Die deutsche Armee soll keinesfalls, das ist die Haltung der vornehmlich deutschen Forschung, 1914 mit gewichtigen Schwächen in den Ersten Weltkrieg eingetreten sein. An sich zutreffend, wenn bedacht wird, dass dann – rational betrachtet – das überbordende Selbstbewußtsein der deutschen Militärs nicht zu verstehen wäre.

 

Researching World War I: A Handbook. Contributors: Robin Higham – editor, Dennis E. Showalter – editor. Publisher: Greenwood Press. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Publication Year: 2003

S. 8
Of the specialized works, Konrad Jarausch’s biography of Bethmann admirably integrates issues of foreign and domestic policy. It can be supplemented by Jost Duelffer’s edition of Bethmann’s own memoirs and by the diaries of Berlin journalist Theodor Wolff . John Röhl stresses the personal factor in decision-making—especially the erratic personality of Kaiser William II. In broader policy contexts, Wolfgang Petter’s analysis of threat perception in the Second Reich complements Gregor Schöllgen’s fine anthology on the Reich’s foreign policy. Works with specific themes include Peter Winzen on Buelow’s Weltpolitik; Barbara Vogel and Fritz Epstein on the “Russian threat”; and Heiner Raulff on Germany’s French policy in 1904-1905 Albrecht Moritz argues that preventive war was not seriously considered during the first Morocco crisis. Bernd Schulte stresses German aggressive policies in Turkey and the Balkans.

201.  Schulte, Bernd F. Die deutsche Armee 1900-1914. Zwischen beharren und verändern [The German Army, 1900-1914. Between Inertia and Change]. Düsseldorf: Droste, 1977.
202.  Schulte, Bernd F. Die Verfaelschung der Riezler Tagebücher [The Falsification of the Riezler Diaries]. Frankfurt: Lang, 1988.
203.  Schulte, Bernd F. Vor dem Kriegsausbruch 1914. Deutschland, die Türkei und der Balkan [Before the Outbreak of War, 1914: Germany, Turkey, and the Balkans]. Düsseldorf: Droste, 1980.

 

The Kaiser’s Army: The Politics of Military Technology in Germany during the Machine Age, 1870-1918. Contributors: Eric Dorn Brose – author. Publisher: Oxford University Press. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2001.

S. 3  Another scholarly hypothesis assumes recklessness and failed diplomacy but focuses on the unreadiness of a German Army allegedly too weighted down with aristocratic traditions to adopt expeditiously mechanical devices of destruction. This thesis, associated mainly with Bernd Schulte, has come under the fire of other historians like Dieter Storz, who reject the idea that the German Army was an aristocratic, antimodern relic of a backwardlooking era. This school sees the German Army as not only less conservative than other European armies of the time but also, in some respects, very progressive.
S. 6  Although an accurate picture of the German Army in 1914 is probably closer to Storz than to Schulte, the former’s image of calm, professional assessment of technology and steady progress toward change and reform does little justice to the historical reality.

BMP to BWM, 19 May 1893, M. Kr. 43, KAM. See also Bernd F. Schulte, Die deutsche Armee 1900–1914: Zwischen Beharren und Verändern (Düsseldorf, 1977), 261–262. His thesis that Germany adhered to antiquated tactics for internal (i.e., anti-Socialist) reasons is exaggerated but does have limited applicability to Plessen and his circle in the army.

 

The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective. Contributors: Robert Gellately – editor, Ben Kieman – editor. Publisher: Cambridge University Press. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2003.

German political institutions were thus less able to cut short the development toward “final solutions, ” a failure that therefore encouraged the institutionalization of this tendency inside the military to a degree found nowhere else. This is the much-remarked upon “autism” of the German military, which meant that the propensity to grasp at “final solutions” became reinforced and ever more ingrained, and therefore more likely to be resorted to in future. 57

57  On Autism in Organizations: Dieter Senghaas, Rüstung- und Militarismus (Frankfurt am Main, 1972), 46–54; Bernd Schulte, “Die Armee des Kaiserreichs im Spannungsfeld zwischen struktureller Begrenzung and Kriegsrealität, 1871–1914, ” in Europäische Krise und Erster Weltkrieq; Beiträge zur Militärpolitik des Kaiserreichs, 1871–1914 (Frankfurt, 1983), 72.

 

German Professions, 1800-1950. Contributors: Geoffrey B. Cocks – editor, Konrad H. Jarausch – author. Publisher: Oxford University Press. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1990. S. 209

There is no specific study on the subaltern ranks of the officer corps. However, see scattered references in Bernd-Felix Schulte, Die deutsche Armee, 19001914: Zwischen Beharren und Verändern (Düsseldorf, 1977).

 

On Artillery. Contributors: Bruce I. Gudmundsson – author. Publisher: Praeger Publishers. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Publication Year: 1993. S. 27

Wilhelm Balck, whose writings are so often cited in this book, was perhaps the most prolific of the German proponents of open order tactics. The leading advocates of mass tactics were Fritz Hoenig and Jakob Meckel. For more on the debate between mass tactics and “Boer tactics,” see Bruce Gudmundsson, Stormtroop Tactics: Innovation in the German Army, 1914-1918 ( New York: Praeger, 1989), ch. 2, or his “A Lesson from the Boers,” Military History Quarterly, Summer 1989, p. 38. For a political explanation of mass tactics see Bernd F. Schulte, Die deutsche Armee, 1900-1914. Zwischen Beharren und Verändern (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1977).

 

The Kaiser: New Research on Wilhelm II’s Role in Imperial Germany. Contributors: Annika Mombauer – editor, Wilhelm Deist – editor. Publisher: Cambridge University Press. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2003. S. 192ff.

Even more fraught was a discussion that took place in May 1912 between Wilhelm and the then military attaché, Lieutenant-Colonel Russell, this time on the subject of the writings of the military correspondent of The Times, Colonel Charles à Court Repington. 60 In his ‘Reminiscences’, published in 1924, Russell described the conversation as a ‘serious row’ and went on to record that he and the Emperor ‘both more or less called each other liars!’ So dramatic, indeed, was this tête-à-tête in Russell’s memory that he further observed:

I lost my temper completely, and so did he. The French Military Attaché, who was standing close by, but could not hear what was going on during this conversation, rushed back to his Ambassador and told him that war must be imminent between Great Britain and Germany.61

Russell’s official report from 1912 confirms all but the most theatrical aspects of this story. As he recorded:

the Emperor took me by the arm and led me out of earshot of any bystanders. His Majesty then commenced a violent diatribe against press correspondents in general and Colonel Repington in particular. His Majesty said that the military correspondent of The Times had written the most horrible things about the German army and had been making untold mischief in America, France and other places by his writings on this subject. 62

Following this, the Kaiser threatened to retaliate against these perceived calumnies by refusing in future to allow any other British officers to attend German army manoeuvres. However, while it was certainly true that Repington was one of the sharpest critics of the German army and had published numerous articles to this effect, he was not, at the time his words were printed, a serving officer in the British army. His writings, thus, had no official sanction, a fact Russell attempted unsuccessfully to point out to Wilhelm:

Although I did my best even to the extent of interrupting His Majesty to a greater extent than is perhaps compatible with customary deference, I was, I fear, unable to explain to, or adequately convince His Majesty that Colonel Repington’s articles were merely the result of journalistic enterprise and had nothing whatever to do with the British officers attending manoeuvres. I fear that the Emperor is unable to disassociate the two ideas in his mind. 63

Whether or not Russell’s stretching of the ‘customary deference’ constituted the ‘serious row’ that he later remembered is impossible now to say, but Wilhelm’s anger at Repington is not in doubt. It is also a fact that the Emperor chose to voice this anger to the British military attaché rather than to another member of the diplomatic corps. Indeed, as Russell noted, he seemed to have been deliberately keeping the matter back for their meeting. ‘I have not’, he wrote, ‘had an opportunity of speaking with His Majesty since the offending articles appeared and am inclined to think that he has been nursing the grievance till this moment occurred when it was possible to air it unreservedly.’ If Russell was right in this assessment, then the Kaiser’s inclination for using service attachés as a channel for expressing his anger at the writings of the British press comes into particularly sharp relief.

Returning then to the proposition that ‘after the turn of the century the Kaiser had little to do with the British military and naval attachés’, it is clear that this judgement needs modification. In reality, far from being marginalized after 1900, the service attachés in Berlin acted as important intermediaries between the Kaiser and the authorities in London. Through them, Wilhelm was able to request British ministerial visits, involve himself in the ceremonial aspects of British military affairs, indicate his annoyance with British government policy, and rail against the iniquities of the British press. Of course, there were other–more correct–avenues through which he could have maintained these very same dialogues, but, largely owing to his military predilections, he preferred to engage with the attachés. Indeed, Wilhelm treated with them in a manner, if not always with a cordiality, that significantly exceeded their station. As a result of this idiosyncrasy, the service attachés played a very particular and significant part in the AngloGerman diplomatic discourse, thereby truly illustrating Paul Kennedy’s notion of military diplomacy in a military monarchy.
62 Russell, Report no. 23/12, 27 May 1912, PRO, FO 371/1376, fos. 88–91.
63 Ibid.
64 Ibid.
60 Useful information on Repington can be found in A. J. A. Morris (ed.), The Letters of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles à Court Repington CMG, Military Correspondent of the Times, 1903–1918, Sutton 1999; see also Bernd F. Schulte, Die Deutsche Armee 1900–1914: Zwischen Beharren und Verandern, Düsseldorf 1977.

S. 202
In peacetime, Wilhelm II liked to bask in the illusion that in war he would be ‘his own chief of staff’, and announced this to mollify those who criticized the younger Moltke’s abilities on the latter’s appointment. Yet experts were well aware that the Kaiser’s operative abilities were not sufficient ‘to lead three soldiers over the gutter’. 29 It was thus only to be expected that the monarch was not really involved in planning operations during the war, and that in many cases, despite the reports made to him, he was not even adequately briefed about events. This was deliberate. The responsible political and military figures systematically excluded the Kaiser because they feared his interference. As early as August 1914 Falkenhayn, at that time still Prussian War Minister, told the military representative of Bavaria, General von Wenninger, that the Kaiser is not told more than diplomats and courtiers. The main thing is the numbers of POWs, cannons, etc. Now he is no longer told about anything that is at the planning stage; all he hears about is what has already happened, and only the favourable events. 30

30  Wenninger diary, 31 Aug. 1914, cited in Bernd Felix Schulte, ‘Neue Dokumente zu Kriegsausbruch and Kriegsverlauf 1914′, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen (MGM), 25 (1979), p. 161.
——————————————–

 

Die Fälschung der Riezler Tagebücher.

Anders als in Deutschland, wo die Hauptaufgabe von Wissenschaft und Publizistik die Verteidigung der, nicht zu verteidigenden, Rolle des vormaligen Kieler Historikers Karl Erdmann ist, sieht zumindest die amerikanische und englische Wissenschaft den Diskusionsbedarf um die Fälschung des Riezler Tagebuchs. Und damit natürlich auch der Rolle Deutschlands bei Ausbruch des grossen Krieges von 1914.

 

The Lions of July: Prelude to War, 1914. Contributors: William Jannen Jr. – author. Publisher: Presidio Press. Place of Publication: Novato,CA. Publication Year: 1997. S. 392

Chapter 7:  Second Thoughts

1. Quoted in Jarausch, “The Illusion of Limited War”, 53; —–, The Enigmatic Chancellor, 148-59; Kurt Riezler, Tagebücher-Aufsätze-Dokumente, ed. Karl Dietrich Erdmann, Deutsche Geschichtsquellen des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, vol. 48 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1972), 183. There is a controversy over Erdmann’s editing of the Riezler diary, particularly the entries from 7 July through 14 August 1914, HYPERLINK “http://www.questia.com/read/88973990″ \t “_top” ibid. , 181-95, the so-called Blockblätter or Hohenfinow entries. Kurt Riezler instructed his family to destroy his diary, but the Riezler family destroyed only the prewar portion of the diary after selected sections were copied for publication. Some German scholars now argue that the 7 July through 14 August entries were revised by Riezler to hide the fact that Bethmann and the German government actively wanted a continental war in 1914, Bernd Sösemann, “Die Tagebücher Kurt Riezlers. Untersuchungen zu ihrer Echtheit und Edition”, Historische Zeitschrift 236, no. 2 ( April, 1983): 327-69. Erdmann replied in the same issue, “Zur Echtheit der Tagebücher Kurt Riezlers. Eine Antikritik, ibid. , 371-402. The controversy was investigated by Bernd F. Schulte, Die Verfälschung der Riezler Tagebücher ( Frankfurt a/M; Bern; New York: Peter Lang, 1985). Schulte concludes that the entries were rewritten after the war but that he cannot discover to what extent the rewritten entries differ from the originals. Friends of Riezler’s who read, or heard Riezler read from, his diary in the 1930s, remembered after World War II that the diary made Bethmann sound like he wanted war. But one witness, who had extensive conversations with Riezler, and who made memoranda of most of them, said Riezler described Bethmann as being afraid of a world war — although he was prepared to risk it to save Austria — and as utterly opposed to annexing more land in the event of victory, which is the portrait which comes through in the diary as published by Erdmann, and in the published German documents on the war, and which is adopted in this book. Since Bethmann’s private papers and Riezler’s original prewar diary entries have been lost or destroyed, the controversy has probably gone as far as it can go.

 

Modern Germany Reconsidered, 1870-1945. Contributors: Gordon Martel – editor. Publisher: Routledge. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1992.

21 An interim evaluation now exists by Bernd F. Schulte, Die Verfälschung der Riezler Tagebücher. Ein Beitrag zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte der 50er und 60er Jahre (Frankfurt, 1985).

 

Forging the Collective Memory: Government and International Historians through Two World Wars. Contributors: Keith Wilson – editor. Publisher: Berghahn Books. Place of Publication: Providence, RI. Publication Year: 1996. S. 125f.

62. Ibid., pp. 559, 576. Ritter to Herzfeld, 30 October 1961; and Ritter to Epstein, 15 February 1963. On another occasion, Ritter denounced his Hamburg colleague as a ‘student of the arch-Nazi Erich Seeberg and accused him of having gained his chair at Hamburg University in 1942 through the influence of Walter Frank, head of the Reichsinstitut für Geschichte des neuen Deutschlands. Bernd F. Schulte, Die Verfälschung der Riezler Tagebücher: Ein Beitrag zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte der 50iger und 60iger Jahre ( Frankfurt, Bern, and New York, 1985), p. 145.
Fischer’s defenders are conspicuously silent on the matter of his alleged Nazi past; it is inconceivable, of course, that any scholar could have attained an important academic post in 1942 without the official sanction of the Nazi regime. See Karl-Heinz Janssen, ‘Historischer Realismus’, Die Zeit, 2 March 1973, p. 15. In any case, it is illuminating that an ‘old-Nazi’ such as Fischer should have been able to come to the position on the origins of the war that he did in Griff nach der Weltmacht, while a self-proclaimed anti-Nazi such as Ritter continued to tout the position of the patriotic self-censors from the 1920s.

S. 114f.

To be sure, the vendetta conducted against Kantorowicz would not remain an isolated case. In 1932, several German historians, led by Hermann Oncken, Hermann Schumacher, and Fritz Hartung, conspired to deny the young radical scholar Eckart Kehr the Rockefeller Fellowship that Charles A. Beard had helped Kehr secure for study in the United States.
59  And as recently as February 1964, West Germany’s foreign minister, Gerhard Schröder, acting upon the recommendations of Gerhard Ritter and Karl Dietrich Erdmann, formally rescinded Goethe Institute travel funds awarded Fritz Fischer for a planned lecture tour of the United States, a tour that Ritter equated with ‘a national tragedy’. Apparently, the Foreign Ministry was quite prepared once more to take on the role of patriotic self-censor. It was only through the efforts of a dozen American scholars, led by Klaus Epstein, that Fischer’s visit came about.
60  Ritter not only spoke of what he decried as Fischer’s penchant for ‘political masochism’, but poured out all his bitterness in a letter to Klaus Epstein’s father, Fritz, a scholar also hounded out of German academia after 1933, by referring to Fischer as ‘an old Nazi who had so quickly managed to convert to democracy’ after 1945.
61 Ritter’s real grudge against Fischer was that the Hamburg historian with his Griff nach der Weltmacht had reopened the entire war-guilt issue, an issue ‘that one had believed belonged to a distant past’.
62  In that one sentence to his colleague Theodor Schieder at Köln, Ritter expressed his generation’s horror that perhaps the ‘patriotic sef-censorship’ of the Weimar Republic had not succeeded after all. It was a fitting eulogy for this unfortunate chapter of German historiography. And the passions engendered by the ‘ Fischer controversy’ certainly parallelled those of the Kantorowicz and Kehr scandals both in substance and in acrimony. Careers both before and after the Second World War all too often hinged upon one’s stance on the issue of ‘war guilt’.