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From illusion to destruction: the Germanic bid for world power, 1897–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Michael D. Biddiss
Michael D. Biddiss
Affiliation:
Lecturer, Department of History, University of Leicester
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Extract

Over the last two decades none has done more than Fritz Fischer to compel major reinterpretation of German ambitions between the 1890s and the end of the Third Reich. In 1959–60 this Hamburg historian published two articles that hinted at the coming storm. It broke dramatically in 1961 with the appearance of his huge Griff nach der Weltmacht This densely documented treatment of Germany's objectives in the First World War was striking enough to become before long the object of official displeasure at Bonn. Nor did Fischer's thesis win any easy support from professional colleagues, who argued bitterly about it during the 1964 German Historical Convention. Its still wider impact was clear from the deliberations of the International Historical Congress held at Vienna in 1965. That same year saw the publication of Fischer's Weltmacht oder Niedergang, a brief volume in rebuttal of criticism, and soon scholars in many countries were swelling the tide of relevant literature. By 1969 this included Kreig der Illusionen in which Fischer greatly amplified his original arguments. All three books are, at last, available in English. The translation of Griff nach der Weltmacht dates from 1967, but only lately have the other two been similarly treated. It seems appropriate to review these alongside recent works by Dr John Moses, on Fischer's revolutionary place in a national historiographical tradition, and by Professor Norman Rich, on the German aims associated with the war that broke out in 1939.

Type
Review Articles
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , July 1976 , pp. 173 - 185
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1976

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References

page 173 note 1. ‘Deutsche Kriegsziele, Revolutionierung, und Separatfrieden im Osten, 1914–1918’, Historische Zeitschrift, clxxxviii (1959), pp. 249–310Google Scholar; and ‘Kontinuität des Irrtums: Zum Problem der deutschen Kriegszielpolitik im ersten Weltkrieg’, Ibid, cxci (1960), pp. 83–100Google Scholar.

page 173 note 2. Griff nach der Weltmacht: Die Kriegszielpolifik des kaiserlichen Deutschland 1914–1918 (Düsseldorf, 1961)Google Scholar.

page 173 note 3. Weltmacht oder Niedergang: Deutschland im Ersten Weltkrieg (Hamburg, 1965).Google Scholar

page 173 note 4. See, especially, the following works by Fischer's own pupils: Böhme, H., Deutschlands Weg zur Grossmacht (Cologne, 1966)Google Scholar; Wernecke, K., Der Wille zur Weltgeltung: Aussenpolitik und Offentlichkeit im Kaiserreich am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges (Düsseldorf, 1969)Google Scholar; Witt, P. C., Die Finanzpolitik des Deutschen Reiches, 1903–1913 (Lübeck/Hamburg, 1970)Google Scholar; Stegmann, D., Die Erben Bismarcks: Parteien und Verbände in der Spatphase des Wilhelminischen Deutschlands, 1897–1918 (Cologne/Berlin, 1970)Google Scholar; and Borowsky, P., Deutsche Ukrainepolitik 1918 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Wirtschaftsfragen (Lübeck/Hamburg, 1970)Google Scholar.

page 173 note 5. Krieg der Illusionen: Die deuische Politik von 1911 bis 1914 (Düsseldorf, 1969)Google Scholar.

page 173 note 6. Germany's Aims in the First World War (London, 1967)Google Scholar. This edition represents Fischer's own abridgment, by about one third, of the original.

page 173 note 7. Fischer, F., World Power or Decline: The Controversy over ‘Germany's Aims in the First World War’ (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1975, 131Google Scholar pp., £4.95); Fischer, F., War of Illusions: German Policies from 1911 to 1914 (translated from the abridged and revised German edition: Chatto & Windus, London, 1975, 578Google Scholar pp., £12); Moses, J. A., The Politics of Illusion: The Fischer Controversy in German Historiography (George Prior, London, 1975, 148Google Scholar pp., £3.75); Rich, N., Hitler's War Aims: 1, Ideology, the Nazi State, and the Course of Expansion (André Deutsch, London, 1973, 352Google Scholar pp., £5.25); 11, The Establishment of the New Order (Ibid. 1974, 548 pp., £5.95).

page 174 note 1. World Power or Decline, op. cit. p . 32.

page 174 note 2. Ibid. p . 82.

page 174 note 3. Germany's Aims in the First World War, op. cit. p. x.

page 174 note 4. George, D. LloydWar Memoirs, 1 (London, 1938), p. 32Google Scholar.

page 175 note 1. Politics of Illusion, op. cit. p. 56.

page 175 note 2. See, above all, Ritter's Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk: Das Problem des ‘Militarism us’ in Deutschland: II, Die Hauptmächte Europas und das Wilhelminische Ketch, 1890–1914 (Munich, 1960)Google Scholar; III, Die Tragödie der Staatskunst: Bethmann Hollweg als Kriegskanzler, 1914–1911 (Munich, 1964)Google Scholar; iv, Die Herrschaft des deutschen Militarismus und die Katastrophe in 1918 (Munich, 1968)Google Scholar. The whole work has been translated as The Sword and the Sceptre (4 vols, London, 1972–1973)Google Scholar. Fischer's views on Ritter's approach are summarized in World Power or Decline, op. cit. pp. 113–24. See also Stone, N., ‘Gerhard Ritter and the First World War’, The Historical Journal, xiii (1970), pp. 158–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 176 note 1. Koch, H. W. (ed.), The Origins of the First World War: Great Power Rivalry and German War Aims (London, 1972)Google Scholar contains two articles particularly relevant to this point: J. Joll, ‘1914: The Unspoken Assumptions’, pp. 307–28; and the editor's ‘Social Darwinism as a Factor in the “New Imperialism” ’, pp. 329–54. See also Biddiss, M. D., The Age of the Masses: Ideas and Society in Europe since 1810 (forthcoming, Harmondsworth, 1976)Google Scholar, Chapter 4.

page 176 note 2. War of Illusions, op. cit. pp. vii–viii.

page 176 note 3. Berghahn, V. R., Germany and the Approach of War in 1914 (London, 1973)Google Scholar is especially useful in relating such interdependence of external and internal factors to German policy on armaments.

page 177 note 1. War of Illusions, op. cit. p. 258 (‘die Nationalisierung der Massen als Antrieb am Schwungrad der Macht).

page 177 note 2. World Power or Decline, op. cit. p. xi.

page 177 note 3. For Fischer's interpretation of the allegedly crucial ‘War Council’ held on 8 Dec. 1912 see War of Illusions, op. cit. pp. 160–9.

page 177 note 4. See, especially, Ibid. pp. 190–9.

page 177 note 5. See, especially, Ibid. pp. 242–50, 280–6; and Germany's Aims, op. cit. pp. 156–62.

page 178 note 1. Quoted in War of Illusions, op. cit. p. 249;

page 178 note 2. Quoted in World Power or Decline, op. cit. p. 22; taken from Grundzüge der Weltpolitik in der Gegemwart (Stuttgart/Bonn, 1914)Google Scholar which Riezler published under the pseudonym ‘J. J. Ruedorffer’. For the significance of Riezler see War of Illusions, op. cit. pp. 261–3, 531–5; and the account of his Neo-Rankean assumptions in Moses, Politics of Illusion, op. cit. pp. 27–44.

page 178 note 3. See Germany's Aims, op. cit. pp. 87–88.

page 178 note 4. On this whole vital issue of timing see War of Illusions, op. cit. pp. 397–403.

page 178 note 5. See Ibid. pp. 488–92. For statement of an alternative view see Turner, L. C. F., ‘The Russian Mobilization in 1914s’, The Journal of Contemporary History, iii (1968), pp. 65–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 179 note 1. Europe since 1870: An International History (London, 1973), p. 184Google Scholar.

page 179 note 2. See, particularly, Gasser, A., ‘Der deutsche Hegemonialkrieg von 1914’, in Geiss, I. and Wendt, B. J. (eds.), Deutschland in der Weltpolitik des 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Düsseldorf, 1973), pp. 307–340Google Scholar.

page 179 note 3. See, especially, War of Illusions, op. cit. pp. 470–3.

page 179 note 4. See Ibid. pp. 389–92.

page 179 note 5. ‘The Outbreak of the First World War and German War Aims’, The Journal of Contemporary History, i, (1966), p. 90Google Scholar. The same author's Julikrise und Kriegsausbruch 1914 (2 vols, Hanover, 1963–1964)Google Scholar is the basis for the English translation and abbreviation entitled July 1914 (New York, 1967)Google Scholar.

page 180 note 1. See Germany's Aims, op. cit. pp. 98–106; World Power or Decline, op. cit. pp. 32–45; War of Illusions, op. cit. pp. 534–41.

page 180 note 2. Fischer claims (World Power or Decline, op. cit. p. 50), “Brest Litovsk reflected not the mentality of Ludendorff and the High Command alone but the mentality of Germany as a whole”. For his fullest discussion see Germany's Aims, op. cit. pp. 475–509.

page 180 note 3. Germany's Aims, op. cit. p. 607.

page 181 note 1. World Power or Decline, op. cit. p. viii. It is worth adding that Hitler, though installed in power by the kind of conservative leaders for whom Fischer shows contempt, had a vision of the domestic social order which differed in important respects from that which the war of 1914 may have been launched to defend.

page 181 note 2. See also the suggestion by Moses, op. cit. p. 110, that in the career of very many German historians 1933 ‘signified no dramatic caesura’. Note also Werner, K. F., Das NS-Geschichtsbild und die deutsche Geschichtswissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1967)Google Scholar; and, on academics at large, Ringer, F., The Decline of the German Mandarins (Cambridge, Mass., 1969)Google Scholar.

page 181 note 3. For example, Rich thus overstates the elements of disjunction: “National Socialism … consciously abandoned the foreign policy of the Second Reich” (Hitler's War Aims, 1, p. 7). This rather sweeping judgement seems to be based principally on the suppositions (1) that Wilhelminian war aims did not also put heaviest stress on domination over Eastern Europe; (2) that the Nazis never had any interest in a continental drive to south and west; and (3) that the Third Reich lacked all colonial ambitions beyond Europe. Fischer's arguments undermine (1). Some of Rich's own findings call (2) and (3) into doubt. See, for instance, the observations on Belgium and France (11, pp. 196–8); and the remarks on overseas colonies (11, pp. 404–12). Rich quotes Hitler (11, p. 407) as declaring in 1941: “For a colonial policy to have any sense, one must first dominate Europe”. However secondary the Führer's overseas aims may have been, this is a mode of thinking all too familiar among Fischer's subjects. Rich titles volume 11, chapter 12, ‘Morgen die ganze Welt?”’. Possibly: and, if so, Hitler may have deviated from his predecessors more by enlarging than by contracting the scope of his global war aims. How smooth may be the transition from Weltmacht to Welthegemonie? Many of the relevant issues are considered in Michaelis, M., ‘World Power Status or World Dominion ?: A Survey of the Literature on Hitler's “Plan of World Dominion”, 1937–1970’, The Historical Journal, xv (1972), pp. 331–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and in Hildebrand, K., Vom Reich zum Weltreich: Hitler, NSDAP und koloniale Frage, 1919–1945 (Munich, 1969)Google Scholar.

page 181 note 4. More precisely, Fischer's argument has been revolutionary not so much in asserting Germany's primary responsibility for the outbreak of the Great War (cf. Clause 231 of the Versailles Treaty, and much else besides) as in demonstrating, not least from a German academic chair, her singular role with such massive wealth of documentation.

page 182 note 1. Hitlers’ War Aims, I, op. cit., 1, p. 81.

page 182 note 2. Ibid, p. 420.

page 183 note 1. Quoted in Germany's Aims, op. cit. pp. 202–3.

page 183 note 2. Among good general surveys is Mosse, G. L., The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich (London, 1966)Google Scholar, parts 1–11. A leading exemplar of this racist ethos is considered in Biddiss, M. D., ‘Houston Stewart Chamberlain: Prophet of Teutonism’, History Today, xix (1969), pp. 10–17Google Scholar.

page 183 note 3. See, particularly, War of Illusions, op. cit. pp. 190–9, 255–7.

page 183 note 4. Watt, D. C. (ed.), Mein Kampf (London, 1972), p. 3Google Scholar.

page 183 note 5. See, for example, War of Illusions, op. cit. pp. 205–29, 296–8, 528–9; Germany's Aims, op. cit. pp. 208–14. Norman Stone writes: “To keep going such an artificial system as Bismarck's Prussian-dominated ‘Little Germany’, the Germans had to maintain the even more contrived existence of the Habsburg Monarchy” (‘Gerhard Ritter and the First World War’, loc. cit. p. 170 n.). Fischer helps to suggest how, as the Great War progressed, doubts in Berlin about the worth of maintaining Austria were accentuated.

page 184 note 1. Hitlers War Aims, op. cit. II, p. 421.

page 184 note 2. This is one of the vital points which Taylor, A. J. P. sought to make in The Origins of the Second World War (London, 1961)Google Scholar. He did so, however, with a stimulating impishness which engendered misunderstanding as well as notoriety. In the “Second Thoughts” prefacing the paperback reprint (Harmondsworth, 1964) he emphasized more clearly that Hitler must bear “the greatest responsibility for acts of immeasurable evil”. But there Taylor also helpfully notes: “Little can be discovered so long as we go on attributing everything that happened to Hitler. He supplied a powerful dynamic element, but it was fuel to an existing engine. He was in part the creation of Versailles, in part the creation of ideas that were common in contemporary Europe. Most of all, he was the creation of German history and of the German present. He would have counted for nothing without the support and co-operation of the German people. It seems to be believed nowadays that Hitler did everything himself, even driving the trains and filling the gas chambers unaided. This was not so. Hitler was a sounding-board for the German nation.” (pp. 26–27).

page 185 note 1. The volume by Moses is weakened by a polemical tendency to deal too harshly, sometimes even contemptuously, with Fischer's critics: see Politics of Illusion, op. cit. chapter 4 especially.

page 185 note 2. For comment on the current situation see Ibid. pp. 123–31. Steinberg, J., ‘The Armistice in German History’, The Times Literary Supplement, 25 Oct. 1974, pp. 1203–1204Google Scholar provides an excellent thumbnail sketch based on his attendance at that year's German Historical Convention. Note also Waller, B., ‘Hans-Ulrich Wehler on Imperial Germany, 1871–1918’, British Journal of International Studies, i (1975), pp. 60–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar. As Waller's piece illustrates, there are also important questions to be asked about continuities between the Bismarckzeit itself and the period upon which the present article has concentrated.

page 185 note 3. World Power or Decline, op. cit. p. xii.