An ancient analogy has it that the family simultaneously is a source of inspiration and of legitimization for the political order. With attention to the interactions between family imagery, familial structures, intrafamilial relationships, and premodern Western political imagination, this chapter argues that until modern times, the analogy predominated political theories and understandings, and traditional imagery of family and the political order were largely static. The rise of liberalism caused the collapse of these ideas and demanded new definitions, articulations, and justifications.

Chapter 13 examines the period from the campaign for the May 1928 Reichstag elections to Alfred Hugenberg’s election as DNVP party chairman in October 1928. The DNVP went down to stunning defeat in the May elections that stemmed in large part from the success of middle-class and agrarian splinter parties to cannibalize the Nationalist electorate. The defeat was followed by a bitter internal crisis in which Westarp found himself such heavy attack from Hugenberg that he resigned his seat as DNVP party chairman. This was followed by a bitter fight for the DNVP party chairmanship that found Hugenberg’s opponents so badly organized that they were unable to block his election as Westarp’s successor in October 1928. Hugenberg’s election to the DNVP chairmanship represented a critical turning point in the history of the Weimar Republic and signaled the complete collapse of Stresemann’s efforts to stabilize Germany’s republican system of government from the Right.