Thomas Rohkramer

Antimodernism, Reactionary Modernism and National Socialism. Technocratic Tendencies in Germany, 1890–1945

The article looks critically at attempts to explain the rise of National Socialism in Germany by trying to identify a peculiarly German tradition of antimodernism or reactionary modernism (by, among others, Jeffrey Herf). By looking at different critiques of civilisation in imperial Germany, it tries to show that most of them accepted the necessity of modern technology. What was new about the so-called ‘reactionary modernists’ in the Weimar Republic was not their willingness to use modern technology, but the full acceptance of the fact that modern technology could only exist on the basis of large technological systems, industrial production and fundamental social and cultural changes. They demanded that Germans unreservedly embrace all aspects of modernity, though without giving up their conservative political ideals. While the ‘reactionary modernists’ tried to arrange the whole of society in accordance with an alleged technological functionality, National Socialism was politically more successful, exactly because its attitude towards technology and modernity was less coherent. As National Socialism had a purely pragmatic and open attitude towards technology, it could accept without hesitation that its goals were only achievable through the use of modern means, but that the cultural and private sphere should compensate for the deficits of a public life characterised by hardship and instrumental reason

Visual Arts in Germany, 1849-1945

Shearer West, The Visual Arts in Germany 1890–1937. Utopia and Despair, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2000; xiv + 242 pp.; 0719052793 (pbk), £17.99 Anthony McElligott, The German Urban Experience 1900–1945. Modernity and Crisis, London and New York, Routledge, 2001; xiv + 295 pp.; 0415121140 (hbk), £65.00; 0415121159 (pbk), £19.99 Peter Paret, German Encounters with Modernism, 1840–1945, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001; xi + 271 pp.; 0521794560 (pbk), £19.95 Janet Ward, Weimar Surfaces. Urban Visual Culture in 1920s Germany, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, University of California Press, 2001; xiv + 358 pp; 0520222997, £12.95 Michael H. Kater, Das ‘Ahnenerbe’ der SS 1935–1945. Ein Beitrag zur Kulturpolitik des Dritten Reiches, München, Oldenbourg, 2001 (3rd edition); 529 pp.; 348656529X, £66.80 Jonathan Petropoulos, The Faustian Bargain. The Art World in Nazi Germany, London and New York, Penguin, 2001; xvii + 395 pp.; £8.99

Book Review: Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris

history which is more than a text book might well be anachronistic. What, then, is the benefit of this book? It can serve students without a knowledge of German to get a taster of major untranslated publications, it can be used as a short-cut to gain an impression of rather lengthy works or controverisal research areas and it raises important issues about historians one already knows. On all accounts, a useful book.