Rehearsals for Fascism: Populism and Political Mobilization in Weimar GermanyIn this compelling and ambitious study, Peter Fritzsche analyzes the dramatic transformation of bourgeois politics before the Nazi breakthrough in 1930. Examining the local texture of civic life--market square protests, small town patriotism, and social clubs--as well as political parties and interest groups, Fritzsche provides a crucial perspective for understanding the fate of the Weimar republic, one which has been largely neglected by German historians. Even before the Great Depression the traditional bourgeois parties were eclipsed by a new breed of populist politicians who not only resisted the left but also embraced public activism and attacked big business, German conservatism, and the Weimar state itself. It was this populist sentiment to which the Nazis appealed with such consummate skill, not so much seizing power as assuming the ambitions and prejudices of middle class voters while transcending the limitations of the political organizations. |
Contents
Burghers and the German Revolution | 21 |
Political Mobilization and Economic Interest After the Revolution | 39 |
Burghers Confront the Republic 191923 | 55 |
Copyright | |
8 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
activism activists appeal artisans BA-K Berlin black-white-red bourgeois politics bourgeois unity Braunschweig Bremen Bretschneider Bürgerblock Bürgertum burgher leagues burghers Business Party campaign civil servants clubs conservatives creditors Deutsche deutschen DNVP DVP and DNVP economic electoral employees flag German Nationalists Germany's Goslar Göttingen Hanover Hanoverian Hindenburg home guards homeowners Hugenberg ibid inflation interest groups Jungdeutsche Orden Kapp Putsch Lambach Landtag Landvolk leaders liberal Lower Saxony Lüneburg middle-class constituents Mittelstand mobilization Münchmeyer municipal National Socialists nationalist Nazis NL Stresemann NL Westarp November Revolution NSA-H NSA-O NSA-W NSDAP Oldenburg organized Osnabrück parliamentary party's patriotic associations percent share politicians popular populist protest provincial Putsch Reich Reichstag Reichstag elections republican Republik SA-Bg shopkeepers Social Democrats special-interest splinter parties Stadtarchiv Stahlhelm Stahlhelm members tion traditional bourgeois parties traditional parties union veterans völkisch Volkspartei vote voters Weimar Republic white-collar Wilhelmine Wirtschaftsverband Wolfenbüttel workers working-class Zeitung