Sonderweg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sonderweg (literally: 'special path'), is a controversial theory in historiography that considers the German-speaking lands, or the country Germany, to have followed its own, unique course through its evolution and history since the 19th century, separate from other European countries: therefore, a route of development which is 'special' or an 'alternative'. In particular, proponents of the Sonderweg view of German history argue that the way German history developed over the centuries virtually ensured that Nazi Germany was bound to occur. In their view, German mentalities, the structure of society and institutional developments led an "abnormal" course of history in Germany in comparison with the other nations of the West, who had a "normal" development of their histories.
Contents |
[edit] Description
The term Sonderweg was first used by German conservatives in Imperial period, starting in the late 19th century as a source of pride for the "Golden mean" that in their view allowed Germany to avoid both the autocracy of Imperial Russia and what they regarded as the weak, decadent and ineffective democratic governments of the United Kingdom and France. German conservatives argued that a strong military and authoritarian state, that practiced reform from above rather than responding to pressure from below, avoided what they considered to be the extremes of autocracy and radical democracy and was superior to any other government on the Earth.
Following 1945, there was much debate about the origins of the "German catastrophe". Scholars examined developments in intellectual, political, social, economic and cultural history in order to discover why German democracy had failed during the Weimar republic and what factors had led to the rise of National Socialism. Many historians concluded that the failure of Germany to develop firm democratic institutions in the 19th century had ensured the failure of the Weimar republic in the 20th century. It was after 1945 that the term Sonderweg lost its positive concoctions and acquired its present negative meaning.
In the years immediately after World War Two, opinion was sharply divided between German and non-German historians. Historians like A. J. P. Taylor and Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier, echoed by journalists like William L. Shirer portrayed Nazism as the inevitable result of German history, reflecting unique flaws in "German national character", going back to at least the days of Martin Luther, if not earlier. By contrast, German historians such as Hans Rothfels, Gerhard Ritter and Friedrich Meinecke supported by an few non-German historians such as Pieter Geyl contended that the Nazi period had no relationship to earlier periods of German history, and that German traditions were at sharp variance with the totalitarianism of the Nazi movement.
Starting in the 1960s, historians such as Fritz Fischer and Hans-Ulrich Wehler argued that, unlike France and United Kingdom, Germany had experienced only "partial modernization" in which industrialization was not followed by changes in the political and social spheres, which in the opinion of Fischer and Wehler continued to be dominated by a "pre-modern" aristocratic elite. In the opinion of the proponents of the Sonderweg thesis, the crucial turning point was the Revolution of 1848, when German liberals failed to seize power for themselves and instead chose to resign themselves to the rule of a reactionary elite, and a society that taught its children obedience, appreciation of militarism and pride in a very complex notion of German culture which developed into hubris in Williamite German Empire (1871-1918). Historians such as Fischer and Wehler draw up a harsh indictment of the German elite, who were charged with promoting the authoritarian society and values of the German Empire, the sole and exclusive responsibility for causing World War One, the sabotaging the democratic Weimar Republic, and with an aiding and abetting the Nazi dictatorship in internal repression, war and genocide.
Daniel Goldhagen tried to renew the debate on the "Sonderweg" in 1996 in his book Hitler's Willing Executioners. He claimed that German society, politics and life was up until 1945 characterized by a unique version of extreme anti-Semitism that put the murder of Jews as the highest possible national value. His critics replied that he ignored most recent research, ignored other developments both in Germany and abroad, and his close colleague Ruth Birn stated that the essential sources were misquoted, and too many statements in conditional tense. In the end, he was unable to make a true contribution to the research on the either the Sonderweg or the history on Nazi Germany, only the old question of a German "collective guilt" was renewed, and against Goldhagen's intentions as stated in the German edition.
[edit] Criticism
The leading critics of the Sonderweg thesis have been two British historians, Geoff Eley and David Blackbourn, who in their 1984 book The Peculiarities of German History argued that there is no "normal" course of social and political change; that the experience of France and Britain in the 19th century was not the norm for Europe; and that the liberal German middle class may have possessed only little political power, but dominated the social, economic and cultural life of 19th century Germany and this embourgeoisement of German social life was greater than in Britain and France, which in the opinion of Eley and Blackborun were much more marked by aristocratic values than Germany was. Many scholars such as Jürgen Kocka and Wolfgang Mommsen have disputed Eley's and Blackbourn's conclusions. Kocka in particular has argued that while the Sonderweg thesis may not explain the reasons for the rise of the Nazi movement, it still explains the failure of the democratic Weimar Republic. That way, the issue of the Sonderweg is limited to a (unfortunately) not unusual individual development, and today many historians feel the Sonderweg theory fails to account for similarities and distinctions with other dictatorships, and ethnic cleansings.
[edit] Attempt of Application to German History before 1806
Critics who attempt to use the Sonderweg theory for history before 1806 argue that while every other country in 18th and early 19th century Europe (with the exception of the Italian lands) was consolidating into virtually fixed nation states, "Germany" was in fact falling into ever-smaller autonomous regions which were under the nominal control of the Emperor; the uniting of German states then resulted in Nazism only because of a pattern completely different to other European regions. This view ignores that the Empire was a supernational structure in the literal sense, ie. many nations were meant to be part of it. Throughout the early modern period, the power of the Emperor, which always had to rely on his dukes and kings, diminished continuously. The monarchy of the Empire was not any different in its nature from any other monarchy, since all of them had individual evolutions.
When Napoleon threatened the Empire by claiming emperorship himself (which is to be understood as a universal supremacy over kings), Francis II dissolved the empire in order to transform his own kingdom into the Empire of Austria, leading to a sudden "inflation" of "empires" in Haiti (1804-6), Mexico (1822-3) and India (1876-1948). As Schubert states,[1] the history of the Holy Roman Empire is not to be confused with the Sonderweg, which can only be seen as a result of the concept of German identity, developing in Romanticism of the late 18th century, enforced by the French revolutionary war against Germany. Previous events, especially not the Holy Roman Empire,[2] cannot be related to the evolution of Nazism.
[edit] Endnotes
- ^ Ernst Schubert, Königsabsetzungen im Mittelalter, Göttingen 2005, p.18
- ^ as attempted by Timothy Reuter, in: Anne Duggan, Kings and Kingship in Medieval Europe, London 1993, p.179-211
[edit] References
- Blackbourn, David & Eley, Geoff The Peculiarities of German History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.
- Grebing, Helga Der "deutsche Sonderweg in Europa 1806-1945: Eine Kritik, Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1986.
- Groh, Dieter "Le 'Sonderweg' de l'histoire allemande: Mythe ou rèalitè" pages 1166-1187 from Annales, Economies, Societè, Civilisations, Volume 38, 1983.
- Heilbronner, Oded "From Antisemitic Peripheries to Antisemitic Centres: The Place of Antisemitism in Modern German History" pages 559-576 from Journal of Contemporary History, Volume 35, Issue 4, 2000.
- Jarusch, Konrad "Illiberalism and Beyond: German History in Search of a Paradigm" pages 647-686 from Journal of Modern History, Volume 55, 1983.
- Kocka, Jürgen "German History before Hitler: The Debate about the German Sonderweg" pages 3-16 from Journal of Contemporary History, Volume 23, 1988.
- Moeller, Robert "The Kaiserreich Recast?: Continuity and Change in Modern German Historiography" pages 655-684 from Journal of Social History, Volume 17, 1983-1984.
- Wehler, Hans-Ulrich The German Empire, 1871-1918, translated by Kim Traynor, Leamington Spa: Berg, 1985.
