1871-1918:
- Kaiser appoints and dismisses government, could dissolve and overrule the Reichstag, holds great constitutional power
- Appointed Bundesrat held more power than elected Reichstag, undermines power of the people
- Socialism was suppressed, along with ethnic minorities (e.g. Kulturkampf)
- No statement of individual rights
- Bismarck uses Realtpolitik to steamroller opposition
- The Confederation was very much dependent on Prussia
- HOWEVER, only the Reichstag had the power to pass laws, therefore Bismarck had to persuade them to do so
- Caprivi makes concessions to Socialists during his time as Chancellor
1918-1933:
- President has executive powers through Article 48, supreme command over all armed forces, appoints and dismisses Chancellor and ministers
- Fixed term presidency, president chosen by whole German people
- Reichstag can revoke President’s power to restore order
- Fixed term parliament
- All Germans equal before the law; no tiered voting
- Freedom of worship
- More central government intervention in states, states lose autonomy, Bundesrat do not serve fixed terms, 2/3 of Reichstag can amend constitution
- Opposition was allowed and nothing was done to suppress opposition power
1933-45:
- Nazis fully exploit Article 48 to ban opposition parties, political meetings and newspapers
- Hitler casually approves and disapproves of legislation
- Chaotic government structure allows Hitler to remain the clear source of power, stops rivals from becoming a threat
- Enabling Act: dismantles Weimar Constitution
- Reichstag Fire
- Racialist policies (Nuremberg Laws)
- Collectivism (Volksgemeinschaft): ties in with Duckitt’s theory of authoritarianism
- Secret police
- Dissolved trade unions, civil servants and army swear oath of allegiance to Hitler
1945-1948 (GFR):
- President elected by federal assembly; essentially a ceremonial figure
- Chancellor elected by secret ballot; can be constructively removed by the Bundestag
- All parties must be committed to democracy; Bundestag elected every four years
- Bundesrat serves fixed terms; Federal Constitutional Court safeguards basic rights
- Parties polling under 5% of the vote are not represented
1945-1948 (GDR):
- Mock pluralism, state controlled elections, no secret ballot, distribution of seats predetermined by the National Front
- Absence of genuinely independent constitutional judiciary, authorities ignored most of the formal provisions of the constitution; in 1960, the President was replaced by the Staatsrat
Argument
Niall Ferguson believed that the role of the Nazi economy had been radical in almost every respect, while maintaining at its core a collection of fundamental contradictions which would have undermined its successes in the long-term. He went on to state that the economy under National Socialism had nonetheless far exceeded its Wilhelmine predecessor in the very nature of its organization and structure, which had reduced the many forms of inefficiency and corruption which had been prevalent in both Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany. He feels that, at least in terms of economic policy, the authoritarian nature of the National Socialist economy had been an aberration in respect to previous periods of history and that the role of the state in respect to the economy had not merely been authoritarian in existence, but had been its very embodiment. In short, the state had become synonymous with the economy itself.
Balfour feels that the authoritarian elements in Nazi Germany spilled over into totalitarianism, and he makes a point of contrasting the traditional authoritarianism in Germany against the brutal totalitarianism of Nazi Germany. Indeed, concerning the introduction of laws which secured individual personal liberty between 1872 and 1883, he stated that Germany had its own form of Liberalism, or ‘Rechstaat’, which replaced the previously authoritarian state, ‘Obrigkeitstraat’. This seems to go against the theory of Sonderweg.
Adam feels that Vansittartism, a wartime sentiment which warned of a pattern of German aggression so deeply rooted in its history that Hitler wasn’t an aberration, but a logical development of this aggression, emphasised several key facets which supported the theory of Sonderweg: cultural and political conditioning toward authoritarianism and militarism, popular support for the Nazi regime, and the weakness of the German opposition, albeit only when stripped of its wartime polemic.
A. J. P. Taylor feels that, due to the lack of national middle class in Germany (and the opportunity passed up in the first years of Charles V) meant that there was a continuous, uninterrupted and steady advance of authoritarianism and absolutism from the early 16th century till the late 17th century. He is also of the opinion that the Sonderweg theory was utterly correct.
David Welch acknowledges that Nazi Germany is thought of by many as a temporary aberration in German history; however, he goes on to say that he feels that Nazism was based upon various strands of intellectual thought which preceded the Nazi era by at least a century and which constitute the volkish doctrine. The key parts of this intellectual strand, he says, are an appeal to national unity, a need for racial purity, a hatred of ‘Reichsfeinde’ (enemies of the state) and charismatic leadership. He feels that national unity can be traced back at least to the Burgfrieden, or myth of the ‘spirit of August 1914’, when the Kaiser declared “I recognise no parties, but only the Germans”.
William Shirer believed in the theory of Sonderweg, and that Nazism was the logical progression for Germany to take. He points to the very name of Hitler’s regime (the Third Reich) as proof of progression from the Second and First Reichs. Certainly he was of the opinion that Hitler believed himself to be continuing the work of Bismarck and Frederick the Great. He puts the fact that so many German men blindly followed Hitler down to German nature in history which put unquestioning obedience to rulers the highest virtue of the German man.
Kershaw feels that there were indeed much continuity between the Kaiserreich and Nazi Germany, including elitist politics, an expansionist foreign policy, ideology and political culture, and political mobilization. However, he goes on to state that Nazi Germany broke all of these continuities, citing the growing autonomy of the regimes from the elites and the centrality of anti-Semitism to the regime as proof of such breaks. He therefore takes a pro-Sonderweg stance, but adds on the thought that the extreme authoritarianism of Nazi Germany serves to break the ‘aggressive pattern’ of authoritarianism which Vansittart spoke of.
Robert Gershaw feels that the profile of Bismarck was warped through time, not least by Hitler to appeal to the German masses, and that he wasn’t an ardent nationalist or dogmatic ideologue as Hitler painted him through propaganda, but that he had a flexible ideology and was motivated by pragmatism. Gershaw goes on to say that Bismarck rejected anti-Semitism and radical nationalism, two large factors in Hitler’s rule, as irrational. He therefore feels that any notions of continuity were manufactured by the Nazi regime in order to appeal to the German people.
Eley feels that the theory of Sonderweg (that Germany was on a special path, a path which would lead inevitably to the rise of an authoritarian regime like Nazi Germany) is misplaced, for a number of reasons. In his view, the stresses on continuity between Bismarck and Hitler and the overarching theme of the Sonderweg were overwhelmingly Prussocentric. He states that, whether in a positive light or a negative light, German history has usually been focused around events in Prussia as opposed to other areas of Germany (i.e. smaller states), on the grounds that Prussia was by far the largest and most powerful of the states. He goes on to say that, consequently, very much less is known about the nature of popular political involvement under the Kaiserreich, whether in relation to the parties and pressure groups, about the political grass roots movements. He states that we know far more about the state than the civil society, and that works concerning the smaller German states highlights how contested and insecure the framing of national policy actually was. This would go against the popular interpretation of a widely authoritarian Imperial Germany, and would make the authoritarianism on show in Nazi Germany more of an aberration.
Analysis
It seems that, while there are certainly running themes of authoritarianism in German history which have undoubtedly contributed to the mentality of Nazi Germany (e.g. anti-Semitism), the idea of continuity seems to be an argument which was fostered initially by Hitler to serve his own ends, and was the adopted by post-war historians in order to neatly and logically explain what many felt was indeed an aberration. However, it is clear to see that, in their attempt to find a logical and neat justification of the rise of Nazism, pro-Sonderweg historians have had to stretch evidence to back their points up. A. J. P. Taylor concedes this: “I had taken the line, perhaps somewhat exaggerated by wartime feelings, that Germany had not been democratic even in Weimar Germany and the Hitlerism, far from being an aberration, grew out of what had come before”. While his point is valid in some ways (especially considering the role of Article 48 in enabling Hitler), the Sonderweg theory does not seem realistic. Adam’s fairly objective account of Vansittartism takes into account that it shows evidence of continuities only when stripped of its “wartime polemic”. Maybe the pro-Sonderweg argument, then, is fuelled too much by wartime feeling to be fully justified. It seems that the pro-aberration argument is more accurate and an easier position to justify, as solid proof is used to highlight discontinuities between Imperial Germany and Nazi Germany. It may be most prudent to say that, while elements of authoritarianism were certainly existent throughout the period, and while certain elements could be observed throughout, the scale of authoritarianism in Nazi Germany was unprecedented, with Imperial absolutism being replaced by Hitler’s iron totalitarianism, making the authoritarianism in Germany an aberration only in terms of its scale, with certain continuities from Imperial Germany, but not as many as the Sonderweg argument relies upon.
