Book Review: Western Europe: DNVP
| Author | Gerald Freund |
| Published date | 01 December 1965 |
| Date | 01 December 1965 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070206502000428 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
556
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
DNVP.
Right-Wing
Opposition
in
the
Weimar
Republic,
1918-1924.
By
Lewis
Hertzman.
1963.
(Lincoln:
University
of
Nebraska
Press.
vi,
263pp.
$5.00)
This
is
political
party
history,
and
there
is
a
clear
and present
danger
that
as more
political
parties
in
more
countries
are
created
more
dissertations
recording
their
ups
and
downs
will
be
written.
It
is
difficult
to
imagine
what
the
value
of
these
exercises
can
be
to
the
political
scientist
or
historian.
In
the
book
under
discussion
Professor
Hertzman
has plotted
in
agonizing
detail
the
tergiversations
of
splinter
groups
and
ambitious
individuals
in
the
German
National
People's
Party
(DNVP)
from
its
inception
in
1918
down
to
1924.
From the
birth
pangs
of
this
multifaced
group
we
are
taken
through
successive
crises
of
internal
organization
and
leadership
which
are
discussed
against
the
background
of
the
revolution
manqud
of
1918,
the
Kapp
Putsch, and
the
Dawes
Crisis.
The
book is
less
concerned
with
these
events
than
with
the intra-party
conflicts
that
made
the
DNVP
a
disruptive
force
but
an
ineffective
opposition
party.
The conservatives
(as
they
misnamed
themselves)
could
agree
on
most
of
the
principles
of
German political motherhood,
such
as
the
restoration
of
a
monarchy,
Christian
social
and
cultural
purity,
"the
necessity
of
a
strong
national
state;"
but they
argued
over
the
specifi-
cations
of
these
principles:
What
kind
of
monarchy?
How
activist
should
anti-semitic
policies
be?
How
to
build
a
strong
state?
The
com-
mon
denominator
of
most
of
the
membership
was implacable
hostility
to
the
Weimar Constitution
mixed
with nostalgia for
rural
virtues.
The
successes
and failures
of
this
disloyal
opposition will
be
of
interest
to
the
Weimar
specialist,
particularly
the
revelations
from
Professor Hertzman's
interviews
with
some
survivors
of
the
DNVP
and
the
results
of his
digging
into
unpublished papers.
Most
important
of
these
fresh
materials
are
the
papers-unaccountably
referred
to
as
a
literary
testament
by
the
author-of
Kuno
Graf
von
Westarp.
The
author
deserves
to
be
congratulated
on
this
find,
but
the
excessive
references
to
Westarp's
papers leads
to
an
exaggeration
of
the
import-
ance
of
this
pedestrian
politician
during
the
Weimar
period.
Despite
innumerable
references to
Westarp
and
other
DNVP
leaders,
they
remain
curiously
flat
characters
through the
pages
of
this
book. Only
Gustav
Stresemann
is
contrasted
with
them
as
a
con-
structive
political
figure,
a
liberal, and
a
political
realist.
Not
enough
evidence
is
adduced
to
make
a
convincing
case
for this
contentious
figure.
Professor Hertzman's
assertion
that
Stresemann fought
"to
bring the
Nationalists
into
government,
in
the
hope
of
teaching
them
there
the
lessons
of
moderation
and
responsibility"
(p.
5)
surely
gives
this
ambitious
nationalist
politician
more
credit
as
an
educator
than
is
his due.
New
York
City
GERALD
FREUND
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