Kehr’s Concept Of The Primacy Of Domestic Policy In German Foreign Policy Essay, Research Paper

An extreme

revisionist, Eckart Kehr?s essays were greeted by contemporaries with

disgust.? Seen as an attempt to

denigrate the motives of the men who, before 1914 had laboured faithfully for

the national interest: an accusation all the more bitter when aimed at someone

of Kehr?s heritage.? Kehr was the

product of a long line of Prussian civil servants on his mother side, the son

of the director of the Ritterakademie in Brandenburg an der Havel, the nephew

of the Director of the Prussian state archives and the student of Friedrich

Meinecke and Hans Rothfels.? This is

perhaps typical of a historian who acquired a reputation for troublemaking in

his short career.? The resentment of

fellow historians was something that Kehr enjoyed inciting, and as a

revisionist, Kehr was not scared to make extremist claims in order to make an

impact, even when it would seem clear that he lacked sufficient evidence.? His language, in another example of his

revisionism, was not the measured, well-scripted literature of Ranke or

Meinecke.? Often repetitious in a way

that does little for his argument, Kehr?s literary style is often terse, dense

and difficult to follow.? It has been

said that Kehr wrote in language more usually found in Marxist tracts than his

own SPD-sympathetic sector, notably when he was pursuing his thesis that all

foreign policy decisions were subordinate to domestic socio-economic factors.? These are all factors that, to me, once

drawn to my attention, reduced the effectiveness of his arguments, some of

which, thanks to their language, are unpersuasive as it is. Kehr?s thesis

regarding the domestic primacy over foreign policy is that a foreign policy is

a product of its hinterland.? Kehr

believed that one can not only look at the antagonists in a foreign policy

situation, but that the social structure of the Reich must also come under

scrutiny.? Claiming it is a simple, yet

often overlooked point, Kehr is keen to remind his reader that the German

nation?s social needs and wills were the shareholders in the state?s foreign

policy.? Although he rejects the

Versailles guilt clause as ?absurd,? he was prepared to admit that the

situation in Germany in the 1890s set Germany on course for fleet expansion and

rejection of alliance with England. Foreign policy has obvious effects on

certain parties and classes, yet any parties within the state will be affected

by the social and economic effects of policy first and foremost.? No revolutions or rebellions have ever

occurred because of foreign policy; they occur because of the domestic

situation.? Even conservatives for whom

national greatness is to be perceived as a goal, it must be remembered, want

national greatness only for propaganda purposes and pursue their warlike goals

simply as a means of maintaining the agrarian status quo.? For bourgeois liberals, the line between

foreign and domestic policy, in that both were responses to the socio-economic

conditions of the country is blurred, and in 1859, Prussian liberals famously

criticised the government for their failure to represent the national

interest.? Attacking

Ranke?s thesis about the unofficial primacy of foreign policy for Germany, Kehr

sees the development of foreign policy into the Wilhelmine period as a movement

from foreign policy as a weapon of the middle classes against the state as a

state weapon against the proletariat. German

conservatism carried a hatred of the dark, satanic mills and the urbanised

world and its desire to maintain the balance of power in the hands of the rural

aristocracy was reflected in foreign policy, and the divide of foreign policy

between dealings with rural states and dealings with industrialised estates.? England, having the most advanced and

widespread industrial superstructure, was seen as a hated enemy, whilst the

Boers were praised for their ability to keep a land of such fertility and

promise from being turned over into industrialisation by greed.? The values of Prussian conservatives were

taken down with their Afrikaans allies at the hands of the industrial, corrupt

British.? Meinecke?s assertion that the

Boer War had the same implications for the conservatives as Koeniggraetz had

for Napoleon III is possibly a slight overstatement.? The ?horrible fleet? so detested by the Prussian conservatives

coming to the fore as the victorious weapon of the battalions of the

industrialised British during the Boer War was another bitter pill to

swallow.? As Kehr himself said, ?only

the English victory in the Transvaal made the fleet and weltpolitik acceptable

to the eyes of conservatives.?? The fear

of the East Elbian grain producers of the victory of British industry over the German

agrarian could not be allowed to be enacted in the Prussian grain fields.? Weltpolitik in this case was a means

of class war designed to bolster conservatism, and conservative refusal to ally

with England, the industrialists, or Russia, the rival producer, meant that in

addition to being militarist, the German aristocracy were also anti-Russian and

anti-British. Like some

German Hobson, Kehr took the pre-war SPD line that claimed to have identified

militaristic policies coming from a resultant unlikely alliance of agrarians

and industrialists. The 1890s were years of great hardship and class

conflict.? In 1879, reconciliation

between industry and agriculture occurred despite the attempts of the previous

decade by the agrarian sector to sabotage the industrial sector by tariffing

steel. This uneasy alliance, described by Zilch as an expression of `the

aggressive character of the bourgeoisie, allied with the Junkers’ `reactionary

and dangerous strivings,’ was dominated by the Prussian aristocrats. The ?New

Course?, as he called it, also claimed that militarism was also the product of

self-governing government institutions; an argument leaving room for class

interest as well as bureaucratic and departmental self-interest. ??????????? It

is certainly no myth that militarism and an aggressive foreign policy could

turn the eyes of the public away from insoluble problems.? Kehr saw the expansion of the fleet as a

means for a ?successful foreign policy, which in turn was meant to stabilise

the internal political and social position of the ruling strata against the

threat of social democracy.?? He sees

the realisation of the Reich government of the power of propaganda and the

press as coincidental with this populist placatory policy.? Johannes Miquel and Prince Buelow

undoubtedly engaged in sabre-rattling in order to strengthen the position of

the Conservatives and National Liberals, just as Bismarck had done, and there

were undoubtedly people who believed that militarism, and, if necessary, war,

would strengthen the patriarchal order and mentality and halt the advance of

Social Democracy. The resolutions to expand the fleet were endorsed by the

Handelstag, as well as several equivalent independent bodies, such as the group

of German industrialists who protested in 1898 at the Kaiserhof in an event

organised by the Reich Naval Office.?

The Merchants Corporation was typical of most commercial bodies. It

viewed the fleet expansion as a means to increasing the potential size of the

German national merchant fleet, and that all other issues were ?political? and

outside of its sphere of interest.?? The

mercantile sector, which Kehr as saw as allied as slowly joining as the junior

partner with the needs of big business, threw its lean weight, through the

means of petitions to chambers of commerce, behind the drive to build up the

fleet.? This was in response to the

seizure of a series of German steamships by a British captain checking for

contrabands throughout 1898.? The Samoan

Incident of 1900 prompted further expansion of the navy, with governmental

permission for relaxation of the navy act?s proviso limiting the size of the

navy. ?The German Right was by no means inventive in

its use of an aggressive foreign policy in order to weaken the domestic

strength of the left; it had become a set-piece manoeuvre in Napoleon III’s France

and by 1900 it was the motive for much foreign policy. In 1901, Otto von Salm

sent a letter to Tirpitz suggesting an acceleration of building works, not just

to increase the profitability of the shipyards (the Howaldt Shipyard?s shares

lost 17 points, which it regained immediately after the second Navy Act sent it

more business) but also to counter the growing threat of socialism in a

stagnating economy.? When the request

was refused, Kehr notes outrage from the Rheinisch-Westfaelische Zeitung

claiming that the ?interests of industry, labour and the German war fleet? were

being undermined. There was much less consensus

between the agrarians and industrialists than Kehr seemed to think.? In exemplar, Paasche and Dewitz, two

National Liberal deputies for rural wards, were forced by the Agrarian League

to rescind membership of the Army League, as the agrarian league thought a

bigger army to be too radical an idea.?

That anti-militarism of that calibre lurked in Prussian conservatism

means that the idea of a ?National Opposition? occupying the Imperial Court in

the lead up to the First World War is redundant.? In 1908, Buelow, conscious of the possible problem of militarism

leading to war, told the Crown Prince that Nowadays no war can be declared unless a whole people is

convinced that such a war is necessary and just. A war, lightly provoked, even

if it were fought successfully, would have a bad effect on the country, while

if it ended in defeat, it might entail the fall of the dynasty …According to

Wehler, a student of Kehr?s school of thought, the arms contracts won by the

industrialists were not only an economic boon, but would also serve as a break

on the growing wave of socialism and social democracy within Germany.? Acting as a drum for the nationalists to

beat, a great army or navy could turn attention away from the Reich?s

anti-democratic political system, and that was the main motive for the policy

of fleet-building.The

ship-building was just one facet of the German Anglophobia.? The ruling strata?s foreign policy was

opposite to the one demanded by the ruled strata.? Just as the SDP demanded an alliance with England, the

conservatives demanded hostile action against England.? The idea that this clean split along

socio-economic lines could be the result purely of interest in governmental

issues, and not socio-economics, seems absurd to Kehr, who seems again to

over-reach himself in perceiving a cleanliness of division that probably did

not exist. The

conservatives apparently wanted to protect their status and income by using the

navy to shut off all contact with the world economy, an economy that superceded

their interests.? These were people to

whom even the national state was just a tool to keep them satisfied.? This would seem, once again, to be a

revisionist over-revising. Kehr claimed

that the theory was best explored in around 1900.? The tariff and navy laws were admittedly passed out of a sense of

class conflict; a conflict that spilt onto the world stage.? The social crisis of the 1890s was resolved

by the Sammlungspolitik at the expense of the proletariat, in a politik that

could not separate the domestic political life from the foreign policies that

resulted from them. The

Sammlungpolitik which led to an anti-English and anti-Russian mentality was the

result of the liberal industrialists wish to eliminate English competition and

of the conservative agrarians to eliminate Russian competition.? The competition with Russia for grain led to

expansion westwards through an increased merchant fleet: a consequence that

brought Germany directly into conflict with Britain.? When the conservatives in the Reichstag Budget Commission

supported the battle fleet in 1900, we know that it was in order to win greater

subsidies.? Thus, the agrarians gave up

their pastoral outlook, their anti-capitalist, anti-Stock Exchange view, in

exchange for national security and money.?

Instead of pouring money into capital-starved Russia, the Germans poured

it into a battle fleet ? a purchase resonant with the primacy of the

agrarians.? This conflict with Britain

and Russia would force the Entente Cordiale, as the only area on which the

agrarians and industrialists agreed was in Anglophobia.? Although this was briefly forgotten as the

greed-driven anti-Russian sentiment overrode the Anglophobia as the English

blockade on Russian imports was upheld by Prussia, the East Elbian xenophobia

was a dominant theme of the era. ??????????? Kehr

does explain this predominance of domestic policy quite simply.? The placement of the Chancellor as the

officer in charge of all things, foreign and domestic, would mean the two would

be interlinked.? The manipulation of the

office by the East Elbian sector and the liberal industrial sector would be the

factor that would lead most decisively to the foreign policy of the era, a

foreign policy dictated by the needs of these persons at home.