The German Right in the Weimar Republic: Studies in the History of German Conservatism, Nationalism, and Antisemitism, edited by Larry Eugene Jones

Abstract

The German in Weimar Republic: Studies in History of German Conservatism, Nationalism, and Antisemitism, edited by Larry Eugene Jones. New York & Oxford, Berghahn Books, 2014. xxiv, 332 pp. $95.00 US (cloth). What is role and responsibility of political right in Weimar Republic--which consisted of a myriad of political parties, associations, and combat leagues--when it comes to rise of Nazi Party and Hitler's ascendance to chancellorship in Germany in 1933? This new collection of essays, edited by Larry Eugene Jones, on political, organizational, and social history of German right in Weimar Republic offers useful insights into this long-debated question and makes a number of persuasive arguments. The picture that emerges from this book is of a political right characterized by continual quarrelling, disunity, competition, and ongoing and increasing fragmentation. The volume is made up of ten individual chapters that look at some of major players of Weimar's Right. Half of studies deal with history of German National People's Party (Deutschnationale Volkspartei, DNVP) and that of Pan-German League (Alldeutscher Verband, ADV); other essays focus on German combat leagues, Catholic right, Reich President von Hindenburg, jurist and political theorist Carl Schmitt, and Protestant theologian Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, director of Bethel Institutions. The volume is impressively coherent for an essay collection and thus convincingly achieves what Jones claims as its purpose in his cogent and useful (especially historiographically) introduction: to reinforce through several case studies master narrative that the disunity of was every bit as important as a prerequisite for establishment of Third Reich as schism on socialist Left or fragmentation of political middle (2). The organizational and ideological disunity of political right is clearly demonstrated by scholars here, with individual essays often complementing each other by highlighting different shards of fragmenting movements. For example, pieces by Daniela Gasteiger and Jones both look at fissures in German National Party. Gasteiger's essay focuses on DNVP leader Count Guido von Westarp and his relationships with volkisch politician Albrecht von Graefe-Goldebee (initially a member of DNVP and then founder of German-Racist Freedom Party [Deutschvolksiche Freiheitspartei, DVP] and Central Association of German Conservatives [Hauptverein der Deutschkonservativen]), closely examining deterioration of both relationships. The collection's next is Jones' analysis of inner-party quarrels within DNVP and inconsistency of party in regard to Jewish question. The reader is convinced by both essays not only of disunity of DNVP, but also of its multiple disunities. The Jewish question is a topic of other essays here as well, and again internal divisions are identified. Brian E. Crim's essay looks at Jewish question in regard to German combat leagues. The anti-Semitism Crim finds in two largest, Stahlhelm, League of Front Soldiers (Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten), and Young German Order (Jungdeutscher Orden, Jungdo), is mostly a strategically chosen ideology, a situational antisemitism derived from opportunism, pragmatism, and vicious competition in a crowed German Right (195). Variations of this diagnosis are also made (implicitly) in essays by Gasteiger and Jones on DNVP and in essay by Bjorn Hofmeister on Pan-German league. …