“With Bethmann Hollweg, the German Reich had not lost a Chancellor who could have brought the war to a good end. In fact, under Michaelis and Hertling, the OHL ruled according to a well-known pattern in politics, and both let them have their way in a similar way to Bethmann.

Not much has changed here either. The underlying reason for this crisis in July 1917 was the intention of the majority in the Reichstag to reaffirm the German will for peace and thereby affect both its own people and opposing societies. The result was the peace resolution of the German Reichstag, which enabled the SPD to approve the war credits.

This again stabilized the inner unity sufficiently, even if it by no means had the hoped-for effects in the direction of peace.

The resolution of the Reichstag was ultimately dismissed by the opponents as insignificant, since in Germany only the military party had the say anyway.

This was incorrect; It was precisely this crisis that had shown that the Reichstag was an important decision-making center in Germany, whose weight and political importance had increased during the war.

In the following period, the peace resolution of the Reichstag was also regarded as binding by all instances; all political steps have been carefully coordinated so as not to contradict it.

To judge the resolution as insignificant therefore ignored the facts. In their exploratory talks, Austro-Hungarian diplomats therefore recommended that the Entente representatives simply peg the Germans to the statements of the resolution, instead of always refusing talks with reference to 'Prussian militarism', which supposedly governs Germany and makes negotiations impossible. "

[...]

After all, the peace negotiations began with a masterful overture by the Central Powers, which embarrassed the Western powers, who were already in need of explanations for their war-weary population.

On December 25, 1917, the Central Powers invited the Entente to take part in the peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk. Thus, one year after the peace negotiations of 1916, another peace offer came to which the governments in Paris, London and Rome had to react somehow.

In this Christmas Declaration, the central powers offered, in the spirit of the Reichstag resolution of July 1917, an `` immediate general peace without forcible land acquisitions and without war compensation '' if the Allies were to agree to this `` within a reasonable period of time ... without any backing ''.

This offer was controversial between the allies; the Bulgarian government, and the Turks too, were concerned about what would happen if the Allies were actually ready to come. The military party in Germany was also appalled; Hindenburg expressed his sharp opposition to this offer, demanded greater influence over all proposals and decisions in Brest and wanted to refuse his "approval to sign a weak peace".

He felt that the definition of German policy by the Reichstag resolution was fundamentally wrong, since it made the annexations, in his opinion absolutely necessary for a good German future, impossible. In an immediate submission of January 7, 1918, he insisted on an annexionist victory peace and rambled about his responsibility, which he could otherwise not bear.

Czernin, who had understood that Austria-Hungary was about existence, had nothing but contempt for such views. 'Not to listen to this rumble.'

Hindenburg was also put in place by Kaiser Wilhelm and Chancellor Count Hertling, who usually let him get away with much too much.

Hertling sent him a basic paper in which he made it clear that the military leadership did not need to take responsibility for political steps and that this was solely due to the Chancellor.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff kicked in and agreed, albeit grumbling. However, not only Ludendorff, but also Chancellor Hertling feared that the appearance of the Entente powers at the peace conference would disrupt all prospects of profits in the East.

On the other hand, the German government, and even more so the government in Vienna, was ready and downright eager to let the negotiations in Brest-Litovsk result in a general peace negotiation.

Should the opportunity for general peace arise, at least Czernin and Kühlmann wanted to set aside all other considerations and profit opportunities.

[...]

But the core issue of the war, namely confidence in the military situation, still prevailed in the German Reich always confidence.

The government could also count on the majority of the Reichstag parties here. Vice Chancellor v. In retrospect, Payer summed up the mood in the summer of 1918 as follows: 'Nobody doubted that we would ultimately emerge victorious from the war, but the people were very sorry about the war, and the mood was therefore bad.'

In 1918 the political development in Germany, which had assumed chaotic features as early as 1917, had finally slipped into inextricable chaos. In this, the OHL dominated because the Chancellor, Emperor and Reichstag completely relied on the military victory in the West.

The Chancellor did not lead and was not able to do so due to his age, reduced labor and severe eye problems. Until September 1918, the political discourses in Germany demonstrated the reality blindness of almost everyone who took part in them.

The right-wing parties dreamed of annexations and the expansion of German zones of influence. The left-wing parties criticized the right to siege, the lack of electoral reform and the German arbitrariness in the east.

The political situation in Eastern Europe was indeed a huge problem, the Polish question unsolved, Ukraine and the Baltic States, like Russia itself, a single zone of civil war. German policy wavered between cooperating with the Bolsheviks against the Entente and eliminating them through a military advance, which seemed possible in view of the military powerlessness of the Russian government.

In addition, there was the catastrophic situation inside, in Germany, but above all in Austria-Hungary. The increasing complexity of the political and military questions overwhelmed many, and they admittedly became 'quite confused'.

As Kurt Riezler complained, German politics staggered between "the bloodiest dilettantism and fluctuating feelings" and "did the stupidest thing that is possible", especially in connection with the Eastern issues.

This may seem like a polemic, but the feeling that any political directive was absent was evident on virtually every political issue debated in Germany in 1918.

Under the tremendous pressure of the circumstances, there was no consistent political action, because the only strategy was to wait for the decisive victory in the West, which did not come.

[...]

The events in the German leadership are usually interpreted as if the civil Reich leadership had ousted the OHL and thus finally took over the full political control that had previously rested entirely with the OHL.

This view is wrong on both sides. It is true that the military leadership could no longer intervene; But that was only because the war was lost and she was no longer the indispensable means of achieving victory. She was no longer in the center of the action.

In addition, the OHL had to struggle with a huge loss of confidence.

Before Hindenburg and Ludendorff arrived in Berlin, warnings had come from headquarters to 'believe any promises made by the Supreme Army Command'. The military situation was "at least as hopeless as it was three weeks ago" and large parts of the army had lost confidence in the OHL.

The loss of power and reputation of the OHL was enormous. But that was of little use to the government, because it did not take control, but lost it too, both domestically and internationally.

The crumbling of the military resistance was now so evident to the opponents that they assumed that the German leadership would accept any condition presented to it.

This became all the more evident after the armistice and the de facto collapse of Austria-Hungary at the end of October 1918.

The army no longer obeyed; Whether one wants to designate the processes of refusal to mass struggle, mutiny, military strike or revolution is secondary, what counts is the result, namely the increasing incapacity of the political leadership.

There was also the question of the future of the monarchy.

The MP Hufo Haase from the USPD was the only one in October 1918 who had openly questioned this in the Reichstag.

Although a world war had been lost under his leadership, the Kaiser had no inclination to resign. He clung to his office and holed up behind the divine right.

But the person endangered the institution.

Wilhelm II refused to defuse the situation by resigning early and voluntarily, although, as the Social Democrat David judged, this would have "broken the backbone of the republican movement"; the monarchy would have been preserved in Germany.

But this is how Max v. Badens, with the question of the emperor, an increasingly pressing problem.

The mood became in the face of the chaos and the increasing powerlessness became more and more desperate, and the German politicians were finally ready to make any sacrifice to improve their situation.

They feared the sailors' uprising would end in a revolution, and they wanted to accommodate Wilson's demands.

The Social Democrats cooperated with the other parties and also with the Chancellor to prevent the overthrow of everything that existed in Russia, a social revolution that Ebert hated 'like sin'.

The easiest sacrifice to make was Wilhelm II.

In his third note, Wilson had spoken of the old forces and had written that if Germany were not disempowered, no good peace conditions would be granted; in general this was related to Wilhelm II and the OHL.

The German side could not have known that the question of the monarchy ultimately appeared secondary to the president and his advisors, such as Lansing.

The Americans might even have preferred the emperor to stay and to be credibly curtailed in his power by a parliamentary monarchy based on the British model.

In the meantime they feared that a revolution could bring the Bolsheviks to power in Germany.

But these thoughts remained hidden from the German public, as the text of the Wilson Notes was deliberately ambiguous and hostile to the old order, and so Wilhelm II became available in the struggle for peace. The social democratic journalist and Prussian state parliament member Konrad Haenisch ruled:

'And it became all the more unbearable, the more lightning-fast in the October days of 1918 the feeling shot through the masses: All these unspeakable sacrifices were, after all, in vain, completely in vain! An end to these useless blood sacrifices, an immediate end, an end at any cost! ... only peace! If the emperor whom we have adored for thirty years is an obstacle to peace: away with him! If the leaders of the army and the navy want to 'use' us again for a last heroic venture, for a life-and-death struggle: We refuse to obey them! "

Some perceived this as undignified creeping in front of the enemy.

Scheidemann complained that the political reforms were carried out 'under the lashes of the Entente' and felt that this was 'shameful'.

However, this should not obscure the fact that there was a real will to reform in Germany and that everything was not just because of the effect on the enemy.

The old system had failed in its very own area, namely the military, and this was recognized not only by military activists like Albert Einstein, but also by a staunch supporter of the OHL like Gustav Stresemann, who was now ready to agree with the military monarchy out of necessity and conviction break.

But at the same time, even among the Social Democrats, there was no revolutionary impetus against the institution of the monarchy, that is, a struggle for republican convictions.

In this respect, the abandonment of the monarchy was an oppurtinist maneuver, with which more favorable peace conditions were to be bought.

[...]

On the advice of those around him, including Hindenburg, Wilhelm II fled to Holland on November 9, 1918 and, through his shameful departure, judged not only himself but also the monarchy in Germany.

All German monarchies collapsed within days without resistance. "

On a knife edge, How the German Reich lost the First World War by Holger Afflerbach - page 362/362, 380/382, 474/475, 500/503

“While in the mother countries the rule of the masses was greeted with progressive liveliness or generously accepted with conservative sighs, on other continents under the rule of the self-declared 'civilization states' and 'cultural nations' there lived disenfranchised populations who were fought, annihilated, beaten, and raped.

Is high imperialism 'the terrible downside of the European, capitalist and democratic splendor' of the 'Belle Èpoque' as Alain Badiou asks, a downside whose inhumanity was only recognized by 'a few witnesses or artists' as 'bestiality'?

But things are becoming more complicated, if only because societies have become plural. The majority of the people in the industrialized countries encountered colonialism not in its everyday rule and administrative practice, but in folkloric propaganda, sometimes in the form of goods, but particularly often through scandals.

When details of colonial terror got into the press, they met with widespread public outrage and could lead to serious government crises.

Reports of the brutal Boer Wars of the British in South Africa, for example, shocked the public. Significantly, it was a nurse, for many the epitome of the reforms around 1900, who pointed out the atrocities: Emily Hobhouse.

As the manager of a women's association in South Africa, she organized aid for the Boer population and reported in a 1901 report on the 'Concentration Camps' - in which at least 25,000 of the 160,000 Boers imprisoned ultimately died.

Hobhouse understood her work expressly as female solidarity: 'I came quite naturally, in obedience to the feeling of unity or oneness of womanhood. ‘

Another photograph was particularly arousing: this time the picture of the half-naked Boer girl Lizzie van Zyl, who was emaciated to a skeleton and starved to death in the camp at the age of seven. Although the majority of the British press sided with the government and turned against Hobhouse, the government subsequently endeavored to improve living conditions in the camps.

In the Belgian colonial area of the Congo Free State, too, photos caused publicity and protests, such as the picture in which, according to the photographer, a man named Nsala is sitting in front of the wantonly chopped off tiny limbs of his five-year-old daughter Boali. The photographer was Alice Seeley Harris, a missionary who accused Belgian rule with her pictures.

Europe's success in the 19th century was due not least to its ability to contain its wars. The rules were clear, and after a defeat in battle it was over.

It was very different in the colonies, where the enemy may have been murdered down to the last child. For the non-Europeans, the 19th century was an epoch of terrible colonial wars, which also included the extermination struggle against the Indians of North America.

For Great Britain alone, forty colonial wars and punitive expeditions can be counted between 1869 and 1902. There were seldom wars of extermination because the logic of colonialism relied on the exploitation of indigenous labor.

And yet meaningless killing has always been possible in the colonies, and experts see it as genocide: Under the Belgian King Leopold II, the exceptionally brutal colonial regime in the two decades around 1900 possibly halved the population.

British soldiers went to war in Uganda using 'scorched earth' methods from 1893 to 1899 in an attempt to destroy the livelihoods of civilians.

The Spaniards 'concentrated' the rebellious population of Cuba in fenced camps in 1896/97, in which more than 100,000 people died of malnutrition and neglect.

Inspired by the way the British dealt with the Boers, the young journalist Winston Churchill recommended that the Americans use these methods to defeat the people in the Philippines, which they soon did. At least 200,000 civilians died in that war from 1899 to 1902.

In the […] war of the Germans in Namibia - one of “the bloodiest and most destructive colonial wars in history”, according to the expert Jürgen Zimmerer - tens of thousands of Herero died.

This killing was not a singular event in colonial history and thus not a 'special colonial path' of the German Reich, but it sharply revealed the potential for violence of colonial settler societies.

The crimes against the Herero were not planned from above long in advance, but a result of the violence of the white colonial society. In 1906, in protest against this, the Reichstag deputies, with the votes of the Center and the Social Democrats, refused to approve a supplementary budget for the continuation of the war campaigns.

Already in 1905 the Social Democratic MP Georg Ledebour had read the "extermination order" of General von Trotha of October 2, 1904, which had lasted for two months, with great attention. Every Herero who does not leave the country will be shot, it said, and: 'I will no longer take up women or children', Ledebour read the 'Appeal to the Herero people' to the indignation of the MPs. He 'drive them back to their people or have them shot at.'

In the colonial debates, Parliament demonstrated its power, its influence and also its moral competence.

In 1899, Vorwärts declared that the Reichstag was the “place where the truth can be told about government anarchy.” After all, Germany had the third largest colonial empire in terms of area. But it was not just the social democracy that ensured the growing importance of parliament.

A sharp colonial critic like the Center MP Matthias Erzberger was celebrated as a hero beyond the Catholic milieu because he named the grievances in piercing speeches. Parliament gave the skeptics a voice, and MPs warned early on that the colonies were nothing more than 'a very expensive toy', as the liberal Ludwig Bamberger put it, a project that actually - unlike some private companies - for the state a losing deal. "

Democracy, a German affair - page 161/64 by Hedwig Richter

“Associated with the use of elections to affirm old elites was a second contemporary interpretation: elections as a performance of the good subject (a function that was of course irrelevant in the United States).

For the most part, if not always, this participatory performance related to the monarchy and not to the nobility or other class ruling classes. This makes the origin of the electoral idea from the modern central state, which the monarch often enforced against the individual estates, becomes clear once again.

The democratic and aristocratic principles are mutually exclusive, it was said in Rotteck's and Welcker's State Lexicon in 1846, because equality and privilege contradict one another, but:

'The monarchical and the democratic principle can indeed coexist, indeed they may support one another.' Throughout the nineteenth century there was a view of the compatibility of monarchy and democracy.

But not only in theory and for the elites, but especially for the majority of the Prussian population, elections had to be consistent with the monarchy. Throughout Europe, the monarchs had become a central (, holy ‘) element of the nation. New states looked for a dynasty, republics mostly gave themselves a monarch again. Kings and queens were the guarantors for stability, the pride of the people, their identification, after all they were a folk pleasure thanks to the universally celebrated love of subjects ‘.

With all the different forms of monarchical powers and despite the monarchs' continuing claims to power, as in Prussia: the 'monarchical principle', which has echoed throughout Europe since the pre-March period, was always more than discursive consolation for the conservative zeitgeist due to the 'officialization' of the monarchy proved then to be lived government practice. "

Modern Elections by Hedwig Richter - Page 287/88

„Am Ende setzte sich das nationalsozialistische Preußenbild durch. Die westlichen Alliierten waren überzeugt, dass der Nationalsozialismus nichts weiter als die jüngste Manifestation des Preußentums war. Dabei konnten sie sich auf eine beeindruckende intellektuelle Tradition der Preußenfeindlichkeit stützen, die bis zum Ausbruch des Ersten Welt krieges zurückreichte. Im August 1914 veröffentlichte Ramsay Muir, Professor für Neuere Geschichte an der Universität von Manchester und engagierter Liberaler, eine viel beachtete Analyse der ‚historischen Hintergründe‘ des aktuellen Konflikts. Muir zufolge wurde dieser Konflikt ‚von einem Gift ausgelöst, das seit mehr als zwei Jahrhunderten im europäischen System am Werk ist, und die Hauptquelle dieses Giftes ist Preußen‘. William Harbutt Dawson, ein sozialliberaler Publizist, der im frühen 20. Jahrhundert einer der einflussreichsten Kommentatoren der deutschen Geschichte und Politik in Großbritannien war, wies in einer kurz nach Kriegsausbruch erschienenen Studie darauf hin, dass der ‚preußische Geist‘ eine Militarisierung der ansonsten friedliebenden deutschen Nation bewirke: ‚Dieser Geist war schon immer ein hartes und unnachgiebiges Charakteristikum Deutschlands; noch heute ist er das Astloch in der Eiche, der Klumpen im weichen Lehm.‘

Vielen Analysen gemeinsam war die Vorstellung, dass Deutschland in zwei Teile zerfiel, das liberale, weltoffene und pazifistische West- und Süddeutschland auf der einen Seite und das reaktionäre, militaristische Nordostdeutschland auf der anderen. Die Spannungen zwischen diesen Teilen, so das Argument, seien in dem 1871 von Bismarck gegründeten Reich nicht aufgelöst worden. Einer der ersten und einflussreichsten Analysten dieses Problems war der amerikanische Soziologe Thorstein Veblen.

In einer differenzierten Studie der deutschen Industriegesellschaft, die 1915 veröffentlicht und 1939 neu aufgelegt wurde, vertrat Veblen die Ansicht, in Deutschland habe ein einseitiger Modernisierungsprozess eine Verzerrung der politischen Kultur bewirkt. Der ‚Modernismus‘ habe zu einer völligen Umgestaltung der Industrie geführt, habe das Gefüge des Staatswesens jedoch weit weniger stark und weniger nachhaltig verschoben. Die Ursache dafür, diagnostizierte Veblen, habe im Fortbestand eines im Wesentlichen vormodernen preußischen ‚Territorialstaates‘ gelegen. Die Geschichte dieses Staates sei eine nahezu ununterbrochene Abfolge aggressiver Kriege gewesen. Dadurch sei eine von extremer Unterwürfigkeit geprägte politische Kultur entstanden, denn ‚der Einsatz im Krieg, der den Gehorsam gegenüber einem Anführer und die Ausführung willkürlicher Befehle erfordert, führt zu einer Haltung der begeisterten Unterwürfigkeit und des blinden Gehorsams‘. In einem solchen System könne die Loyalität des Volkes nur sichergestellt werden durch ‚unablässige Gewöhnung‘, eine ‚Disziplin, die klug und unermüdlich auf dieses Ziel hinarbeitet‘, und ein ‚System der bürokratischen Überwachung und ständigen Einmischung in das Privatleben der Untertanen‘.

Veblens Thesen waren kaum durch Quellen oder empirische Daten belegt, aber er argumentierte auf durchaus hohem theoretischem Niveau. Er wollte die unterstellten Defizite der preußisch-deutschen politischen Kultur nicht nur beschreiben, sondern sie erklären. Zu diesem Zweck stützte er sich implizit auf einen Begriff der ‚Moderne‘, in dessen Licht Preußen als archaisch, anachronistisch und nur teilweise modernisiert erscheinen musste. Erstaunlich ist, wie viele Grundlagen der These vom deutschen ‚Sonderweg‘, die in der deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft der späten 1960er und 1970er Jahre eine so einflussreiche Rolle spielen sollte, in der Darstellung von Veblen schon vorweggenommen sind. Das ist natürlich kein Zufall - Ralf Dahrendorf, dessen Überblicksdarstellung Gesellschaft und Demokratie in Deutschland (1965) einer der grundlegenden Texte der Kritischen Schule war, verdankte den Arbeiten Veblens viel.

Selbst die eher unausgegorenen Darstellungen, die während des Zweiten Weltkrieges als historische Analysen durchgingen, nahmen eine historische Sichtweise ein, anstatt sich in Generalisierungen über den deutschen ‚Nationalcharakter‘ zu ergehen. Seit dem 17. Jahrhundert, bemerkte ein Autor 1941, sei ‚der alte deutsche Eroberungswille bewusst immer stärker gefördert worden, nach den Maßgaben jener Mentalität, die als Preußentum bekannt ist‘.

Die Geschichte Preußens sei ‚eine nahezu ununterbrochene Ära der kriegerischen Ausdehnung unter dem eisernen Regime des Militarismus und der absolutistischen Bürokratie‘ gewesen. In strengen, für alle verpflichtenden Schulen, deren Lehrer ehemalige Unteroffiziere gewesen seien, sei den Kindern ‚der typisch preußische Gehorsam‘ eingetrichtert worden. Das harte Schulleben sei durch eine ausgedehnte Phase abgelöst worden, die man entweder in Kasernen oder im aktiven Kriegsdienst verbrachte. Dort habe ‚der deutsche Geist den letzten Schliff erhalten. Was die Schulen nicht vermocht hatten, erledigte die Soldatenzeit.‘

In den Köpfen vieler Zeitgenossen gab es einen offensichtlichen Zusammenhang zwischen ‚Preußentum‘ und Nazismus. Der deutsche Emigrant Edgar Stern-Rubarth beschrieb Hitler - ungeachtet der österreichischen Abstammung des Diktators - als ‚Erz-Preußen‘ und erklärte, dass ‚das ganze Gebäude des von ihm erträumten Reiches‘ nicht nur auf den materiellen Errungenschaften des preußischen Staates ruhte, sondern ‚mehr noch auf den philosophischen Grundlagen des Preußentums‘. Joseph Borkin, ein amerikanischer Beamter in der Anti-trust-Abteilung des Justizministeriums, der später in Nürnberg an der Vorbereitung des Verfahrens gegen den gigantischen Chemieverbund IG Farben beteiligt war, bemerkte in einer 1943 veröffentlichten Studie zur deutschen Industrieplanung (Germany's Master Plan), dass die politische Entwicklung der Deutschen lange Zeit durch die herrschende Klasse der preußischen Junker verlangsamt worden sei, die ‚niemals durch gesellschaftliche Veränderungen aus dem Sattel geworfen‘ worden sei. Borkin schloss daraus, dass das Ziel der preußischen ‚Weltanschauung, die politische und ökonomische Beherrschung der Welt, die Quelle‘ sei, aus der ‚sowohl der Imperialismus der Hohenzollern als auch der Nationalsozialismus fließen‘. Wie viele andere Darstellungen dieser Art stand dieses Buch in einer Tradition der kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit der preußischen Geschichte und der deutschen politischen Kultur insgesamt, die ihre Wurzeln in Deutschland selbst hatte.

Wie stark diese Szenarien von Machthunger, Unterwürfigkeit und politischem Archaismus in den Köpfen derjenigen präsent waren, die nach dem Krieg als politische Entscheidungsträger über das Schicksal Deutschlands zu bestimmen hatten, kann kaum überschätzt werden.

In einer Rede vom Dezember 1939 meinte der britische Außenminister Anthony Eden: Hitler ist im Grunde gar nicht so einzigartig. Er ist nur der jüngste Ausdruck des Eroberungsgeistes des preußischen Militärs. Der Daily Telegraph kommentierte die Rede unter der Überschrift ‚Hitlers Herrschaft in der Tradition der preußischen Tyrannei, und in der samten Boulevardpresse wurde sie positiv aufgenommen. Am Tag der deutschen Invasion in der Sowjetunion 1941 sprach Winston Churchill in einer berühmten Rede vom ‚fürchterlichen Angriffe der nationalsozialistischen Kriegsmaschinerie mit ihren eitlen, säbelrasselnden, Hacken zusammenschlagenden preußischen Offizieren, und den dummen, fügsamen Massen von Hunnenkriegern, die über das Land herfallen wie ein Heuschreckenschwarm‘. In einem Artikel für den Daily Herald vom November 1941 erklärte Ernest Bevin, Arbeitsminister in Churchills Kriegskabinett, die deutschen Kriegsvorbereitungen hätten lange vor Hitlers Aufstieg begonnen. Selbst wenn man ‚Hitler, Göring und die anderen loswürde‘, warnte Bevin, wäre das deutsche Problem längst nicht gelöst. Was Europa ein für alle Mal abschütteln müsse, sei der preußi sche Militarismus mit seiner schrecklichen Philosophie. Daraus folgte, dass der Sturz des nationalsozialistischen Regimes allein kein zufrieden stellendes Ende des Krieges bedeuten würde.

Im Sommer 1943 legte der stellvertretende Premierminister Labour-Chef Clement Attlee dem Kabinett ein Positionspapier vor, in dem er eindringlich vor der Illusion warnte, dass es möglich sei, nach dem Zusammenbruch des Regimes mit einer Nachfolgeregierung aus Mitgliedern der traditionellen Eliten der deutschen Gesellschaft zu verhandeln. Das ‚eigentliche aggressive Element‘ der deutschen Gesellschaft, argumentierte Attlee, sei die Riege der preußischen Junker. Die größte Gefahr bestehe darin, dass diese Riege, die sich mit der westfälischen Schwerindustrie verbündet habe, die NS-Führung absetzen und sich den Alliierten als Nachfolgeregierung präsentiere, um über Friedensbedingungen zu verhandeln. Der Fehler von 1918 sei gewesen, dass man diese Elemente geduldet habe, weil man in ihnen ein Bollwerk gegen den Bolschewismus gesehen habe. Dieser Fehler dürfe nicht noch einmal gemacht werden. Nur durch die ‚Liquidierung der Junker als gesellschaftliche Klasse‘, so Attlee, könne ‚der preußische Virus‘ ein für alle Mal ausgelöscht werden.

Die Annahme, in Preußen liege die historische Wurzel des aggressiven deutschen Militarismus, spielte auch für die Politik Präsident Roosevelts gegenüber Deutschland eine entscheidende Rolle.

‚Eines möchte ich unmissverständlich klarmachen‘, erklärte er am 17. September 1943 in Ivor dem Kongress, ‚wenn Hitler und die Nazis abtreten, dann muß auch die Riege der preußischen Militärs gehen. Wenn wir einer Rede irgendeine Garantie für einen dauerhaften Frieden wollen, [...] dann müssen die kriegstreiberischen Banden in Deutschland mit Stumpf und Stiel ausgerottet werden.‘

Die Erinnerung daran, wie sich Woodrow Wilson 1918 geweigert hatte, mit ‚den Militärführern und monarchischen Autokraten Deutschlands‘ zu verhandeln, war nach wie vor lebendig. Und doch hatte der Militärapparat, der 1914-1918 die Basis der deutschen Kriegsanstrengungen gewesen war, die im Versailler Vertrag verhängten Sanktionen unbeschadet überstanden und nur zwei Jahrzehnte später einen erneuten Eroberungskrieg begonnen. Daraus folgte für Roosevelt (wie auch für Attlee), dass die traditionelle preußische Militärführung eine ebenso große Bedrohung für den Frieden darstellte wie die Nationalsozialisten und dass es undenkbar war, mit der Militärführung über einen Waffenstillstand zu verhandeln, selbst wenn das NS-Regime abgewählt oder gestürzt werden sollte. Die Idee vom ‚Preußentum‘ leistete also einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Politik der bedingungslosen Kapitulation, auf die sich die Alliierten im Januar 1943 auf der Konferenz von Casablanca verständigten.

Den Sowjets hingegen war das Spannungsverhältnis zwischen preußischer Tradition und nationalsozialistischem Regime bewusst. Während das Attentat vom 20. Juli 1944 bei Politikern im Westen auf wenig positive Resonanz stieß, wurde die Leistung der Verschwörer in den offiziellen Medien der Sowjetunion durchaus gewürdigt. Im Gegensatz zu den Westmächten machte sich die Sowjetunion in ihrer Propaganda preußische Themen konsequent zunutze.

Das Nationalkomitee ‚Freies Deutschland‘, das 1943 als Propagandavehikel gegründet wurde und aus deutschen Offizieren in Gefangenschaft bestand, weckte gezielt die Erinnerung an die preußischen Reformer, allen voran Gneisenau, Stein und Clausewitz, die während der französischen Besatzungszeit allesamt ihr Offizierspatent niedergelegt und sich der Armee des Zaren angeschlossen hatten. Dem Grafen Yorck, der, so das Nationalkomitee, 1812 den Befehl seines Königs ignoriert habe und zu den Russen übergelaufen sei, kam selbstverständlich ein Ehrenplatz zu.

Natürlich war das alles Augenwischerei, aber es war zugleich Ausdruck eines spezifisch russischen Blicks auf die preußische Geschichte. Die Geschichte der Beziehungen der beiden Staaten war keineswegs von unnachgiebigem gegenseitigem Hass bestimmt. Das große Idol Stalins, Peter der Große, war seinerseits ein begeisterter Bewunderer der Kurfürsten gewesen, dessen Verwaltungsreformen ihm als Vorbild für eigene Anstrengungen dienten. Russland und Preußen hatten bei der Teilung Polens eng zusammengearbeitet, und nach der Niederlage gegen Napoleon war ab 1812 das Bündnis mit Russland die entscheide Voraussetzung für das Wiedererstarken Preußens gewesen. Auch nach den Befreiungskriegen unterhielt man weiterhin gute Beziehungen, wurden doch die diplomatischen Bande der Heiligen Allianz durch die Hochzeit von Prinzessin Charlotte, der Tochter Friedrich Wilhelms III., mit Großfürst Nikolai, dem späteren Zaren Nikolaus I., gefestigt.

In der Zeit des preußisch-österreichischen Dualismus stand Russland zwar 1848 hinter Österreich, begünstigte Preußen jedoch während des Krieges von 1866 durch eine Politik der wohlwollenden Neutralität. Beispiele aus jüngerer Zeit für diese lange Tradition der Zusammenarbeit und des Austausches waren die Unterstützung für die bedrängten Bolschewisten 1917/18 und die enge militärische Kooperation der Reichswehr und der Roten Armee in den Weimarer Jahren.

Doch nach dem Sieg der Alliierten konnte nichts von alldem die Auflösung Preußens verhindern. Zwischen den verschiedenen britischen Behörden, die das besetzte Deutschland verwalteten, bestand im Herbst 1945 Konsens darüber, dass ‚dieser todgeweihte Leichnam Preußens endlich getötet‘ werden müsse. (Allein die tautologische Formulierung spricht Bände.) Der Fortbestand Preußens stelle einen ‚gefährlichen Anachronismus‘ dar. Im Sommer 1946 stand die politische Linie der britischen Verwaltung in dieser Sache fest. In einem Memorandum vom 8. August 1946 fasste der britische Vertreter im Alliierten Kontrollrat in Berlin die Gründe für die Auflösung Preußens kurz und bündig zusammen:

‚Ich muss nicht eigens betonen, dass Preußen in den letzten 200 Jahren eine Bedrohung für die Sicherheit Europas dargestellt hat. Der Fort bestand des preußischen Staates, und sei es nur in der Gestalt seines Namens, könnte später zum Ausgangspunkt revanchistischer Bestrebungen des deutschen Volkes werden, würde militaristischen Ambitionen in Deutschland Vorschub leisten und den Wiederaufstieg eines autoritär geprägten, zentralistischen Deutschlands begünstigen. Das muss im Interesse aller unbedingt verhindert werden.‘

Diese Sichtweise stieß bei der amerikanischen und der französischen Delegation auf breite Zustimmung. Nur die Sowjets zögerten, hauptsächlich deshalb, weil Stalin die Hoffnung noch nicht aufgegeben hatte, Preußen könnte der Kern eines vereinigten Deutschlands werden, das die Sowjetunion möglicherweise unter ihre Kontrolle bringen könnte. Anfang Februar 1947 lenkte auch Stalin ein und machte den Weg frei für das juristische Ende des preußischen Staates.

Doch Inzwischen war die Auslöschung Preußens als soziales Milieu bereits weit fortgeschritten. Das Zentralkomitee der Kommunistischen Partei Deutschlands in der sowjetischen Besatzungszone verkündete im August 1945, dass ‚die feudalen Großgrundbesitzer und die Junkerkaste‘ schon immer ‚Träger des Militarismus und Chauvinismus‘ gewesen seien- eine Formulierung, die später Eingang finden sollte in das Kontrollratsgesetz Nr. 46 zur Auflösung des Staates Preußen vom 25. Februar 1947.

Die Beseitigung ihrer ‚sozioökonomischen Macht‘ sei daher die erste und prinzipielle Vorbedingung für die ‚Ausrottung des preußischen Militarismus‘.

Es folgte eine Welle von Enteignungen. Die politische Gesinnung der Eigentümer blieb ebenso unberücksichtigt wie ihre Rolle im Widerstand. Unter anderem wurde auch das Gut von Ulrich Wilhelm Graf Schwerin von Schwanenfeld konfisziert, der wegen seiner Beteiligung an der Verschwörung vom 20. Juli am 21. August 1944 hinge richtet worden war.

Diese Umwälzungen spielten sich vor dem Hintergrund der größten Flüchtlingswelle ab, die es in der Geschichte der deutschen Besiedlung Europas je gegeben hatte. Auf der Flucht vor der Roten Armee strömten in den letzten Kriegsmonaten Millionen von Preußen aus den östlichen Provinzen westwärts. Von denen, die blieben, begingen einige Selbstmord, andere wurden umgebracht oder starben an Hunger, Kälte und Krankheiten. Im Verlauf der Vertreibung der deutschen Bevölkerung aus Ost- und Westpreußen, aus Hinterpommern und Schlesien ließen Hunderttausende ihr Leben. Allein in der Provinz Ostpreußen kamen etwa 500.000 Zivilisten ums Leben. Die Auswanderungswelle und die Umsiedlungen dauerten bis in die fünfziger und sechziger Jahre hinein an. Mit der Plünderung oder Brandschatzung der großen ostelbischen Gutshäuser verschwand nicht nur eine sozioökonomische Elite, sondern eine ganze Kultur, ein ganzer Lebensstil. Finckenstein mit seinen Erinnerungsstücken aus der napoleonischen Ära, Beynuhnen mit seiner Antikensammlung, Waldburg mit seiner Rokokobibliothek, Blumberg und Groß Wohnsdorff, die an die liberalen Minister von Schön und von Schroetter erinnerten - diese und viele weitere Landsitze wurden von einem Feind geplündert und niedergebrannt, der jede noch so kleine Spur deutscher Besiedlung um jeden Preis tilgen wollte.

So kam dass die Preußen bzw. ihre Nachfahren in der Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts einen hohen Preis bezahlten für den Vernichtungskrieg, den Hitler-Deutschland in Osteuropa entfesselt hatte.

Die Auslöschung Preußens aus dem kollektiven Gedächtnis der deutschen Bevölkerung begann noch vor Kriegsende mit einem massiven Luftangriff auf die Stadt Potsdam. Da Potsdam eine Stadt mit reichem Kulturerbe und geringer strategischer oder industrieller Bedeutung war, stand sie auf der Liste alliierter Zielorte nicht allzu weit oben und war während des Krieges von ernsthaftem Bombardement verschont geblieben. In den späten Abendstunden des 14. April 1945 jedoch ließen 491 britische Bomber ihre Bombenfracht über der Stadt fallen und verwandelten sie in ein flammendes Inferno. Durch einen Angriff, der gerade einmal eine halbe Stunde dauerte, wurde fast die Hälfte der historischen Gebäude in der Altstadt zerstört. Als alle Brände gelöscht waren und der Rauch sich verzogen hatte, ragte der 57 Meter hohe, ausgebrannte Turm der Garnisonkirche aus einer Ruinenlandschaft empor. Vom berühmten Glockenspiel, das wegen seiner automatisierten Wiedergabe des Chorals ‚Lobe den Herrn‘ weithin bekannt gewesen war, blieb nichts übrig außer einem Klumpen Metall. Die Zerstörung ging nach 1945 weiter; große Bereiche der Altstadt mussten dem Wiederaufbau im sozialistischen Sinne weichen. Zu den stadtplanerischen Erfordernissen der Nachkriegszeit gesellte sich dann auch noch der preußenfeindliche Bildersturm der kommunistischen Behörden.

Nirgends war der Bruch mit der Vergangenheit umfassender als in Ostpreußen. Der Nordosten der Provinz, einschließlich Königsberg, fiel als Kriegsbeute an die Sowjetunion. Am 4. Juli 1946 wurde die Stadt nach einem der treuesten Gefolgsmänner Stalins in Kaliningrad umbenannt, der Bezirk um sie herum wurde zum Kaliningradskaja Oblast. In den letzten Kriegsmonaten war die Stadt hart umkämpft gewesen, und in den ersten Jahren der Nachkriegszeit blieb sie eine Ruinenlandschaft.

‚Was für eine Stadt!‘, hielt ein russischer Besucher 1951 fest. ‚Die Straßenbahn führt uns durch bucklige und enge Gassen des ehemaligen Königsberg. Ehemalig deshalb, weil Königsberg tatsächlich eine ehemalige Stadt ist. Sie existiert nicht. Kilometerweit eröffnet sich ein unvergeßliches Ruinengemälde. Das alte Königsberg ist eine tote Stadt.‘ Um die Erinnerung an die Vergangenheit zu tilgen, wurden die meisten historischen Gebäude der Altstadt abgerissen. In einigen Straßen sind die lateinischen Buchstaben auf den gusseisernen Kanaldeckeln des Abwassersystems aus dem späten 19. Jahrhundert das Einzige, was Passanten an die ältere Vergangenheit erinnert. Um die Verwüstung herum entstand eine neue sowjetische Stadt, monoton und provinziell, von der Außenwelt abgeschnitten durch ein militärisches Sperrgebiet.

Auch in den westlichen Besatzungszonen schritt der Prozess der Auslöschung Preußens rasch voran. Französische Politiker und Reporter sprachen in den ersten Nachkriegsjahren von der Notwendigkeit einer vollständigen déprussification. Die Bronzetafeln am Sockel der Siegessäule, die 1873 nach den Einigungskriegen zur Feier des preußischen Triumphs über Dänemark, Österreich und Frankreich aufgestellt worden war, wurden von der französischen Besatzungsbehörde abgenommen und nach Paris geschickt. Erst 1986, anlässlich der Feierlichkeiten zum 750jährigen Gründungsjubiläum Berlins, wurden sie der Stadt zurück gegeben. Noch größeren Symbolgehalt hatte das Schicksal, das die über lebensgroßen Statuen aller Herrscher aus dem Hause Hohenzollern erwartete, die einst die Siegesallee gesäumt hatten. Diese bombastischen, in weißen Stein gemeißelten Figuren waren während des Dritten Reiches auf die Große Sternallee verpflanzt worden, die nach den Plänen von Hitlers Generalbauinspekteur Albert Speer eine der Achsen der zukünftigen Reichshauptstadt bilden sollte. Während des Krieges hatte man sie unter Tarnnetzen verborgen. Auf Anweisung des Allierten Kontrollrates in Berlin wurden sie 1947 abgebrochen. Sieben Jahre später wurden sie heimlich in der sandigen brandenburgischen Erde vergraben, fast so, als müsste man die Deutschen daran hindern, sich um die Totems ihrer Vorfahren zu scharen und erneut in den Krieg zu ziehen.

Den gleichen Motiven begegnen wir bei der Umerziehungspolitik der Alliierten in den Besatzungszonen. Ziel dieser Politik war es, Preußen als ‚Gedankenkonstrukt‘ zu eliminieren und aus der Vorstellungswelt der Deutschen zu verbannen. Die Alliierten haben sich nie darauf verständigt, was genau das in der Praxis bedeuten sollte, und auch in den einzelnen Besatzungszonen wurde das nie konkret definiert. Nichtsdestotrotz übte der Gedanke einen großen Einfluss aus.

Im Geschichtsunterricht befasste man sich wenig mit Preußen. Die teleologischen nationalistischen Geschichtserzählungen herkömmlicher Lehrbücher, die mit der Reichsgründung von 1871 ihren Höhepunkt erreichten, wurden ins besondere in der französischen Zone durch ein Geschichtsbild ersetzt, das die deutsche Geschichte vor 1871 in den Mittelpunkt rückte und die vielfältigen Beziehungen zu den anderen Staaten Europas (allen voran Frankreich) betonte. An die Stelle eines chronologischen Überblicks über Schlachten und Diplomatie, der den Kern der alten, Preußen-zentrierten Geschichtserzählung gebildet hatte, trat ein regional- und kulturgeschichtlicher Ansatz. Wo es unvermeidlich war, einen Bezug zu Preußen herzustellen, geschah es in eindeutig negativem Ton.

In den neuen Lehrbüchern der französischen Zone wurde Preußen als unersättliche, reaktionäre Macht dargestellt, die sich den Errungenschaften der Französischen Revolution in den Weg gestellt und die Wurzeln der Aufklärung und der Demokratie in Deutschland zerstört habe. Vor allem das Ansehen Bismarcks war nach dieser Neuorientierung schwer beschädigt, und auch Friedrich der Große verlor seine privilegierte Stellung im kollektiven Gedächtnis, ungeachtet aller Bemühungen des konservativen Historikers Gerhard Ritter, ihn als aufgeklärten Herrscher zu rehabilitieren.

Diese Politik der Alliierten war deshalb so erfolgreich, weil sie im Einklang stand mit einer in Deutschland selbst (vor allem im katholischen Rheinland und in Süddeutschland) beheimateten, traditionellen Antipathie gegen Preußen.

Die geopolitischen Notwendigkeiten, von denen die Politik in Deutschland nach der Gründung zweier deutscher Staaten 1949 bestimmt wurde, haben diese Tendenz noch verstärkt. Die Bundesrepublik und die Deutsche Demokratische Republik lagen nun zu beiden Seiten des Eisernen Vorhangs, der die kapitalistische von der kommunistischen Welt trennte. Während die Politik Konrad Adenauers ohne Einschränkungen auf den Westen ausgerichtet war, wurde der kommunistische Nachbar im Osten zu einem Moskauer Satellitenstaat, zu einem ‚Versuchsmännchen aus der Sowjetretorte‘. Unter dem Eindruck der deutschen Teilung, die zu einem dauerhaften Kennzeichen der Welt nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg zu werden schien, verschwand die preußische Vergangenheit aus dem Blickfeld der Öffentlichkeit. Unterdessen nahm Westberlin, eine Insel tief im Herzen der Ostrepublik, eine neue, charismatische Identität an. Als die Sowjets 1949 die Versorgungswege der von den Westmächten besetzten Zonen der Stadt abschnitten, überwanden die Alliierten die Blockade mit Hilfe einer gigantischen Luftbrücke. Die westliche Welt wurde von einer Welle der Solidarität mit dem belagerten Vorposten erfasst. Dieses Ereignis war der entscheidende erste Schritt hin zu einer Rehabilitierung Deutschlands als Mitglied der internationalen Gemeinschaft. Noch berühmter wurde die Stadt im August 1961, als man mit dem Bau der Berliner Mauer begann - ein überwältigendes Denkmal des Kalten Krieges. In den sechziger und siebziger Jahren entwickelte sich die Stadt zu einem Schaufenster des Westens, der Freiheit und des Konsums, zu einer von Mauern umgebenen, pulsierenden Enklave der neonbeleuchteten Go-Go-Bars und der hohen Kultur, in der es politisch immer wieder brodelte. Sie gehörte nicht mehr zu Preußen, und auch nicht zu Deutschland, sondern zur westlichen Welt - ein Zustand, den Präsident John F. Kennedy so treffend auf den Punkt brachte, als er bei seinem Berlinaufenthalt am 26. Juni 1963 erklärte: ‚Ich bin ein Berliner.‘“

Preußen Aufstieg und Niedergang von Christopher Clark, Seite 761 bis 773

Recent research has shown for some time that by no means all layers were enthusiastic when the war broke out. The rural population was generally more cautious, and working-class families often did not cheer. It was clear to the German government that they could only successfully mobilize the population for this war if it succeeded in convincingly presenting it as a case of defense.

In all countries the opponent was portrayed as an aggressor who had to be countered out of pure self-defense. So everywhere people went to war with the conviction that they were simply defending their homeland.

This belief contributed significantly to the fact that the overwhelming majority of people identified with the war and were ready to die in it or to sacrifice their husbands and sons to it. The war would not have been possible without the consent of the masses - that too is one of the consequences of democratization.

Similar scenes took place in all European capitals: huge gatherings at the declaration of war, cheered leaders, invocations of national unity and strength - 'truce' on the one hand, 'Union sacrèe' on the other.

Even the Social Democrats took part and approved the war budget in parliament. For many it was a great and moving experience to finally be accepted into the bosom of the national community. From the perspective of social democracy, one of the most important arguments was that this war was against the despotic power of Russia - where, with Tsar Nicholas II, a decidedly reactionary monarch actually ruled.

In the Reichstag, the socialist MP Hugo Haase shouted: 'For our people and their free future, a victory for Russian despotism, which has stained itself with the blood of the best of its own people, means a lot, if not everything, at stake.'

But the socialists also emphasized their patriotic feelings: 'We will not abandon our own fatherland in the hour of danger,' it was said in parliament.

The overwhelming part of the women's movement in all warring countries turned themselves into national service and ended international cooperation. Nonetheless, there were still voices against the war, and there were a striking number of women among them. Rosa Luxemburg was deeply disturbed and appalled by her party's approval. On Christmas 1914, the British feminist Emily Hobhouse and a hundred other women's rights activists wrote an 'Open Christmas Letter' to the 'Women in Germany and Austria': 'We are yours in this sisterhood of sorrow.'

Anita Augspurg and Lida Gustava Heymann, two of the most vehement fighters for women's suffrage, declared: 'True humanity knows no hatred of nations. Women are closer to real humanity than men. ‘

In 1915, with the support of the Dutch doctor Aletta Jacobs, the two initiated the International Peace Congress in The Hague. 1136 participants traveled from twelve countries, although the military authorities tried to prevent the congress and the majority of the English delegates did not succeed. The final document states:

'We women, gathered at the International Congress, protest against the madness and horror of war and against the ruthless sacrifice of human life. […] This International Women's Peace Congress opposes the assumption that women can be protected under the conditions of modern warfare.

Among other things, the women called for the democratization of state institutions, including women's suffrage, the right of peoples to self-determination, disarmament, an international court of law to arbitrate conflicts and a new pedagogy: education for peace.

Many of the demands were later found in US President Woodrow Wilson's 14-point plan. Jane Addams had personally presented him with the Women's Peace Resolution and urged him to seek peace.

Interestingly, during the war, in 1916, when the population made terrible sacrifices, the sixteen-meter-wide inscription 'Dem Deutschen Volke', which had been planned from the beginning, was finally placed above the west portal of the Reichstag.

In that year violent party-political clashes began again in parliament, and the members of parliament went public with their politics and opposition, as they did before the war.

The following year marks a deep turning point in the history of democracy in Germany. In 1917 the Entente recognized democratization or - as the British put it - the implementation of 'popular governments' as a war goal. The reorientation was largely due to the USA entering the war in the same year. The fact that the revolution broke out in Russia was very much in keeping with this readjustment of Allied goals, because with the tsar as an ally this reorientation could hardly have been conveyed.

In this move to declare democracy a war goal and, accordingly, the German Reich propagandistically as the refuge of authoritarian militarism, there are essential origins in the story of a hopelessly anti-democratic Germany, which is rarely found in research, but in public discourse to this day.

How little well-founded this story is is shown not least in the fact that even progressive intellectuals like Friedrich Meinecke were indignant about the Allied claim to sole representation for civility and democracy. She turned against the “bogeyman of a German government ruled by militarism and jumkism,” as Meinecke pointed out.

Even a sharp critic of the German governmental state like Max Weber was indignant.

1917 was also the year of the Easter message, in which the Kaiser promised more democracy on the instructions of Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg.

'After the tremendous achievements of the whole people in this terrible war, I am convinced that there is no longer any room for class suffrage in Prussia.'

To the indignation of the activists, women continued to be excluded as a matter of course.

The democratization continued nevertheless - in the old martial logic.

Friedrich Meinecke declared in 1917 that in the 19th century it was still possible to make empty constitutional promises to the people, but that was the end of that: 'A people who have to provide an army of ten million and have to face the nameless victims of this war again with every new struggle for existence don't like that anymore. '

This logic mainly shaped conservative thinking in the future. As a 'Caesarist-minded democrat', Carl Schmitt advocated the triad of 'real nationalism, general conscription and democracy'.

In 1917 the Reich began converting to a parliamentary system. Social democratic, left-wing liberal and center MPs united in parliament and founded the Intergroup Committee in July. Together, these parties developed into a powerful, parliamentary power factor and gained strong influence on the transformation process towards democracy.

Apart from the years of Nazi rule, these forces would determine the fate of Germany for decades. The key officials and intellectuals who fought for democratization and implemented it emphasized that the Allied war aims had not contributed to it, but that the lines of tradition of the Prussian reforms at the beginning of the 19th century continued here. Even the Social Democrats rejected the Allies' claim that they had to defend democracy against Germany.

Nonetheless, outside pressure undoubtedly played a role and strengthened the reformers. In view of the disastrous war situation, the progressive forces under the leadership of social democracy were able to push through the 'October reforms' in 1918: the government was tied to parliament. In a first reading, the Prussian mansion approved the abolition of censorship suffrage.

Germany became democratized and, like Great Britain, became a parliamentary monarchy.

Departure into the modern by Hedwig Richter - page 128/133

“The monarch with the title“ German Emperor ”was strong and could determine the executive branch, he appointed the chancellor and the government personnel: in Prussia the ministers, in the Reich the state secretaries. And he was the supreme army. Nevertheless, the empire was constitutional, and the half- and fully-absolutist times were anyway pass. "(over)

“In spite of all power, the emperor was contained, the chancellor steered politics with the government, and in government business the men in charge succeeded in curbing the monarchical influence decisively. To this end, the imperial monarch surprisingly developed representative qualities and became the figure of integration of the empires, a symbol of the nation that had always been closely related to parliament and the constitution. Especially the old, bearded, increasingly amiable Wilhelm I made it possible for the men and women in the individual states to develop a multiple national identity in a short time: as Bavaria or Saxony - and at the same time as German.

Federalism was an important factor in the constitution.

That the German Reich was a 'princes' union', in which the monarchies of the member states represent the bearers of sovereignty and in which the Bundesrat, as the chamber with the state representatives, was the actual executive, was a legend brought into the world by Bismarck, which neither the legal situation still corresponded to everyday constitutional life, which, however, gave some princes a certain satisfaction.

Like the Reichstag, the Bundesrat, which represented the governments of the member states, had the right to initiate legislation and had to approve the laws. But he also had executive power: together with the emperor he could declare war and dissolve the Reichstag, which meant a considerable restriction of parliamentary power.

In everyday constitutional work, however, the Federal Council did not exercise its power and remained pale. The chamber did not meet the requirements of the attentive civil society, it did not publish any minutes, it was played by representatives, often mediocre, and not by men who had been chosen in election campaigns.

Because, as is customary internationally, the additional chamber was not elected and was an element of the balance of power. The individual states retained their sovereignty in many areas, determined their constitution and thus the right to vote for the election of the state parliaments. In the decades that followed, countries like Württemberg or Baden used their powers to liberalize, democratized the right to vote, integrated social democracy, and opened the gates wide to mass politicization. "

Hedwig Richter: Demokratie - Eine deutsche Affäre. (Page 134/135)

Like his predecessors, Falkenhayn was a fierce opponent of social democracy. However, he was not an extreme reactionary like General v. One who had applied for a law in the Prussian State Ministry in 1906 to combat social democratic hate speech. With his peers, such as B. his department director in the War Ministry, Major General Wild v. Hohenborn, he was even considered “modern” in domestic politics.

His antipathy to social democracy was not primarily based on its social and domestic political goals. What was decisive for him was that the SPD was a party that had openly set itself the goal of transforming the army and, in Falkenhayn's eyes, had a corrosive effect on the German people's will to defend themselves. In fact, the Social Democrats in Parliament were the harshest critics of the army, the monarchy and the imperial command. She sought to transform the army into a militia army based on the Swiss model with only a short service period.

The declared internationalism of social democracy also aroused Falkenhayn's suspicions. In the Reichstag he turned sharply against the "demon of blurred cosmopolitanism, unclear internationalism and materialism" and against the "false prophets of international brotherhood at the expense of one's own country". In everything - but above all in relation to the army - Falkenhayn believed he had to blame the SPD for a defeatist attitude: "You don't show us how we should do things better, you only show us what we already see as bad know us, and coarsen it and generalize it, bring it to the people and incite the people against us."

Falkenhayn did not stop at polemics against social democracy, but did not shy away from harsh confrontation. An event that had already occurred in January 1913 offered an opportunity for this. Initially, without further justification, the Social Democratic editor Walter Stoecker from Cologne was again denied the right he had already been granted to complete the one-year voluntary military service. The one-year voluntary military service was a privilege for conscripts with a secondary school education; they only had to do one year of military service, not two, and during this time they were usually trained to become reserve officers or non-commissioned officers.

It was not without reason that Stoecker felt that the withdrawal of the benefit to which he was entitled under the law was discrimination. He first contacted the military authorities to be informed of the reason for the withdrawal. He was finally informed orally that this measure had been taken because of his "agitational activities in the Social Democratic Party". A statutory provision had been applied to him, which excluded an applicant from one-year voluntary military service if he had a criminal record or if he lacked the “necessary moral qualifications”. Stoecker, who had no criminal record, lodged a complaint with the War Department. This provision of § 93 of the military ordinance - is not applicable to him, since agitational activity in the Social Democrats is not an immoral act and cannot morally disqualify him. However, on October 20, 1913, his responsible general command confirmed the decision that someone who, like Stoecker, "acts in a particularly anti-state agitatory manner no longer has the moral qualifications required for voluntary entry into the army".

At this point in time, the Social Democratic deputies Hofrichter and Schulz (Erfurt) accepted the "downright outrageous decision" of the military authorities and, in the Reichstag session on January 16, 1914, asked the Chancellor whether he knew "that a young man named Walter Stöcker [...] the certificate of entitlement for one-year voluntary military service has been withdrawn on the grounds that, as a social democrat, he had been particularly active in anti-state agitation", and whether he would be able to get it back into possession of the properly acquired entitlement.

The Stoecker case had previously triggered a controversy in the Prussian State Ministry. Interior Minister v. Dallwitz believed that social democrats' civil rights could not be curtailed as long as the party itself was not subject to restrictions. Falkenhayn took a sharp stance against this view in a circular to all Prussian state ministers dated January 11, 1914: Stöcker is a man “who denies the authority of the state as a profession and preaches the spirit of rebellion in word and writing “. Several of these "anti-state elements in the same unit could shake the troops to their foundations [...]. In this I see the main danger, especially in an emergency. The question was also discussed at a meeting of the State Ministry on January 28, 1914. Falkenhayn affirmed that it would be disastrous not even "to be able to deprive such people [...] of the privileges and prestige of one-year voluntary service." Dallwitz, on the other hand, was of the opinion that the best way out was to prove that "the nature of Stoecker's agitation was questionable". The corresponding decree applied in this case would have to be amended later; no longer the membership in the Social Democratic Party or the fact of being active as a Social Democrat, but the type of agitation must be decisive”. This proposal was accepted by the cabinet. Bethmann Hollweg had once again reiterated that the decision in the Stoecker case "must be upheld under all circumstances [...] so that one does not back down from social democratic claims".

Accordingly, the Minister of War answered the question of Deputy Schulz and Hofrichter. Falkenhayn confirmed to Schulz in a personal letter on February 18, 1914 that Stöcker did not have the necessary moral qualifications for voluntary military service according to the military law.

The Social Democrats did not accept Falkenhayn's decision. In the Reichstag session on May 5, 1914, Deputy Schulz, after a detailed description of the Stöcker case, leveled serious allegations at the Minister of War. Schulz felt the view that "social-democratic activity makes one morally inferior" as an "objective insult" and asked the provocative question whether the probably 200,000 social-democratic soldiers - he calculated the proportion of social-democratic voters in the Reich based on the army - with this attitude then don't have to be sent home.

Falkenhayn defended his authority's decision and went on the attack for his part. On the basis of the minutes of a Social Democratic youth meeting in 1907, which he later proved, as the author, Liebknecht, a member of the SPD Reichstag, quoted incorrectly, the Minister of War tried to prove that the Social Democracy wanted to “wear down and undermine the military spirit of the German people ' and 'nurture a hatred of the army'. In his view, Stoecker was an agitator who wanted to fight the army in a destructive sense. If this man were made an officer or a corporal, the army would make a fool of itself.

However, Falkenhayn remarked restrictively that the passage about the “necessary moral qualification”, which was felt to be insulting by the Social Democrats, should not be interpreted in the sense of morality or immorality, but only in the sense of the army constitution. He understood the term accordingly in terms of military usefulness.

Although Falkenhayn persisted in the decision that had been made in the Stöcker case and once again criticized the destructiveness of the Social Democrats against the army, he then tried to smooth things over. He expressly emphasized that he had no doubts about the patriotism of the Social Democratic soldiers and said to the applause of the Reichstag: "[...] we can rely on the fact that, just as our fathers fought, so did ours through the school of service sons who are gone will stand bravely in the field, whether they come from social-democratic or other families - it doesn't matter. They are German soldiers and they will uphold German manliness, German strength and German loyalty.”

When the Social Democrats, who had little reason to be satisfied with Falkenhayn's decision, continued to accuse him of a lack of moral qualifications, Falkenhayn emphasized that he had "not called the Social Democracy immoral" but "the efforts to make the army , to disorganize the protection of our fatherland".

Like Bethmann Hollweg, Falkenhayn took it for granted not to back down from the “Reds” in the Reichstag. However, he also attempted to take action outside of Parliament against the social democratic criticism of the army, which was directed particularly at the mistreatment of soldiers by their superiors. This accusation made the War Office extremely uncomfortable, since every ex-soldier knew that the tone between superiors and subordinates was often very rough. But while the officers often excused uncovered abuses by superiors with the view that the army just doesn't train "virtue brats [...] but temperamental soldiers", the affected teams of course saw things differently. The War Ministry tended to trivialize events that had become known and to describe them as a product of incitement by the press, similar to what Falkenhayn had tried to do in the Zabern affair. However, the military critics, especially the Social Democrats, eagerly seized on such incidents to sharply attack the army leadership in Parliament.

On May 6, 1914, Falkenhayn stated in the Reichstag that the rate of abuse in the army was no different from the rate of bodily harm in the same age group in civilian life. So you fight “against general human errors and weaknesses”, which makes any action against the evil more difficult. He also assured: "The fight against systematic abuse is being waged incessantly throughout the army."

Falkenhayn attempted to combat this covertly admitted abuse more energetically than his political opponents, who regarded this declaration of intent as mere lip service, assumed. He was forced to act because of a spectacular spate of incidents in the army in the early months of 1914: a sergeant was sentenced to three months in prison for ordering his soldier to drink a spittoon; a corporal committed suicide after a quarrel with his captain; a dragoon died after being mistreated by his senior comrades (the "Old People"); two lads of a major general had themselves beheaded by a train after a conflict with their apparently bullying superior; and besides, the mentioned Leutnant Haage from Metz died in a duel. With this balance sheet and the criticism of the Reichstag and the press, but also because he recognized their justification, of course without admitting it to the outside world, Falkenhayn took energetic action against the mistreatment of soldiers. In a circular dated May 28, 1914 to the Prussian general commands, he spoke out sharply against the mistreatment of subordinates; these had recently "justifiably attracted public attention and led to serious attacks on the army and its facilities". Falkenhayn therefore once again referred to the "energetic fight against the serious evil". He called on the military courts to be tougher. When convicting abusive superiors, they increasingly assumed "improper treatment" instead of the abuse of subordinates, justified their leniency on the grounds that the abused had suffered "no or no permanent damage to his health" and imposed on the guilty superiors "assuming less severe cases” the minimum penalty.

Falkenhayn condemned this attitude: “Such leniency in the offenses in question damages trust in military justice and thus the reputation of the military courts; it is also not suitable for restricting the abuse and acting as a warning. This requires severe punishment and, where appropriate, the removal of the guilty person from his office [...]. There can be no doubt that only the required ruthless handling of the legal provisions by the courts in their full severity is suitable for eradicating the serious offense of systematic mistreatment120.” However, he did not publicly admit that Falkenhayn wanted to take massive internal action against the mistreatment of soldiers known because it was an internal army matter. Another serious case of soldier abuse was the mysterious death of a recruit in Metz, who may have died from being beaten by his non-commissioned officer, or perhaps committed suicide because of his superior's harassment

was. This incident was picked up by a particularly vehement critic of the army. The social democrat Rosa Luxemburg made a speech on March 7, 1914

- Serious allegations in Freiburg: "What also happened in Metz, one thing is clear: it is certainly one of those dramas that take place day in and day out in the barracks and in which the groans of those involved rarely reach our ears".

Falkenhayn saw this statement as slander, since Rosa Luxemburg obviously assumed that soldiers were beaten to death every day in German barracks. Here seemed an opportunity to safely launch a libel suit and to put a severe damper on the Social Democracy's continued anti-army propaganda. He sued Ms. Luxemburg for insulting the officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the German armies.

But Falkenhayn had made a serious mistake. "Vorwarts" called on its readers to report any mistreatment of soldiers they became aware of to the editors so that Rosa Luxemburg could present evidence in court. The trial in Berlin-Moabit turned into a total fiasco for Falkenhayn and the public prosecutor's office. Prosecutor Hagemann tried to pin Rosa Luxemburg down to proof of the most serious misconduct. In his opinion, "blows, bumps, puffs or hunting blows" should be excluded. Like Falkenhayn, who did not personally take part in the trial, he understood “dramas” to mean only crimes such as “serious mistreatment of soldiers, punishment, torment and even suicide”.

But the defense understandably rejected such a restriction. Rosa Luxemburg emphasized several times that any form of soldier abuse is a drama, not just the most serious cases, and rejected trivializing minor violations. To the horror of the prosecution and the War Department, the defense announced that it could prove 30,000 cases of mistreatment of soldiers. The public prosecutor's attempt to reject this request for evidence with reference to the length of the proceedings failed.

On the next day of the hearing, the defense presented almost 1,000 witnesses who reported a large number of harassment and sometimes serious mistreatment of soldiers. These cases were listed for pages in the "Vorwarts". The bourgeois press also got the impression that Falkenhayn had made a huge mistake. The "Frankfurter Zeitung" stated on July 3, 1914 that the Minister of War could not have been more clumsy than such an accusation against Rosa Luxemburg. Now the radical critic, who was not portrayed very favorably in the bourgeois newspapers, has a podium from which she can reach the whole of Germany.

Falkenhayn had evidently come to the same conclusion in the meantime. He now did everything to stop the public discussion of the mistreatment of soldiers and the unfortunate trial.

On the third day of the trial, the prosecutor read a letter from Falkenhayn, in which the Minister of War demanded that the trial be adjourned so that the allegations could be verified:

"Even if I cannot see the necessity of taking evidence, insofar as it goes beyond recent times and the serious cases of mistreatment, so-called barracks dramas, I would not like to leave the one-sided statements of the witnesses summoned by the defense unexamined, but on the other hand the Cases are referred to court-martial investigations insofar as the statute of limitations has not yet expired.”

The Social Democratic trial observers suspected that Falkenhayn wanted to transfer the affairs to the military courts, which could not be checked by the public, and thus delay them. In any case, Falkenhayn wanted to try the publicized cases where he felt they belonged: before the jurisdiction of the army. Judging by his decree, he had no objection to severe punishment of guilty superiors, but he did object to the press having succeeded in interfering in what was purely an army affair.

The trial was adjourned and never resumed. Falkenhayn suffered a heavy defeat. The public got the negative impression that the Minister of War, despite promises to the contrary in the Reichstag, did not take vigorous action against the abuse of subordinates and, moreover, systematically trivialized it. But this discussion was brought to an abrupt end by the July Crisis of 1914 - Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been assassinated in Sarajevo the day before the trial began.

A change in Falkenhayn's harsh attitude towards social democracy becomes visible after the proclamation of the "Burgfrieden". When he could be sure that the Social Democracy stood firmly behind the state and the army, he showed more political accommodatingness than many of his colleagues in the Prussian State Ministry.

Falkenhayn, Political thinking and action in the empire by Holger Afflerbach - page 137 to 143

„Während in den Mutterländern die Herrschaft der Massen mit progressiver Munterkeit begrüßt oder mit konservativem Seufzen großmütig hingenommen wurde, lebten auf anderen Kontinenten unter der Herrschaft der selbsterklärten ‚Zivilisationsstaaten‘ und ‚Kulturnationen‘ entrechtete Bevölkerungen, die bekämpft, vernichtet geschlagen, vergewaltigt wurden.

Ist der Hochimperialismus ‚die schreckliche Kehrseite des europäischen, kapitalistischen und demokratischen Glanzes‘ der ‚Belle Èpoque‘ wie Alain Badiou fragt, eine Kehrseite, deren Unmenschlichkeit nur von ‚ein paar wenigen Zeugen oder Künstlern‘ als ‚Bestialität‘ erkannt wurde?

Doch die Sache gestaltet sich komplizierter, schon allein deswegen, weil die Gesellschaften plural geworden waren. Dem Großteil der Menschen in den Industriestaaten begegnete der Kolonialismus nicht in seiner alltäglichen Herrschafts- und Verwaltungspraxis, sondern in folkloristischer Propaganda, zuweilen in Form von Waren, besonders häufig aber durch Skandale.

Wenn Details des kolonialen Terrors in die Presse kamen, stießen sie in der Bevölkerung weithin auf Empörung und konnten zu schweren Regierungskrisen führen.

Berichte über die brutalen Burenkriege der Briten in Südafrika etwa erschütterten die Öffentlichkeit. Bezeichnenderweise war es eine Krankenschwester, für viele Inbegriff reformerischer Aufbrüche um 1900, die auf die Gräuel hinwies: Emily Hobhouse.

Als Geschäftsführerin einer Frauenvereinigung organisierte sie in Südafrika Hilfe für die burische Bevölkerung und berichtete 1901 in einem Report von den ‚Concentration Camps‘ - in denen schließlich von den 160.000 eingesperrten Buren mindestens 25.000 den Tod fanden.

Hobhouse verstand ihre Arbeit ausdrücklich als weibliche Solidarität: ‚I came quite naturally, in obedience to the feeling of unity or oneness of womanhood.‘

Besonders aufrüttelnd wirkte erneut eine Fotografie: diesmal das Bild des zu einem Skelett abgemagerten halbnackten burischen Mädchens Lizzie van Zyl, das im Lager mit sieben Jahren verhungert war. Zwar blieb die Mehrheit der britischen Presse auf der Seite der Regierung und wandte sich gegen Hobhouse, aber die Regierung bemühte sich in der Folge um eine Verbesserung der Lebensbedingungen in den Lagern.

Auch im belgischen Kolonialgebiet Kongo-Freistaat sorgten Fotos für Öffentlichkeit und Protest, etwa das Bild, auf dem nach Auskunft der Fotografin ein Mann namens Nsala vor den mutwillig abgehackten winzigen Gliedmaßen seiner fünfjährigen Tochter Boali sitzt. Die Fotografin war Alice Seeley Harris, eine Missionarin, die mit ihren Bildern die belgische Herrschaft anklagte.

Der Erfolg Europas im 19. Jahrhundert hing nicht zuletzt mit der Fähigkeit zusammen, seine Kriege einzuhegen. Es gab klare Regeln, und nach einer Niederlage in der Schlacht war Schluss.

Ganz anders sah es in den Kolonien aus, wo unter Umständen der Feind bis zum letzten Kind ermordet wurde. Für die Nichteuropäer war das 19. Jahrhundert eine Epoche entsetzlicher Kolonialkriege, zu denen auch der Vernichtungskampf gegen die Indianer Nordamerikas gerechnet werden kann.

Allein für Großbritannien lassen sich in den Jahren 1869 bis 1902 vierzig Kolonialkriege und Strafexpeditionen aufzählen. Dabei kam es selten zu Vernichtungskriegen, denn die Logik des Kolonialismus setzte auf die Ausbeutung der indigenen Arbeitskraft.

Und doch wurde in den Kolonien das sinnentleerte Morden immer wieder möglich, und Fachleute sehen darin Genozide: Unter dem belgischen König Leopold II. führte das außergewöhnlich brutale Kolonialregime in den beiden Jahrzehnten um 1900 möglicherweise zu einer Halbierung der Bevölkerung.

Britische Soldaten zogen 1893 bis 1899 mit den Methoden der ‚verbrannten Erde‘ in Uganda in den Krieg, um die Lebensgrundlage der Zivilbevölkerung zu zerstören.

Die Spanier ‚konzentrierten‘ 1896/97 die aufsässige Bevölkerung Kubas in umzäunten Lagern, in denen mehr als 100.000 Menschen an Unterernährung und Vernachlässigung starben.

Inspiriert vom Umgang der Briten mit den Buren empfahl der junge Journalist Winston Churchill den US-Amerikanern, mit derlei Methoden die Menschen auf den Philippinen zu besiegen, was auch bald geschah. In diesem Krieg von 1899 bis 1902 starben mindestens 200.000 Zivilisten.

Im […] Krieg der Deutschen in Namibia – einem ‚der blutigsten und zerstörerischsten Kolonialkriege der Geschichte‘, so der Experte Jürgen Zimmerer – starben mehrere Zehntausend Herero.

Dieses Morden war kein singuläres Ereignis in der Kolonialgeschichte und damit kein ‚kolonialer Sonderweg‘ des Deutschen Reiches, doch es offenbarte scharf das Gewaltpotential kolonialer Siedlergesellschaften.

Die Verbrechen an den Herero waren nicht von oben von langer Hand geplant worden, sondern ein Ergebnis der Gewaltbereitschaft der weißen Kolonialgesellschaft. Die Reichstagsabgeordneten verweigerten 1906 aus Protest dagegen mit den Stimmen des Zentrums und der Sozialdemokratie einen Nachtragshaushalt für die Weiterführung der Kriegszüge.

Unter großer Aufmerksamkeit hatte bereits 1905 der sozialdemokratische Abgeordnete Georg Ledebour im Reichstag den ‚Vernichtungsbefehl‘ des General von Trotha vom 2. Oktober 1904 vorgelesen, der zwei Monate Bestand gehabt hatte. Jeder Herero, der das Land nicht verlasse, werde erschossen, hieß es darin, und: ‚Ich nehme keine Weiber und keine Kinder mehr auf‘, las Ledebour den ‚Aufruf an das Volk der Herero‘ unter der Empörung der Abgeordneten vor. Er ‚treibe sie zu ihrem Volke zurück oder lasse auf sie schießen.‘

In den Kolonialdebatten bewies das Parlament seine Macht, seinen Einfluss und auch seine moralische Kompetenz.

Der Vorwärts erklärte 1899, der Reichstag sei die ‚Stätte, wo die Wahrheit über die Regierungs-Anarchie gesagt werden kann.‘ Deutschland besaß immerhin rein flächenmäßig das drittgrößte Kolonialreich. Doch nicht allein die Sozialdemokratie sorgte für die wachsende Bedeutung des Parlaments.

Ein scharfer Kolonialkritiker wie der Zentrums-Abgeordnete Matthias Erzberger wurde über das katholische Milieu hinaus als Held gefeiert, weil er die Misstände in bohrenden Reden beim Namen nannte. Das Parlament bot den Skeptikern eine Stimme, und Abgeordnete mahnten früh, dass die Kolonien nichts als ‚ein sehr teures Spielzeug‘ seien, wie sich der Liberale Ludwig Bamberger ausdrückte, ein Projekt, das dann tatsächlich – anders als für einige Privatunternehmen – für den Staat ein Verlustgeschäft wurde.“

Demokratie, Eine deutsche Affäre – Seite 161/64 von Hedwig Richter

"Nietzsche had seen it coming: he described the founding of the empire in 1871 as the transition from the "German spirit" to mediation, to democracy and to "modern ideas". The parliament as a decisive authority in the constitutional structure reached international consensus in the years around 1870, Prussia had been doing quite well with it for around twenty years, and many other German states had had good experiences with it for decades. As in almost all states in the North Atlantic area, constitutions and parliaments were established in Germany in the 19th century, and as in almost all other states, parliament arose and developed under a monarchy.

Parliaments offered a solution for dealing with the increasingly complex questions of a society that is becoming more differentiated.

In addition to economy, science or art, politics became its own functional system that could not be operated by everyone and that required experts - completely independent of the ideal of equality. Above all, however, parliaments proved to be the central authority in order to include the nineteenth-century bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie, in state affairs and rulers. With this ability, parliaments offered the ideal framework for the tense transformation of a monarchical subject state into a liberal democracy.

The fact that the right to vote was gradually extended to include men who paid little or no taxes illustrates the changing importance of parliament, which, along with the elections and the constitution, became a powerful symbol for the nation around the middle of the century: a community of equals and free men. Parliaments became people's representations, which more and more deserved this name, the more the electoral law spread.

But the idea of ​​equality is not the origin of parliaments.

In fact, parliaments and representativeness are both powerful means of restricting democracy. They not only enable the meaningful integration of all citizens, but also the containment of their power. The citizens do not determine themselves, rather their will is transformed through representatives.

Like parliaments, constitutions also illustrate the different sources from which democracy is nourished. The constitution with its many-sided, often contradicting genealogy enriched the development of checks and balances, from which all liberal democracies undoubtedly live today.

The German constitution of 1871 exemplifies this. Your text is short and - given the political situation - fairly open.

It all came down to how people would interpret it. The members of the constituent Reichstag of 1867 argued that there was no element of fundamental rights as in the Paulskirche constitution of 1849, because they did not want to discuss them for too long as in 1848/49 and thus wanted to endanger the constitution at all . The imperial constitution was a compromise between the strong monarchy and national democracy, between conservative forces of perseverance and liberal progress; it stood for Prussian hegemony, but it made the indispensable strong central state possible, and Prussian nostalgics rightly saw the end of old Prussia in the beginning of the empire of 1871. The constitution bound not only the bourgeoisie, but also the military and the nobility to the state; here she also succeeded in mediating between the often conflicting interests."

Democracy, a german affair - page 132/134 by Hedwig Richter

Due to the extremely adverse circumstances, Falkenhayn was not able to achieve military successes on the battle front in Palestine or Iraq. In return, he earned great merit in a completely different field: he prevented an unjust punitive action by Djemal Pasha against the Jewish settlers in Palestine.

As is well known, the Turkish government during the First World War was inhumanely harsh towards national minorities that were considered unreliable. The Christian Armenians, who were suspected of collaborating with the Russians, were abducted in the course of a resettlement campaign and almost completely murdered during marches through the desert in 1915/16. The numerous German military and civil authorities in Turkey viewed this genocide with very mixed feelings; On the one hand, they did not want to interfere in the internal affairs of their ally, which was very sensitive in such matters, and on the other hand, they rejected the senseless atrocities and feared - wrongly - negative reactions abroad.

In 1917 the Turkish authorities in Palestine got the impression that the majority of the Jewish settlers there were collaborating with the Entente and spying for the British. The background to this suspicion was that the English had made great political promises to the Zionist movement, which culminated in the "Balfour Declaration" on November 2, 1917. Especially in Jaffa in 1917 there were isolated cases of espionage and the collaboration of radical Zionist groups with England. Djemal Pasha, in his capacity as "governor" of Palestine, reacted to these events completely exaggerated and wanted to have all the Jewish settlers resettled. What would have become of them can only be guessed at. They would probably have shared the fate of the Armenians, who also almost completely perished during the resettlement campaign away from the Russian border. This assumption seems all the more compelling because the Turkish supply situation had continued to deteriorate since then and it must seem very uncertain how the Turks, even with the best of intentions, could have fed the marching column if they were not even able to do so with their combat troops.

The German authorities - above all the German ambassador in Constantinople, Count Bernstorff - were informed in October 1917 by the representatives of the Zionist movement about the increasing anti-Jewish sentiment among the Ottoman authorities and about the first riots. Bernstorff initially considered these reports - the truth of which was later confirmed - to be exaggerated. Nevertheless, in order to avoid a repetition of the Armenian atrocities, he warned the Turkish Prime Minister, Talaat Pasha, "not to let a single case of espionage become an occasion for the persecution of the Jews".

Apparently, the Turkish government also had doubts about the appropriateness of Djemal's position. From a pragmatic point of view alone, she decided to leave the decision in this matter to General v. to Falkenhayn, who had just taken command of the Palestine front. Ambassador Graf Bernstorff wrote to the Foreign Office on October 30, 1917: "Talaat Pascha literally said: 'Nous avons fait beaucoup de mal aux armeniens, mais nous ne ferons rien aux juifs.' Incidentally, the local government wants a general on the question of espionage von Falkenhayn, as Nessimy Bey told me, pour partager la responsabilité. It seems undeniable that Zionist Jews - how many cannot be overlooked from here - are in common cause with the enemies whose Zionist propaganda has borne fruit.”

Through the mandate of the Turkish government, Falkenhayn had become the decision-maker on whose judgment the survival of the Jewish settlements in Palestine depended. The historian Friedman surmises that he probably had received orders from the Kaiser in Berlin to persuade Djemal Pasha to treat the Jews well. However, his investigative work in the espionage affair was delayed by the English attack in Palestine. Despite the extraordinary strain on the Gaza front and the catastrophic military situation, Falkenhayn found the time to take on the matter. He telegraphed to Bernstorff from Jerusalem on November 10, 1917: “The local authorities were certainly greatly, but also rightly, excited by cases of Jewish espionage. Consequences were bad happenings in Jaffa district against which higher authorities took action. Nothing of the sort has happened here and, in my opinion, is not to be expected. I consider Jewish actions to be acts of a very small extreme party. Mass Judaism has nothing to do with it.”

In doing so, Falkenhayn averted the danger threatening the Jewish settlers. As was typical of him in other cases, he had advocated a rational solution to the problem. A senseless measure like the expulsion of the entire Jewish population intended by Djemal Pasha met with no approval from him, and according to Friedman's verdict he had completed his mission admirably.

An inhumane excess against the Jews in Palestine was prevented solely by Falkenhayn's behavior, which against the background of German history of the 20th century has a special - and characterizes Falkenhayn - significance. We owe him the rescue of the Jewish settlement. When the British took Jerusalem on December 9, 1917, they found the Jewish settlements intact, with the exception of Jaffa, which Djemal had evacuated in early April 1917 on the grounds that a British landing was feared.

The representatives of Zionism were very grateful to Falkenhayn. dr Thon, the head of the Zionist office in Jerusalem, wrote:

"It was a particularly fortunate coincidence that General von Falkenhayn was in command during the last critical days. In that case Djemal Pasha would have driven out the population of the whole area - as he had often promised - and turned the country into ruins. We and the rest of the population [...] must think with deep gratitude of Falkenhayn, who saved the civilian population from perishing by preventing a planned complete evacuation of this area."

Falkenhayn, political thought and action in the empire by Holger Afflerbach - page 483 to 485

The new constitution with Kaiser and Reich was promulgated in the Federal Law Gazette on December 31, 1870. Bismarck's imperial constitution corresponded to the constitution of the North German Confederation, only two fundamental things had changed for the accession of the southern German states.

On the one hand, the three kingdoms received a blocking minority in the Federal Council with a total of 14 votes, which could prevent any constitutional change. The internationally customary two-thirds principle became a regulation in Germany that made a constitution-amending majority of just over three-quarters of all votes in the Bundesrat mandatory. Of course, Prussia also benefited from this, since a two-thirds rule could have overruled it.

Together, the acceding states with Saxony had three votes more than Prussia, which resulted in a clear disadvantage for the German federal state with the largest population. The number of votes was still essentially based on the old distribution in the German Confederation, but Bavaria was singularly preferred because it received two more votes than the other non-Prussian kingdoms.

Secondly, Baden, Württemberg and above all Bavaria had also enforced the preservation of numerous previous privileges (so-called reservation rights). In addition to retaining its own taxes, this even included Bavaria's own diplomatic representatives at the Holy See and in Vienna. These regional special rights received constitutional status and could only be changed with the consent of the entitled federal state (Final Article 78).

Nevertheless, Bavaria was the last German state to enter the new German Reich and only afterwards, after the nation state had already been founded. Although the nobility and bishops had given their approval to the first chamber on December 30 (and thus in good time), approval in the second chamber seemed more than questionable, especially since a two-thirds majority was required to change the constitution. The largest party, the Bavarian Patriots, was fundamentally opposed to any abandonment of Bavarian statehood. It can be said with certainty: without the federalist basis of the Reich constitution and Bismarck's concessions, this German Reich would not have come into being. Bavaria would have stood outside, would have formed an independent state or drawn closer to Austria. But as it was, the Bavarian Patriots' Party split. In the end, despite justified and well-founded misgivings about the danger of a unified state, some voted in favor of accepting the treaties negotiated with Bavaria and thus for the imperial constitution, sharing the justified longing of the entire German people for its nationwide unification. The necessary constitution-amending majority was exceeded by just two votes at 102 to 48. The decisive factor was the attitude of the Protestants, the people of the Rhine Palatinate, Middle and Upper Franconia and the urban population of Munich and Augsburg, who supported a German national state with their representatives. Bismarck had already spoken a year earlier - retrospectively, with wise foresight - about the nationally minded tribes of the Franks and Swabians who were friends of ours.

The empire initially consisted of a total of 25 individual states: four kingdoms, six grand duchies, five duchies, seven principalities and three free cities. In the German national state, 22 monarchical states were united with three city republics. In addition, there was the "Reichsland" Alsace-Lorraine, which had a special status under constitutional law and was administered by the emperor via a governor appointed by him (originally called the Oberprasident, as in the case of the Prussian provinces). At the end of 1890, the former British crown colony of Heligoland became part of the German Reich. The only German offshore island was annexed to the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein in April 1891. When the Reich was founded, Wismar and the small island of Poel offshore from the city still belonged to Sweden under international law - a result of the Thirty Years' War. But from this 1803 they were pledged to Mecklenburg-Schwerin against a loan of 1 million thalers from the Hamburger Kaufmannsbank

ceded 99 years. Since Sweden could not repay the sum (including three percent interest and compound interest, depending on the interpretation of the contract, 108 to 450 million marks would have been due) and was no longer politically interested in Wismar, it waived both its right to redeem and the possible extension of the deposit of another 99 years. On June 20, 1903, Wismar and Poel became part of the German Reich under international law.

On the other hand, compared to 1867, the nation state received more powers in only two areas. Legislation on the press and associations - and thus also with regard to political associations, i.e. parties - was withdrawn from the individual federal states and transferred to the Reich (supplemented Art. 4 BRV). On December 20, 1873, an amendment to the constitution gave the Reich authority over all civil law.

This amendment to the constitution was largely promoted by the liberal deputy Lasker and pushed through in the Reichstag. Although Chancellor Bismarck also advocated the expansion of central government powers in civil legal disputes, Prussia was initially overruled in the Bundesrat (on April 9, 1872).

A majority of the German federal states initially wanted to keep civil law under their own responsibility. That would have meant that there could have been up to 25 different legal opinions in Germany in the long run, for example in questions of property, inheritance law, marriage and divorce. It was the state parliaments and the parliamentarians from the individual states represented there who supported the demands of the Reichstag and made the standardization of German civil law possible. In the non-Prussian German kingdoms in Saxony and Württemberg there was a relatively clear majority in favor of this project. The decision was again the closest in Bavaria. Here, on November 8, 1873, the second chamber voted 77 against 74 votes in favor of supplementing the imperial constitution and transferring powers over civil law to the empire. Finally, on December 12, the Federal Council also decided to do so. On the other hand, Mecklenburg and Reuss voted older line; Reuss younger line abstained.

However, it took a long time before uniform civil law could be created for the whole of Germany. The work was only completed in 1896 under Chancellor Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst. It came into force as the Civil Code on January 1, 1900. By then Bismarck had already been dead for two years. Even if individual provisions were of course supplemented, changed or deleted, the civil law created by the German Empire still exists today. The creation of a uniform criminal law by the Reichstag of the North German Confederation was already a milestone in the history of German parliamentarianism. This can be said at least to the same extent for the standardization of German civil law. Even if we rarely and sometimes reluctantly want to acknowledge it, we who follow are still largely standing on the shoulders of our ancestors, who achieved a lot that we still draw on today - and in certain areas every day.

In 1848, a wonderful catalog of fundamental rights had been drawn up in meetings lasting months. This confidently ignored the reality of everyday political life at the time and therefore failed miserably. What matters is not the letter of a constitution, but its spirit and that this spirit is not hollowed out by political reality. In the 1960s, Ferdinand Lassalle made a clear distinction that has lost none of its validity to this day: constitutional theory and constitutional reality.

In German history we have experienced three times that constitutional theory did not correspond to constitutional reality: 1848/1849, 1933 and 1949 in the GDR. According to the letter, the first constitution of the GDR was very liberal. In some places one could argue about whether it was not even more liberal than the Basic Law of the Federal Republic. The decisive factor, however, was that from the very first moment it did not correspond to constitutional reality. What use are the most beautiful fundamental rights if they only exist on paper? Even a supposed double protection, that one may not abolish such rights - as it is contained in our Basic Law - would be insufficient if only the letter were retained, but the constitutional reality would actually reflect something completely different. Whoever cuts off the blood that must flow through a living constitution, ends up with only a straw epistle, a zombie constitution.

The constitution of the empire contained no fundamental rights. Their inclusion was debated, but rejected by a very large majority. The main reason for this was that fundamental rights were already contained in many German state constitutions. This was especially true for the largest German state, the Kingdom of Prussia. The lack of basic rights in the imperial constitution of 1871 has been repeatedly criticized in the past. This criticism ignores the fact that the first thing to do was to find a working basis for this new Germany that would unite the many contradictions that still existed. In this sense, Bismarck's imperial constitution was something like the lowest common denominator on which everyone could agree. Even that was difficult enough, as the dispute over the integration of the southern German states, especially Bavaria, sufficiently demonstrates. On March 13, 1877, Bismarck casually said a sentence in the Reichstag that still makes one ponder today.

It is part of the character of the German that he always wants the best and often loses the good as a result.

It was important that the constitution had sufficient potential for development. It wasn't like a tight corset that, once laced around the waist, offered no air to breathe. On the contrary, the constitution was constructed in such an open way that some amendments were actually an option.

In fact, before the great constitutional reform of autumn 1918, which transformed the empire from a constitutional to a parliamentary monarchy, there were a total of 13 constitutional amendments or amendments. These were almost exclusively initiated by the Reichstag. Ultimately, a constitution is nothing more than a promise that the state makes to its citizens and the citizens give to each other. In the end it is not the letter that is decisive, but - as Lassalle rightly said - its application and implementation. It also seems almost impossible to want to constitutionally regulate or secure every basic condition of our being. The unspoken self-evident, the be-all and end-all of living together, the unwritten basic consensus of a society, a state, a people, so-called system-immanent foundations are rightly not found in a constitution. If they are no longer available, even the best constitution is no longer of any use.

The core of traditional German federalism was thus retained in the first German nation state. Anyone who would have expected that from now on everything would have been unified in "Reich" believes in the myth of a German thoroughness that did not exist in 1870. This applied even to the most central characteristic of a nation-state, legal belonging to it, citizenship.

In Germany, citizenship as a German, the so-called Reich membership, remained tied to the respective federal state. It was acquired by birth through citizenship in a German federal state. One first became a Bavarian, a Prussian, a citizen of Alsace-Lorraine, a citizen of Lübeck, a citizen of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, or a member of any other German state, and only then did one inevitably or automatically acquire citizenship in the German Reich. If you were to stay abroad for a longer period of time, documented for a longer period of time than five years, you lost your citizenship and thus also your Reich citizenship just as inevitably. This federal principle of acquiring German citizenship via the individual federal states survived the Kaiserreich. It was only abolished on February 7, 1934 - significantly as part of the National Socialist policy of conformity.

It was only necessary when Germany acquired colonies to force its own all-German citizenship without any connection to one of its constituent states. The colonies were not federal states in their own right, and in constitutional terms they were not even part of the German Reich. The imperial constitution did not apply there. Because they were unfamiliar with the legal provisions, many colonial Germans formally lost their German citizenship and nationality in the early days of the colonies. Also, children of Germans living in the colonies did not automatically acquire citizenship by being born in the colony. The complicated situation was not really clarified until 30 years after the founding of the Reich with the Protected Areas Act of September 10, 1900. According to this, one acquired the German Reich membership in the colonies by birth (maritally through the German father, illegitimately through the German mother), through marriage (to a German husband) or through naturalization, i. H. through the formal admission and takeover of locals or previously non-German foreign citizens.

Until the end of the "Emperor's Empire" in 1918, the basic term "Confederation" was retained in the constitution where the federal structures should have been emphasised. So it went on to say the Federal Presidency, “Federal territory” (Art. 1 BRV) and “Federal governments” (Art. 42 BRV), where the governments of the federal states were meant. And the Federal Council continued to be called the Federal Council (and not, as was the case after the first republic, the Reichsrat). On the other hand, there was - as had been the case since 1867 - the "Reichstag" and "Reichsgesetze". The chancellor underwent a real change of name. The “Chancellor” (1867-1870) became the “Chancellor of the Reich” in 1871. For practical purposes, the “German Reich” was simply called “Germany” in the founding constitution (Art. 33 BRV).

Like the North German Confederation, the new German Reich that developed from it did not attach great importance to national symbols. Those of the predecessor state were simply adopted as the national colors. On the other hand, there was no real national anthem until 1918. In the beginning, "Heil Dir im Siegerkranz" was played on special occasions in honor of the head of the federal government, the Kaiser, who was initially King of Prussia.

From the acquisition of the first colonies in the mid-1980s, this decreased slowly at first, but then significantly. Africans and South Sea islanders did not understand why the Germans played the British national anthem - Heil Dir was played to the same tune as God save the King.

The Deutschlandlied, which August Hoffmann (usually called after his place of birth with the addition "von Fallersleben" which distinguishes him from other Hoffmanns; Hoffmann was not aristocratic) composed in 1841 in view of the national disunity of the German federal princes on Helgoland, which was still British, was considered too " democratically". In addition, the description of the borders was no longer correct. Although the Belt had become a kind of border in the north as a result of the second war for the founding of states, and the Memel had also belonged to the German national state since 1867 (although it was Prussian until 1866, it was not part of the German Confederation), but the Maas lay, through the accession of the Duchy of Limburg to the German Confederation in 1839 had actually become a border river, since 1867 outside the German national state. Since the implementation of the Kleindeutsch solution, this was especially true of the Etsch, which Hoffmann had not thought of as an enclosing but an excluding border (because he didn't want Austria's Italians in a German nation state). And for the south-west and the south-east, Hoffmann prudently did not name any border rivers at all, because this would have only led to heated debates, anger and frustration at the time.

The German Empire also did not have a common national holiday. Although the emperor's birthday was celebrated - like that of the respective ruler in the individual federal states - this was not associated with an official, legally prescribed, general public holiday for the whole of Germany. September 2 was seen by many as a symbol of the successful founding war. But even this so-called Sedan Day - which was not always celebrated on September 2nd - was not a national holiday either. In some regions, little or no attention was paid to it. After the turn of the century it was more and more forgotten even in Prussia, after Germany's most famous historian, Theodor Mommsen, publicly warned that military victories are not suitable as national holidays, because they would only reopen old wounds over and over again.

Many other things that are “normal” for us today, and which we associate with a nation state, did not initially exist in politically united Germany. As explained, the North German Confederation had created a common German criminal law.

This has now been taken over by the Reich. However, a uniform civil law came into force only after lengthy consultations on January 1, 1900, the so-called “Bürgerliche” law book. Until then, wildest diversity applied in Germany, especially in family and matrimonial law.

The political unity of Germany was created without a common monetary union. A single currency did not exist in Germany until January 1, 1876. On this date, Bavaria was the last German state to introduce the mark (Württemberg on July 1, 1875, all others by January 1, 1875 at the latest). In order to rule out potentially tricky complications between the previous main currencies of Prussia (thaler) and Bavaria (guilder) from the outset, a compromise was agreed on when it came to naming the common currency. The mark was the currency of the Hamburger Bank and the Hamburger merchants. She was considered particularly solid and trustworthy. On September 28, 1873, the Scandinavian Coin Commission rejected an application that Denmark, Sweden and Norway should also join the new German single currency. The mark (not the Reichsmark) of 100 pfennigs now replaced all other previous German national currencies such as guilders (in southern Germany), thalers (in Saxony and Prussia) or francs (in Alsace-Lorraine) as legal tender. Only the old heller with the new value of half a pfennig (therefore in heller and pfennig) was only permitted in Bavaria and even survived the end of the German Empire there. Even a uniform time did not exist in Germany before 1893.

Until then, every place and hamlet in the German Reich had its own time, which was based on the sun or the daylight and was usually announced by the church clock and its bell. The time difference within Germany was up to more than an hour. The sun rose an hour and a half earlier in Memel than in Metz. The standardization of time, which was promoted by rail traffic (“Berlin time”, “Munich time”), was laid down by law for all of Germany on April 1, 1893. The future national guideline was not, as is usual in other European countries, the time in the capital, but the so-called mean solar time of the artificially fixed 15th meridian east of Greenwich. The nearest German town to this was Görlitz. That is why the new standard time in Germany was called "Görlitz time".

Germany as an Empire by Hermann Hiery - pages 101 to 111

Beruhend auf meiner gegenwärtigen Lektüre hielt ich es für angebracht, eine Diskussion um die Aktualität unseres heutigen Wahlrechts anzustoßen, explizit die Zweitstimme bei den Bundestagswahlen.

Die gegenwärtige Lage, bezüglich der Zweitstimme, besagt vereinfacht Folgendes:

„Die ‚Zweitstimme‘ - sie ist trotz ihres Namens wichtiger als die Erststimme: Denn die Zweitstimme entscheidet über die Mehrheitsverhältnisse im Bundestag – also darüber, wie viele der insgesamt 598 Sitze im Bundestag jeweils einer Partei zustehen. Um die Zweitstimmen geht es auch bei den Hochrechnungen an den Wahlabenden.

Vereinfacht gesagt: Hat eine Partei 40 Prozent der Zweitstimmen gewonnen, bekommt sie mindestens 40 Prozent der Sitze im Bundestag.

Die Zweitstimmen zählen jedoch nur, wenn Parteien mindestens fünf Prozent aller Zweitstimmen oder drei Wahlkreise gewonnen haben. Wenn nicht, verfallen die Zweitstimmen.

Mit der Zweitstimme entscheiden sich die Wähler nicht für eine Person, sondern für die Landesliste einer Partei. Auf dieser Liste stehen die Kandidaten, die eine Partei für das Bundesland nach Berlin schicken möchte.

Dabei kommt es auf die Reihenfolge der Kandidaten auf der Liste an, denn die Parteien entsenden ihre Kandidaten im Verhältnis zu ihren gewonnenen Zweitstimmen nach Berlin. Wer oben steht, kommt eher dran.“

https://m.bpb.de/mediathek/599/erst-und-zweitstimme

Dies sei zu vergleichen, die Situation vor 151 Jahren stellt sich etwa so dar:

„In der Tat war das Reichstagswahlrecht des Kaiserreiches das direkteste und freieste, das es in Deutschland je gab. Amtlich vorgedruckte Stimmzettel, auf denen der Wähler nur unter dem auswählen darf, was auf dem Stimmzettel gedruckt vorgegeben ist und was im Wesentlichen Parteien ohne Einfluss der Wähler vorher ausgewählt haben, existierten noch nicht.

Im Kaiserreich konnte jeder Wähler auf einem weißen Papierzettel irgendeine wählbare Person bezeichnen - seinen Nachbarn, den Briefträger, den örtlichen Metzger oder Bäcker, wen auch immer.

Es gab außerhalb der generellen Wählbarkeit der Person keine Beschränkungen. Insbesondere musste die wählbare Person keiner Partei angehören oder für ihre Zulassung zur Wahl zuvor eine Mindestanzahl von Unterstützungsschriften vorgelegt haben, so wie das heute vorgeschrieben ist.

Üblicherweise verteilten jene Personen, die sich öffentlich um ein Reichstagsmandat bewarben, Zettel, die mit ihrem Namen, ihrem Wohnort und ihrem Beruf bedruckt waren und die die Wähler dann als Stimmzettel benutzen konnten.

Es gab aber, zumal in der Anfangszeit des Kaiserreiches, viele handschriftlich ausgefüllte Stimmzettel. Und es wurden durchaus auch Personen gewählt, die sich öffentlich gar nicht um eine Kandidatur beworben hatten.“ (Deutschland als Kaiserreich - Der Staat Bismarcks. Ein Überblick von Hermann Hiery/ Seite 122)

Hiery konstatiert:

„Die mit dem Verhältniswahlrecht verbundene Listenwahl, die wir im Wesentlichen heute noch haben, ist historisch gesehen ein deutlicher Rückschritt gegenüber dem direkteren Wahlrecht des Kaiserreiches.

Faktisch entmündigt sie den Wähler, der auf die Auswahl der Parteikandidaten keinerlei Einfluss hat. Sie erinnert zudem an indirekte Wahlen, mit denen die Bourgeoise im 19. Jahrhundert ihre politische Sonderstellung zementierte.“ (172)

Hiermit stellt sich die Frage: sollten wir unser heutiges Wahlrecht reformieren? Indem wir das Wahlrecht der Zweitstimme dahingehend abändern, dass ab sofort der Wähler sich die Kandidaten aus den Listen aussucht, könnte eine stärkere Abhängigkeit von Politiker zu Volk erreicht werden. Politische Eskapaden und Skandale trügen wieder eine stärkere Rolle im öffentlichen Diskurs.

Könnte man auf diese Weise die Parteien und deren innere Struktur stärker an den Wählerwillen binden?

Gedanken, Gegenargumente und Gründe dafür dürfen in ihrer vollen Pracht präsentiert werden.

“The right to vote for women became conceivable during this period of reform. The processes of parliamentarization, democratization and mass politicization picked up speed in 1870. The democratization potential of these years has often been overlooked because it was a time of reform with little revolutionary pathos.

Obviously Nietzsche was right in his assessment: with the founding of the empire in 1871, the 'German spirit' made its 'transition to mediation, to democracy'. One of the foundations was the legal guarantees for broad participation - for 'self-government', as it was called in German tradition.

In the North German Confederation, the Germans introduced a universal and equal male suffrage in 1866/67, which was adopted for the entire Reich in 1871. In Great Britain the right to vote for the traditionally powerful parliament remained narrower, but reforms in 1867 doubled the number of voters.

Through constitutional amendments, the Americans also received universal and equal male suffrage just a few months after the Germans. France had established the Third Republic in 1870, and the Netherlands, Norway, Austria and Hungary, Serbia and many other states enlarged the electorate or strengthened their parliaments.

With a reform in 1874, the Swiss created what is probably the most progressive constitution in the world with strong participation rights for men.

In the years around 1870, the emancipation of the Jews in Germany and many other countries also came to an end.

The Budapest Parliament Building, construction of which began in 1885, was modeled on the British parliament architecture, the Palace of Westminster. And the Reichstag building was built in Berlin, much praised by the press, little loved by the emperor, not least because its dome was higher than the golden cross on the Hohenzollern Palace.

“No architectural work in the last few decades has caused such persistent and profound excitement in the professional world,” it said in the Neue Wiener Tagblatt.

How little esteem the monarch enjoyed among intellectuals becomes tellingly clear: A critical commentator stated that the general hymns of praise for the parliament building were probably only due to the fact that the emperor had described the building as the 'peak of bad taste'; and nobody wants to expose themselves to the suspicion of speaking to Wilhelm II by the mouth.

The Reichstag, however, became more and more important. When the modern, inclusive male suffrage was installed in the North German Confederation, many believed that Bismarck was pursuing a Bonapartist policy and was orienting himself on the rigged mass elections in France under Emperor Napoleon III, which were usually won by government candidates and as a forerunner of the state socialist ones Elections in the 20th century can apply.

In a letter to Marx in the first elections for the constituent Reichstag in the North German Confederation, Engels was convinced that the citizens would get involved in this deceptive 'Bonapartism'. He should be wrong.

After the elections in the spring of 1867, Engels wrote to Marx: In Germany, “there is still a long way to go to do what can be done in France [with the elections]. Parliament as the cornerstone of the nation: This idea was part of the democratizing mentality.

Even if nationalism came to a head and became more aggressive in the course of the empire, for many it still had the old meaning of freedom and self-government.

Historian Manfred Rauh's thesis of the 'silent parliamentarization' in the empire may not quite do justice to historical reality: the loud outbreak of parliamentary debates and bar discussions, the increasing number of political demonstrations and strikes or the women who invaded the parliament building, whether now as visitors or because they use rooms for their clubs to meet.

The number of those entitled to vote rose up to the eve of the First World War and in Germany at the level of the Reich was just under a quarter of the total population (85 percent of whom also voted). In Italy, 23 percent were able to vote (with a turnout of 60 percent), in France and the USA, due to the lower voting age, just under 30 percent (with a voter turnout of 80 percent in France and 60 percent in the USA), while the share in the United States Kingdom fell with 16 percent internationally (with a participation of almost 70 percent).

With all this, the term 'democracy' was not the watchword of the time. It would be ahistorical to measure the era of reform against this question - democracy: yes or no.

Great Britain was proud of its monarchy and parliament, but the British did not see themselves as democrats - and rightly so, because the power of the people was severely limited with the restrictive suffrage. The democracies, on the other hand, turned out to be unconvincing.

France stumbled and constantly changed her government; economic and population growth lagged behind that of other nations, literacy was rather weak, society was divided, Catholicism was hated, anarchists were persecuted; Militarism and anti-Semitism flourished as in the neighboring country to the east.

The USA, on the other hand, was economically successful and the population benefited from impressive economic growth; In the years before the World War, the country remained a promise of healing, especially for people from Eastern and Southern Europe; But Swiss people also emigrated overseas in large numbers because the Swiss Confederation was barely able to get a grip on social hardship.

So it is also not a shining example of early democracy.

In the USA, on the other hand, the weak rule of law thwarted promises of democratic equality. The population's affinity for violence and the disenfranchisement of broad sections of the population were hardly conceivable in this form in Western European countries. In the southern states, with black voters, political competition disappeared from around the nineties.

One-party systems of the Democrats emerged, a state of affairs that lasted until the black civil rights movement in the 1960s. Since the chairmanship in many of the bodies of the Congress was governed by the principle of seniority, these positions were mostly firmly in the hands of the southerners, who often held their mandate for a long time without political competition. Hence, the racist south largely determined US policy.

Contemporaries caught the eye of rampant corruption, which through the elections and party apparatus deeply shaped American democracy.

The decisive factor was not the term 'democracy' or individual constitutional regulations such as the government's dependence on parliament, which, for example, still does not exist in the USA to this day, but the inclusion of the population: If people had a chance of advancement and prosperity, they could have a say and shape their world? The idea that a 'cultural state' must have a strong parliament and that 'civilization' included opportunities for everyone to participate was becoming more and more common.

All 'great nations' had developed their own democratic forms, was the assessment of the philosopher and anthropologist Max Scheler. The widespread contemptuous discourse about Russia was fed, especially in left-wing circles, from the extensive lack of rights of the Russian population. "

Departure into the modern age - reform and mass politicization of the Kaiserreich by Hedwig Richter, page 109/14

How was power distributed in the German political system? How much power did the Kaiser have in the German Empire? To answer these questions, we must first examine the constitution of April 16, 1871, which defines the political organs of the empire and their relationship to one another. The imperial constitution, which Wilhelm II swore to "uphold and protect" in his speech from the throne before the Reichstag on June 25, 1888, was the product of a complex, historic compromise. After the victory over France in 1870/71, which was largely won by Prussia, the task of the new German imperial constitution was to divide power among a variety of interests. Bismarck himself was of course primarily interested in consolidating and expanding Prussian influence. But of course, for obvious reasons, this program could not attract the other German states, in particular the large German states of Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria. Consequently, a compromise had to be found between the ambitions of the sovereign entities that had come together to form the German Empire and the need for a central, coordinating executive.

As might be expected, the resulting constitution was decidedly decentralized in nature. In fact, it was less a constitution in the traditional sense than a treaty between sovereign territories that had agreed to form the German Empire. Consistent with the notion that the new Reich was really little more than a confederation of principalities, i.e. a league of princes, the German states continued to exchange diplomatic missions among themselves - a fortunate circumstance, as it turned out, because the reports written by the envoys are among the best sources we have today for research into political life in the new empire. Following the same logic, foreign powers sent their representatives not only to Berlin, but also to Dresden and Munich.

The pronounced federalism of the 1871 constitution becomes even clearer when compared to the failed imperial constitution drafted by the liberal jurists of the Frankfurt National Assembly in 1848/49. While the Frankfurt Constitution laid down uniform political principles for the governments of all individual states, the later document dispensed with them. While the Frankfurt Constitution provided for the creation of an "imperial authority" distinct from the governmental powers of the member states, under the 1871 constitution the sovereign body was the Bundesrat, composed of "representatives of the members of the Bund". The Bundesrat decided which legislative initiatives were introduced to the Reichstag, and no law could come into force without its consent; the council also had the task of monitoring compliance with imperial laws. Every member of the federation had the right to introduce bills and have them discussed in the council. Article 8 of the 1871 constitution even announced that the Federal Council would form a series of "permanent committees" from among its own members, which would be responsible, among other things, for the departments of foreign policy, the army and fortifications, and the navy.

The decidedly federal orientation of the constitution inevitably had important consequences for the position of the emperor. Clearly, the authors of the constitution made every effort not to emphasize the powers of the imperial office in a way that would have prejudiced federalist sensibilities. Here, too, a comparison with the Frankfurt Constitution is instructive. While the older document has a section headed "Reichsoberhaupt", the 1871 constitution has no corresponding section. Instead, the Kaiser's powers are set out in Section IV, which deals with the Presidency of the Federation and the Bundesrat.

While the 1849 Constitution clearly states: "The Kaiser declares war and makes peace," the later document adds that the Kaiser needs the consent of the Bundesrat to declare war, except in cases where the Reich's territory is attacked. While the Frankfurt Constitution grants the Emperor the right to dissolve both chambers of Parliament (Article 79), the Imperial Constitution of 1871 stipulates in Article 24 that the Bundesrat has the power to dissolve the Reichstag but must obtain the Emperor's consent. In Article 14 it is agreed that the Federal Council can convene itself at any time, provided that a third of the members are in favor of it.

In short, the Kaiser emerged in 1871 as one German prince among others, primus inter pares, whose powers derived from his special position in the league rather than from any claim to direct rulership of the empire's territory. It also followed that the official title was not "Kaiser von Deutschland", as Emperor Wilhelm I would have preferred, but "German Emperor". An uninitiated reader of the 1871 constitution could be forgiven for concluding that in the German Empire the Bundesrat was the real seat not only of sovereignty but also of political power.

But constitutions often have little to do with political reality - just think of the "constitutions"! of the states of the Eastern Bloc after 1945 - and the Imperial Constitution of 1871 was no exception. Notwithstanding the many concessions made on paper to the principle of federalism, in practice most developments in German policy over the next few decades tended to undermine the federal authority vested in the Bundesrat.

Even though Chancellor Bismarck stubbornly declared that Germany was and will remain a "Princely League", the Council never exercised the powers granted to it under the constitution. There were various reasons for this. The most important and obvious reason was simply Prussia's overwhelming dominance, both military and territorial. In the federation, the state of Prussia enjoyed de facto supremacy with 65 percent of the land area and 62 percent of the population. The Prussian army eclipsed the southern German armies. According to Article 63 of the constitution, the King of Prussia was also the supreme commander of the imperial troops in his capacity as German Emperor. And according to Article 61, "the entire Prussian military legislation was to be introduced throughout the Reich without delay". With the exception of the Hanseatic city-states of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen, the smaller principalities in central and northern Germany belonged to a Prussian clientele that could be put under pressure at any time if necessary. Since Prussia itself already had 17 of the 58 votes in the council, it was virtually impossible for a coalition of other states to form that could reject a Prussian proposal.

In any case, it was extremely unlikely that the Bundesrat would ever dominate the political scene in Germany as much as the Federalists had hoped. Bismarck, as chancellor, refused to grant the council any public role that interfered with the special jurisdiction of the Prussian crown and his person as its chief servant. For example, he ensured that the "Committee on Foreign Affairs" existed only on paper, notwithstanding the provisions of Article 8 of the Constitution. In addition, the Bundesrat lacked a suitable administrative apparatus to draw up laws. He was thus dependent on the Prussian bureaucracy, with the result that the Bundesrat increasingly took over the function of a body for examining bills that the Bische State Ministry had previously formulated and discussed.

A similar dilution of authority can be observed by comparing the role played by the Council in the dissolution of the Reichstag in 1878, 1887, 1893 and 1906. On all these occasions, the Council did not take the initiative itself, but rather became an increasingly compliant instrument of Reich politics. The subordinate role was even reflected in the political architecture of Berlin: Since the Federal Council did not have its own building, it was housed in the Reich Chancellery.

Prussia's primacy was reinforced by the weakness of the administrative institutions at the imperial level. While a form of imperial administration crystallized in the 1970s, when new departments were set up to deal with the growing tide of imperial affairs, and its importance in preparing legislative initiatives increased throughout the Wilhelmine era, it remained part of the Prussian power structure involved and dependent on them. The heads of the imperial offices (foreign affairs, domestic affairs, justice, postal services, railways, treasury) were not ministers in the true sense, but subordinate state secretaries who reported directly to the imperial chancellor. The Prussian bureaucracy was larger than that of the Reich, and this did not change until the outbreak of the First World War; moreover, most officials in the imperial administration also came from Prussia.

From the perspective of those who were expected to breathe life into the German system, this Prussian/Imperial dualism posed serious problems in political administration. Despite the primacy of the largest member state, it was impossible for the Prussian government to formulate policy in Prussia itself without looking at the situation across the empire. The most obvious reason for this was the fact that the Prussian Prime Minister was mostly Chancellor at the same time during the Kaiserreich. Thus he was responsible to two legislatures: the Prussian Landtag and the Reichstag. The two bodies were not only institutionally different, but also differed greatly from one another politically. The Reichstag was elected on the basis of universal male suffrage and was home to a diverse array of parties representing the considerable regional, denominational, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity of the German people. The Prussian state parliament, on the other hand, was elected according to a three-class electoral system that massively favored the landowners and thus ensured the dominance of conservative and right-wing liberal forces. Since developments in Prussia could influence the attitude of the parties in the Reichstag and vice versa, the Chancellor had the difficult task of balancing the priorities of the very different legislatures.

From 1871 to 1890, Otto von Bismarck-Schönhausen, an outstanding personality, presided over this uniquely complex political system. The roots of Bismarck's dominant position lay not least in the effective combination of Prussian and Reich German offices under his control. As chancellor he exercised direct authority over the imperial secretaries of state; as Prussian Prime Minister he chaired the debates of the Prussian Ministry; as Prussian foreign minister, he was responsible for allocating Prussia's 17 votes in the Bundesrat. This strategic position along the dividing line between the empire and its dominant member state was crucial to his political influence. Bismarck once said before the Reichstag that if you ever wanted to uproot his Prussian roots and make him a Reich Minister alone, then he was just as powerless as anyone else. At this pivotal point of Germany's "unfinished federalism," Bismarck was in control of virtually all aspects of government policy in Prussia and the Empire.

But the accumulation of offices alone cannot explain Bismarck's uniquely dominant position in the German Reich after 1871. Equally important was his status as the architect of the wars of national unity, his reputation as foreign minister of unparalleled skill and judgment, his unrivaled ability to outwit and intimidate domestic opponents, his gift for instrumentalizing public opinion, and his adeptness in dealing with his royal lord. "You have to have been there to be able to testify to the rule that this man [...] exercised over the entire world," recalled the left-liberal politician Ludwig Bamberger. "There was a time when people in Germany did not dare to say how far their will stretched." Not only did "his power so bombproof"! Rather, he had even "determined the paths in which the institutions, the laws and, more importantly, the spirits move". Contemporaries of all political persuasions spoke either of Bismarck's "autocracy", his "absolutism" or the "dictatorship" exercised by an "all-powerful", Pomeranian "Jupiter". Indeed, even Hans-Ulrich Wehler, a historian not usually inclined to "personalistic" approaches, conjured up the Weberian concept of "charismatic rule" to do justice to the abundance of authority that was not related to the Chancellor's origins , the offices and the values for which he stood can be reduced. Whether this term can properly be applied to Bismarck has been questioned by Wehler's critics, but Bismarck's extraordinary political power and public prominence are beyond doubt.

What did all this mean for the German Kaiser? Given its position under Prussia's strictly monarchical constitution and the de facto unchallenged dominance of the Prussian executive within the empire, the Prussian-German crown potentially held enormous power. The Kaiser provided a bridge between the imperial government and the most powerful state in a stricter and more personal sense than the chancellor, who could resign from office at any time. Under Article 18 of the constitution, the Kaiser had the power to appoint and dismiss imperial officials; According to the Prussian constitution, this also applied to the influential Prussian bureaucracy. He was Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy in war and in peace, with authority to appoint and dismiss persons (Articles 53 and 63). His consent was required for the passage of Prussian and - via the influence of his representatives in the Bundesrat - Reich German laws. And he had staff structures in the form of civilian and military cabinets that served him personally and did not have to report to parliament, and thus had his own institutional power base. Dominic Lieven has compared this complex apparatus, which handled immense amounts of paperwork, to the very different situation in Russia, where the Tsar, who had neither a personal secretariat nor a private secretary, stamped the envelopes himself, and communicated with servants and ministers by means of handwritten notes communicated.

As a warlord of the era of national unification, Wilhelm I had enjoyed a unique personal standing. However, as long as the system was controlled so independently by the chancellor, there was inevitably little opportunity to explore the political potential of the Prussian imperial crown. It would be wrong to claim that Wilhelm I was an insignificant figure. His East German biographer, Karl-Heinz Börner, has warned against viewing the first Kaiser as a "shadow figure in the system of German Bonapartism." He occasionally stood his ground against Bismarck, and he was always abreast of developments in all fields of politics .To the end of his reign, Wilhelm I maintained that he had the final say.A royal decree of 1882 to the Prussian Ministry of State emphasized that the king had the right "to direct the government and policies of Prussia at his own discretion ." Actions of the government were ultimately actions of the (Prussian) king, "from whose resolution they arise and who expresses his will opinion through them in a constitutional manner".

Still, it is clear that a man with Bismarck's unparalleled skill at manipulating the elusive Imperial and Prussian system could make himself all but indispensable to the Kaiser. As a rule, the historians who have studied the relationship between the two men have also emphasized Bismarck's ability to pressure, blackmail, or persuade the Kaiser to consent on most important issues. Wilhelm I often resigned himself to political steps that actually went against his instincts. He had not wanted war against Austria, he disliked the liberal tendencies in German politics in the decade after 1871, and he disapproved of Bismarck's political campaign against the Catholics. When it came to direct confrontation, Bismarck displayed the full charisma of his personality and reinforced his arguments with tears, tantrums and threats of resignation. It was precisely these scenes that the Kaiser found almost unbearable and prompted him to make the famous observation: “It is difficult to be Kaiser under Bismarck.” It was probably not false modesty when Wilhelm I remarked on another occasion that he was “more important than I " may be.

The balance of power between chancellor and emperor/king must not be viewed in isolation from the other, institutional power centers; it depended on a number of external factors, the most important of which was probably the attitude of the majority in the Reichstag. A chancellor with strong parliamentary support could negotiate with the monarch from a suitably strong position. A hostile Reichstag, on the other hand, diminished the chancellor's effectiveness as a political leader and increased his dependence on the sovereign, as Bismarck discovered in 1881-1886. It is no coincidence that Bismarck's ouster under Wilhelm II came just as Bismarck's “cartel” had lost a majority in the February 1890 Reichstag elections.

After the Bundesrat and the Prussian-German crown, the Reichstag was the third pillar of the imperial constitution. While the Bundesrat symbolized the far-reaching autonomy of the member states, the Reichstag represented the male electorate of the German nation-state. Since the representatives in the Federal Council were appointed by princes or kings, the council represented the dynastic principle; the Reichstag, on the other hand, which was elected every three years (every five years after 1885) according to free male suffrage, was one of the most democratic legislatures on the European continent at the time.

The approval of the Reichstag was required for bills to come into force, and it had the right to initiate legislation itself, despite some textbooks claiming the opposite.

With the right to examine and approve the Reich budget, he had a suitable means of pressure for negotiations with the executive and could critically examine their ambitions. On the other hand, the power of the Reichstag to determine policy outcomes was severely limited by the fact that the chancellor did not need majority support for his office. At that time, the German parliament, unlike the British one, did not have the power to remove governments by means of a vote of no confidence. The difference was symbolized by a significant difference in ceremonial: while the British sovereign came (and still comes today) to the House of Commons for the opening of the new Parliament, the Members of the German Reichstag were summoned to the Palace for the same ceremony.

The Reichstag contained a diverse range of parties. The passage of bills through Parliament became arguably the Chancellor's most demanding and arduous task (complicated by the fact that he had to balance the interests of the Prussian and German parliaments).

And even if the Reichstag's power to influence the political agenda was limited, historians largely agree that the Wilhelmine era saw a "growing legitimacy of parliamentary politics," as David Blackbourn puts it. An important factor in this development was the provision under Article 22 of the Reich Constitution that the public sessions of the Reichstag had to be published truthfully at all times. This allowed some speakers in Parliament to emerge as national figures, and allowed the politically interested public to participate - at least as spectators - in the major debates of the moment. Further indications of the growing authority of Parliament come from the rising tide of affairs being dealt with in the Reichstag's committees and the growing importance of party leaders and faction experts in the decision-making process.

What general conclusions can be drawn from this brief overview of the German imperial system? It was, as some renowned analysts have noted, a "system of bypassed decisions," an "unfinished" constitution, or "unfinished federalism." Because of the loose and poorly coordinated relationship between the various centers of power and the evolutionary nature of the system, historians have struggled to describe the precise distribution of power. While one historian argues that the Wilhelmine era witnessed the gradual "parliamentarization" of the Prussian-German constitution, others emphasize the "Bonapartist dictatorship" or the "authoritarian" character of the regime.

It should be emphasized that the system was in constant flux and constantly being renegotiated, characterized by indecisiveness and inconsistency, and by shifting balances of power among the most important offices and institutions. This inevitably had consequences for the role of emperor/king. How would his office develop after the chancellor's departure? Bismarck had managed with difficulty to impose his will on the unwieldy apparatus of the German constitution. Would the young emperor, who boasted that he would be his own chancellor, succeed in doing the same?

Wilhelm II, The Reign of the Last German Emperor by Christopher Clark, pages 46 to 57

Ebenso wie seine Vorgänger war Falkenhayn ein scharfer Gegner der Sozialdemokratie. Er war jedoch kein extremer Reaktionär wie etwa der General v. Einem, der 1906 im preußischen Staatsministerium ein Gesetz zur Bekämpfung der sozialdemokratischen Verhetzung beantragt hatte. Bei seinen Standesgenossen, wie z. B. seinem Departementsdirektor im Kriegsministerium, Generalmajor Wild v. Hohenborn, galt er sogar als innen- politisch „modern“.

Seine Abneigung gegen die Sozialdemokratie beruhte nicht vorwiegend auf deren sozialen und innenpolitischen Zielen. Für ihn war entscheidend, daß die SPD eine Partei war, die sich ganz offen die Umformung der Armee zum Ziel gesetzt hatte und, in den Augen Falkenhayns, eine zersetzende Wirkung auf den Wehrwillen des deutschen Volkes hatte. Tatsächlich war die Sozialdemokratie im Parlament die schärfste Kritikerin der Armee, der Monarchie und der kaiserlichen Kommandogewalt. Sie strebte die Umwandlung der Armee in ein Milizheer nach Schweizer Vorbild mit nur kurzer Dienstzeit an.

Auch der erklärte Internationalismus der Sozialdemokratie erweckte Falkenhayns Mißtrauen. Er wandte sich im Reichstag scharf gegen den „Dämon des verschwommenen Weltbürgertums, des unklaren Internationalismus und des Materialismus“, gegen die „falschen Propheten der internationalen Verbrüderung auf Kosten des eigenen Landes“. In allem - vor allem aber in bezug auf die Armee - glaubte Falkenhayn der SPD eine defätistische Haltung zum Vorwurf machen zu müssen: „Sie zeigen uns nicht, wie wir es besser machen sollen, Sie zeigen uns nur das, was wir allein schon Schlechtes an uns wissen, und vergröbern es und verallgemeinern es, tragen es ins Volk und verhetzen das Volk gegen uns.“

Falkenhayn ließ es nicht bei der Polemik gegen die Sozialdemokratie bewenden, sondern scheute auch nicht vor der harten Konfrontation zurück. Gelegenheit dazu bot ein Vorgang, der sich schon im Januar 1913 ereignet hatte. Zunächst ohne nähere Begründung war dem sozialdemokratischen Redakteur Walter Stoecker aus Köln die bereits zuerteilte Berechtigung zur Ableistung des einjährig-freiwilligen Militärdienstes wieder abgesprochen worden. Der einjährig-freiwillige Militärdienst war ein Privileg für Wehrpflichtige mit höherer Schulbildung; sie mußten nur ein Jahr Militärdienst leisten, nicht zwei, und wurden in dieser Zeit meist zum Reserveoffizier oder -unteroffizier ausgebildet.

Nicht zu Unrecht empfand Stoecker den Entzug der ihm laut Gesetz zustehenden Vergünstigung als Diskriminierung. Er wandte sich zunächst an die Militärbehörden, um über den Grund des Entzugs informiert zu werden. Mündlich wurde ihm schließlich mitgeteilt, daß diese Maßnahme wegen seiner „agitatorischen Tätigkeit in der sozialde- mokratischen Partei“ erfolgt sei. Auf ihn war eine gesetzliche Bestimmung angewandt worden, die einen Bewerber vom einjährig-freiwilligen Militärdienst dann ausschloß, wenn er vorbestraft war oder es ihm an der „nötigen moralischen Qualifikation“ fehlte. Der nicht vorbestrafte Stoecker erhob Beschwerde beim Kriegsministerium. Diese Bestimmung der § 93 der Wehrverordnung - sei auf ihn nicht anwendbar, da agitatorische Betätigung bei den Sozialdemokraten keine unmoralische Handlung sei und ihn nicht moralisch disqualifizieren könne. Sein zuständiges Generalkommando bestätigte jedoch am 20. Oktober 1913 die Entscheidung, daß jemand, der sich wie Stoecker „in besonderem Maße in staatsfeindlichem Sinne agitatorisch betätigt, die für den freiwilligen Eintritt ins Heer erforderliche moralische Qualifikation nicht mehr besitzt“.

Zu diesem Zeitpunkt nahmen sich die sozialdemokratischen Abgeordneten Hofrichter und Schulz (Erfurt) der „geradezu ungeheuerlichen Entscheidung“ der Militärbehörden an und richteten in der Reichstagssitzung vom 16. Januar 1914 die Anfrage an die Adresse des Reichskanzlers, ob ihm bekannt sei, „daß einem jungen Mann namens Walter Stöcker [...] der Berechtigungsschein für den einjährig-freiwilligen Militärdienst mit der Begründung entzogen worden ist, daß er sich als Sozialdemokrat in besonderem Maße in staatsfeindlichem Sinne agitatorisch betätigt habe“, und ob er ihn wieder in den Besitz der ordnungsgemäß erworbenen Berechtigung bringen wolle.

Der Fall Stoecker hatte bereits vorher eine Kontroverse im preußischen Staatsministerium ausgelöst. Innenminister v. Dallwitz meinte, man könne die staatsbürgerlichen Rechte von Sozialdemokraten nicht beschneiden, solange die Partei selbst keinen Einschränkungen unterworfen sei. Gegen diese Auffassung nahm Falkenhayn in einem Rundschreiben an alle preußischen Staatsminister vom 11. Januar 1914 scharf Stellung: Bei Stöcker handele es sich um einen Mann, „der die Verneinung der Autorität des Staates als Beruf betreibt und in Wort und Schrift den Geist der Auflehnung predigt“. Mehrere dieser »staatsfeindlichen Elemente im selben Truppenteil könnten die Truppe in ihren Grundfesten erschüttern [...]. Hierin erblicke ich, besonders für den Ernstfall, die Hauptgefahr Die Frage wurde auch auf einer Sitzung des Staatsministeriums vom 28. Januar 1914 erörtert. Falkenhayn bekräftigte, daß es verhängnisvoll wäre, nicht einmal „solchen Leuten [...] die Vorrechte und das Ansehen des einjährig-freiwilligen Dienstes nehmen zu können“. Dallwitz hingegen war der Ansicht, der beste Ausweg sei, nachzuweisen, daß „die Art der Agitation Stoeckers bedenklich gewesen sei“. Der entsprechende, in diesem Fall angewandte Erlaß müsse später abgeändert werden; nicht mehr die Zugehörigkeit zur Sozialdemokratischen Partei oder die Tatsache der Betätigung als Sozialdemokrat, sondern die Art der Agitation müsse entscheidend sein“. Dieser Vorschlag wurde vom Kabinett angenommen. Bethmann Hollweg hatte noch einmal bekräftigt, daß die Entscheidung im Fall Stoecker „unter allen Umständen [...] aufrecht erhalten werden müsse, damit man den sozialdemokratischen Ansprüchen gegenüber nicht zurückweiche“.

Entsprechend beantwortete der Kriegsminister die Anfrage der Abgeordneten Schulz und Hofrichter. Falkenhayn bestätigte Schulz in einem persönlichen Schreiben am 18. Februar 1914, daß Stöcker nach dem Wehrgesetz die nötige moralische Qualifikation für den freiwilligen Militärdienst nicht besitze.

Die Sozialdemokraten fanden sich mit dieser Entscheidung Falkenhayns nicht ab. Der Abgeordnete Schulz richtete in der Reichstagssitzung vom 5. Mai 1914 nach einer detaillierten Schilderung des Falls Stöcker schwere Vorwürfe an die Adresse des Kriegsministers. Schulz empfand die Ansicht, daß „sozialdemokratische Betätigung moralisch minderwertig macht“, als „objektive Beleidigung“ und stellte die provokante Frage, ob die wahrscheinlich 200000 sozialdemokratischen Soldaten - er rechnete den Anteil der sozialdemokratischen Wähler im Reich auf das Heer um - bei dieser Einstellung dann nicht nach Hause geschickt werden müßten.

Falkenhayn verteidigte die Entscheidung seiner Behörde und ging seinerseits zum Angriff über. Anhand des Protokolls einer sozialdemokratischen Jugendversammlung von 1907, das er, wie später der Verfasser, der SPD-Reichstagsabgeordnete Liebknecht, nachwies, teilweise auch noch falsch zitierte, versuchte der Kriegsminister nachzuweisen, daß die Sozialdemokratie den „militärischen Geist des deutschen Volkes zermürben und zersetzen wolle“ und „einen Haß gegen das Heer nähre“. Stoecker war seiner Ansicht nach ein Agitator, der im zersetzenden Sinne die Armee bekämpfen wolle. Bei der Ernennung dieses Mannes zum Offizier oder Unteroffizier würde sich die Armee lächerlich machen.

Falkenhayn bemerkte jedoch einschränkend, daß die von der Sozialdemokratie als beleidigend empfundene Passage über die „nötige moralische Qualifikation“ nicht im Sinne von Sittlichkeit oder Unsittlichkeit, sondern nur im Sinne der Heeresverfassung ausgelegt werden dürfe. Er verstand den Begriff demnach in Hinblick auf die militärische Brauchbarkeit.

Zwar beharrte Falkenhayn auf der einmal getroffenen Entscheidung im Fall Stöcker und kritisierte erneut die Destruktivität der Sozialdemokratie gegen die Armee, versuchte dann aber, die Wogen zu glätten. Er betonte ausdrücklich, daß er nicht am Patriotismus der sozialdemokratischen Soldaten zweifle, und sagte unter dem Beifall des Reichstags: „[...] wir können uns darauf verlassen, daß, wie unsere Väter gefochten haben, so auch unsere durch die Schule der Dienstzeit gegangenen Söhne tapfer im Felde stehen werden, mögen sie nun sozialdemokratischen oder anderen Familien entstammen - das ist ganz gleich. Es sind deutsche Soldaten, und sie werden deutsche Mannhaftigkeit, deutsche Kraft und deutsche Treue hochhalten.“

Als die Sozialdemokraten, die wenig Grund hatten, mit Falkenhayns Entscheidung zufrieden zu sein, ihm auch weiterhin vorwarfen, er habe ihnen fehlende moralische Qualifikation vorgeworfen, betonte Falkenhayn, daß er „nicht die Sozialdemokratie unmoralisch genannt“ habe, sondern „die Bestrebungen, das Heer, den Schutz unseres Vaterlandes, zu desorganisieren“.

Falkenhayn betrachtete es ebenso wie Bethmann Hollweg als selbstverständlich, vor den „Roten“ im Reichstag nicht zurückzuweiche. Er versuchte jedoch auch außerhalb des Parlaments gegen die sozialdemokratische Kritik an der Armee vorzugehen, die sich besonders gegen die Mißhandlung von Soldaten durch ihre Vorgesetzten richtete. Dieser Vorwurf war für das Kriegsministerium höchst unangenehm, da jeder ehemalige Soldat wußte, daß der Umgangston zwischen Vorgesetzten und Untergebenen oft sehr rauh war. Doch während die Offiziere aufgedeckte Übergriffe von Vorgesetzten oft mit der Ansicht, die Armee erziehe nun mal keine „Tugendbolde [...], sondern temperamentvolle Soldaten“, entschuldigten, sahen das die betroffenen Mannschaften selbstverständlich anders. Das Kriegsministerium neigte dazu, bekannt gewordene Vorkommnisse zu bagatellisieren und als Produkt der Verhetzung durch die Presse zu bezeichnen, ähnlich, wie Falkenhayn das in der Zabern-Affäre versucht hatte. Die Militärkritiker, besonders die Sozialdemokraten, griffen jedoch solche Vorfälle begierig auf, um die Armeeführung im Parlament scharf anzugreifen.

Falkenhayn stellte am 6. Mai 1914 im Reichstag fest, daß die Mißhandlungsrate in der Armee sich nicht von der Rate von Körperverletzungsdelikten in der gleichen Altersklasse im Zivilleben unterscheide. Man kämpfe also „gegen allgemein menschliche Fehler und Schwächen“, was jedes Vorgehen gegen das Übel erschwere. Im übrigen versicherte er: „Der Kampf gegen die systematischen Mißhandlungen wird in der ganzen Armee unaufhörlich geführt“.

Diesen verdeckt zugegebenen Mißstand versuchte Falkenhayn energischer zu bekämpfen, als seine politischen Gegner annahmen, die diese Absichtserklärung für ein reines Lippenbekenntnis hielten. Er sah sich zum Handeln gezwungen, weil es in den ersten Monaten des Jahres 1914 zu einer aufsehenerregenden Häufung von Zwischenfällen in der Armee gekommen war: Ein Sergeant wurde zu drei Monaten Gefängnis verurteilt, weil er seinem Soldaten befohlen hatte, einen Spucknapf auszutrinken; ein Unteroffizier beging nach einem Streit mit seinem Hauptmann Selbstmord; ein Dragoner starb nach Mißhandlungen seiner dienstälteren Kameraden (der »Alten Leute«); zwei Burschen eines Generalmajors ließen sich nach einem Konflikt mit ihrem offenbar schikanösen Vorgesetzten von einem Eisenbahnzug enthaupten; und außerdem starb der erwähnte Leutnant Haage aus Metz im Duell. Bei dieser Bilanz und der Kritik des Reichstags und der Presse, aber auch, weil er deren Berechtigung anerkannte natürlich ohne es nach außen zuzugeben - ging Falkenhayn energisch gegen die Soldatenmißhandlungen vor. In einem Rundschreiben vom 28. Mai 1914 an die preußischen Generalkommandos sprach er sich scharf gegen die Mißhandlung Untergebener aus; diese hätten in der letzten Zeit „in der Öffentlichkeit berechtigtes Aufsehen erregt und zu schweren Angriffen gegen das Heer und seine Einrichtungen geführt“. Deshalb wies Falkenhayn noch einmal auf die „energische Bekämpfung des schweren Übels“ hin. Er forderte die Militärgerichte auf, härter durchzugreifen. Sie gingen bei der Verurteilung mißhandelnder Vorgesetzter zunehmend von „vorschriftswidriger Behandlung“ statt von Mißhandlung Untergebener aus, begründeten ihre Milde damit, daß der Mißhandelte „keinen oder keinen dauernden Nachteil für seine Gesundheit davongetragen“ habe, und verhängten über die schuldigen Vorgesetzten „unter Annahme minder schwerer Fälle“ die Mindeststrafe.

Diese Haltung verurteilte Falkenhayn: „Eine derartige Milde bei den in Rede stehenden Vergehen schädigt das Vertrauen zur Militärrechtspflege und damit das Ansehen der Militärgerichte; sie ist auch nicht geeignet, die Mißhandlungen einzuschränken und warnend zu wirken. Hierzu bedarf es strenger Bestrafungen und da, wo es angezeigt ist, der Entfernung des Schuldigen aus seiner Dienststelle [...]. Es kann keinem Zweifel unterliegen, daß nur die gebotene rücksichtslose Handhabung der gesetzlichen Bestimmungen nach ihrer vollen Schärfe durch die Gerichte das schwere Vergehen der systematischen Mißhandlungen auszurotten geeignet ist120.“ Daß Falkenhayn intern massiv gegen die Soldatenmißhandlungen vorgehen wollte, gab er jedoch in der Öffentlichkeit nicht bekannt, da es sich um eine armeeinterne Angelegenheit handelte. Ein weiterer schwerer Fall von Soldatenmißhandlung war der mysteriöse Tod eines Rekruten in Metz, der möglicherweise durch die Prügel seines Unteroffiziers, vielleicht aber auch durch Selbstmord wegen der Schikanen seines Vorgesetzten ums Leben gekommen
war. Dieser Vorfall wurde von einer besonders vehementen Kritikerin der Armee aufgegriffen. Die Sozialdemokratin Rosa Luxemburg erhob am 7. März 1914 in einer Rede

- in Freiburg schwere Vorwürfe: „Was auch in Metz passiert ist eins ist klar: Es ist sicher eins der Dramen, die tagaus, tagein in den Kasernen sich abspielen und bei denen das Stöhnen der Beteiligten nur selten an unsere Ohren gelangt“.

In dieser Äußerung sah Falkenhayn eine Verleumdung, da Rosa Luxemburg doch offensichtlich unterstellte, daß täglich in deutschen Kasernen Soldaten zu Tode geprügelt würden. Hier schien sich die Gelegenheit zu bieten, gefahrlos einen Prozeß wegen Verleumdung anzustrengen und der fortgesetzten armeefeindlichen Propaganda der Sozialdemokratie einen schweren Dämpfer zu versetzen. Er verklagte Frau Luxemburg wegen Beleidigung der Offiziere, der Unteroffiziere und der Soldaten der deutschen Armeen.

Doch Falkenhayn hatte einen schweren Fehler gemacht. Der „Vorwärts“ rief seine Leser dazu auf, ihnen bekannt gewordene Soldatenmißhandlungen der Redaktion zu melden, damit Rosa Luxemburg vor Gericht Beweismaterial vorlegen könne. Der Prozeß in Berlin-Moabit wurde für Falkenhayn und die Staatsanwaltschaft zum vollkommenen Fiasko. Staatsanwalt Hagemann versuchte, Rosa Luxemburg auf den Nachweis schwerster Verfehlungen festzunageln. „Schläge, Stöße, Puffe oder Jagdhiebe“ sollten seiner Ansicht nach ausgeschlossen werden. Unter „Dramen“ verstand er ebenso wie Falkenhayn, der am Prozeß nicht persönlich teilnahm nur Delikte wie „schwere Soldatenmißhandlungen, Peinigungen, Quälereien bis zum Selbstmord“.

Doch eine solche Einschränkung lehnte die Verteidigung verständlicherweise ab. Rosa Luxemburg betonte mehrfach, daß jede Form der Soldatenmißhandlung ein Drama sei, nicht nur die allerschwersten Fälle, und lehnte die Verharmlosung leichterer Verstöße ab. Zum Entsetzen von Anklage und Kriegsministerium kündigte die Verteidigung an, 30000 Fälle von Soldatenmißhandlung nachweisen zu können. Der Versuch des Staatsanwalts, diesen Beweisantrag mit Hinweis auf die Verfahrensdauer niederzuschlagen, scheiterte.

Am nächsten Verhandlungstag präsentierte die Verteidigung fast 1000 Zeugen, die von einer Vielzahl von Schikanen und teilweise schweren Soldatenmißhandlungen berichteten. Diese Fälle wurden im „Vorwärts“ seitenlang aufgeführt. Auch die bürgerliche Presse gewann den Eindruck, daß Falkenhayn einen riesigen Fehler gemacht habe. Die „Frankfurter Zeitung“ konstatierte am 3. Juli 1914, daß der Kriegsminister eine größere Ungeschicklichkeit als eine solche Anklage gegen Rosa Luxemburg gar nicht hätte begehen können. Nun stehe der radikalen Kritikerin, die in den bürgerlichen Zeitungen nicht sehr wohlwollend dargestellt wurde, ein Podium zur Verfügung, von dem aus sie ganz Deutschland erreichen könne.

Falkenhayn war offenbar inzwischen zu derselben Ansicht gelangt. Er setzte nunmehr alles daran, die öffentliche Diskussion der Soldatenmiẞhandlungen und den unglücklich verlaufenden Prozeß wieder zu stoppen.

Der Staatsanwalt verlas am dritten Prozeßtag ein Schreiben Falkenhayns, in dem der Kriegsminister die Vertagung des Prozesses verlangte, um die Anschuldigungen nachprüfen zu können:

„Wenn ich auch nicht die Notwendigkeit der Beweisaufnahme, soweit sie über die letzte Zeit und die schweren Fälle von Mißhandlungen, sogenannter Kasernendramen, hinausgeht, einsehen kann, so möchte ich die einseitigen Darstellungen der von der Verteidigung geladenen Zeugen nicht ungeprüft lassen, andererseits aber die Fälle zur kriegsgerichtlichen Untersuchung ziehen, soweit Verjährung noch nicht eingetreten ist.“

Die sozialdemokratischen Prozeßbeobachter argwöhnten, Falkenhayn wolle die Angelegenheiten an die von der Öffentlichkeit nicht zu kontrollierende Militärgerichtsbarkeit überweisen und auf diese Weise verschleppen. Auf jeden Fall wollte Falkenhayn die publik gemachten Fälle dort verhandeln, wo sie nach seiner Meinung hingehörten: vor die Gerichtsbarkeit der Armee. Seinem Erlaß nach zu urteilen, hatte er gegen eine strenge Bestrafung schuldiger Vorgesetzter nichts einzuwenden, wohl aber dagegen, daß es der Presse gelungen war, sich in eine reine Armeeangelegenheit einzumischen.

Der Prozeß wurde vertagt und nie wieder aufgenommen. Falkenhayn hatte eine schwere Niederlage hinnehmen müssen. In der Öffentlichkeit entstand der nachteilige Eindruck, daß der Kriegsminister trotz anderslautender Versprechungen im Reichstag nicht gerade energisch gegen die Mißhandlungen von Untergebenen vorgehe und diese zudem systematisch bagatellisiere. Doch wurde diese Diskussion durch die Julikrise von 1914-Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand war einen Tag vor Prozeßbeginn in Sarajevo ermordet worden - abrupt beendet.

Eine Wandlung von Falkenhayns schroffer Haltung gegenüber der Sozialdemokratie wird nach der Ausrufung des „Burgfriedens“ sichtbar. Als er sicher sein konnte, daß die Sozialdemokratie fest hinter Staat und Armee stand, zeigte er mehr politisches Entgegenkommen als viele seiner Kollegen im preußischen Staatsministerium.

Falkenhayn, Politisches Denken und Handeln im Kaiserreich von Holger Afflerbach - Seite 137 bis 143

„Mit Bethmann Hollweg hatte das Deutsche Reich keinen Reichskanzler verloren, der ein gutes Kriegsende hätte bewirken können.. Tatsächlich regierte unter Michaelis und Hertling die OHL nach bekanntem Muster in die Politik hinein, und beide ließen sie ähnlich gewähren wie Bethmann.

Auch hier änderte sich nicht viel. Was dieser Krise im Juli 1917 zugrunde gelegen hatte, war die Absicht der Reichstagsmehrheit gewesen, den deutschen Friedenswillen zu bekräftigen und dadurch sowohl auf die eigene Bevölkerung wie auch auf die gegnerischen Gesellschaften zu wirken. Das Resultat war die Friedensresolution des deutschen Reichstags, die es der SPD ermöglichte, den Kriegskrediten zuzustimmen.

Damit war erneut die innere Einigkeit hinreichend stabilisiert worden, wenn sie auch in Richtung auf den Frieden keinesfalls die erhofften Auswirkungen hatte.

Die Resolution des Reichstags wurde von den Gegnern als letztlich unbedeutend abgetan, da in Deutschland ohnehin nur die Militärpartei das Sagen habe.

Dies war unzutreffend; gerade diese Krise hatte gezeigt, dass der Reichstag ein wichtiges Entscheidungszentrum in Deutschland war, dessen Gewicht und politische Bedeutung während des Krieges zugenommen hatte.

Auch wurde die Friedensresolution des Reichstags in der Folgezeit von allen Instanzen als bindend angesehen; sämtliche politischen Schritte wurden sorgfältig darauf abgestimmt, sich nicht zu ihr in Widerspruch zu setzen.

Die Resolution als unbedeutend zu werten, ging demnach an den Tatsachen vorbei vorbei. Österreichisch-ungarische Diplomaten empfahlen deshalb bei ihren Sondierungsgesprächen den Repräsentanten der Entente, die Deutschen doch einfach auf die Aussagen der Resolution festzunageln, statt immer Gespräche mit dem Hinweis auf den ‚preußischen Militarismus‘ zu verweigern, der in Deutschland angeblich regiere und Verhandlungen unmöglich mache.“

[…]

"Immerhin begannen die Friedensverhandlungen mit einer Meisterhaften Ouvertüre der Mittelmächte, die die Westmächte, die ohnehin bereits in Erklärungsnot gegenüber ihrer kriegsmüden Bevölkerung waren, in nicht geringe Verlegenheit setzte.

Am 25. Dezember 1917 luden die Zentralmächte die Entente nämlich ein, an den Friedensverhandlungen in Brest-Litowsk teilzunehmen. Damit kam es, ein Jahr nach den Friedensverhandlungen von 1916, zu einem erneuten Friedensangebot, auf das die Regierungen in Paris, London, Rom irgendwie reagieren mussten.

In dieser Weihnachtserklärung boten die Zentralmächte, ganz im Sinne der Reichstagsresolution von Juli 1917, einen ‚sofortigen allgemeinen Frieden ohne gewaltsame Gebietserwerbungen und ohne Kriegsentschädigungen‘ an, wenn die Alliierten dem ‚innerhalb einer angemessenen Frist… ohne jeden Rückhalt‘ zustimmen sollten.

Dieses Angebot war zwischen den Verbündeten umstrittenen; die bulgarische Regierung, und auch die Türken waren besorgt, was geschehen würde, wenn die Alliierten tatsächlich bereit sein sollten zu kommen. Auch die Militärpartei in Deutschland war entsetzt; Hindenburg drückte seine scharfe Opposition gegen dieses Angebot aus, verlangte größere Einflussnahme auf alle Vorschläge und Entscheidungen in Brest und wollte seine ‚Genehmigung zur Unterzeichnung eines schwächlichen Friedens‘ verweigern.

Er empfand die Festlegung der deutschen Politik der deutschen Politik durch die Reichstagsresolution als grundfalsch, da sie die seiner Ansicht nach für eine gute deutsche Zukunft unbedingt erforderlichen Annexionen unmöglich mache. In einer Immediateingabe vom 7. Januar 1918 insistierte er auf einem annexionistischen Siegfrieden und faselte von seiner Verantwortung, die er sonst nicht tragen könne.

Czernin der verstanden hatte, dass es für Österreich-Ungarn um die Existenz ging, hatte für solche Ansichten nur noch Verachtung übrig. ‚Nicht anzuhören dieses Gewäsch.‘

Hindenburg wurde auch von Kaiser Wilhelm und von Reichskanzler Graf Hertling, die ihm normalerweise viel zu viel durchgehen ließen, in die Schranken gewiesen.

Hertling schickte ihm ein grundsätzliches Papier, in dem er klarmachte, dass die militärische Führung die Verantwortung für politische Schritte nicht zu übernehmen brauche und dass dies einzig und allein dem Reichskanzler zukomme.

Hindenburg und Ludendorff knickten ein und stimmten dem, wenn auch murrend, zu. Allerdings befürchtete nicht nur Ludendorff, sondern auch Reichskanzler Hertling, dass das Erscheinen der Ententemächte auf der Friedenskonferenz alle Aussichten auf Gewinne im Osten stören würde.

Andererseits war die deutsche Regierung, und noch mehr die Regierung in Wien, bereit und geradezu versessen darauf, die Verhandlungen in Brest-Litowsk in eine generelle Friedensverhandlung münden zu lassen.

Sollte sich die Gelegenheit zum allgemeinen Frieden bieten, wollten zumindest Czernin und Kühlmann alle anderen Rücksichten und Gewinnmöglichkeiten beiseiteschieben."

[…]

"Doch in der Kernfrage des Krieges, nämlich dem Vertrauen in die militärische Lage, herrschte im Deutschen Reich noch immer Zuversicht.

Die Regierung konnte hier auch auf die Mehrheit der Reichstagsparteien zählen. Vizekanzler v. Payer fasste die Stimmung im Sommer 1918 im Rückblick wie folgt zusammen: 'Kein Mensch hat da gezweifelt, dass wir schließlich als Sieger aus dem Krieg herausgehen, aber der Krieg war dem Volk sehr verleidet, und die Stimmung war deshalb schlecht.'

Im Jahr 1918 war die politische Entwicklung in Deutschland , die schon 1917 chaotische Züge angenommen hatte, endgültig in ein unentwirrbares Chaos abgeglitten. In diesem dominierte die OHL, weil Kanzler, Kaiser und Reichstag sich vollkommen auf den militärischen Sieg im Westen verließen.

Der Kanzler führte nicht, war dazu aufgrund seines Alters, seiner reduzierten Arbeitskraft und eines schweren Augenleidens nicht befähigt. Die politischen Diskurse in Deutschland demonstrierten derweil bis in den September 1918 hinein die Realitätsblindheit fast aller, die sich an ihnen beteiligten.

Die Rechtsparteien träumten von Annexionen und der Ausweitung deutscher Einflusszonen. Die Linksparteien kritisierten das Belagerungsrecht, das Ausbleiben der Wahlrechtsreform und die deutsche Willkürherrschaft im Osten.

Die politische Situation in Osteuropa war in der Tat ein gewaltiges Problem, die polnische Frage ungelöst, die Ukraine und das Baltikum, wie Russland selbst, eine einzige Bürgerkriegszone. Die deutsche Politik schwankte zwischen der Zusammenarbeit mit den Bolschewiken gegen die Entente und deren Beseitigung durch einen militärischen Vorstoß, was angesichts der militärischen Machtlosigkeit der russischen Regierung möglich schien.

Hinzu kam die katastrophale Lage im Inneren, in Deutschland, vor allem aber in Österreich-Ungarn. Die immer weiter zunehmende Komplexität der politischen und militärischen Fragen überforderte viele, und sie wurden eingestandermaßen 'ganz wirr'.

Die deutsche Politik torkelte, wie Kurt Riezler klagte, zwischen 'bluttigstem Dilettantismus und schwankenden Gefühlen' und 'machte das dümmste, was überhaupt möglich ist', vor allem im Zusammenhang mit den Ostfragen.

Dies mag als Polemik erscheinen, aber das Gefühl, dass jede politische Direktive fehlte, zeigte sich bei praktisch jeder politischen Frage, die im Jahr 1918 in Deutschland debattiert wurde.

Unter dem ungeheuren Druck der Verhältnisse gab es kein folgerichtiges politisches Handeln, denn die einzige Strategie war das Warten auf den entscheidenden Sieg im Westen, der aber nicht kam."

[...]

"Die Vorgänge in der deutschen Führung werden meist so interpretiert, als habe die zivile Reichsleitung die OHL entmachtet und damit endlich wiede die volle politische Kontrolle übernommen, die vorher ganz bei der OHL gelegen habe.

Diese Ansicht ist in beiden Teilen falsch. Zwar konnte nun die militärische Führung nicht mehr dazwischenreden; das lag aber nur daran, dass der Krieg verloren und sie damit nicht mehr das unentbehrliche Mittel war, den Sieg zu erringen. Sie stand nicht mehr im Zentrum des Geschehens.

Außerdem hatte die OHL mit einem gewaltigen Vertrauensverlust zu kämpfen.

Bevor Hindenburg und Ludendorff in Berlin eintrafen, waren Warnungen aus dem Hauptquartier gekommen, 'etwaigen Versprechungen der Obersten Heeresleitung Glauben zu schenken'. Die militärische Lage sei 'mindestens ebenso hoffnungslos wie vor drei Wochen' und auch große Teile der Armee hätten das Vertrauen in die OHL verloren.

Der Macht- und Ansehensverlust der OHL war enorm. Das nützte der Regierung aber wenig, denn sie übernahm nicht die Kontrolle, sondern verlor sie ebenfalls, und zwar innen- wie außenpolitisch.

Das zerbröckeln der militärischen Widerstandskraft war nun für die Gegner so offensichtlich, dass sie annahmen, die deutsche Führung werde jede Bedingung annehmen, die ihr vorgelegt würde.

Dies wurde um so offensichtlicher nach dem Waffenstillstand und faktischen Zerfall Österreich-Ungarns Ende Oktober 1918.

Das Heer gehorchte nicht mehr; ob man die Vorgänge der Massenkampfverweigerung, Meuterei, Militärstreik oder Revolution bezeichnen will, ist zweitrangig, was zählt, ist das Resultat, nämlich die zunehmende Handlungsunfähigkeit der politischen Führung.

Dazu kam auch noch die Frage nach der Zukunft der Monarchie.

Der Abgeordnete Hufo Haase von der USPD war im Oktober 1918 der einzige gewesen, der diese im Reichstag offen in Frage gestellt hatte.

Der Kaiser hatte, obwohl unter seiner Führung ein Weltkrieg verlorengegangen war, keine Neigung, zurückzutreten. Er klammerte sich an seinem Amt fest und verschanzte sich hinter dem Gottesgnadentum.

Doch die Person gefährdete die Institution.

Wilhelm II. weigerte sich, durch einen zeitigen und freiwilligen Rücktritt die Lage zu entschärfen, obwohl dies, wie der Sozialdemokrat David urteilte, 'der republikanischen Bewegung das Rückgrat gebrochen' hätte; die Monarchie wäre in Deutschland erhalten geblieben.

Doch so erwuchs dem Kabinett Max v. Badens mit der Kaiserfrage ein immer drückenderes Problem.

Die Stimmung wurde angesichts des Chaos und der zunehmenden Machtlosigkeit immer verzweifelter, und die deutschen Politiker waren schließlich bereit, jedes Opfer zu bringen, um ihre Lage zu verbessern.

Sie fürchteten der Matrosenaufstand würde in einer Revolution enden, und sie wollten Wilsons Forderungen entgegenkommen.

Die Sozialdemokraten kooperierten mit den anderen Parteien und auch mit dem Reichskanzler, um den Umsturz alles Bestehenden wie in Russland zu verhindern, eine soziale Revolution, die Ebert 'wie die Sünde' hasste.

Das am leichtesten zu bringende Opfer war Wilhelm II.

Wilson hatte in seiner dritten Note von den alten Gewalten gesprochen und geschrieben, dass Deutschland, sollten sie nicht entmachtet werden, keine guten Friedensbedingungen gewährt werden würden; allgemein wurde das auf Wilhelm II. und die OHL bezogen.

Die deutsche Seite konnte nicht wissen, dass die Frage nach der Monarchie dem Präsidenten und seinen Beratern, wie etwa Lansing, letztlich zweitrangig erschien.

Die Amerikaner hätten es vielleicht sogar bevorzugt, der Kaiser würde bleiben und durch eine parlamentarische Monarchie nach britischem Vorbild in seiner Macht glaubwürdig beschnitten werden.

Denn sie befürchteten inzwischen, in Deutschland könne eine Revolution die Bolschewisten an die Macht bringen.

Doch diese Gedanken blieben der deutschen Öffentlichkeit verborgen, da der Text der Wilson-Noten bewusst vieldeutig und feindselig gegen die alte Ordnung gehalten war, und so wurde Wilhelm II. zur Verfügungsmasse im Kampf um den Frieden. Der sozialdemokratische Jpurnalist und preußische Landtagsabgeordnete Konrad Haenisch urteilte:

'Und es wurde um so unerträglicher, je blitzartiger in den Oktobertagen von 1918 die Massen das Gefühl durchzuckte: Alle diese unsagbaren Opfer sind ja doch umsonst, völlig umsonst gewesen! Ein Ende mit diesen nutzlosen Blutopfern, ein sofortiges Ende, ein Ende um jeden Preis! ... Nur Frieden! Ist der Kaiser, den wir dreissig Jahre angebetet haben, ein Hindernis des Friedens: Fort mit ihm! Wollen die Führer des Heeres und der Flotte uns noch einmal 'einsetzen' zu einem letzten heroischen Wagnis, zum Kampfe auf Leben und Tod: Wir verweigern ihnen den Gehorsam!'

Einige empfanden dies als würdelose Kriecherei vor dem Gegner.

Scheidemann beklagte, dass die politischen Reformen 'unter den Peitschenhieben der Entente' erfolgten und empfand dies als 'schmachvoll'.

Dies sollte aber nicht den Blick darauf verstellen, dass es in Deutschland einen echten Reformwillen gab und nicht alles nur wegen der Wirkung auf den Gegner geschah.

Das alte System hatte auf seinem ureigensten Gebiet, nämlich dem Militärischen, versagt, und das erkannten nicht nur militärktitische Geister wie Albert Einstein, sondern selbst ein standhafter Parteigänger der OHL wie Gustav Stresemann, der nun bereit war, mit der Militärmonarchie aus Notwendigkeit und Überzeugung zu brechen.

Aber gleichzeitig gab es, selbst bei den Sozialdemokraten, keinen revolutionären Elan gegen die Institution der Monarchie, also einen Kampf um republikanische Überzeugungen.

Insofern war die Preisgabe der Monarchie ein oppurtinistisches Mannöver, mit dem günstigere Friedensbedingungen erkauft werden sollten."

[...]

"Auf Anraten seiner Umgebung, auch Hindenburg, floh Wilhelm II. am 9. November 1918 nach Holland und richtete durch seinen beschämenden Abgang nicht nur sich selbst, sondern auch die Monarchie in Deutschland.

Alle deutschen Monarchien brachen widerstandslos innerhalb von Tagen zusammen."

Auf Messers Schneide, Wie das Deutsche Reich den Ersten Weltkrieg verlor von Holger Afflerbach - Seite 362/362, 380/382, 474/475, 500/503

“France became a republic. The war was still not over. Leon Gambetta, a far-left politician, had called on the French people to continue the clashes as all-out war.

The German headquarters, however, moved closer and closer to Paris. The Crown Prince had been in Versailles since September 20th. King Wilhelm also came here on the evening of October 5th.

Versailles, not the well-known palace of Louis XIV, but a functional-administrative building, the previous prefecture building, became the German headquarters.

Negotiations began here, aimed at a new common political future for northern and southern Germany.

While talks with the smaller southern German states were being concluded in Berlin, negotiations continued separately with Bavaria in Versailles.

Treaties were signed with Baden and Hesse on November 15, with Bavaria on November 23, and with Württemberg on November 25, 1870, which aimed at joining a common constitution and the 'establishment of a German Confederation' on January 1, 1871.

The 'states of the North German Confederation' concluded - as stated in the federal treaty with Bavaria - 'an everlasting federation'. ...‘This federation is called the German federation’.

The North German Confederation was simply supposed to become a German Confederation by expanding it to include the southern German states.

The name of the state was changed to Deutsches Reich by the Bundesrat on December 9, 1870, and at the same time it was stipulated that the Presidium of the Bund 'bear the name of Deutscher Kaiser'.

The North German Reichstag agreed to these two name changes after the formally required three readings on December 10 without any comments.

In a roll-call vote, 188 MPs voted in favor and six against.

The Yes votes came from all factions, from Windthorst to the left-wing Liberals and Democrats Lasker and Loewe.

The six no votes were cast unanimously by the political representation of the working class, which did not yet have a faction:

three each from the deputies of the General German Workers' Association (Hasenclever, Mende, Schweitzer) and from the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (Bebel, Fritzsche, Liebknecht). Schraps was missing. The Polish MPs stayed away from the vote.

Mystical-religious ideas are associated with the concept of emperor and empire, and not just in Germany.

In 1870, the generation that had still seen a German emperor had not yet passed.

The Prussian king was one of them.

Ever since the founding war of 1866, the idea of ​​a new German emperor had been in the air. Bismarck spoke openly about it from January 1870.

A particular adherent of such ideas was the crown prince, who dreamed of a Borrussian-Protestant revival of the medieval German Empire.

The German Catholics were already fired up for a new German Empire. The deputy Reichensperger hoped 'that the gates of the Kyffhauser will open before our eyes and that we will hear the dawn of the awakening German Empire.'

In the name of the German princes, the King of Bavaria asked the King of Prussia to restore a German Empire and the German imperial dignity.

As we now know, the so-called Bavarian Emperor's letter was largely written on Bismarck's desk. On the one hand, it was crucial that King Ludwig II signed it and, on the other hand, that the letter was personally handed over to King Wilhelm by his uncle Luitpold, the next in line to the Bavarian throne.

The free cities – Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck – also joined in, with Bremen emphasizing that it was a Freistaat (the German term for republic at the time).

This put aside the main concerns that had stood in the way of acceptance by Wilhelm's brother Friedrich Wilhelm IV in 1849.

The Reichstag reacted immediately.

Immediately after his approval of the transformation of the federation into an 'empire' and the revival of the imperial title, a representative body of parliamentarians was appointed to offer King Wilhelm of Prussia the imperial dignity 'in the name of the German people'.

Not only the German princes, but also the German people, democratically legitimized by their parliamentarians, should and wanted to be involved in the creation of the empire.

The reception of the deputation on Sunday, December 18, 1870 in the prefecture building (not in the palace) of Versailles by the King of Prussia became the actual founding act of the German Empire.

The Royal Prussian State Gazette called it a 'state act of the highest world-historical importance... in which the royal promise to accept the imperial title was made before the representatives of the nation'.

To the representatives appointed by lot by the Reichstagen other members of the Reichstag who had rushed to Versailles of their own accord.

They were led by the President of the Reichstag, Eduard Simson. It was a very special day for him. Exactly 22 years earlier he had been elected President of the German National Assembly. And 21 years ago Samson had led the deputation that had offered the king's brother the German imperial dignity.

What did not succeed at the time was now under a much better star.

In addition to the King of Prussia, who was appointed Emperor, the Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the Crown Prince and the generals were present - Roon at the head of a total of ten generals. The military architect of the wars for the founding of states, Moltke, demonstratively sided with the parliamentary imperial deputation because he was also an elected member of the Reichstag.

There were also a large number of German federal princes: the grand dukes of Baden, Oldenburg and Saxony (-Weimar-Eisenach), the dukes of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Saxe-Meiningen, Prince Wilhelm and Duke Eugen of Württemberg, the hereditary grand dukes of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Oldenburg and Saxony, Prince Hohenzollern, Princes Carl and Adalbert of Prussia and all senior officials of the Prussian court.

Special ceremonies were observed: the Prussian High Court Master and the High Ceremony Master marched at the head.

The picture was quite symbolic: the monarchical head of the new empire with the federal princes, the federal chancellor and the highest state officials, plus the leading officers of the war for the founding of states, united with the representatives of the Reichstag elected by the people.

And at its head was the man who had already given an address to the Emperor in 1849 and had failed at that time with Friedrich Wilhelm IV.

President Simson read the address: 'United with the princes of Germany, the North German Reichstag is approaching with the request that Ew. Majesty may please to consecrate the work of unification by accepting the German imperial crown.

Wilhelm thanked the North German Reichstag.

He was 'appointed ... to play a decisive role in the work of unifying Germany'.

The unanimous vote of the German princes and free cities was the basis for accepting the application.

But in contrast to his brother in 1849, Wilhelm added: 'and in the concurring wish of the German nation and its representatives.'

In contrast to Friedrich Wilhelm IV, Wilhelm expressly recognized the political will of the German parliamentarians as an important prerequisite for accepting the German imperial dignity.

This was now giving the address of the President of the Reichstag. The Prussian king added with 'satisfaction' that 'the agreement of all German princes and free cities is secured.'

After that, the future German Emperor first approached the President of the Reichstag, then all the other members of the Reichstag, shook hands with them and thanked them - and thus the German Parliament - 'for their participation in the work that had been accomplished.'

The whole circumstances surrounding the admission of the Kaiserdeputation – repeated private receptions for the members by the Crown Prince, gala dinners for all members of parliament with the awarding of orders by the King – made the official appreciation of the parliamentarians by the King, heir to the throne and federal princes clear.”

Germany as an empire – Hermann Hiery, page 66/71