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Stresemann's Diplomacy Fifty Years after Locarno: some Recent Perspectives*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Manfred J. Enssle
Manfred J. Enssle
Affiliation:
Colorado State University
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The Historical Journal , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , December 1977 , pp. 937 - 948
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

1 Gatzke, Hans W., ‘Gustav Stresemann: a bibliographical article’, The Journal of Modern History, xxxvi, 1 (03 1964), 2.Google Scholar

2 Walsdorff, Martin, Bibliographie Gustav Stresemann (Düsseldorf, 1972)Google Scholar; Weidenfeld, Werner, ‘Gustav Stresemann-der Mythos vom engagierten Europäer’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, xxiv, 12 (12. 1973), 740–50.Google Scholar

3 See particularly: Mayer, Arno J., Political origins of the new diplomacy, 1917–1918 (New York, 1970; orig. pub. 1959)Google Scholar; and his Politics and diplomacy of peacemaking: containment and counter-revolution at Versailles 1918–1919 (New York, 1969; orig. pub. 1967).Google Scholar

4 Döhn, Lothar, Politik und Interesse: Die Interessenstruktur der Deutschen Volkspartei (Meisenheim, 1970)Google Scholar; Jones, Larry E., ‘Gustav Stresemann and the crisis of German liberalism’, European Studies Review 4, 2 (1975), 141–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Maxelon, Michael Olaf, Stresemann und Frankreich 1914–1929: Deutsche Politik der Ost-West Balance (Düsseldorf, 1972)Google Scholar.Both Döhn, and Jones underscore the nationalistic ingredient in Stresemann's liberalism; Maxelon differentiates Stresemann's World War I nationalism from that of others by placing it under the rubric ‘liberal imperialism’.

5 The beginnings of integrating Handelspolitik with Politik and Aussenpolitik are now being made. See Stegmann, Dirk, ‘Deutsche Zoll-un Handelspolitik 1924/5–1929 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung agrarischer und industrieller Interessen’, in Industrielles System und politische Entwicklung in der Weimarer Republik: Verhandlungen des Internationalen Symposiums in Bochum vom 73.–17. Juni. 1973, ed. by Mommsen, H., Petzina, D., and Weisbrod, B. (Düsseldorf, 1974), pp. 499–513Google Scholar; and Schröder, Hans-Jürgen, ‘Economics and politics of German diplomacy in the Locarno era’, unpublished paper given at the Conference on European Security in the Locarno Era at Mars Hill College, North Carolina, on 16 October 1975.Google Scholar

6 Landes, David S., The unbound Prometheus: technological change and industrial development in western Europe from 1750 to the present (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 374–5.Google Scholar

7 Turner, Henry Ashby, ‘Eine Rede Stresemanns über seine Locarnopolitik (Dokumentation)’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, xv, 4 (10. 1967), 412–36Google Scholar. The importance of this speech, as Turner notes in his commentary, is at least partly that Stresemann here identified general principles underlying his foreign policy. Rather pointedly, for example, he committed himself to the principle rebus sic stantibus which E. H. Carr has usefully defined as meaning that ‘the obligations of a treaty were binding in international law so long as the conditions prevailing at the time of the conclusions of the treaty continued, and no longer’. (Carr, E.H., The twenty years' crisis 1919–1939: an introduction to the study of international relations (New York, 1964; orig. pub. 1939), p. 182.)Google Scholar

8 Weidenfeld, Werner, Die England politik Gustav Stresemanns: Theoretische und Praktiscke Aspekte der Aussenpolitik (Mainz, 1972), p. 108Google Scholar; and Megerle, Klaus, Deutsche Aussenpolitik 1925. Ansatz zu aktivem Revisionisms (Frankfurt/M., 1973), p. 131.Google Scholar

9 An example is the article by Grathwol, Robert, ‘Gustav Stresemann: reflections on his foreign policy’, The Journal of Modern History XLV, 1 (03 1973), 52–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Grathwol's article reveals a most selective and incomplete integration of recent primary and secondary sources; in this respect it compares rather unfavourably with Weidenfeld's and Megerle's contributions of the same year. The article may be considered the most recent spirited defence of the traditional portrait of a Stresemann who ‘richly deserved’ the Nobel peace prize.

10 See especially; Dichtl, Klaus and Ruge, Wolfgang, ‘Zu den Auseinandersetzungen innerhalb der Reichsregierung über den Locarnopakt 1925 (Documentation)’, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, xxii, 1 (1974), 64–88.Google Scholar

11 Kimmich, Christoph M., The Free City: Danzig and German foreign policy 1919–1934 (New Haven, 1968), p. 68Google Scholar. The use of this quotation is not intended to take away from Kimmich's competent and useful study.

12 Weidenfeld, Die Englandpolitik Gustav Stresemanns; Maxelon, Stresemann und Frankreich 1914–1929; Walsdorff, Martin, Westorientierung und Ostpolitik: Stresemanns Russlandpolitik in der Locarno-Ära (Bremen, 1971)Google Scholar; Jacobson, Jon, Locarno diplomacy: Germany and the West 1925–1929 (Princeton, N.J., 1972)Google Scholar; Megerle, , Deutsche Aussenpolitik 1925.Google Scholar

13 The Wilhelmstrasse's motives for signing the Kellogg-Briand Pact have now been examined by Krüger, Peter,‘ Friedenssicherung und deutsche Revisionspolitik: die deutsche Aussenpolitik und die Verhandlungen über den Kellog-Pakt’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, xxii, 3 (07 1974), 227–57Google Scholar. Krüger detects a modification in Germany's revisionist policy at this point.

14 Craig, Gordon, From Bismarck to Adenauer: aspects of German statecraft (New York 1965; orig. pub. 1958), p. 56.Google Scholar

14 14 Weidenfeld does not include points 8 and 9. On the Anschluss question see Suval, Stanley, The Anschluss question in the Weimarera:astudyofnationalisminGermanyandAustria, 1918–1932 (Baltimore and London, 1974)Google Scholar; on Eupen-Malmédy, see Pabst, Klaus, ‘Eupen Malmedy in der belgischen Regierungs-und Parteienpolitik 1914–1945’, Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsvereins, LXXVI (1964), esp. pp. 453–89Google Scholar; on the minorities issue, see Fink, Carole, ‘Stresemann's minority policies 1934–1929’, unpublished paper given at the meeting of the American Historical Association at New Orleans, on 28 December 1972Google Scholar; and the same author's ‘Defender of minorities: Germany in the League of Nations, 1926–1933’, Central European History, v, 4 (12. 1972), 330–57Google Scholar. That Weimar Germany harboured no ambitions to incorporate Sudeten German territories into the Reich is shown by Campbell, F. Gregory, Confrontation in central Europe: Weimar Germany and Czechoslovakia (Chicago and London,1975).Google Scholar

16 Rheinbaben, Werner Freiherr von, Kaiser, Kanzler, Präsidenten: Erinnerungen (Mainz, 1968), pp. 201–51.Google Scholar

17 Walsdorff, , Westorientierung und Ostpolitik, pp. 24–6 and 146–8.Google Scholar

18 Important contributions to the origins of Locarno are: Stambrook, F.G., ‘“Das Kind” Lord D'Abernon and the origins of the Locarno pact’, Central European History, 1,3 (09. 1968), 233–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jacobson, , Locarno diplomacy, esp. p. 40Google Scholar; and Megerle, , Deutsche aussenpolitik 1925Google Scholar. See also the accessible Stresemann, Gustav, Schriften ed. by Harttung, Arnold (Berlin, 1976). Pp. 304–91.Google Scholar

19 See Stresemann's speech to the ‘Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutscher Landsmannschaften in Gross-Berlin’ on 14 December 1925, in: Akten zurDeutschen Auswärtigen Politik 1918–1925, Serie B: 1925–1933, vol. II, 1 (Göttingen, 1968), 739.Google Scholar

20 A recent author who touches upon this point is: Lippelt, Helmut, ‘“Politische Sanierung.” Zur deutschen Politik gegenüber Polen 1925/26’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, xix, 4 (10 1971), 368Google Scholar. See also my forthcoming study, tentatively entided Stresemann's territorial revisionism: Germany, Belgium and the Eupen-Malmédy question 1919–1929 (to be published in the ‘Veröffendichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte’, Mainz); as well as the important unpublished paper of Jacques Bariéty, ‘Le pro jet de retrocession d'Eupen–Malmédy par la Belgique à L'Allemagne, et la France (1925–1926). Un cas d'utilisation d'une arme financière en politique internationale’, Colloque Franco–Beige in Metz, 15–16 November 1974. For a view on Eupen-Malmédy which is both less critical and less informed, see Grathwol, Robert, ‘Germany and the Eupen-Malmédy affair 1924–26: “Here lies the spirit of Locarno”’, Central European History, vii, 3 (09. 1975), 221–50.Grathwol neither asks nor answers the central question why Stresemann wanted to regain Eupen-Malmédy.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Stresemann, Gustav, Vermächtnis: Der Nachlass in drei Bänden, vol. II, ed. by Bernhard, Henry (Berlin, 1932), p. 478.Google Scholar

22 Cited in: Bariety, , ‘Le projet de rétrocession d';Eupen-Malmédy’, p. 25.Google Scholar

23 Cited in: Jacobson, , Locarno diplomacy, p. 246Google Scholar. See also Austen Chamberlain's most revealing ‘Preface to: Stresemann, Gustav, Essays and speeches on various subjects (Freeport, N.Y., 1968; orig. pub. 1930), p. 8.Google Scholar

24 Lockhart, Bruce, Retreat from glory (New York, 1934), p. 339Google Scholar. Very similar sentiments are expressed in Stresemann's letter to Lord D'Abernon of 30 March 1929, in: Stresemann, Vermächtnis, III, 392–5.Google Scholar

25 See Weinberg, Gerhard L., ‘The defeat of Germany in 1918 and the European balance of power’, Central European History, I, 3 (09. 1969), 248–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 See for example, ‘Sitzungen des Zentralvorstandes der DVP’, Köln, 1 October 1996, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, R45 II/41. In this speech to his party, Stresemann complained bitterly about the ‘eternal scorn and ridicule’ aimed at his policies, ‘from Monday through Sunday’, with the question always being: ‘was hast du in dieser Woche nach Hause gebracht?’

27 Stünner, Michael, ‘Parliamentary government in Weimar Germany, 1924–1928’, in: German democracy arid the triumph of Hitler: essays in recent German history, ed. by Nicholls, Anthony and Matthias, Erich (London, 1971), pp. 59–77.Google Scholar

28 Schwarz, Gotthard, Theodor Wolff und das ‘Berliner Tageblatt’: Eine liberate Stimme in der deutschen Politik 1906–1933 (Tubingen, 1968), p. 182.Google Scholar

29 Feder, Ernst, Heule sprach ich mit… Tagebücher eines Berliner Publizisten 1926–1932, ed. by Lowenthal-Hensel, C. von and Paucker, Arnold (Stuttgart, 1971), p. 76.Google Scholar For Stresemann's speech of 21 September 1926, usually called ‘Gambrinusrede’, see Akten tur deutschen Auswärtigen Politik, Series B, vol. I, 2, 665–9.Google Scholar

30 Most prominently, the thesis is stated in Zimmermann, Ludwig, Deutsche Aussenpolitik in der Weimarer Republik (Göttingen, 1928), p. 474Google Scholar. An earlier, more qualified, version appears in Holborn, Hajo, The Political collapse of Europe (New York, 1951), p. 131Google Scholar; and a more recent partial restatement of it was made by von Rheinbaben in Locarno und die Weltpolitik 1924–1932, ed. Rossler, Hellmuth and Holzle, Erwin (Gottingen, 1969), pp. 50–1Google Scholar, All the authors may be regarded as ‘survivors’ of the Weimar Republic.

31 Erich Matthias, ‘The influence of the Versailles treaty on the internal development of the Weimer Republic’, in: German democracy and the triumph of Hitler, pp. 13–28.Google Scholar

32 Turner, Henry Ashby Jr., Stresemann and the politics of the Weimar Republic (Princeton, N.J., 1963), p. 267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 See Maier, Charles S., Recasting bourgeois Europe: stabilization in France, Germany, and Italy in the decade after World War I (Princeton, 1975).Google Scholar

34 Ruge, Wolfgang, ‘Stresemann-ein Leitbild?’, Blätter für deutsche und Internationale Politik, XIV (1969), 473Google Scholar. It may be interesting to note that not only Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt, as Ruge points out, have commented favourably on Stresemann; Franz-Josef Strauss, too, in his ‘Foreword’ to Rheinbaben's Memoirs (see above, footnote 16) has made positive remarks.

35 Ruge, Wolfgang, Stresemann: Ein Lebensbild (Berlin, 1966), p. 223.Google Scholar

36 Henry Ashby Turner, Jr., ‘Stresemann and the problem of continuity in German foreign policy’, paper read before the Georgetown History Forum, 11 October 1975.

37 See Knauss, Bernhard, ‘Politik ohne Waffen: Dargestellt an der Diplomatic Stresemanns’, Zeitschrift für Politik X (1963), 249–56.Google Scholar The article delineates Stresemann's diplomatic skill but Knauss notes: ‘Die Aussenpolitik der Weimarer Republik musste als Diplomatie ohne Waffen geführt werden.’ On German civil-military relations, see the useful work of Post, Gaines Jr., The civil-military fabric of Weimar foreign policy (Princeton, N.Y., 1973).Google Scholar

38 This was, I believe, the central point of Deak's critique of Turner's remarks at the Georgetown History Forum, 11 October 1975.

39 See especially Hillgruber, Andreas, Kontinuität und Diskontinuität in der deutschen Aussenpolitik von Bismarck bis Hitler (Düsseldorf, 1969).Google Scholar

40 Popper, Karl R., ‘Prediction and prophecy in the social sciences’, in Theories of history, ed. by Gardiner, Patrick (Glencoe, III., 1951) p. 281Google Scholar. I am indebted to my colleague George M. Dennison for pointing out this quotation.

41 See Maxelon, , Stresemann und Frankreich, p. 298Google Scholar. My statement derives from Maxelon's somewhat more complex and less direct last sentences, which read:’ Vielleicht hätte er [den Krieg bejaht], vielleicht hatte er aber auch Hider und folglich den Zweiten Weltkrieg verhindert. Nicht verhindern konnte er allerdings, dass gerade durch seine (offensiv geplante und so auch proklamierte) “Verständigungspolitik” mit Frankreich nationale Revisionsziele in weiten Teilen des deutschen Voikes gefährliche Illusionen lebending erhielten.’

42 Gatzke, Hans W., ed., Europe between two wars 1919–1939 (Chicago, 1972), p. 4.Google Scholar

43 Tucholsky, Kurt, ‘Ein Betrunkener in der Wilhelmstrasse’, in Die Deutsche Literatur, vol. VII, 20Google Scholar. Jahrhundert, , Texte und Zeugnisse 1880–1933, ed. by Killy, Walther (München, 1967), pp. 812–13Google Scholar. The following translation hopefully captures the spirit of these lines: ‘Who'll think about the silly corridor if you don't always yell about it? Of course it's fouled up - because all of Europe is fouled up. But do you think things will get better if you take the corridor back from the Pollacks again? Then everything will start all over again…’ Tucholsky's view was supported forty years later by Holborn, Hajo, A history of modern Germany 1840–1945 (New York, 1969), p. 627Google Scholar: ‘[Germany's] aim should have been to make the frontiers invisible rather than to revise them.’