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Public Opinion and Foreign Policy in Wilhelmian Germany, 1897–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Wolfgang J. Mommsen
Wolfgang J. Mommsen
Affiliation:
Heinrich-Heine-UniversityDüsseldorf
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Extract

The age of high imperialism was also the age of the emergence of mass journalism. This heralded a steady widening of what might be called the “political nation,” that is, those groups who took an active interest in politics in contrast to the mass of the population still largely outside the political arena. Up to the 1890s politics tended to be Honoratiorenpolitik—confined to “notables” or Honoratioren, a term first applied by Max Weber around the turn of the century to describe the elites who had dominated the political power structure up to that time. Gradually “public opinion” ceased to be, in effect, the opinion of the educated classes, that is, the classes dirigeantes. In Wilhelmian Germany the process of democratization had been successfully contained, if seen in terms of the constitutional system; the age of mass politics was still far away.

Type
Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , December 1991 , pp. 381 - 401
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1991

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References

The themes of this article are also dealt with in my book, Der Autoritäre Nationalstaat. Verfassung, Gesellschaft und Kultur im deutschen Kaiserreich (Frankfurt/M., 1990), 358–79.

1. See in particular Naujoks, Eberhard, Bismarcks auswärtige Pressepolitik und die Reichsgründung (1865–1871) (Wiesbaden, 1976).Google Scholar

2. Empirical research into the relationship between governmental press policies and foreign policy is very uneven. The pioneering works by Carroll, E. Malcolm, Germany and the Great Powers: A Study in Public Opinion and Foreign Policy (New York, 1938; repr. 1975),Google Scholar and Hale, Oron James, Publicity and Diplomacy (London, 1940)Google Scholar, cover a remarkably wide field, but they fail to establish close links between governmetal public relations policy and public opinion. Heidorn, Günter, Monopole-Presse-Krieg: Die Rolle der Presse bei der Vorbereitung des Ersten Weltkrieges (Berlin, 1960), is a rather ideological treament.Google ScholarWernecke, Klaus, Der Wille zur Weltgeltung: Aussenpolitik und Öffentlichkeit im Kaiserreich am vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges (Düsseldorf, 1970)Google Scholar, reconstructs a complex picture of Germany's will to world power numerous press clippings; it fails, however, to provide structural insights. Vogel, Walter, Die Organisation der amtlichen Presse-und Propagandapolitik des Deutschen Reiches (Berlin, 1941)Google Scholar, is restricted to the description of the institutional patterns of governmental press policies. It is only for the Bülow era that we possess a more penetrating analysis of official press policies and their impact upon general policy. See in particular, Winzen, Peter, Bülows Weltmachtkonzept: Untersuchungen zur Frühpase seiner Aussenpolitik 1897–1901 (Boppard, 1977) with interesting material,Google ScholarKennedy, Paul, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism 1860–1914 (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1980) in particular, 362ff.Google ScholarElzbacher, Paul, Die Presse als Werkzeug der auswartigen Politik (Jena, 1918) is totally useless.Google ScholarRieger, Isolde, Die Wilhelminische Presse im Überblick (Munich, 1957) provides a useful survey but tells us little about the interrelationship of governmental policies and public opinion.Google Scholar

3. This has been convincingly demonstrated in general by Eley, Geoff, Reshaping the German Right: Radical Nationalism and Political Change after Bismarck (New Haven, 1980).Google Scholar See also Schilling, Klaus, “Beiträge zu einer Geschichte des radikalen Nationalismus in der wilhelminischen Ära, 1890–1909” (Ph.D. diss., Cologne University, 1967).Google Scholar

4. Monts to B¨low, 20 June 1895, as quoted in Kennedy, Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 227.

5. Holstein to Kinderlen-Wächter, 30 April 1897; ibid.

6. Weber, Max, Gesammelte Politische Schriften, ed. Winckelmann, Johannes, 3rd rev. ed. (Tübingen, 1971), 23 (translated by the author).Google Scholar

7. “I would regard myself as an executive tool of His Majesty, so to speak his political chief of staff. With me, personal rule—in the good sense—would really begin.” Quoted in Röhl, John C. G., Germany without Bismarck: The Crisis of Government in the Second Reich 1890–1900 (London, 1967), 194.Google Scholar

8. Naumann's, FriedrichDemokratic und Kaisertum, which was first published in 1900,Google Scholar can, in some ways, be considered as a blueprint for this new Caesarist variety of imperial rule as practiced under Bülow.

9. Quoted in Winzen, Bülows Weltmachtonzept, 67.

10. See Fürst von Bülow, Bernhard, Deutsche Politik (Berlin, 1916), 227.Google Scholar

11. On this point see Lerman, Katharine Anne, “Bernhard von Bülow and the Governance of Germany, 1900–1909” (Ph.D. diss., University of Sussex, 1984), 175ff.Google Scholar

12. See Rapponen, R., Die russische Gefahr: Das Verhalten der öffentlichen Meinung Deutschlands und Österreich-Ungarns gegenüber der Aussenpolitik Russlands in der Zeit zwischen dem Frieden von Portsmouth und dem Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkrieges (Helsinki, 1976), 165ff.Google Scholar

13. See Bülow in the Reichstag, 10 December 1901, Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstages, 179: 413ff.Google Scholar Cf. also, Bülow, Bernhard Fürst von, Denkwürdigkeiten, 4 vols. (Berlin, 1930), 1: 475ff.Google Scholar

14. A good example of this is provided in the report from Holstein to Count Hatzfeld 26 October 1899, in Ebel, Gerhard and Behnen, Michael, eds., Botschafter Graf von Hatzfeld. Nachgelassene Papiere 1838–1901, 2 vols. (Boppard, 1976), 2: 1280ff., with some representative press cuttings.Google Scholar

15. See also Holthoon, Frederic L. von, “Public Opinion in Europe during the Boer War,” in Università di Milano and l'Ecole Française de Rome, Opinion Publique et politique exterieure, vol. 1, 1870–1950 (Rome, 1981), 399:Google Scholar “The British, who always overestimated the power of the government over the press, bitterly complained to the Wilhelmstrasse about the anti-British sentiment expressed in the leading German newspapers. They saw this as a deliberate campaign by the government, They drew the embarrassing response that the German Foreign Office or the Reichskanzler could do nothing about this, however much they tried.”

16. The most recent account of Kiderlen-Wachter's Moroccan Policy of 1911 is Barraclough, Geoffrey, From Agadir to Armageddon: Anatomy of a Crisis (London, 1982).Google Scholar It does not, however, cover Kiderlen-Wächter's devious attempts at manipulating German “public opinion” in accordance with his Machiavellian strategy.

17. The detalis of Kiderlen-Wächter's dealings with the press were all unveiled on this occasion in the semiconfidential proceedings of the Budget Committee of the Reichstag. Cf. Protokolle des Hauptausschusses des Deutschen Reichstags, 17 November 1911, 111. Sitzung, Bundesarchiv, Potsdam.

18. Ibid., 12.

19. See Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstages, 263: 7808B; also 283:102D, 103A-C.Google Scholar

20. Ibid., 103D; see his declaration in the Budget Commision, 111. Session 14.

21. Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstages, 268:7716C, 7718D.Google Scholar

22. The detalis are recorded in Vogel, Die Organisation der amtlichen Presse- und Propagandapolitik, 19ff.

23. On 2 December 1912, Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstages, 286:2494A-B.Google Scholar

24. See Matthias, Erich and Pickart, Eberhard, eds., Die Reichstagsfraktion der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, 1898–1918, 2 vols. (Düsseldorf, 1966), 1:280–81.Google Scholar

25. The ongoing controversy over the role of the War Council of 8 December 1912 cannot be documented here at length. See Röhl, John C. G., “An der Schwelle zum Weltkrieg: Eine Dokumentation über den ‘Kriegsrat’ vom 8. Dezember 1912,” Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 21 (1977): 77–134;Google Scholar also, Röhl, John C. G., “‘Die Generalprobe‘: Zur Geschichte und Bedeutung des ‘Kriegsrate’ vom 8. Dezember 1912” in Stegmann, Dirk, Wendt, Berndt-Jürgen, and Witt, Peter-Christain, eds., Industrielle Gesellshaft und politisches System (Bonn, 1978), 366ff.Google Scholar For a critique of these interpretations, see Mommsen, Wolfgang J., “The Topos of Inetvitable War in Germany in the Decade before 1912,” in Berhahn, Volker R. and Kitchen, Martin, eds., Germany in the Age of Total War (London, 1981), 43f., nn. 26 and 27.Google Scholar See futher Schulte, Bernd F., “Zu der Krisenkonferenz am 8. Dezember 1912 in Berlin,” Historisches Jahrbuch 102 (1982): 183ffGoogle Scholar, with new material from the Hopman papers. His polemics are, however, far off the mark, as the new evidence provided by him and Röhl actually substantiates the interpretation given above.

26. Cf.Röhl, “An der Schwelle zum Weltkrieg,” 100.

27. Kiderlen-Wächter's reply and the article, “Um Durazzo” are published ibid., 102ff.

28. The new evidence that has come to light since I published my essay “Domestic Factors in German Foreign Policy before 1914,” Central European History 6 (1973): 3–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar, does not require a substantial change of the account given there, 12f; although Bethmann Hollweg and Kiderlen-Wächter could not afford to neglect totally the kaiser's demand for preparation of the public for war, they effectively quashed all direct governmental propaganda in this respect and it cannot be said that this line of policy was altered later, after the rearmament bill had been implemented. In fact, the government was trailing behind public opinion in these matters, not leading it.

29. Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstages, 289:4513A-B.Google Scholar

30. For a more detailed account, see Mommsen, “The Topos of Inevitable War,” 33ff.

31. On 14 May 1914, Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstages, 295:8834.Google Scholar

32. Cf.Rauh, Manfred, Die Parlamentarisierung des deutschen Reiches (Düsseldorf, 1977)Google Scholar. However, Rauh manifestly overstimates the actual changes achieved up to 1914 in this direction.

33. The delicate, though undoubtedly Machiavellian attempts of the government of Bethmann Hollweg to enlist the support of the press for its policies during the July crisis remain outside the scope of this essay. They have not been researched thus far in full, despite the work by Fritz Fischer, Egmont Zechlin, and Klaus Wernecke. See also Rapponen, Die russische Gefahr, and Scott, Jonathan F., Five Weeks: The Surge of Public Opinion on the Eve of the Great War (New York, 1973)Google Scholar. On the whole, the government attempted to play down the crisis even after the ultimatum to Serbia had been delivered, prehaps in an attempt to make it easier to localize the conflict. In this respect the overtures to Social Democrats have rightly received particular attention. On the other hand, it did try to make clear that support of Austria-Hungary was justified from the start, a view which was opposed by and large only by the Rheinish-Westfälische Zeilung. Otherwise the government refrained from substantially and directly influencing the press; anyway, there was little need for doing so.