Matthew Jefferies. Imperial Culture in Germany, 1871-1918. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. xii + 338 pp. $32.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-4039-0421-8.

Reviewed by Jacob L. Hamric (Department of History, University of Tennessee)
Published on H-German (May, 2006)

A Case for German Culture before Weimar

In the introduction to this volume, Matthew Jefferies cautions readers that his book "should be regarded as a work of synthesis rather than as an attempt to advance a bold new thesis" (p. 5). The promised synthesis is a valuable one: Jefferies provides readers with a detailed introduction to numerous aspects of high culture in Germany from 1871 to 1918, including painting, literature, architecture, drama, and cultural criticism and reform. That feat in itself would place Jefferies alongside such notable scholars as Peter Gay, Walter Laqueur and John Willett, each of whom produced synthetic works on Weimar culture during the 1970s. But the author's aims go much further. Jefferies states at the outset that "Germany's 'Imperial Culture' was every bit as fascinating, revealing and at times troubling, as the far more celebrated 'Weimar Culture' that evolved from it in 1918" (p. 1). In other words, culture in the German Empire was not a remote, esoteric field, far from the minds of most Germans; quite to the contrary, Jefferies argues that "the cultural, social and political were never far apart" in Imperial Germany (p. 5). Moreover, he states that "a more rounded and balanced view" of culture in the Wilhelmine era is necessary, one that not only includes the familiar themes of anti-modernist and proto-fascist leanings but also examines supporters of "cultural renewal and innovation" (p. 3).

At the center of Jefferies' analysis is the German middle class. At least in part due to the large influence of Thomas Mann, who stressed that Innerlichkeit, or inwardness, was the greatest virtue of the typical German, previous historians have asserted that the bourgeoisie, which constituted the vanguard of Wilhelmine culture, "shunned social and political engagement" (p. 4). Jefferies surmises that this argument wrongly gives support to the Sonderweg thesis because it ignores the simple fact that "the creation and transmission of this culture was very much a two-way process, which reflected middle-class aspirations every bit as much as those of the Kaiser and the 'traditional elites'" (p. 44). The author therefore uses the middle class as a lens to examine the interconnections of culture, society and polity in Imperial Germany.

In the first chapter, Jefferies provides valuable background about Imperial German politics and society. He stresses the federalist structure of the German Empire and continues his attack on the Sonderweg, referring to David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley's groundbreaking study The Peculiarities of German History (1984), which refuted the Sonderweg, largely discredited the distinction between "modern" liberalism and "backwards" authoritarianism and pointed out that the German bourgeoisie had much to gain by working with an authoritarian regime (p. 11). He then explains that Imperial Germany was characterized by numerous divisions, such as north-south, urban-rural, Protestant-Catholic and gender, and included over two million ethnic minorities in 1871 and over four million in 1914. The author then outlines the formation of aristocratic, bourgeois, Catholic and working-class socio-cultural milieus during the Imperial era. He states that even though mass migration and urbanization during the latter part of the nineteenth century exacerbated inequalities between the various German classes, the abundance of divisions noted above has led many historians (including himself) to prefer to use the concept of milieu, "a combination of class, religion, region, and culture, rather than class," to describe the German social reality of the day (p. 25). Despite these formidable obstacles to forming a cohesive national identity, the author disagrees with historians such as Wolfgang Mommsen, who have argued that, due to these divisions, Imperial Germany was "ungovernable, and in a state of permanent crisis," because such an interpretation neglects contingency in historical development (p. 12).

In the second chapter, Jefferies focuses on the individuals who, in cooperation with the Imperial German government, spearheaded the creation of an official Imperial identity following the founding of the German Empire in 1871. While acknowledging that much of Imperial culture emerged from the Prussian monarchy, army and church, the author argues that many middle class individuals, such as Anton von Werner, Hermann Wislicenus and Bruno Schmitz, who are little known today, largely shaped the official culture of the German Empire. For example, Jefferies argues that Werner's paintings, which illustrated the proclamation of the empire, created a lasting image about the founding of the Empire and allowed Werner to become "the Empire's official chronicler" of later events such as "the foundation-stone laying of the Reichstag" in 1884 (p. 52). Furthermore, the author claims that there were frequently practical motives for the undertaking of huge construction projects like the Niederwald and Kaiser Wilhelm monuments and the celebration of national holidays. Jefferies bluntly reminds us, for instance, that these cultural projects were good for business. In Ruedesheim, a couple of local officials envisioned the building of the Niederwald Monument as a valuable source of tourism. Just a few short years after its completion in 1883, the Niederwald Monument had transformed Ruedesheim from a small, quaint town into a thriving tourist attraction along the Rhine River (pp. 62-63, 70).

Jefferies examines Imperial culture during the Gründerzeit, or age of the founders, and the immediate reactions against it in the next two chapters. In chapter 3, the author focuses on what he considers the three central themes of the Gründerzeit: the search for a national style, the preoccupation with history and the cult of the hero. He notes that out of these ideas, nineteenth-century Germans were uniquely fascinated with history. It was not that the ideas of the national-liberal thinkers like Heinrich von Treitschke, Heinrich von Sybel and Hermann Baumgarten were unique to Germany, but rather, as Jefferies succinctly puts it, "the extent to which history appeared to pervade every area of German culture and society" that was unusual (p. 101). In chapter 4, Jefferies sketches several of the major cultural producers and movements in Imperial Germany that challenged the dominant historicism of the Gründerzeit. He concentrates his efforts here on the roles of Naturalism (pp. 145-159), the Secessionists (pp. 159-171) and Jugendstil in art and architecture (pp. 171-177). For example, the Naturalist painter Max Liebermann produced numerous works that "perceived the honesty and simplicity of Dutch life" and thus criticized the "false pathos" of the age (p. 157). At the same time, the author points out that cultural critics such as Liebermann were not simply anti-modern. Jefferies is skeptical about the extent to which cultural pessimism, an anti-modern ethos, actually permeated German society, especially the educated middle class, as intellectual historians George Mosse and Fritz Stern have argued. He explains that other scholars such as Thomas Nipperdey have concluded that, on the contrary, being conservative and modern were not mutually exclusive attributes (pp. 142-143; see also pp. 221-223 in chapter 5). In general, Jefferies warns against overemphasizing the revolutionary nature of cultural critics in the German Empire.

In the final two chapters, Jefferies addresses Imperial culture during the reign of Emperor Wilhelm II and its legacy for the Weimar period. In chapter 5, the author discusses the characteristics of Wilhelm II's official culture and the various reform movements that emerged to oppose it, including the Wandervogel, Heimat movements and the Werkbund, which attracted mostly Protestant, urban, middle-class Germans (p. 192). Despite the "diverse range of interests and enthusiasms" of these movements, Jefferies states that they formed a "substantial force for change in early twentieth-century Germany," both advocating freedom for the individual and addressing key social and political questions (p. 221). In the final chapter, Jefferies traces the way in which Expressionism emerged as "the last major movement in Imperial German culture," and its impact on increasing political radicalism on the Left and the Right during the First World War and the Weimar Republic. He finishes the chapter with a brief summation of "continuities and discontinuities" between Imperial and Weimar culture (pp. 262-266). Jefferies concludes that "the most novel aspect of Weimar culture" was "in the context of cultural production and consumption" (p. 264). After World War One, the vanguard of cultural production, the middle class, no longer predominantly viewed popular culture with disdain but rather saw it as "authentic" or "egalitarian"; many of the key individuals in Weimar culture thus sought to target a broad audience that extended "beyond their own class or milieu" (p. 265).

In summary, the author makes a convincing case for the significance of Germany's Imperial culture. He employs a wide range of memoirs, paintings, architectural designs and other cultural productions to evaluate the roles of cultural producers and movements in the German Empire. In addition, Jefferies effectively invokes the secondary literature of modern German history, which strengthens his arguments in the various historiographical debates that he addresses. To the author's credit, he admits that his work contains some omissions, most notably the almost complete exclusion of popular culture, and the problem of reception that all historians of cultural products must contend with (p. 8). Nevertheless, his study is important because it demonstrates that culture in Imperial Germany was not simply part of a larger German problem, a symptom of a possible Sonderweg, but rather included both comforting and troubling patterns, a situation not uniquely German in late-nineteenth-century Europe. Jefferies' work is also quite suitable for undergraduates, which is not surprising, considering that he states his book "grew out of a popular undergraduate course at the University of Manchester" (p. 1). Imperial Culture in Germany is thus a noteworthy book for German scholars and teachers alike.

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Citation: Jacob L. Hamric. Review of Jefferies, Matthew, Imperial Culture in Germany, 1871-1918. H-German, H-Net Reviews. May, 2006.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11787

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