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Introduction
It has been some time since I published the first part of Golo Mann’s “History of Germany since 1789”, covering the period from Napoleon to the end of Bismarck’s rule. In today’s post I will continue sharing with you some quotes from the book, which I consider one of the best history books on Europe. The original’s title is “Deutsche Geschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts”, first published in German in 1958. I use the English translation by Marian Jackson, reprinted by Penguin Books in 1990. For ease of reference, in each quote I will use the page number of the 1990 reprint.
This is the second part, covering the period from 1890 to the rise of Hitler and Nazism to power (January 1933).
The third part will cover the period from January 1933 to the early 1960s. I am not aiming at reproducing the great intensity of the book, or summarize it. All I want is to present some elements of the work that are representative of its author and his views, which I find stimulating and challenging.
Timeline
A timeline from 1890 to 1933, when Hitler was appointed Chancellor.
1890 – Growing workers’ movement culminates in founding of Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
1914-1918 – World War I
1918 – Germany defeated, signs armistice. Emperor William II abdicates and goes into exile.
1919 – Treaty of Versailles: Germany loses colonies and land to neighbors, pays large-scale reparations. Beginning of the Weimar Republic, based on a new constitution. Its early years are marked by high unemployment and rampant inflation.
1923 – Adolf Hitler, head of the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party, leads an abortive coup in a Munich beer hall. France, Belgium occupy the Ruhr over failed reparation payments. Hyperinflation leads to economic collapse.
1924 – Hitler writes Mein Kampf – “My Struggle” – in prison.
1929 – Global depression, mass unemployment.
January 1933 – Hitler becomes chancellor. Weimar Republic gives way to a one-party state.
To facilitate the historical context, I added in some parts a [timeline tag].
Part Eight: The Age of William II (1888 – 1914)
After 1890 German affairs took a turn for the worse and therefore many historians came to the conclusion that Bismarck’s fall was a disaster and the beginning of all Germany’s misfortune. But it needs little acumen to show the erroneousness of this view. (p. 415)
Our character is determined partly by the reality in which we live, by the tasks that confront us. (p. 422)
The semi-dictatorship which Bismarck had exercised in order to preserve the peace, to deprive German development of its momentum, had collapsed in 1890. The verdict was final; it could not be reversed five years later. The energies of the German Reich could no longer be neutralized as in Metternich’s day. Something had to be done with them. (p.426)
Great states, that is states which under given conditions regard themselves as great, want to be influential beyond their own frontiers. History confirms this a hundred times. (p. 426)
“Only complete political dishonesty and naive optimism can fail to recognize that, after a period of peaceful competition, the inevitable urge of all nations with burgeois societies to expand their trade must now once more lead to a situation in which power alone will have a decisive influence on the extent to which individual nations will share in the economic control of the world, and thus determine the economic prospects of their peoples and of their workers in particular” Max Weber (p.434)
“Bernhard Bullow (German Chancellor from 1900 to 1909) is clean-shaven and flabby, with a shifty look, and usually has a smile on his face. Although he has no ideas in stone for emergencies he adopts the ideas of others and reproduces them skilfully… If Bullow wants to set one man against another he says with a charming smile ot the one that the other does not like him. The method is simple and almost infallible.” Geheimrat Holstein (p.437)
Once people had made the mistake of regarding the nation-state as the ultimate human goal and its “greatness” as an absolute purpose, there was no escape from the wearying game of threats and reconciliations, attempts to expand and withdrawals, of ever-changing speculative combinations; while always on the horizon there was the thing which everyone and no one believed in, war. (p.438) 
…alliances, however peacefully meant, always provoke others, and thus increase the danger they try to avert. (p.439)
On the contrary, in the nineteenth century Germany had been definitely popular among the Anglo-Saxons. The unpopular countries were France and Russia, France because it was revolutionary, imperialistic and restless, and Russia because it was exotic, barbarian and despotic. .. Only in the last ten or twelve years before 1914 did Germany become unpopular in Britain. The Germans lost the sympathies of the world because they did not believe that they had them and boastfully announced that they could do without them. (p.443)
There are two sides in every conflict and it would be wrong to hold German diplomacy alone responsible for the intrigues and fears that poisoned the European atmosphere in the decade before 1914. Foreign policy is largely irrational and comes up against elements that are also irrational. .. Economic competition can be controlled by sensible aim of making money; the same does not apply to political competition. (p.445)
The trouble with all youth movements is that they fail to keep their promises, however hard they try. German youth did have ideals when it came to nation and state, but given modern society as it was these ideals could only be cultivated by a small, young circle. This led to disappointments and later also to political aberrations. (p.466) The concept of the nation had no logical place in the Habsburg Empire. (p.467)
The Habsburg monarchy was a survival of the past, the only great non-national state in the age of nationalism. (p. 468) Economic interests bring people together, politics divide them. Political activity is competitive and threatening. The question of whether you can kill me or I can kill you arises between all living beings who do not share the same laws and do not trust each other. (p. 476)
The living know they will die but they do not believe it because they have become used to life and only know life. Such, more or less, must have been the mood before 1914. (p.478)
It was an old Austrian axiom that the “monarchy” would not last much longer than Turkey. Both states were supra-national and violated the principle of the nation-state. If Balkan nationalism triumphed over Turkey it would also triumph over Austria and in Austria. The Austrians therefore regarded the end of the First Balkan War as a defeat. (p.478)
Part Nine: War
Nothing is inevitable until it has happened. (p.481)
Text: Subscribe to the war loan! The Army and Navy expect it from you!. Date Created/Published: Berlin : Hollerbaum & Schmidt, 1917.
July 1914
His (Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria) views on Serbia were more or less those of Bismarck, namely that its plum trees and pigs were not worth the bones of an Austrian soldier. (p.482)
The War Guilt Question
Nobody knew what anybody else would do. This was the basis of the risk, of the bluff, the sportsmanship of the affair; this has always been the game of politics. (p. 492)
Moods
By nature man oscillates between egoism and the desire to destroy himself for a great cause. (p.496)
Frustrated plans
All countries believed they were the victim of attack, but all attacked. All general staffs had long prepared and nurtured grand offensive plans which they now put into action. … After six weeks nothing was left of any of these plans and elaborate stratagems. (p. 501)
War have almost never gone according to plan; sooner or later they have developed in a way not foreseen by the strategists on either side. (p.502)
War Aims and Domestic Friction
In wartime it is not political sense that rules, but war – the generals or civilians who know how to wage it. (p.508)
The aims had not led to the war, but the war, once there, led to the aims… Only German Social Democrats believed from the first day of the war to the last in the idea of peace without conquests, thus proving once again how superior their political education was to that of the middle classes. (p. 511-512)
It is difficult to have sensible aims in the midst of an orgy of senselessness… What would the peoples, the masses, do if they suddenly saw the whole enormous war effort as a cruel piece of foolery? (p. 512)
Changes
War is known to strengthen the strong and to weaken the weak, those who are already on their way down. The strong were those who were capable and could be made use of, but they were also vulgar, ruthless and shameless. (p. 520)
By Unknown – Press photo published all over the world. F.ex. Jan Dąbrowski “Wielka wojna 1914-1918” ( The Great War 1914-1918) Warsaw 1937, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9423922
Chronology
In other countries the crisis brought to the top the most ruthless, most imaginative politicians, Lloyd George in England and a year later Clemenceau in France. … It is logical that when war penetrates and dominates everything, when it is “total” war, the general must rule. .. Ludendorff was a tremendous worker, an expert on the new weapons, a man whose head was full of figures and names but who was irritable and brutal and in the subtleties of life as inexperienced as a child. (p. 524)
The Last Year
Just as the army leaders had never paid any attention to the psychology of the enemy, they now gave no thought to the effect which their armistice offer must have on the German masses. (p.543)
Part Ten: Weimar
Two basic documents
We know today that the wars of this century are bad for everybody and that the victor cannot undo the damage done to him by doubling or increasing to hundredfold that done to the defeated enemy. If he tries to do this he multiplies the damage done to himself. Victory is an illusion. (p. 568)
But the world cannot reverse gear; it cannot. It can fall or decline, like Greece or Rome, but it can never reverse gear. (p. 569)
It is an old truth that one should place least trust in one’s own right, in one’s own power and its duration when one is on top; then is the moment for humility , the moment to doubt of one’s own merit. There is always something in victory to be ashamed of. (p. 570)
The German Government signed the treaty… The Germans signed under protest because they had no choice. They called the treaty a “dictation” which indeed it was; because genuine negotiations had taken place only between the victors, not between victors and vanquished. Such a treaty does not last linger than the political situation on which it was based. (p. 570)
The Weimar Constitution presupposed that the Germans were agreed on the basic concepts of their communal existence. That they respected each other and were prepared to live together. It was possible to have differences of interest and opinion, they existed everywhere and could be dealt with, But the nation needed to be reasonably at peace with itself and with the rest of the world. If it was not no constitution could help it…(p.574)
Unrest, Followed by Apparent Consolidation
Munich thus became the center both of Bavarian opposition and of an all-German conspiracy against Berlin democracy… Berlin was supposed to hold together the divided, threatened and deeply dissatisfied nation. (p. 576)
The economic chaos of the post-war years, the growing inflation brought with it a profound change. (p. 577)
Consequently the supporters of the old order possessed at least two attractive arguments in favor of a counter-blow from the right; the new democratic authority had feet of clay; and it allegedly offered no guarantees against the Communist or anarchist threat. (p. 582)
The Intellectuals
Spengler, like Hegel, was aware of living at the end of an historical epoch, and he was stimulated by the war as Hegel had been by Napoleon’s appearance…What was dangerous for Hegel, the glorification of war, the worship of power and success, Spengler took over. (p.618)
What made Oswald Spengler into a central intellectual figure was his description of the present and the immediate future. (p. 619)
“Blood for gold”, was what Spengler taught, and “work for moneybags, blood for gold” was what the National Socialists sang later. (p. 620)
By praising old Prussia but criticizing the monarchy, by ridiculing the ideal of progress, by glorifying war but claiming to be a socialist, by completely overthrowing conventional ways of thinking in politics Spengler became the co-founder of an intellectual movement which the present writer cannot ignore, however confused it was and however little came of it in the end. It was called the “Conservative Revolution” . (p. 620)
From Stresemann to Brüning
[Timeline: With the end of the First World War and the start of the November Revolution, Chancellor Max of Baden announced the abdication of the German Emperor Wilhelm II on 9 November 1918. He also appointed Friedrich Ebert as his own successor as Chancellor. The Council of the People’s Deputies, a provisional government consisting of three delegates from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and three from the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), took over the executive power on the following day and called for a National Congress of Councils on 16 to 21 December to convene in Berlin. This Reichsrätekongress set elections for a national assembly to take place on 19 January 1919.]
1919 was the great hour of democracy but it was not a happy hour. (p. 623)
The people was a chaos of conflicting hopes and fears. Chaos does not resolve itself on its own; what is needed are ideas and determination and not just a well-prepared constitution. The leaders of the Social Democratic Party replaced determination to govern by determination to keep order and by considerable, affecting integrity.(p. 624)
At the 1919 elections to the National Asembly more Germans voted for the Social Democrats than voted for the National Socialists even at the time of their greatest popular triumph in the summer of 1932. (p.683)
In fact the party which decided the fate of the Weimar Republic was the Center. (p.626)
(Stresemann) He received no thanks for any of his achievements and he was blamed for everything that he had failed to achieve. .. The good period of the Weimar Republic was thus, on closer inspection, not so good after all. Nor was it felt as such. (p. 627)
The relationship between between Germany and the new Polish state could not be good. Poland had been created at the expense of Germany, as Prussia had been at the expense of Poland… The Germans felt superior to the small Slav nations in a very different sense from that in which they felt superior to the French. It seemed natural to them that Poles lived under Prussian rule because the strong expands at the expense of the weak … But the same mutual, arrogant dislike separated Germans and Czechs, the latter regarding themselves as morally superior and the former as basically stronger, as having the justification of history behind them. (p. 628)
The Weimar Constitution provided for the election of the President by the people, by all men and women entitled to vote. The first President, Ebert, had not been elected under this procedure, but had been appointed by the National Assembly. After his death in the spring of 1925 it became necessary to hold an election. The united right chose Hindenburg as its candidate and Admiral von Tirpitz persuaded him to accept the honour – two veterans of 1870. Hindenburg was elected, although by a narrow majority. Had the Communists not put up a third candidate, the “popular bloc”, represented by a mild Center republican, would have triumphed over Hindenburg’s “Reich bloc”. (p.631)
The idea of the Weimar Republic , to the extent that it had one, was compromise, peace between classes, not class struggle to the bitter end. (p. 635)
A few months later, at the beginning of October (1929), Gustav Stresemann died after a stroke. This was a loss of the kind which the Republic could least afford at this moment. Like no one else Stresemann had kept Parliament together, had personally made possible the compromise between labor and capital, and by his diplomacy had given meaning to Germany’s existence as a state among states. (p. 636)
Crisis and Disintegration of the Weimar Republic
In the Reichstag of 1928 the Nazis has mustered only 12 members and the Nazis were considered as part of the “lunatic fringe”. Hitler made no progress as long as things were going tolerably well in Germany. But starting in 1929 the economy collapsed.
The Nazi Party had the advantage that it was in no way involved with what had happened in Germany since 1919.
In Germany the storm now turned against the Republic itself, against the whole “System” and all who had been part of it. (p.643).
[Timeline: Brüning was appointed chancellor by Hindenburg on 29 March 1930 when the grand coalition under the Social Democrat Hermann Müller collapsed.]
When the votes were counted in September 1930, it appeared that the supporters of the National Socialists had increased tenfold (my note: from 12 to 107). The New Reichstag was scarcely capable of doing the things which a Parliament is supposed to do, of positive investigation and decision.
The system by which Germany was governed depended on the pleasure of the President.
After 1930 only the Army and the President – two not very republican institutions – stood between the Nazis and the Republic (p.685).
In 1932 Germany produced scarcely half of what it had produced in 1929.
[Since 1929, Germany had been suffering from the Great Depression as unemployment rose from 8.5% to nearly 30% between 1929 and 1932, while industrial production inside Germany dropped roughly 42%.]
It was the misery and the fear of misery which drove people into the Nazis arms. (p.654)
[Timeline: In March 1932, presidential elections pitted the incumbent Hindenburg, supported by pro-democratic parties, against Hitler and communist Ernst Thälmann. Hitler gained roughly a third of the vote and was thus defeated in the second round in April by Hindenburg, who gained a narrow majority.]
In Germany civil was had threatened since 1930; this was not a climate in which the economy could flourish.
All the major parties by this time had their own “strong arm” squads. By far the most limitant group, however, were the Sturmabteilungen – SA for short – of the Nazi Party, an army organized to fight a civil war.
[Timeline: In April 1932 Brüning had both the communist “Rotfrontkämpferbund” and the Nazi Sturmabteilung banned. The unfavourable reaction in right-wing circles further undermined Hindenburg’s support for Brüning.]
It is impossible to single out all the elements, poisonous or healthy, that fed the Nazi movement. (p. 656)
[Timeline: Hindenburg at the end of May 1932 was persuaded to dismiss Brüning as chancellor, replacing him with Franz von Papen, a renegade of the Centre Party, and a non-partisan “Cabinet of Barons”. Papen owed his appointment to the Chancellorship to General Kurt von Schleicher, an old friend from the pre-war General Staff and influential advisor of President Hindenburg. Schleicher selected Papen because his conservative, aristocratic background and military career was satisfactory to Hindenburg and would create the groundwork for a possible Centre-Nazi coalition. Papen’s cabinet had almost no support in parliament and only three days after his appointment, when faced with the opposition, had Hindenburg dissolve the Reichstag and called for new elections, for 31 July, so that the Reichstag could not dismiss him immediately.]
[Timeline: The July 1932 elections resulted in great gains by the Nazi Party; with 230 seats, it was the largest party in parliament but without an overall majority. Neither the Nazi Party nor Hindenburg had a governing majority, and the other parties refused co-operation. Neither side had a majority on its own, and no coalition could be formed to create a governing majority. Thus, Papen’s minority government continued, leading to another election in November.]
[Timeline: The results of the November 1932 election were a great disappointment for the Nazis. Although they emerged once more as the largest party by far, they had fewer seats than before, and failed to form a government coalition in the Reichstag parliament.]
The Weimar state was thus more an appendage of the Empire of William II or the Bismarck than it was a distinct historic epoch; it was an interregnum between two eras, the second of which was, as we know, infinitely worse. (p.685)
In an interregnum the strongest takes over and it was Hitler who happened to be the strongest. (p.686)
[Timeline: In the November 1932 election the Nazis lost seats, but Papen was still unable to secure a Reichstag that could be counted on not to pass another vote of no-confidence in his government. Papen’s attempt to negotiate with Hitler failed. Under pressure from Schleicher, Papen resigned on 17 November and formed a caretaker government. Papen told his cabinet that he planned to have martial law declared, which would allow him to rule as a dictator. However, at a cabinet meeting on 2 December, Papen was informed by Schleicher’s associate General Eugen Ott that Ministry of the Reichswehr war games showed there was no way to maintain order against the Nazis and Communists. Realizing that Schleicher was moving to replace him, Papen asked Hindenburg to fire Schleicher as defence minister. Instead, Hindenburg appointed Schleicher as chancellor.]
How small the people sometimes are who are in a position to make history, how base their motives, their thoughts, their character… This enmity, this paralysis of German politics caused by the conflict of the mass parties, gave them (the Nazis) their chance… An industrial society in a state of great political excitement could be ruled either democratically or demagogically and tyranically. (p.677)
In the end there was nothing sinister about the way in which Hitler came to power, because he was politically the strongest and had the most vehement popular movement behind him.(p.678)
[Timeline: On 9 January 1933, Papen and Hindenburg agreed to form a new government that would bring in Hitler. On the evening of 22 January, in a meeting at the villa of Joachim von Ribbentrop in Berlin, Papen made the concession of abandoning his claim to the Chancellorship and committed to support Hitler as Chancellor in a proposed “Government of National Concentration”, in which Papen would serve as Vice-Chancellor and Minister-President of Prussia. On 23 January, Papen presented to Hindenburg his idea for Hitler to be made Chancellor, while keeping him “boxed” in. On the same day Schleicher, to avoid a vote of no-confidence in the Reichstag when it reconvened on 31 January, asked the president to declare a state of emergency. Hindenburg declined and Schleicher resigned at midday on 28 January. Hindenburg formally gave Papen the task of forming a new government.]
[Timeline: In the morning of 29 January, Papen met with Hitler and Hermann Göring at his apartment, where it was agreed that Papen would serve as Vice-Chancellor and Commissioner for Prussia. It was in the same meeting that Papen first learned that Hitler wanted to dissolve the Reichstag when he became Chancellor and, once the Nazis had won a majority of the seats in the ensuing elections, to activate the Enabling Act. In the end, the President, who had previously vowed never to let Hitler become Chancellor, appointed Hitler to the post at 11.30 am on 30 January 1933, with Papen as Vice-Chancellor. While Papen’s intrigues appeared to have brought Hitler into power, the crucial dynamic was in fact provided by the Nazi Party’s electoral support, which made military dictatorship the only alternative to Nazi rule for Hindenburg and his circle.]
It was because of Papen’s activities that Hitler became Chancellor in a particular way and this fact alone should have been enough to make Papen remain forever silent in shame and remorse. (p.679)
Once in power (1933) Hitler therefore found it terrifyingly easy to assume absolute control, and the political parties in particular were reduced to dust at his touch. (p.687)
What seemed to begin as a new chapter in German history became the adventure of a villain who forced his will on Germany and through Germany on a large part of the world. (p.688)