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James Sheehan and the German Liberals: A Critical Appreciation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Geoff Eley
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Central European History , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , September 1981 , pp. 273 - 288
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Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1981

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References

1. Gall, Lothar, Der Liberalismus als regierende Partei: Das Grossherzogtum Baden zwischen Restauration und Reichsgründung (Wiesbaden, 1968)Google Scholar; Mommsen, Wolfgang J., Max Weber und die deutsche Politik 1890–1920 (Tübingen, 1959)Google Scholar. For more recent statements: Gall, , “Liberalismus und bürgerliche Gesellschaft: Zur Charakter und Entwicklung der liberalen Bewegung in Deutschland,” Historische Zeitschrift 220 (1975): 324–56Google Scholar; Mommsen, , ‘Der deutsche Liberalismus zwischen ‘klassenloser Bürgergesellschaft’ und Organisierten Kapitalismus’: Zu einigen neueren Liberalismusinterpretationen,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 4 (1978): 77–90Google Scholar. A useful guide to the literature on German liberalism may be found in Hunt, James C., “The Bourgeois Middle in German Politics, 1871–1933: Recent Literature,” Central European History 11 (1978): 83–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Works of special importance include the following: Nipperdey, Thomas, Die Organisation der deutschen Parteien vor 1918 (Düsseldorf, 1961)Google Scholar; Schieder, Theodor, Staat und Gesellschaft im Wandel unserer Zeit (Munich, 1958)Google Scholar; Lepsius, M. Rainer, “Parteiensystem und Sozialstruktur: Zum Problem der Demokratisierung der deutschen Gesellschaft,” in Abel, Wilhelm et al. , eds., Wirtschaft, Geschichte und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Stuttgart, 1966), pp. 371–93Google Scholar. The literature on the Weimar period is not considered here.

2. “Liberalism and the City in Nineteenth-Century Germany,” in Past and Present 51 (1971): 116–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Bürklin, Albert, at the General Delegate Meeting of the National Liberals on 05 1, 1898Google Scholar, Allgemeiner Delegiertentag der Nationalliberalen Partei (Berlin, 1898), pp. 57f.Google Scholar

4. For the problem of the Mittelstand, see above all Blackbourn, David G., “The Mittelstand in German Society and Politics, 1871–1914,” Social History 2 (1977): 409–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. For this point see the useful discussion in Therborn, Göran, “The Rule of Capital and the Rise of Democracy,” New Left Review 103 (1977): 3–42.Google Scholar

6. Blackbourn, David G., “Wie es eigentlich nicht gewesen,” in Blackbourn, and Eley, Geoff, Mythen deutscher Geschichtsschreibung: Die gescheiterte bürgerliche Revolution von 1848 (Frankfurt, 1980), p. 75.Google Scholar

7. The British discussion began with two books in particular: Wilson, Trevor, The Downfall of the Liberal Party 1914–1935 (London, 1968)Google Scholar, and Clarke, Peter F., Lancashire and the New Liberalism (Cambridge, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Clarke has continued the argument with a general article, “The Progressive Movement in England,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 24 (1974): 159–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and in a second book, Liberals and Social Democrats (Cambridge, 1978)Google Scholar. See also the many reviews of Morgan, Kenneth O. in the Times Literary Supplement over the past ten years, especially “The Liberal Regeneration,” in T.L.S., Aug. 22, 1975, p. 941Google Scholar, and the subsequent correspondence. For a dissenting view, which also gives access to the wider literature: Howkins, Alun, “Edwardian Liberalism and Industrial Unrest: A Class View of the Decline of Liberalism,” in History Workshop 4 (1977): 143–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. In a previous essay Sheehan also drew attention to the liberals’ lasting domination of the municipal arena. But at the same time he suggested that this was an Indian summer of liberal success, made possible by artificially perpetuated legal privileges. The latter is certainly true, but should not diminish liberal achievement. The story was not much different elsewhere in Europe, least of all in Britain, the classic land of triumphant civic liberalism. It is the implication that German liberalism was unusual that requires most examination. See Sheehan, “Liberalism and the City.”

9. For an indication of an extremely large literature: Thompson, John A., Progressivism (n.p., 1979)Google Scholar; Emy, H. V., Liberals, Radicals and Social Politics, 1892–1914 London, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jones, Gareth Stedman, Outcast London (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar; Searle, Geoffrey, The Quest for National Efficiency (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar; Freeden, Michael, The New Liberalism: An Ideology of Social Reform (Oxford, 1978)Google Scholar; Clarke, , Liberals and Social Democrats.Google Scholar

10. See Sheehan's assessment (p. 275): “Almost all of these organizations drew their membership from the Protestant middle strata: the educated elite, which saw itself as the ideological standard bearer for the national cause; businessmen, for whom national power was often closely linked to personal profit; and a diverse collection of schoolteachers, shopkeepers, farmers, and craftsmen, who wanted a way of expressing their own identification with the nation.” This is broadly right, though I have tried to specify this sociology in more detail and to suggest the different kinds of commitment simple membership in the nationale Verbände might involve. See Eley, Geoff, Reshaping the German Right: Radical Nationalism and Political Change after Bismarck (New Haven and London, 1980), pp. 101–40Google Scholar, and also an earlier article, “Defining Social Imperialism: Use and Abuse of an Idea,” Social History 1 (1976): 265–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. This rather elliptical argument is made more fully in my book: Reshaping the German Right, esp. pp. 52–58, 105–15, 147–59, 260–67, 293–315.

12. Gall, Lothar, “‘Sündenfall’ des liberalen Denkens oder Krise der bürgerlich-liberalen Bewegung? Zum Verhältnis von Liberalismus und Imperialismus in Deutschland,” in Holl, Karl and List, Günther, eds., Liberalismus und imperialistischer Staat (Göttingen, 1975). pp. 149ffGoogle Scholar. Gall is perhaps the most influential exponent of this view, other than Sheehan himself. But see also the extremely stimulating sketch by Rohe, Karl, “Liberalismus und soziale Struktur—Überlegungen zur politischen Gesellschaft und zur politischen Kultur des Ruhrgebiets,” liberal 18 (1976): 43–56, 113–21Google Scholar. The argument of Walker, Mack, German Home Towns: Community, State, General Estate, 1648–1871 (Ithaca, 1971)Google Scholar, is also relevant. For a valuable critique of the general approach: Mommsen, “Der deutsche Liberalismus zwischen ‘klassenloser Bürgergesellschaft’ und ‘Organisiertem Kapitalismus.’”

13. Ibid., pp. 80ff.

14. The most sophisticated case for the particularity of Germany's social structure in the “preindustrial” period is by Mack Walker with his idea of the German “home town.”

15. Eccleshall, Robert, “The Identity of English Liberalism,” Politics and Society 9 (1979): 19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16. The convergence of liberal thinking in Britain and Germany might be explored in many particular areas. Thus, it has also been said of liberals in Britain that they “were convinced that they transcended social divisions and were, therefore, strategically situated to steer a middle course between the class legislation of the Conservative Party and the drab uniformity of a barrack-room style of socialism” (ibid.). Also, though this question may appear recklessly heretical, how much effective difference was there between the German ideal of Bildung and the Anglo-Scottish virtues of “education” and “intelligence”?

17. But again: it should not be forgotten that there is strong evidence for the British Liberal Party's own difficulties before 1914 for the same sort of reasons. For recent contributions to this discussion, in which ideological renovation is to be set against incipient electoral decline, see the essay by Howkins cited in n. 7 above, and Sheppard, M. G. and Halstead, John L., “Labour's Municipal Election Performance in Provincial England and Wales 1901–13,” Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History 39 (1979): 39–62.Google Scholar

18. The classic works on this subject are: Briggs, Asa, Victorian Cities (London, 1963)Google Scholar; Dyos, H. J., Wolff, Michael, eds., The Victorian City: Images and Realities, 2 vols. (London, 1973)Google Scholar. See also: Meller, H. E., Leisure and the Changing City, 1870–1914 (London, 1976)Google Scholar. There is no comparable literature on Germany before 1914.

19. For some useful theoretical guidance on this point: Jessop, Bob, “The Political Indeterminacy of Democracy,” in Hunt, Alan, ed., Marxism and Democracy (London, 1980), pp. 55–80.Google Scholar