The German Empire 1871-1918

Abstract

Abstract In the concluding passages to one of the classic texts advocating the Sonderweg thesis, Hans-Ulrich Wehler argues for the need to understand National Socialism through analysis of authoritarian structures and culture going back to the ‘configuration of 1871’.The unbroken tradition of government by pre-industrial power-elites, the prolongation of absolutism among the military, the weakness of liberalism and the very early appearance of deliberalising measures suggest on the surface a depoliticising of society, but one which deep down favoured a continuation of the status quo. The same can be said of the barriers to social mobility, the holding over of differences and various norms between separate estates, which is such a revealing aspect of Imperial Germany, and the essentially elitist character of education. Much of this resulted from the political weakness and defeats suffered by the bourgeoisie in the nineteenth century, and all these factors, which are given here only as examples, had assumed their importance during a phase of historical development which was uninterrupted by a successful revolution.

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