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Review
| Events That Changed Germany, by Frank W. Thackeray, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. 248 pages. $65.00, cloth.
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| In the preface the editor notes that during his long career as a professor, he taught thousands of students who were, for the most part, good people, but whose knowledge of current events, let alone the history of human activity on planet Earth, was quite lacking. Textbooks on German history, says Thackeray, have only compounded the problem because scholars frequently assume erroneously that the student who walks into an upper-division course has a general understanding of the flow of German history. Moreover, scholars often have neither differentiated pivotal from secondary events, nor have they provided important analysis. Accordingly, Thackeray and the book's contributors have attempted to redress these deficiencies with a compilation of what they believe are the ten most important developments within one hundred and fifty years of German history. The developments are presented topically in individual chapters: The Revolutions of 1848, 1848–1849; The Unification of Germany, 1871; Industrialization, 1890-1910; The Pursuit of Weltpolitik, 1890–1914; World War I, 1914–1918; The Collapse of the Weimar Republic, 1929–1933; The Hitler Experience, 1933–1945; World War II, 1939–1945; West Germany's Economic and Political "Miracle," 1949–1973; and The Reunification of Germany, 1990. Each chapter provides a general overview of the topic followed by an interpretive essay that helps the reader place the event within its broader historical context. |
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Concerning the so-called failed German Revolutions of 1848-49, Robert Billinger points out that the numerous revolts within the various German states occurred in isolation from one another and that the revolutionaries were hardly united in their motivations and objectives. Reaction ultimately triumphed, but that does not mean that the revolts achieved nothing. Germans of all political persuasions mobilized and remained so, and parliamentary movements gained ground in all German states over the subsequent decades. In addition, the failed revolts did not place Germany on an unalterable path toward Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Once the various German states became the German Reich in 1871, nationhood was achieved, but a sense of national identity was not universal among its citizens. Impediments to the creation of a truly unified state, says Gesine Gerhard included laws, currencies, customs, dialects, religion, and even military uniforms that varied from region to region. What is more, not everyone agreed about how far south Germany's border would extend. Grossdeutschland (greater Germany) advocates maintained that German-speaking regions of Austria-Hungary should be included; Kleindeutschland (lesser Germany) proponents argued for excluding the Austro-Hungarian Empire altogether. Of course, the Kleindeutschland solution prevailed. By 1914, governmental centralization and uniformity in currency and laws had been achieved, but, according to Gerhard, it was the Great War that truly unified the German people. |
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Charles F. Pennacchio argues that Kaiser Wilhelm II's risky Weltpolitik diplomacy precipitated World War I and Germany's subsequent defeat. By attempting to earn for Germany "ein Platz an der Sonne" (a place in the sun), to be derived from "global prosperity, global prestige, and global power" (p. 73), the Kaiser managed to undo not only the well reasoned and shrewd Realpolitik that Bismarck had pursued for almost two decades, but inadvertently pushed France and Russia into an alliance that made certain Germany would have to fight what its military leaders feared most—a two-front war. The Schlieffen Plan (1905), devised in direct response to the Kaiser's abortive Weltpolitik, was flawed from inception because, once war began, German troops would have to violate Belgian neutrality, an act that Europe was not willing to tolerate. The rigid plan with no contingencies for tactical and strategic setbacks—the fog and friction of war—ensured a protracted and particularly bloody conflict. |
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The book covers well the demise of the ill-fated Weimar Republic, the National Socialist rise to power, and the Hitler regime. George P. Blum demonstrates that instead of the logical outcome of trends evident in German history for centuries, the Nazi movement sprang from the grave economic and political problems Germans experienced in the 1920s. Voters who backed Hitler did so because they believed that he would provide jobs, end poverty, reinstate German honor, unite the nation, and establish political stability. Sadly, the Germans were duped into a cruel totalitarian state. In this and in an earlier chapter, the contributors make no attempt to offer new perspectives on German history, but then that is not the book's purpose. Instead, the reader is exposed to the latest historical arguments, based upon sound scholarship, presented in clear and concise formats that are reasonably accessible to serious students. Events That Changed Germany will be useful in undergraduate- and graduate-level German history courses and will aid teachers considerably when structuring these courses or preparing lectures. |
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| Rogers State University |
Paul B. Hatley |
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