9/21 - 9/27 Blog Post

I found the discussions on mass politics to be pretty fascinating, while I think it's pretty apparent that governments are willing to do whatever it takes to keep their power, seeing a specific example of it in practice and what it (possibily) led to is eye opening. In the article "Populists and Patricians", the author gives yet another explanation for the difference in Germany's historical development as compared to the other countries of Europe, mentioning that agriculture was still very much a way of life for many Germans, moreso than the English. Factor in the lack of education that most of these workers and peasants, and you've got an opportunity to shape their political beliefs in whatever manner you want, which they were given an opportunity when the rail became the dominate form of travel. That said, despite the article's attempt to explain the peasants of Germany as being a more powerful group of people, I still feel like he gives them a little bit too much credit. Reading the article, I definitely felt that it seemed more like the German government was just trying to find another group of people to use, and this time they had the dissatisfied peasants still reliant on farming to provide for themselves and their families. While the German government did integrate a lot of the policies that these activist groups were looking for, I feel like the only reason they gave as much as they did was because they knew they had an angry, rebellious group on their hands that if they lit the fuse at the right time, would have something very powerful under their control. Later in "Populists and Patricians" the author mentions how this rise in mass politics essentially destroyed whatever remaining power the liberals had, and even seemed to do some damage to the more centrist groups, which seems like the goal that Bismarck was trying to achieve during his entire reign. While the liberals had been neutered for a long time, it seems to me like the government was concerned with them having any presence on the political stage, as though that would cause irreparable damage to whatever plans they had. I do feel like I'm reading into things a bit too much, so any comments would be welcome.

Week of 14 - 20 September Post

Most of the lectures and discussions this week seemed to center around the failings of the liberals in Germany, and their inability to keep the conservatives from pushing their radical viewpoints, leading to the creation of the so called "Second Reich". That said, I feel like it's almost too easy to just blame everything on the liberals, mostly because their failings were most noticeable. First of all, it assumes that if the liberals had the power, that they would've essentially done a perfect job in governing the country, something that I think wouldn't have happened. Later on in the Germany Empire of 1871 essay, the author seems to imply that the liberals did have a decent amount of power in the government, though they refused to work against Bismarck due to the amount of profit they were making through his trade policies. The desire for a unified Germany also seems to have worked against the liberals, it's easy to see that they might have thought that any attempt at going against Bismarck would have a negative effect on the unification. I do agree with the idea that if Germany showed any signs of trying to re-organize their government, some other European country would have probably attacked and succeded, and maybe even caused the rest of Europe feeling the need to take up arms, and starting a World War 1 conflict earlier on (I feel like we talked about this during the discussion, but it is something I think worth re-examining). Though I'm also left to wonder if a massive war in Europe centered around Germany was inevitable, and maybe starting it earlier would have been hypothetically "better". Tying in with the "Macht in der Mitte" theory, I think Germany's strategic location meant that it would be involved in any European conflict, I'm not sure how much trouble Russia and Asia were expected to cause, but I can easily see the various governments thinking that Germany would offer a strategic location. At the end, I feel like it's impossible to section out any one period of German (or European) history and claim that that particular period was where it all went wrong.