An unexpected path to modernisation: The case of German artisans during the second world war

Contemporary European History

Volumn 5, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 401-426

  Mckitrick, Frederick L ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 34247691516     PISSN: 09607773     EISSN: 14692171     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0960777300003933     Document Type: Review

References (61)

1. See also Peter Baldwin, 'Social Interpretations of Nazism: Reviewing a Tradition', Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 25 (1990), 5-37
2. Indeed, it was precisely during this period of greatest threat that the notion of a Golden Age of the Guilds took shape as part of the shared historical experience of German artisans. But as with most feelings of nostalgia, artisanal historical memories were quite selective; see Shulamit Volkov, The Rise of Popular Antimodernism in Germany: The Urban Master Artisans, 1873-1896 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 23
3. For the position of the SPD, see Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des deutschen Reichstags, 1873-97, 24 Nov. 1891
4. A summary of these studies may be found in Hans Grandke, 'Die vom "Verein für Sozialpolitik" Veranstalteten Untersuchungen über die Lage des Handwerks in Deutschland', Schmollers Jahrbuch, Vol. 21 (1897), 1,031-88
5. David Blackbourn, Class, Religion and Local Politics in Wilhelmine Germany: The Centre Party in Württemberg before 1914 (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1980), 145
6. See Volkov, The Rise of Popular Antimodernism, 85. This process of adaptation was seen not only in traditional trades like shoemaker and watchmaker, which had been undergoing a long-term transition to repair work, but in the growth of entirely new trades like machine mechanic which prospered along with industrial expansion
7. Wilhelm Wernet, Handwerkpolitik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1952)
8. For example, Theodor Geiger, 'Panic im Mittelstand', in Die Arbeit, Vol. 7 (1930), 637-54
9. Heinrich August Winkler, Mittelstand, Demokratie und Nationalsozialismus: Die politische Entwicklung von Handwerk und Kleinhandel in der Weimarer Republik (Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1972), 66-7, 70, 74
10. For the electoral reaction, see Thomas Childers, The Nazi Voter: The Social Foundations of Fascism in Germany, 1919-1933 (Chapel Hill/London: University of North Carolina Press, 1983), 66-80
11. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1960)
12. See also Talcott Parsons, 'Some Sociological Aspects of the Fascist Movement', in Talcott Parsons, Essays in Sociological Theory (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1954)
13. For one critical view of these ideas, see Val Burris, 'The Discovery of the New Middle Class,' Theory and Society, Vol. 15, no. 3 (1986), 324-43
14. Jeremy Noakes, The Nazi Party in Lower Saxony, 1921-1933 (London: Oxford University Press, 1971)
15. Adelheid von Saldem, Mittelstand im 'Dritten Reich': Handwerker- Einzelhändler-Bauem (Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag, 1979)
16. For examples see William Sheridan Allen, The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town, 1930-1935 (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965), 103, 132-3
17. For example, Arthur Schweitzer, Big Business in the Third Reich (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1964), chs 3, 4
18. Heinrich August Winkler, 'Der entbehrliche Stand. Zur Mittelstandspolitik im "Dritten Reich"', Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, Vol. 17 (1977), 1-40
19. Schoenbaum, Hitler's Social Revolution, 129-32
20. Von Saldern is the exception here; see her comments on Winkler in '"Alter Mittelstand" im "Dritten Reich"', Geschichte und Gesellschaft, Vol. 12 (1986), 235-43
21. See Winkler, 'Der entbehrliche Stand'
22. Valentin Chesi, Struktur und Funktionen der Handwerksorganisation in Deutschland seit 1933 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1966), 46-7, 73-80
23. see also Bernhard Keller, Das Handwerk im faschistischen Deutschland (Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein Verlag, 1980), 71-85
24. Theodore Hamerow, 'The German Artisan Movement, 1848/49', Journal of Central European Affairs, Vol. 21 (1961), 135-52
25. The ease of 'co-ordination' in the case of artisans - who were well disposed towards the regime and whose desires conformed to the particular form it took - may be contrasted with that of the working class whose hostility had led the Nazis to disband the unions altogether before replacing them with their own workers' organisations. See Hans Meusch, 'Das Handwerk im neuen Reich', Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Stalistik, Vol. 141 (1935), 301-31
26. For details, see Schweitzer, Big Business in the Third Reich, chs 3, 4, who interprets this period as one during which the artisanal movement was defeated and subjected to big business
27. Besides the certificate of competency, which some hoped would restrict the supply of artisans, other demands made by reactionaries - and refused by the regime - included a whole series of tax, credit, insurance measures designed to limit competition from big business. See Schweitzer, Big Business and the Third Reich, 113-17
28. von Saldern, Mittelstand im 'Dritten Reich', 31-56
29. For the economic vitality of West German artisans, see Theo Beckermann, Das Handwerk -Gestem und Heute, Schriftenreihe, New Ser., No. 15 (Essen: Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsfbrschung, 1959)
30. For their conservative voting habits, see Arnold J. Heidenheimer, 'La structure confessionnelle, sociale et régionale de la CDU', Revue Française de Science Politique, Vol. 7, no. 3 (1957). 626-45
31. 'Das deutsche Handwerk im Aufschwung', Völkische Beobachter, 1 July 1939
32. See Timothy W. Mason, Sozialpolitik im Dritten Reich: Arbeiterklasse und Volksgemeinschaft, 2nd Ed. (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1978), 270
33. For Bavaria, see Ian Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich: Bavaria 1933-1945 (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 316-17
34. Meldungen aus dem Reich, 17 Nov. 1939, 11
35. Melungen aus dem Reich, 3 June 1940, 21-2
36. see also Milward, The German Economy at War, 7-9
37. RWM memo, 'Berücksichtigung des Handwerks bei der Umlegung der Erzeugungspläne', 8 Jan. 1940
38. Ibid
39. 2 & 3 Verordnung über den vorläufigen Aufbau des deutschen Handwerks; Reichsgesetzblatt I (RGB1), 14, 15
40. See also Chesi, Struktur und Funktionen der Handwetksorgamsation, 45-7
41. On this issue, see the references in note 19 above. I contend here that artisanal influence was not political but rather economic and emerged first in war
42. See Frederick L. McKitrick, 'Old World Craftsmen into Modern Capitalists: Artisans in Germany from National Socialism to the Federal Republic, 1939-1953', PhD thesis (Columbia University, 1994), 208-13
43. And Deutscher Handwerks- und Gewerbekammertag, Report for 2nd Quarter 1941; BA, R7/4106, item 371-377
44. Meldungen aus dem Reich, Jan. 12, 1940, 12-13; BA, R58/147, Item 47-48
45. (Reichssministerium für Rüstung und Kriegsproduktion, RMRK). On Speer's contribution to building up Germany's war economy, see Milward, The German Economy at War, ch. 4
46. Herbst, Der Totale Krieg
47. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, 214
48. Ibid
49. A. R. L. Gurland, The Fate of Small Business in Germany, Senate Committee Print, 1943, 105
50. 'Musterrahmenvertrag für die Einschaltung von Handwerksbetrieben in die Rüstungsfertigung' (RMRK), I March 1944; BA, R3/1770, Item 4-5
51. 'Entwurf einer Anordnung des Chefs des Rüstungslieferungsamtes' (Walter Schieber, Chief of the Supply Department, RMRK), Oct. 1943; BA, R3/1770, Item 29
52. Gurland, The Fate of Small Business in Germany, 106
53. For the modernising and integrative functions of artisanal organisations in the post-war period, see McKitrick, 'Old World Craftsmen into Modern Capitalists', part IV
54. On Speer's organisational system, see Rolf Wagenfuhr, Die deutsche Industrie im Kriege 1939-1945 (Berlin: 1954)
55. Chesi, Struktur und Funktionen der Handwerksorganisation, 118-19
56. See also von Saldern, 'The Old Mittelstand, 42-3
57. Von Saldem, Mittelstand im 'Dritten Reich', 181-82
58. and Koshar, Splintered Classes
59. Beckermann, Ausiese, Wachstum und Differenzierung, 18
60. Siewert, Strukturwandlungen des Handwerks, 8
61. Beckerman, Auslese, Wachstum und Differenzierung, 17