 59 (March 1987), 2; idem (fn. 23), 185ff.;
Hans Mommsen, "National Socialism: Continuity and Change," in Walter Lacquer, ed., Fascism: A
Readers Guide (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976); and Hagtvet (fn. 12).
COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC 421
and other local voluntary groups." By January 1933 there was at least
one Nazi Party member in one out of every four voluntary groups in
the city.53 The Nazi elite was even more well connected.54
Koshar describes the key role of civil society activists in creating a
powerful and dynamic Nazi organization in Marburg. By the time of
the Nazi breakthrough in the 1930 elections, the NSDAP had represen
tatives in a wide range of civic associations working to spread the move
ment's message, get out the vote, and discredit political opponents.
"The 1930-31 electoral victories were more lasting than expected, be
cause the NSDAP was gaining control over a field of social organizations
wider than that supporting bourgeois parties."55 The activists not only
created a powerfiil electoral machine but also helped the NSDAP to an
chor itself in local communities in a way no other bourgeois party could
match. The Nazis used their local organization to design propaganda
and political events that would mesh with and appeal to Marburg's par
ticular social rhythms, making the NSDAP seem sympathetic and re
sponsive by contrast with elitist and out-of-touch liberals and
conservatives.
[T]he party was attractive in part because of its positive image in conversations
in the marketplace, local stores, university classrooms, fraternity houses, meeting
halls, soccer fields, and homes. Hitler s seemingly mysterious mass appeal could
hardly have been so extensive without the unplanned propaganda of daily social
life... .
Through infiltration, the NSDAP gained moral authority over organiza
tions in which it also established a material base. It was becoming the political
hub, the focus of legitimacy and material power,
that bourgeois constituencies
had lacked.56
The Nazis did not merely exploit their cadres' preexisting associational
bonds; they even deliberately infiltrated activists into a wide range of
bourgeois organizations in order to eliminate potential opponents from
positions of power within them.57 Without the opportunity to exploit
53
Koshar, "Contentious Citadel: Bourgeois Crisis and Nazism in Marburg/Lahn, 1880-1933," in
Childers (fn. 50), 24,28-29. See also Koshar (fn. 23); Hagtvet (fn. 12); Allen (fn. 36); and idem, "The
Nazification of aTown," in John L. Snell, ed., The Nazi Revolution: Hitlers Dictatorship and the German
Nation (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1973).
54 In a study of right-wing extremists in the U.S., Raymond Wolfinger and several colleagues came
to a similar conclusion. See Wolfinger et al., "America's Radical Right: Politics and Ideology," in David
E. Apter, ed., Ideology and Discontent (New York: Free Press, 1964).
55 Koshar (fn. 23), 202.
56
Ibid., 204,202.
57 On the party's infiltration of a variety of bourgeois associations, see Mommsen (fn. 52); Winkler
(fn. 26), 168ff.; Larry Eugene Jones, "Between the Fronts: The German National Union of Commer
cial Employees from 1928 to 1933," Journal of 'Modern History 48 (September 1976); Koshar (fn. 37);
and Peter D. Stachura, "German Youth, the Youth Movement and National Socialism in the Weimar
Republic," in Stachura, ed., The Nazi Machtergreifung (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983).
422 WORLD POLITICS
Weimar's rich associational network, in short, the Nazis would not have
been able to capture important sectors of the German electorate so
quickly and efficiently.
A brief profile of the Nazi methods can be found in the case of the
German peasantry. During the interwar years peasants joined and par
ticipated in a wide range of professional, special interest, and regional
associations, a trend carried over from the Wilhelmine era. Early in the
republic the peasantry tended to vote liberal or conservative, but they
like other bourgeois groups soon began to desert traditional political
parties. During the second half of the 1920s most peasants either with
drew from the national political arena or
gave their support to one of
the new splinter parties; they did not disproportionately support the ex
treme right.58 As the depression bore down, however, the crisis in Ger
man agriculture became more acute and the political situation in rural
areas more volatile. Large landowners used their influence on the DNVP
and other political organizations to secure a large amount of help (in
cluding the notorious Osthilfe), but the peasantry found itself without a
powerful political champion.
Until late in the day the Nazis essentially ignored rural Germany,
and the vaguely socialist aspects of the Nazi program (such as land re
form and expropriation) tended to drive farmers away. But by the end
of the 1920s the NSDAP, clever and opportunistic in ways its competi
tors were not, noticed the political potential of the frustration and un
rest spreading across the countryside. In 1928, therefore, the party
refashioned its agricultural program, eliminating many offensive planks
and focusing instead on the particular needs and demands of rural in
habitants.59
R. Walther Darre was the key figure in Nazi agricultural policy, and
by the end of 1930 he decided that the way to win the peasantry's sup
port and box out potential opponents in rural areas was to capture ex
isting agricultural organizations. In November 1930 an instruction
58 In the 1928 elections, for example, the NSDAP share of the vote in the predominendy rural districts
of East Prussia, Pomerania, East Hannover, and Hesse-Darmstadt was below its national average.
Horst Gies, "The NSDAP and Agrarian Organizations in the Final Phase of the Weimar Republic," in
Henry A. Turner, ed., Nazism and the Third Reich (New York: New Viewpoints, 1972), 75 fn. 2. See
also Richard J. Evans and W. R. Lee, eds., The German Peasantry (New York: St. Martins Press, 1986);
Robert G. Moeller, German Peasants and Agrarian Politics, 1914-1924 (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1986); Shelley Baranowski, The Sanctity of Rural Life: Nobility, Protestantism,
and Nazism in West Prussia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); and Werner Angress, "The Po
litical Role of the Peasantry," Review of Politics 21, no. 3 (1959).
59 On Nazi agricultural policy during this period, see J. E. Farquharson, The Plough and the Swastika:
The NSDAP and Agriculture in Germany, 1928-1945 (London: Sage, 1976). For a discussion of why other
parties such as the SPD passed up this opportunity, see Berman (fn. 43).
COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC 423
sheet ordered the NSDAPs agricultural apparatus (agrarpolitische Appa
rat, or aA) to
penetrate into all rural affairs like a finely intertwined root system_[The aA]
should embed itself deeply in [all rural organizations] and seek to embrace every
element of agrarian life so thoroughly that eventually nothing will be able to
occur in the realm of agriculture everywhere in the Reich which we do not ob
serve and whose basis we do not understand. Let there be no farm, no estate, no
village, no cooperative, no agricultural industry, no local organization of the RLB
[an agricultural organization], no rural equestrian association, etc., etc., where
we have not?at the least?placed our
[representatives].60
Darre became particularly interested in capturing the Reichslandbund
(RLB), a major player in German agrarian life that by the end of the
1920s had 5.6 million members. During the 1920s the RLB had coop
erated with a number of bourgeois parties including the DVP and DNVP.
But eventually many RLB members grew disgusted with the organiza
tion's political vacillation and inept leadership and began to consider
the NSDAP as a potential champion for agricultural interests. During the
latter part of 1930 Darre decided that the best way to gain control over
the RLB was by "conquering one position after another from within."61
The aA focused first on placing supporters in lower ranks of the RLB,
then on capturing leadership positions. Like his f?hrer, Darre recog
nized the value of gradualism and legalism, reasoning that if the Nazis
nibbled "away at [the RLB's] official apparatus, then, along with this
mortar, the big stones will fall out on their own."62
After the NSDAPs successes in local elections in 1931, Darre began
to push harder for Nazi appointments to the RLB leadership. He recog
nized that an official RLB endorsement could play an important role in
the 1932 elections. Soon he succeeded in getting a Nazi named one of
the four presidents of the RLB, and in 1932 the RLB duly endorsed the
Nazis. Darre continued his attack on the RLB from within, eliminating
remaining non-Nazis from all influential positions. This pushed the
RLB increasingly into the Nazi fold, brandishing the NSDAPs image as
the champion of Germany's "neglected" groups while opening up
new
avenues for manipulation. "Instead of proving an obstacle to Nazism in
the countryside, the RLB and other agricultural organizations became
convenient conveyor belts for Nazi propaganda reaching deep into the
60
Quoted in Gies (fn. 58), 51.
61
Ibid., 62. See also Zdenek Zofka, "Between Bauernbund and National Socialism: The Political
Orientation of the Peasantry in the Final Phase of the Weimar Republic," in Childers (fn. 50).
62
Ibid., 65.
424 WORLD POLITICS
rural population. In this way the intermediate groups facilitated the rise
of Nazism."63
The Nazis had infiltrated and captured a wide range of national and
local associations by the early 1930s, finally bridging the gap between
bourgeois civil society and party politics that had plagued Germany for
half a century. From this base Hitler was able to achieve two goals that
had long eluded German politicians?the creation of an effective
political machine and a true cross-class coalition. With these in Nazi
hands and bourgeois competitors eliminated, Hindenburg found it in
creasingly difficult to ignore Hitler's demands for a change of course. By
the end of 1932 Schleicher had lost Hindenburg's confidence;64 two days
after Schleicher was forced to resign, Hitler was named chancellor.65
conclusions: germany, associationism, and
Political Development
The German case reveals a distinct pattern of associationism that does
not conform to the predictions of neo-Tocquevillean theories. German
civil society was rich and extensive during the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, and this nation of joiners should accordingly have
provided fertile soil for a successful democratic experiment. Instead, it
succumbed to totalitarianism. This does not mean that civil society was
disconnected from German political development; it was, rather, con
nected in ways that the reigning neo-Tocquevillean theories ignore.
The vigor of German civil society actually developed in inverse rela
tion to the vigor and responsiveness of national political institutions
and structures. Instead of helping to reduce social cleavages, Germany's
weak and poorly designed political institutions exacerbated them; in
stead of responding to the demands of an increasingly mobilized pop
ulation, the country's political structures obstructed meaningful
participation in public life. As a result, citizens' energies and interests
were deflected into private associational activities, which were generally
63
Hagtvet (fn. 12), 91.
64 At least partially because of the RLBs efforts, which were directed by the Nazis; Hagtvet (fn. 12),
75.
65 In a tragic irony, Hindenburg's decision may well have allowed the Nazis to snatch victory from
the jaws of defeat. After the July 1932 elections the NSDAP began to run into trouble, as Hider's in
ability to deliver on his promises caused dissent among different groups within the Nazi coalition and
the party's previously formidable organization had trouble maintaining necessary levels of enthusiasm
and funding. A few months more out of power and the party might have begun to self-destruct. See
the new study by Henry Ashby Turner, Jr., Hitlers Thirty Days to Power:January 1933 (New York: Ad
dison-Wesley, 1996); and also Orlow (fn. 50), 233ff.; and Childers, "The Limits of National Socialist
Mobilization," in Childers (fn. 50).
COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC 425
organized within rather than across group boundaries. The vigor of civil
society activities then continued to draw public interest and involve
ment away from parties and politics, further sapping their strength and
significance. Eventually the Nazis seized the opportunities afforded by
such a situation, offering a unifying appeal and bold solutions to a na
tion in crisis. The NSDAP drew its critical cadres precisely from among
bourgeois civil society activists with few ties to mainstream politics, and
it was from the base of bourgeois civil society that the party launched
its swift Machtergreifung. In short, one cannot understand the rise of
the Nazis without an appreciation of the role played by German civil
society, and one cannot understand the contours of that civil society
without reference to the country's weak political institutionalization.
From Bismarck's tenure onward German political parties exhibited
two major weaknesses.66 First, they tended to focus on particular and
relatively narrow socioeconomic groups. Workers, large landowners,
large industrialists, Catholics?all had political parties catering specif
ically to them. Instead of reconciling the interests of different groups
or
creating a sense of national unity, therefore, parties reflected and deep
ened the divisions within German society. Only Hitler was able to
overcome this pattern, finally creating a cross-class political coalition
and uniting a majority (or at least a plurality) of Germans under a sin
gle political umbrella. Second, Germany's bourgeois parties in particu
lar never adjusted fully to the era of mass politics. Instead, they retained
an elite organizational style and failed to develop strong grassroots or
ganizations and to cultivate strong ties to the associational lives of their
constituencies.67 The result was that large sectors of the German mid
dle classes withdrew even further from national political activity. In
general, therefore, the party system served to aggravate the lack of po
litical and social cohesion that had plagued Germany since unification.
The weakness of such national political structures was a key reason
that Germans threw themselves into clubs, organizations, and interest
groups during periods of strain like the 1870s and 1920s. Because the
66
Many, indeed, have blamed Bismarck for the nature of the German party system. By allowing
universal suffrage but failing to provide responsible government, Bismarck ensured that political par
ties would be necessary but also somewhat impotent. Furthermore, by continually manufacturing crises
and identifying certain parties (i.e., the SPD and Zentrum) as enemies of the Reich, Bismarck increased
the difficulty that parties and their constituencies had in working with each other.
67 Both the SPD and the Catholic Zentrum managed to avoid such problems with their core con
sistencies. Each maintained close ties with an extremely wide range of ancilliary organizations, and
the SPD in particular was a very effective mass party. Largely as a result of these parties' ability to inte
grate political and civil society life, their constituencies (i.e., workers and Catholics) proved less likely
to vote for the Nazis later on than were other groups. Because they contributed to the segmentation of
German society during the 1920s, however, these parties can still be held at least indirectly responsible
for the collapse of the Weimar Republic.
426 WORLD POLITICS
political system deepened social cleavages, however, civil society insti
tutions often catered to members of a particular group: socialists,
Catholics, and bourgeois Protestants each joined their own choral soci
eties and bird-watching clubs. However horizontally organized arid
civic minded these associations may have been, they tended to hive
their memberships off from the rest of society and contribute to the
formation of what one observer has called "ferociously jealous 'small re
publics.'
"68
Germany was cleaved increasingly into distinct subcultures
or communities, each of which had its own, separate associational life.
Civil society activity alone, in short, could not overcome the country's
social divisions or provide the political cohesion that would have been
necessary to weather the crises which beset Germany beginning in
1914. For this, strong and flexible political institutions, particularly po
litical parties, would have been necessary.
On the eve of the Great Depression, Germany found itself in a
pre
carious political situation?its civil society was highly developed but
segmented, and its mainstream bourgeois parties were disintegrating.
Many citizens active in secondary associations were politically frus
trated and dissatisfied; when the depression added economic and polit
ical chaos to the mix, the result was a golden opportunity for a new
political force. The Nazis stepped into the breach, reaching out to the
disaffected bourgeois civil society activists and using the country's or
ganizational infrastructure to make inroads into various constituencies.
The dense network of German associations enabled the NSDAP to cre
ate in a remarkably short time a dynamic political machine and cross
class coalition unlike anything Germany had ever before seen?one to
which it soon succumbed.
The German case should make us skeptical of many aspects of neo
Tocquevillean theory. In particular, German political development
raises questions about what has by now become practically conventional
wisdom, namely, that there is a direct and positive relationship between
a rich associational life and stable democracy. Under certain circum
stances, clearly the very opposite is the case: associationism and the
prospects for democratic stability can actually be inversely related. Fur
thermore, many of the consequences of associationism stressed by neo
Tocquevillean scholars?providing individuals with political and social
skills, creating bonds between citizens, facilitating mobilization, de
creasing barriers to collective action?can be turned to antidemocratic
68 Fritzsche (fn. 36), 232. On this point, see also M. Rainer Lepsius, "Parteiensystem und Sozial
struktur: zum Problem der Demokratisierung der deutschen Gesellschaft," in Gerhard A. Ritter, ed.,
Deutsche Parteien vor 1918 (Cologne: Droste, 1983).
COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC 427
ends as well as to democratic ones. Perhaps, therefore, associationism
should be considered a politically neutral multiplier?neither inher
endy good nor inherendy bad, but rather dependent for its effects on
the wider political context.69
The neo-Tocquevilleans have in fact already been criticized for their
inability to predict whether civil society activity will have negative or
positive consequences for political development. Some, for example,
have taken Putnam to task for praising the long-term salutory effect of
civil society activity in Northern Italy while ignoring the fact that this
selfsame activity proved to be consistent with Fascism.70 What the
analysis presented here seems to indicate is that if we want to know
when civil society activity will take on oppositional or even antidemoc
ratic tendencies, we need to ground our analyses in concrete examina
tions of political reality. If a country's political institutions and structures
are capable of channeling and redressing grievances and the existing
political regime enjoys public support and legitimacy, then association
ism will probably buttress political stability by placing its resources and
beneficial effects in the service of the status quo. This is the pattern
Tocqueville described.
If, on the contrary, political institutions and structures are weak
and/or the existing political regime is perceived to be ineffectual and il
legitimate, then civil society activity may become an alternative to pol
itics, increasingly absorbing citizens' energies and satisfying their basic
needs. In such situations, associationism will probably undermine po
litical stability, by deepening cleavages, furthering dissatisfaction, and
providing rich soil for oppositional movements. Flourishing civil soci
ety activity in these circumstances signals governmental and party fail
ure and may bode ill for the regime's future.
This latter pattern fits Germany in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, as we have seen, but it may be applicable to many
other cases as well, with provocative implications. The weakening of
communist regimes in Eastern Europe, for example, was hastened by a
rise in civil society activity there in the 1980s; parts of the contempo
rary Arab world are witnessing a remarkable growth in Islamist civil
69
Foley and Edwards (fn. 7); Skocpol (fn. 7, "The Tocqueville Problem"); Diamond (fn. 7); Pinard
(fn. 19); Hagtvet (fn. 12), esp. 94; Koshar (fnn. 37,23); Winkler (fn. 26), esp. 196; and Fritzsche (fn.
36).
70 See Sidney Tarrow, "Making Social Science Work across Space and Time: A Critical Reflection
on Robert Putnam's Making Democracy Work," American Political Science Review 90 (June 1996). In
terestingly, Tarrow also criticizes Putnam for failing to recognize that much of the civil society activity
he finds was directly or indirectly created by Italian political parties. According to Tarrow, in other
words, civil society may not be an independent variable (as Putnam claims) but rather an intermediary
variable, along the lines suggested by the analysis presented here.
428 WORLD POLITICS
society activity that feeds on the citizenry's frustration with the region's
unrepresentative and unresponsive authoritarian governments. In such
situations civil society may not necessarily promote liberal democracy,
as the neo-Tocquevilleans would have it, but rather may simply corrode
the foundations of the current political order while providing an orga
nizational base from which it can be challenged. From this perspective,
the fact that a militant Islamist movement, for example, provides its
supporters with religious classes, professional associations, and medical
services tells us little about what might happen should the movement
ever gain power; it tells us much more about the political failure and
gloomy prospects of the nations existing regime.
Unfortunately, one need not look so far abroad to find examples of
this pattern. The New York Times noted in a recent report on the Dis
trict of Columbia, for example, that for many of Washington's residents
home rule "has come to mean a patronage-bloated, ineffective city pay
roll offering phantom services." The weakness and failure of Washing
ton's local government and political system, in turn, has spurred both a
rise in associational activity and a fragmentation of social consciousness
and communal identity.
"
Volunteerism [is] growing stronger in the face
of the dwindling services, mismanagement and budget shortfalls that
bedevil the city," according to one neighborhood activist. "Gradually,"
says another, "people come to feel they have to take care of themselves
and not worry about the other guy."71 Another observer proclaims:
"Amid widespread disillusionment with government and its ability to
solve the nation's most pervasive problems, a loosely formed social
movement promoting a return to civil society' has emerged
...
drawing
a powerful and ideologically diverse group of political leaders."72 When
associationism and communitarian activities flourish in such a context,
it would seem that there is cause, not for celebration, but rather for
deep concern about the failure of the community's political institutions.
Finally, if neo-Tocquevilleans have misunderstood the true connec
tions between civic and political institutions, the policy advice they
offer should be called into question. Responding to current public dis
satisfaction with the state of democracy in America, many have argued
that the remedy lies in fostering local associational life. This prescrip
tion may prove
to be both misguided and counterproductive, however.
If a population increasingly perceives its government, politicians, and
71 Ward 3 block-watch organizer Kathy Smith and Cleveland Park Citizens Association president
Stephen A. Koczak, respectively, quoted in Francis X Clines, "Washington's Troubles Hit Island of Af
fluence," New York 77m?, July 26,1996, p. A19.
72
"Promoting a Return to 'Civil Society,' Diverse Group of Crusaders Looks to New Solutions to
Social Problems," Washington Post, December 15,1996.
COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC 429
parties to be inefficient and unresponsive, diverting public energies and
interest into secondary associations may only exacerbate the problem,
fragment society, and weaken political cohesion further. American
democracy would be better served if its problems were addressed di
recdy rather than indirecdy. Increased bird watching and league bowl
ing, in other words, are unlikely to have positive effects unless the
nation's political institutions are also revitalized.73
73 On this point, see also Skocpol (fn. 7,1996,1996).
