Table Of ContentThe Short Oxford History of Germany
Weimar Germany
The Short Oxford History of Germany
Weimar Germany
Edited by Anthony McElligott
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ISBN 978-0-19-928007-0
Printed in the United Kingdom by
the MPG Books Group Ltd
The Short Oxford History of Germany
The Short Oxford History of Germany series provides a concise, readable,
and authoritative point of entry for the history of Germany, from the
dawn of the nineteenth century to the present day. The series is divided
into five volumes, each one dealing with a distinct phase in the country’s
history. The first two volumes take the reader from the dying days of the
Holy Roman Empire, through unification under Prussian leadership in
1871, to the collapse of the Wilhelmine Reich at the end of the First World
War. The subsequent three volumes then focus on the Weimar period
from 1919 to 1933; the calamitous years of the Third Reich and the Second
World War; and Germany since 1945, first as two separate states on the
front line of the Cold War and later as a reunified country at the heart of
Europe.
now available:
Germany, 1800-1870
Imperial Germany, 1871-1918
Weimar Germany, 1919-1933
Nazi Germany, 1933-1945
Contents
Glossary of terms and abbreviations xi
List of contributors xiv
Introduction i
Anthony McElligott
The ‘doomed’ republic 4
Weimar and the limits of ‘crisis years of classical modernity’ 6
Weimar and the ambiguities of ‘classical modernity’ 8
Conclusion 22
1 Political culture 26
Anthony McElligott
The republic as contingency 27
The republic between Volksstaat and plebiscitary state 29
Revolution and reaction 32
The Volksstaat 35
Towards the plebiscitary state 38
Plebiscitary dictatorship 40
2 Foreign policy 50
Wolfgang Elz
The Versailles Treaty 54
The Stresemann era 61
German-French rapprochement 67
The end of rapprochement 71
Aggressive revisionism 74
3 The Reichswehr and the Weimar Republic 78
William Mulligan
The army and the new regime, 1918-1920 78
Viü I CONTENTS
Seeckt’s prescription, 1920-1923 86
The state and the militarization of society, 1923-1930 92
The consequences of Weimar’s military vision 96
Conclusion 100
4 The Weimar economy 102
Harold James
Economic performance 102
Economic policy 107
Economic constraints 121
Conclusion 124
5 The ‘urban republic’ 127
John Bingham
A republic of cities 127
The problem of urban modernity 129
Reform pressures 130
The Städtetag 133
The cities’ ‘new order* 134
‘Reform born out of catastrophe* 141
6 Women and the politics of gender 146
Kathleen Canning
Women, war, and transformations of gender, 1914-1918 146
Women and gender in the founding of the republic 151
Gender and the party-political arena 154
Labour, consumption, and sexual politics in the era of
rationalization 158
Sexual crisis and the crisis of the republic 167
7 The Weimar welfare system 175
Young-Sun Hong
Introduction 175
Historiographical parameters 178
CONTENTS I ix
Unemployment relief 181
Veterans, dependants, survivors, and the other new poor 184
The National Social Welfare Law 189
Welfare, corporatism, and the Weimar state 192
Social hygiene, social discipline, and the question of continuities
between Weimar welfare and Nazi racism 194
Youth welfare 198
The law that wasn’t: correctional custody and the ambiguities of
social citizenship 201
Conclusion 203
8 ‘Neues Wohnen’: Housing and reform 207
Adelheid von Saldem
Introduction 207
Visible evidence of social reform 208
The concepts of the reformers and the profiles of the housing
estates 209
The obligation to the modem lifestyle 212
The nuclear family and the well-maintained neighbourhood 216
The traditional gender order in modem guise 217
Modem taste as hygienic obligation 220
Complex ways of appropriation 221
The ‘new feeling of life* in society 224
Transnational communication 226
Conclusion 228
9 Weimar Jewry 234
Anthony D. Kauders
Who were the Jews? 237
The origins of Weimar Jewry 240
Liberalism ante mortem? Jewish politics 244
In a liberal key: religious-cultural debate 250
X I CONTENTS
io High brow and low brow culture 260
Karl Christian Führer
The public promotion of art and culture 261
Art as leisure 269
Arts and the public 276
Further Reading 282
Chancellors of the Weimar Republic, 1919-1933 299
Chronology 300
Map 307
Index 309
