Germany’s Future Form of State

[MWS 21.1 (2021) 23-65] ISSN 1470-8078 doi: 10.15543/maxweberstudies.21.1.23© Max Weber Studies 2021, Global Policy Institute, University House, Coventry University London, 109 Middlesex Street, London E1 7JF. Germany’s Future Form of State Max Weber Preliminary Remark The following sketches, appearing in the Frankfurter Zeitung and here only stylistically smoothed out (additions mostly recognisable as annotations)1 , are purely political pieces written for the occasion without any claim whatsoever to ‘academic’ validity. They are only intended to show that a republican, greater German (großdeutsche) form of state— and not a greater Prussian (großpreussische) form of state—with a federal and thereby democratic character is not, as is widely believed, at all impossible, and to get discussion started.2 The conclusions will doubtlessly soon be overtaken by events, just as my text on ‘Parliament and Government in Germany’s New Order’ (1917)3 has meanwhile been overtaken; that argued from the facts of Prussian hegemony and 1. They appeared in five articles from 22 November to 5 December. The changes Weber made in section III—adding footnotes, which are flagged with prefix MW— reflect the discussions on breaking up the state of Prussia in the preliminary talks on the German National Assembly for the Constitution, 9-12 December. These have been published as ‘Beiträge zur Verfassungsfrage’ (MWG I/16: 56-90). 2. The terminology can be confusing. ‘Großdeutsch’ usually refers to the ambitions dating back to the beginning of the 19th century to create a state of all the German-speaking peoples, in particular the unification of Austria with the other German states. British historians refer to this as greater Germany rather than Great Germany. The Prussian chancellor Bismarck pursued a ‘smaller’ German solution by going to war with Austro-Hungary, in 1866, and the ‘klein-deutsch’, Prussian led, outcome was cemented in the German Reich of 1871. Here Weber wants to knock back Prussia’s hegemony in the Reich—not a ‘great[er] Prussian’ state. As becomes clear in the text, he does want to include German-speaking Austria, the rump of the old Habsburg empire, in a new federal, larger German, state. 3. ‘Parlament und Regierung im neugeordneten Deutschland. Zur politischen Kritik des Beamtentums und Parteiwesen’ (MWG I/15: 421-596); ‘Parliament and Government in Germany under a new Political Order. Towards a political critique of officialdom and the party system’ (Weber 1994: 130-271). In a letter (12 December 1918) to the publisher Duncker & Humblot Weber asked how his earlier brochure (Parliament and Government) was selling, and he remarks, ‘jetzt ist sie ja antiquiert’ (MWG II/10: 353). 24 Max Weber Studies© Max Weber Studies 2021. of the dynasties that the future situation could only be viewed through parliamentarization. The really crucial material problems (social and financial) of the new construction still remain unresolved in the lap of the future, so that for the time being only the constructions of nonbinding frameworks of a state-technical kind are possible. 15 December 1918 Max Weber I The nation, politically uneducated, stands with inadequate and dilettantish powers before the task of replacing Bismarck’s creation with something different. That creation is now over. Already for reasons of foreign policy, which were so strongly tied into his construction. First of all because the Austrian dynasty has disintegrated—seen from Bismarck’s standpoint, [this was] engineered to sacrifice 10 million Germans from membership of the Reich for the sake of politically neutralising 30 million non-Germans.4 Further, because the dynastic alliance with Russia is gone, which was based on a common interest against the Poles and neutralizing them.5 Because the military epoch of German history has come to an end. Finally, because the existing dynastic solution of the smaller German problem (des kleindeutsches Problem) is anyway as little applicable in the future as the problem itself.6 What now? Although these preliminary issues appear at the moment to be practically settled, we ask once again: parliamentary monarchy or a republic? What role actual dynastic sentiments will play in the future remains to be seen. We were loyal to them from historical memory, in Baden also because of popular opinion...