Germany 1916–23

This collection of papers, edited by Klaus Weinhauer, Anthony McElligott and Kirsten Heinsohn, given at a conference devoted to taking a new look at Harry Kessler’s ‘un-revolutionary revolution’ in Germany in 1918/19 is, as so often in such cases, something of a curate’s egg. The period was studied in great detail during the 1960s and ’70s, a fact that is played down in the introduction, where it is claimed that little attention was paid to the Kapp putsch and its origins, and that paramilitary violence has ‘only recently’ gained scholarly attention. Emphasis here is on the methodological shortcomings of historians of an earlier generation. They, apparently, tended to ignore ‘cultural-historical questions’ and the ‘existential aspect’ of the period. They failed to see that revolutionary aspirations exist in a ‘dreamland’ and that fear, anxiety and security are all ‘gendered imaginaries’. They overlooked the fact that the experience of defeat led to a marked increase in domestic violence, in part because soldiers in a lost war were themselves losers and took it out on their women. Nevertheless, violence itself is ‘never senseless’ and always a ‘communicative act’

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