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Germany after the First World War (Clarendon Paperbacks) |  | Author: Richard Bessel
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $49.50
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Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 630196
Media: Paperback
Pages: 344
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0198205864
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.094309042
EAN: 9780198205869
ASIN: 0198205864
Publication Date: October 12, 1995
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
"Bessel reminds us that the Germans never came to terms with the fact of German war guilt or with Germany's military defeat...useful in reminding us that history never repeats itself, and that historical parallels and comparisons between German democracy today and German democracy under Weimar are overdrawn."--New York Times Book Review A social history of Germany in the years following the First World War, Germany After the First World War explores Germany's defeat and the subsequent demobilization of its armies, events which had devastating social and psychological consequences for the nation. Richard Bessel examines the changes brought by the War to Germany, including those resulting from the return of soldiers to civilian life and the effects of demobilization on the economy. He demonstrates that the postwar transition was viewed as a moral crusade by Germans desperately concerned about challenges to traditional authority; and he assesses the ways in which the experience of the War, and memories of it, affected the politics of the Weimar Republic. This original and scholarly book offers important insights into the sense of dislocation, both personal and national, experienced by Germany and Germans in the 1920s, and its damaging legacy for German democracy.
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Book Review: Germany After The First World War November 4, 2000
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Bessel has a Malthusian-Sonderweg approach towards all of Germany's social problems. Germany's population boom, from 49.2 million in 1890 to 67 million in 1913, its military roots with the crucial Prussian Law of Siege July 4th 1851 - the military take over of state activities in preparation of war, respectively, to Bessel, were the reasons for all irrational decisions that included the subsequent declaration of war and with a rising death toll. Irrational decision-making, also led to neglect of agriculture causing widespread malnutrition - as farmers were employed in the military, thus handicapping food supply, and inefficient high tech manufacturing - as under-skilled women and war-cripples were employed as replacements. Due to this, asserts Bessel, skilled war weary soldiers, in large numbers began joined ranks of the industrial workforce: awaiting the end of war. Maintaining that war weariness, which led to voluntary demobilization, helped the unprepared Demobilization Commission in stabilizing the situation: as most soldiers had already joined civilian ranks, Bessel argues, Germany was able to avoid a political revolution. The planning commission, had foretold this political upheaval; fortunately it never happened, as voluntary demobilization, argues Bessel, had commenced sometimes during the war; thus saving the commissions from its ineffectiveness. Rise in consumerisms, to Bessel, had also been overlooked by the commission, and this soon led to hyperinflation that combined with the Versailles Treaty, gave rise to public resentment. Resentment, claims Bessel, was also present in the cultural-economic sphere where it was felt that introducing women and children into the workforce had sowed the seeds of moral decline. The fear that mass culture was destroying the aesthetics of the society, in spite of the fact that price control and rapid economic mobilization had led to stability, was mounting to an almost revolutionary level. This revolutionary atmosphere, moreover, would be intensified with the continuing fall in real wages and the inflated fiscal deficit. The fall in real wages along with the government's inability to further subsidize companies to provide mass employment, to Bessel, had resulted in an alarming fall in living standard, and a serious housing problem by 1928. Combined with falling living standards, the opposition towards the role of women and children in manufacturing during the war and after (moral decline), to Bessel, led to the fall of the Weimar republic. In spite of the failure to address socio-political causes to hyperinflation, Bessel, does a good job in outline demographic causality that led to the failure of Weimar democracy. His work through Germany's provides detail structural picture rather than immediate political and cultural events that could lead to the fall of a democracy. Germany After The First World War is a masterpiece that gives insight into a nations sociopolitical scene and highlights how the working class would get disillusioned with democracy.
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