From Recovery to Catastrophe

by Lieberman, Benjamin David

• ISBN13: 9781571811042
• ISBN10: 1571811044
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-12-01
• Publisher: Berghahn Books

Summary

Historians of the stabilization phase of Weimar Germany tend to identify German recovery after the First World War with the struggle to revise reparations and control hyperinflation. Focusing primarily on economic aspects is not sufficient, however, the author argues; the financial burden of recovery was only one of several major causes of reaction against the republic. Drawing on material from major German cities, he is able to trace the emergence of strong local activism and of comprehensive and functional policies of recovery on the municipal level which enjoyed broad political backing. Ironically, these same programs that created consensus also contained the potential for destabilization: they unleashed intense debate over the needs of the consumersand the purpose and extent of public spending, and with that of government intervention more generally, which accelerated the fragmentation of bourgeois politics, leading to the final destruction of the Weimar Republic. Ben Lieberman teaches in the Department of Social Science at Fitchburg State College, Mass.

Author Biography

Ben Lieberman, Department of Social Science, Fitchburg State College, Massachusetts

Table of Contents

List of Tables	vii	(1)
Abbreviations	viii	(1)
Preface	ix
Introduction: Recovering Weimar Recovery	1	(26)
A Municipal Narrative of Recovery: Crisis and Activism	7	(5)
Democratization and Recovery	12	(3)
Recovery and Democratization in Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, and Hanover	15	(2)
State Expansion, Society, and Politics in Weimar Germany	17	(10)
Chapter 1: Stabilization and State Expansion: Comprehensive City Planning	27	(30)
Economic Promotion	28	(5)
Social Welfare	33	(5)
Promotion of Housing Construction	38	(6)
Promotion of Leisure	44	(4)
Comprehensive Functional Planning and the Promise of Weimar Recovery	48	(9)
Chapter 2: State Expansion and Democratization	57	(25)
Recovery and Political Consensus	60	(4)
Shifting Majorities	64	(5)
Political Competition and Convergence in Policy	69	(7)
Democratization, State Expansion, and Bourgeois Politics	76	(6)
Chapter 3: Municipal Finance and Destabilization	82	(24)
Recovery and Municipal Finance	83	(8)
Municipal Finance and Communal Politics	91	(8)
Financial Crisis and the Loss of Self-Administration	99	(1)
From Finance to Destabilization?	100	(6)
Chapter 4: Cities and Distributional Conflict	106	(16)
Distributional Conflict: Cities and the Private Economy	107	(4)
The Boundary of Economic Activity: Cold Socialization	111	(2)
Distributional Conflict Between Public Authorities	113	(4)
Distributional Conflict and Reaction	117	(5)
Chapter 5: Cities and the Weimar Productivity Debate	122	(16)
The Case Against Municipal Utility	123	(3)
The Productivity Debate	126	(6)
Productivity and Human Capital	132	(6)
Chapter 6: Defining the Civic Public	138	(25)
City Governments and Rival Networks of Clubs	139	(2)
Municipal Authorities, Builders, and Architects	141	(4)
The Needs of Consumers	145	(6)
Public Taste	151	(5)
The Fragmentation of Civic Interest	156	(7)
Chapter 7: State and Society: The Contradictions of Recovery	163	(21)
Contradictory Evaluations of the State	164	(2)
Betrayal and Political Mobilization	166	(6)
Fleeing Political Contradictions	172	(5)
Resisting Fragmentation	177	(3)
Accelerating bourgeois Fragmentation	180	(4)
Conclusion: From Recovery to Destabilization	184	(11)
Sources and Select Bibliography	195	(21)
I Archival Sources	195	(2)
II Newspapers and Periodicals	197	(1)
III Select General Bibliography	198	(18)
Index	216