It would be misleading to think that Germany was the only nation where authoritarian ideologies became popular after WWI. In fact, all European nations let themselves be fascinated with this kind of ideologies, spurred by the difficulties of emerging from the destruction of the war and by the necessity to deal with profound and unexpected social changes.
After the war, many old regimes had fallen and nations were experimenting with new forms of government. Germany, with her experiment of democracy, was far from being an isolated case. But in a continent where monarchy had been the norm for centuries, learning to manage a republic was hard for the politicians as well as for the population and after five years of struggles across lands and social strata, people’s patience was very short. They wanted to see results. They wanted to go back to prosperity as fast as possible, and they also didn’t want to deal with all the changes that were happening and destabilising the community no less than the war had already done. Whoever could promise them that was welcome.
This was a common attitude, but in Germany, there was also a peculiar cultural expectation that pushed people further.
At the end of the war, German culture wasn’t homogeneous. It was composed of many different ethnicities united by language and history, but the Prussian culture was dominant. Strict, regulated, not prone to emotional reactions, the Prussian culture found in the military organization and way of life its higher incarnation, which then spread into all aspects of everyday life. It was from this culture that the Führerprinzip – the Principle of the Leader – arose, originally a very high philosophical concept. In fact, in the 1920s, many philosophers – such as Martin Heidegger and Dietrich Bonhoeffer – wrote and spoke about it and the hope that a Führer would appear.
Hitler and Hermann Göring with SA stormtroopers at Nuremberg in 1928
The Führer was the ultimate leader. He was connected to his land and to his people in an almost mystical way. He would dedicate himself totally to the welfare of the nation, and he would inspire his people to do the same. This was the key point. The true Führer would inspire people to act, not act in their stead and would never seek dominance because his task was to lead his people to a better life of fulfilment, not to dominate or manipulate their lives.
Bonhoeffer clearly states that the Führer himself should always remind his followers of his own limits and their responsibilities, otherwise his followers would always turn him into an idol and thus he would cease to be a leader. Great stress was place into the limits of the Führer, because it was in those limits that freedom and fulfilment for everyone would have been kept save.
Disappointed as they were with the results – or lack thereof – of the republic, many Germans started to hope, even to call, for the appearance of a Führer. Especially young people – most of all young men who had had their baptism of fire in the trenches – turned to the Führerprinzip as a solution for the many problems of the republic.
It was obvious that the democracy, with the endless discussions and the many voices, wasn’t able to lead Germany out of troubles, but a strong personality who deeply cared for the nation might probably do it.
So it isn’t all that surprising that when such a person seemed to appear and presented himself as such, people turned to him. Little they knew that the Führer in flesh and blood they were getting was a far cry from the ideal figure they longed for.
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RESOURCES
Stephen Hicks, Ph.D. – Heidegger on the Führer Principle
Patheos – Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the Fuhrer Principle by Bruce Norquist
Walter Laqueur, Weimar, A Cultural History 1918-1933. Weidenfeld and Nicolson Ltd. London, 1971
26 Comments
Thanks for this, Sarah! Hegel’s earlier glorification of monarchies in general, and the Prussian monarchy in particular, was a Nineteenth Century precursor of the Twentieth Century German Leader-Principal. Hegel proclaimed the monarchy as the End of History, succeeding Democracy rather than the other way around.
Regrettibly, I’ve never studied philosophy, so most of this was new to me. But Learning about the Principle of the Leader opened my eyes about many things.
Hi Sarah – well certainly they got not what they bargained for with Hitler … but so interesting to know about and to read John’s comment … I really should read more on this era – thanks … cheers Hilary
True. I also think Hitler was very clever to use what German people believed so to attein what he wanted.
Besides this is the true danger of it: when people only listen to what they want to hear, good things rarely follow.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It’s such a shame they couldn’t have a leader who embodied all those noble principles isn’t it? Imagine what Germany might have become!
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That true. History might have gone a very different way.
But then, although I don’t believe in preordered destiny, I do believe that history moves in a certain direction because many different circumstances work at the same time in that particular direction. Very rarely changing only one of those circumstances might change the course of history.
Well, this is my feeling, at least.
You make a well-taken point. Results don’t always come quickly, and people do get impatient. And perhaps that was especially true for people who’d been used to a monarchy. People had no idea what they would be in for…
That I believe.
It’s easy for us to judge, to say it might have been different if only peopel had been wiser, or more tolerant, or more patinet. But then we live nearly one hundred years later, we’ve seen what happened, and we jusdge as much on the consequances (which those people had no way to foreseen) as on the causes.
I think we’d serve history – and ourselves – better if we’d rather try to place ourseves in those people’s shoes.
Just imagine how different our world would be without that one person and his thirst for power and his ideology. Incredible to think that one man could determine so much, and be allowed to. Good stuff.
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But is it really just one man who made the difference?
It’s so natural for desperate people to long for a figure like that to save them, as we’ve seen in so many eras and places throughout history. More often than not, the leader who emerges is anything but a knight in shining armor who creates a perfect society and fixes all its problems.
True. Because people who long so strongly for a solution they don’t seem able to find are liable of being deceived very easily, because they’ll will hear whatever they want to hear, rather than hear whatever they are actually told.
Unfortunately, the desire of a saviour when we feel so utterly vulnerable is a very human feeling.
You can definitely see how the German people would have been longing for a strong leader to guide them after everything they had been for following WW1 and the depression. It was the ideal time for Hitler to gather followers and use minorities as scapegoats through clever propaganda to show how Germany could be a great and powerful nation again.
You expressed it perfectly.
In past decades, historians argued that the Republic was too weak and too prone to compromises to be effective. But in recent decades the feeling has shifted. Now historians seem to stress that given the historical and cultural circumstances, the Republic may have survived only if SHE had produced that kind of leader.
But then I wonder: would she ever? Democracy was such because it was a plurality of voices – which was a very new experience in recent European hsitory. Maybe the same mechanism of democracy prevented the emergence of a leader in that moment.
The saddest and most frightening part is that people never seem to learn and always hope for a “leader” to save them. It’s happening now.
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I know. There are some scary similarities between our time and the Weimar times.
I was not aware of what Führer meant. Now that I know, I am wondering that the course of history would had been totally different if Hitler was a true Führer.
That’s a good question. But then a true Führer woudl have told German that there was no easy solution to any problem. At that point, were they going to listen?
I never knew there was a word for the ideology behind the Fuhrer. The problem in the real world is you give someone that much power and they are bound to abuse it.
Tasha
Tasha’s Thinkings – Movie Monsters
True, eh? I think when one person is supposed to manage that much power, we have to really hope that is a good, correct, straight person. Unfortunatly, we aren’t normally that lucky.
It is just frightening when people gobble up what they want to hear. They are told what they will get and, in some cases they get things, like kindergarten, the autobahn, The Volkswagen, and don’t think of the heavy price. Not much changes over the decades
That’s the danger, right? It’s not easy to be critical when someone tells you exactly what you hope to hear. Especially when you find yourself in difficult situation.
I had no idea. This explains so much. Thank you once again for teaching me something so valuable!
I had no idea either. This was such interesting topic to research.
Excellent post, Sarah. You highlight the dangers of leaders that get too powerful and out-of-hand. At that point in time, my mind is reminded of Franco, Mussolini and Stalin who all promised great things – and failed to different degrees.
It was a trouble time in Europe, and people who promised better times all gained a lot of popularity.
But as you are describling it, it sounds allarmingly as our own time, don’t you find?
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