Germany By 1900 the
German Empire, unified by Bismarck in 1866/71, was under tremendous strain in a process of singularly rapid industrial transformation which created unusually large social and political tensions. In addition, in the federal nation-state created by Bismarck it was the constituent states, and not the Empire, which controlled most of the revenues. Without their consent, the Empire could not increase its own revenue substantially, and this meant that Germany could not keep up with the arms race that developed in the years around 1900, partly as a result of Germany's own desire to take part in
imperialism and its consequent building of a large navy at the instigation of Admiral
Tirpitz. This sense of crisis explains why Emperor
Wilhelm II and his Chancellor,
Bethmann Hollweg, felt compelled to incite World War I, out of the conviction that if there had to be war, the chances of winning it would be higher the sooner it broke out.
The initial consensus in favour of supporting the war was relatively short-lived, and soon the political parties began to demand domestic reform, particularly in
Prussia. In 1917, Parliament passed a motion demanding peace negotiations. By then, however, the country was run in a virtual dictatorship by Generals
Hindenburg and
Ludendorff, who instilled in most Germans a belief and confidence in ultimate victory. Defeat in World War I, therefore, came as a complete shock to most Germans, as did the territorial losses and the
reparation payments imposed upon them by the
Versailles Treaty, under the humiliating charge that Germany had been the sole aggressor.
These factors became a great burden for the new democracy that began to form after the popular unrest of 1918 had forced the Emperor to abdicate. This democracy is known as the
Weimar Republic, so named after the city of the German poets Goethe and Schiller in which the National Assembly convened to write the new Constitution. It established universal suffrage and unrestricted proportional representation, which made it very difficult to establish stable parliamentary majorities. Another problem was that the Weimar Republic depended on the bureaucratic and military elites of the former Empire, neither of whom felt any commitment to the democracy. After years of crisis, marked by the decommissioning of millions of soldiers, the payments of
reparations, the
Kapp Putsch in 1920, the murder of
Erzberger and
Rathenau, and the events of 1923 (which saw the occupation of the
Ruhr, hyperinflation, and the
Hitler Putsch), the Republic gained some stability during the
Stresemann era. However, after the world economic crisis caused by the
Wall Street Crash in 1929, millions of disaffected people voted for
Hitler's Nazi Party from 1930, and Germany became ungovernable. Chancellors
Brüning and von
Papen tried to avert Hitler's coming to power despite his popularity, but in the end von Papen urged President von
Hindenburg to make Hitler Chancellor, as he felt sure Hitler could be controlled by the other Cabinet Ministers.
Hitler's appointment as Chancellor on 30 January 1933 and his acquisition of dictatorial powers through the
Enabling Law marked the beginning of the
Third Reich, in which Hitler sustained and increased his popularity by ending record unemployment (largely through a massive programme of rearmament), the restoration of order and security on the streets, and a succession of major foreign policy triumphs such as the
Saarland return to the Reich in 1935, the
Anschluss with Austria (1938), and the annexation of the
Sudetenland (1938) and of the Czech lands (1939). These successes led most Germans to overlook the fact that this sense of national unity was acquired at the expense of minorities such as gypsies, homosexuals,
Jehovah's Witnesses, priests, the mentally ill, and especially Jews, who were officially degraded as second-class citizens by the
Nuremberg Laws. Jews and other opponents of the regime were thrown into
concentration camps, while the persecution of Jews reached new heights with the
Kristallnacht of 1938. Following the conclusion of the
Hitler–Stalin Pact, Hitler started his pursuit of more ‘living space’ (
Lebensraum) with the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, which unleashed World War II.
In 1941, Hitler started an all-out offensive against the Soviet Union, and in the wake of the initial
Barbarossa campaign the Nazis embarked upon the
Holocaust, the extermination of Jews in concentration camps such as
Auschwitz. Despite sporadic
resistance to Hitler, most notably through the
July Plot of 1944, the
Third Reich could only be overcome by the subjection of Germany through the Allied invasion which forced German capitulation on 8 May 1945.
Germany was divided into four zones, governed by the Soviet Union in the east, Britain in the north, France in the west and the US in the south. All German territories east of the Rivers
Oder and Neisse were placed under Polish and Soviet administration. Despite initial endeavours at cooperation, which only succeeded in a few circumstances such as the
Nuremberg Trials, the Soviet zone became administered increasingly separately from the other three.
The
German Democratic Republic (GDR) was founded in the Soviet eastern zone on 7 October 1949, in response to the foundation of the FRG (see below). Led by
Ulbricht, who transformed it into a Communist satellite state of the Soviet Union, its economy was restrained by the efforts required to transform it into a centrally planned economy, and by the dismantling of industries through the Soviet Union. Disenchantment with the dictatorial regime and the slow economic recovery compared to West Germany sparked off an uprising of over 300,000 workers on 17 June 1953, which was crushed by Soviet tanks. However, the country's existence continued to be challenged by the exodus of hundreds of thousands of East Germans to West Berlin every year. To enable East Germany's continued existence, the
Berlin Wall was built on 13 August 1961 as a complement to the existing impenetrable border between East and West Germany. In the following decades, authoritarian Communist rule, severe travel restrictions, a vast secret police apparatus (the
Stasi), and considerable economic prosperity compared to its eastern neighbours provided a relative degree of stability, at least on the surface.
The Soviet-style rule of
Honecker, Ulbricht's successor since 1971, became undermined by the advent of
Gorbachev as Soviet leader, when the East German leadership became more orthodox than the Soviet original. Matters came to a head in the summer of 1989, when Hungary opened its borders with Austria, thus enabling thousands of East German tourists to escape to the West. Meanwhile, Gorbachev's visit to the 40th anniversary celebrations of the GDR sparked off weekly mass protests, first in Leipzig and Berlin, and then throughout East Germany. Honecker had to resign, and in the confusion that followed, the Berlin Wall was opened by the GDR authorities on 9 November 1989. As East Germans used the opportunity to flee to West Germany in droves, the continuance of the GDR as a separate state became untenable. On 22 July 1990 the East German parliament reintroduced the five states that had existed 1945–52, each of which acceded to West Germany. On 3 October 1990 the GDR ceased to exist and Germany was unified.
The
Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) was founded on 23 May 1949, and after a narrow election victory
Adenauer became its first Chancellor. Aided by a rapid economic recovery masterminded by
Erhard, the new democracy won general acceptance and support. This stability was further strengthened by Adenauer's policy of integration into the Western alliance, e.g. through
European integration and the joining of
NATO, which enabled the speedy gain of full sovereignty for the new state from the Western allies. Adenauer was succeeded by Erhard in 1963, but following disagreements with his coalition partner, the
Liberal Party (FDP), he resigned in favour of
Kiesinger, who headed a ‘grand coalition’ between the SPD and
CDU.
After the 1969 elections the Liberals decided to support the SPD for the first time, which enabled its party leader,
Brandt, to become Chancellor. He inaugurated a new, conciliatory approach towards East Germany of dialogue and compromise, which henceforth became the basis of German internal relations. This policy was even maintained by
Kohl after he took over from Brandt's successor,
Schmidt, in 1982, as a result of which relations with East Germany, though always fragile, improved markedly during those years. Indeed, Kohl recognized the opportunity presented by the disintegration of East Germany for German unification more clearly than most other West Germans, many of whom had abandoned the goal of reunification long before.
German political unification was completed by 1990. For the rest of the decade, unification in the economic and cultural sphere was the major theme in politics and society, as was the new role which a united Germany would have to play on the world stage. German troops began to serve in multinational military peacekeeping operations in Bosnia,
Kosovo (1999), and Afghanistan (2002). By contrast, the economic effects of unification still loomed large. Transfer payments from western to eastern Germany augmented an already high tax burden without achieving its goals of economic recovery in the eastern states, while many of the additional costs of unification had been financed through debt. These factors contributed to sluggish economic growth and persistently high structural unemployment, especially in the eastern states. In 1998,
Schröder was elected chancellor to head the country's first coalition between Social Democrats and the
Green Party. His reforms, however, failed to revive the economy.
German Question;
SaarlandTable 10. Twentieth-century German leaders
Emperor | |
Friedrich Wilhelm II | 1888–1918 |
Presidents of the Weimar Republic | |
Friedrich Ebert | 1919–25 |
Paul von Hindenburg | 1925–34 |
Leader of the Third Reich | |
Adolf Hitler | 1933–45 |
German Democratic Republic (East Germany) | |
communist party leaders: | |
Wilhelm Pieck | 1949–50 |
Walter Ulbricht | 1950–71 |
Erich Honecker | 1971–89 |
Egon Krenz | 1989 |
prime ministers: | |
Hans Modrow | 1989–90 |
Lothar de Maizière | 1990 |
Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) | |
chancellors: | |
Konrad Adenauer | 1949–63 |
Ludwid Erhard | 1963–6 |
Kurt Kiesinger | 1966–9 |
Willy Brandt | 1969–74 |
Helmut Schmidt | 1974–82 |
Helmut Kohl | 1982–98 |
Gerhard Schröder | 1998– |
