Continuity in German Foreign Policy? The Case of Stresemann

Abstract

Nearly twenty years have now passed since Fritz Fischer enunciated, as little more than an aside in his dense tome on German aims in the First World War, a thesis about German responsibility for the outbreak of the war which Bernadotte Schmitt and Luigi Albertini had defended much more thoroughly and effectively decades earlier. The controversy sparked by Fischer's violation of what had become a taboo in West German historical circles has, since the heat began to yield to light, produced a host of fruitful new inquiries into the motives and methods of Imperial Germany's diplomacy prior to August 1 9 14, as well as into the structure of government and society in the Empire. Of late, moreover, the Fischer controversy has shown signs of broadening into a debate over the character of German foreign policy throughout the first half of this century. In this more general discussion, one repeatedly encounters the term 'continuity/ Widely, if not universally, held among younger West German historians is the view that the Third Reich represented the continuation, under other auspices, of the aggressive, reckless, expansionistic policies pursued by Imperial Germany. According to some German historians, the Weimar period, even - or especially - during the six years when the republic's foreign policy was directed by Gustav Stresemann, also fits into this politically pathological pattern. Fritz Fischer himself gave impetus to this interpretation of Stresemann. Employing phrases drawn from the vocabulary of National Socialism, he attributed to Stresemann the intention of imposing German dominance on eastern Europe and creating a 'grossdeutscher Stoat' which would encompass not only German Austria but also peoples of other nationalities. To be sure, Fischer qualified these remarks by stating that Stresemann hoped to achieve his aims without war.1 Less cautious was Fischer's stu