The German Divergence
1830-1930
There is no document of civilisation which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.
Walter Benjamin
My principal query in this AAR is the idea of a Sonderweg, or 'special path', in German history. The theme of a peculiar and unique mode of modernisation in Germany has persisted in historiography throughout the twentieth century. While first articulated by nationalist historians as a celebration of the peculiar Wilhelmine consensus, the horrors of National Socialism helped transform the Sonderweg into a negative formulation of German history. This new thesis reinterprets many of the contradictions and peculiarities of modern German society as the facilitator of the Nazi seizure of power.
There are innumerable problems with this thesis, least of all the myopia guaranteed by any teleological account of history. The strictest formations of the Sonderweg thesis often descend into their own brand of vitriolic madness; A.J.P Taylor's claim that Nazism 'represented the deepest wishes of the German people' represents a nadir in modern historical work. The idea of a 'special path' to modernity in Germany also requires the existence of an ordinary model of historical development in this period that is simply not identified in scholarly work.
These weaknesses suggest that the enduring strength of the Sonderweg thesis therefore may lie in its exploration of a fundamental truth. Centuries of European power-politics depended upon a fractured Germany. As the creation of a dominant nation-state in this area would always prove disruptive to the European balance-of-power, it would also necessarily incur an unusual, troubled path to unity and modernisation. Happening in 1871, German unification created a state whose economic strength and geo-political vulnerability seemingly forced its pursuit of a leading role in international affairs; the question, then, was what role a united Germany should play in the world. From its special path to modernity came Germany's special purpose. By 1914, the victory of the expansionistic military-bureaucracy catapulted Germany into a war meant to seize a dominant position in continental Europe. The defeat and fall of the Empire only imbued this struggle for definition with immediacy and uncertainty, leading into the turbulence and oscillation of the Weimar Republic. Weimar then acted, in Peter Fritzsche's phrase, as a 'laboratory of modernity' - a forum for the opposing impulses and forces within Germany to articulate and construct a new, post-Wilhelmine national consensus. This artifice of internal conflict and self-definition ultimately imploded under the weight of its own contradictions, giving way to the constellation of far-right forces amassed in National Socialism.
This AAR, The German Divergence, will orient broadly around these themes. Germany here will be understood as a forum of contradictions and continuities that vied for articulation and domination in this era. To this end, I will try to simulate Germany with a light degree of historical faithfulness. Updates may be slow as they follow the course of my reading, but I hope to complete this AAR up until 1930, the historic 'beginning of the end' for the Weimar Republic.
Mods
Historical Project Mod v0.4.4
Objectives
1. Weltmacht: Finish as #1 in Overall, Prestige, Industry and Military.
2. Kleindeutschland: No territorial expansion beyond the 1914 borders of the German Empire (excluding up to four additional colonial states).
3. Siegerkranz: Survive as a Semi-Constitutional Monarchy (Prussian Constitutionalism in Vanilla) until 1900.
Contents2. Kleindeutschland: No territorial expansion beyond the 1914 borders of the German Empire (excluding up to four additional colonial states).
3. Siegerkranz: Survive as a Semi-Constitutional Monarchy (Prussian Constitutionalism in Vanilla) until 1900.
1. The Janusians
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