The subject of this book is the internal tensions of the German state that fought World War I. I found much information about inter-group tensions that I had not know about. Imperial Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II was divided along religious, regional, class and political lines that were deep, and were of constant concern before the war started and continued until it ended. These divisions help to explain many German policies before and during that war. Some of the solutions adapted by Imperial Germany hint at the extreme solutions implemented during the Nazi era and so led to the many tragedies of World War II. At the same time, solutions such as placating unions by giving their leaders a roll in setting wages and manpower allocation in partnership with the economic leaders and businessmen, hint at the post-World War II power sharing between workers and businessmen that have characterize German industrialization and trade into the 21st century.
Religious tensions were caused by the division between Protestants and Catholics with 60 percent of the population Protestant and 40 percent Catholic. After the proclamation of a unified German state in 1871, a decades long struggle started to limit the independence of the Catholic church in Germany. The Protestant majority were concern that the loyalty of Catholics was split between the Pope and secular leaders. Eventually the German government gave itself the power to oversee the training and appointment of Catholic clergy, regulate parochial schools, and to ban Catholic religious orders from Germany. This was a drawn out struggle which left Catholics under-represented in the officer corps of the army, in the professions and in higher education. Bias against Catholics still existed in 1914, and was resented by those Germans who were Catholic.
Regional tensions existed because Imperial Germany was organized along federal lines with many small and middle size states that resented Prussian domination of the political system. Bavaria was one of the larger German state that never warmed up to the notion of playing a minor roll in the Prussian led federation. Bavaria was largely Catholic, a factor that added to the political antagonism towards Protestant Prussia. The author also emphasizes that there were a large number of non-Germans within German borders including Danes, Poles and Alsatians who were very difficult to integrate into a unified state.
In 1914 Germany had the largest socialist political party in the world, befitting of a heavily industrialized country which had strong organizing spirit amongst its workers and - at least on paper - a revolutionary agenda that was intended to create fully democratic rule in Germany. A democracy that would come at the expense of the entrenched powers such as the military, the industrial cartels, and the Junker class which dominated Prussian politics and thereby had disproportionate influence in the national government. How the unions and socialists were co-opted to support the war is a major theme and one of the most interesting stories in this book.
The co-option of the blue-collar, unionized, socialists working for the armaments industries was the most successful strategy of those who ran the German war economy. In fact, these workers overall did relatively well over the course of the war. They came much closer than small businessmen, and white-collar professionals such as lawyers, bureaucrats, and teachers in seeing their wages rise to match the 200 percent inflation inflicted on Germany between 1914 and 1918. Still, like the small businessman and the shop keeper, blue-collar workers suffered from increasing food shortages as the war progressed. The Fall of 1916 and the Winter of 1916-1917 were wet and cold and caused a dramatic reduction in the harvest of potatoes and grain. For everyone in Germany early 1917 was a time of malnutrition even if actual starvation was avoided by public soup kitchens, other forms of public charity, and almost universal reliance on the black market.
Differences in wartime access to food was accented by the gulf between urban and rural Germany. German farmers tended to be small land holders harder to regulate by state intervention than the core of larger industrialist. Farmers were quick to take advantage of early attempts to control food prices and ration food supplies for the entire country. One early example was when controls over milk prices were instituted early in the war. In response German farmers switched to producing cheese and butter which were not yet regulated. Tension between urban and rural Germany already existed before the war, as farmers tended to be more likely to be Catholic than urban Germans. Eventually war-time German food rationing did become more rational and harder to evade by farmers, but at the price of creating a new and large bureaucracy. And despite this more efficient rationing, a black market in food developed which lasted throughout the war. It was often tolerated by the government because it was the only way that many essential war workers could get enough to eat.
The people who did well during the war were the owners of the factories and large business that contributed directly to the manufacture of armaments. These included steel mills, munition factories, large scale leather making factories and makers of electrical components. Even before the war some of these industries were organized into cartels, and the war led the German government to organize further coordination. This was done often based on more centralization under direct government control. Despite its control the government never severally limited the profit margins of these war-critical industries.
Within the German military there were factions that fought over grand strategy,. These factions focused on the influence of a few leaders so that with a sudden shift could send millions of men off to different fronts in Western, Eastern, Southeastern Europe, and the Italian Alps with little constraint from political leaders. The invasion of Belgium at the start of the war was purely a military strategy which politicians and even the German Emperor were helpless to control. This despite the likelihood that it would bring Britain into the war against Germany.
By 1916 the two German general with a history of success in the East, Hindinburg and Lundendorff, gained supreme military power which they soon converted into dominance of the entire German political and economic system. A dominance that the German Reichstag and the German Chancellor found almost impossible to challenge. Hindinburg and Lundendorff demanded ever increasing centralization of control over production targets and the means of production, both physical and human. They also committed the German army in France to an attack on Verdun, hoping for and in fact provoking a fierce French response to this important symbol of French defense. The results were not as one-sided as Hindinburg and Lundendorff hoped, as German casualties were very high during the battles around Verdun.
Eventually, and despite a general focus on the western front by Germany, local victory was achieved in early 1917 when Russia was forced out of the war, and accepted a hard peace. Victory in the East came at the same time restarting unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic led the United States to enter the war against Germany. Hindinburg and Lundendorff planned a great offensive in France in early 1918 to knock Britain and France out of the war before the Americans could intervene on the ground, but the offense failed at massive cost in German casualties. The author gives two reasons for the failure of the 1918 offense. First, the French and British outnumbered the Germans forces in France. Second German munitions factories were not equipping their armies with the same scale and quality of weapons that that the French and British had available. The author does mention that Germany kept over 1,000,000 soldiers in the East to control their expanded domains won in the war with Russia. I wonder whether they could have been better used in France. But it might have been impossible to provide transportation and the necessary logistic support in France for more German soldiers.
As I read the book I became aware that the author conveyed to the reader the sense of Germany as a seething and massive force dominating European international politics before and during the war. Possibly this was not his goal. Maybe it was just an byproduct of his focus on Imperial Germany in which the other European powers such as England, France, Russia and Austria-Hungary have their own goals and their own political strife mentioned only in passing when it affects German policy. More general World War I histories exist that balance attention between the waring nations, but I felt that this German-specific focus forces the reader to see the war not only as it appeared to Germans but also to the neighboring powers that were constantly beating back the pressure of military mobilization and industrial efficiency that Germany was capable of.
Another result of reading this book was a growing awareness of parallels between Imperial Germany and Nazi Germany, including internal tension between different concentrations of power, and the thin margin upon which the war economy was based. The “Wages of Destruction” is a good book on the German war economy during the 1930s and 1940s. I recommend reading the two books together.
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