Seminar Questions:

• How revolutionary were the events of 1918-19 for Germany?

• Why did the Republic survive its difficult early years?
• How much continuity was there between the politics of Imperial Germany and the Weimar Republic?

Reading List:

Required Reading:

• Anthony McElligott, 'Political Culture', in Anthony McElligott (ed.), Weimar Germany (OUP, 2009), pp. 26-49
• Michael Dreyer, 'Weimar as a "Militant Democracy"' in J. Hung, G. Weiss‐Sussex & G. Wilkes (eds.), Beyond Glitter and Doom: The Contingency of the Weimar Republic (Munich, 2012). (On the theory of 'militant democracy see also articles by Lowenstein and Müller below)

Primary Sources:

• Karl Liebknecht's Call for Revolution (1 Nov. 1918)
• The Kiel Sailors’ Revolt: Fourteen Points Raised by the Soldiers’ Council (November 4, 1918)
• Stinnes-Legien Agreement (November 15, 1918)
• The Weimar Constitution (1919)

Further Reading:

Revolution and 'Years of Crisis':

• Conan Fischer, '"A Very German Revolution"? The Post-1918 Settlement Re-Evaluated', Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, Vol. XXVIII, No. 2 (2006), pp. 6-32
• Robert Gerwarth, ‘The Central European Counter‐Revolution: Paramilitary Violence in Germany, Austria and Hungary After the Great War’, Past and Present, No. 200 (2008), pp. 175–209
• Richard Bessel, Germany After the First World War (Clarendon, 1993)
• William A. Pelz, A People's History of the German Revolution (Pluto Press, 2018)
• Robert Gerwarth, November 1918: The German Revolution (OUP, 2020)
• Pierre Broué, The German Revolution 1917–1923, transl. John Archer (2006).
• Kirsten Heinsohn; Anthony McElligott; Klaus Weinhauer (eds.), Germany 1916-1923: A Revolution in Context (transcript-Verlag, 2015)
• Volker Weidermann, Dreamers: When the Writers Took Power, Germany 1919 (Pushkin Press, 2018)
• Mark Jones, Founding Weimar: Violence and the German Revolution of 1918-1919 (Cambridge, 2016)
• Gaard Kets; James Muldoon (eds.), The German Revolution and Political Theory (Palgrave, 2019)
• Peter Fritzsche, ‘Breakdown or Breakthrough? Conservatives and the November Revolution’, in Jones and Retallack (eds.), Between Reform, Reaction and Resistance (Berg Publishers, 1993), pp. 299‐328.
• Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a revolution: Germany 1918-19 (Deutsch, 1973)
• Alan Mitchell, Revolution in Bavaria, 1918-1919 (Princeton, 1965)
• Ralf Hoffrogge; Joseph B. Keady (eds.), Working Class Politics in the German Revolution (Brill, 2015)
• Ruth Henig, The Weimar Republic, 1919-1933 (Routledge, 1999), Chapters 1 and 2
• Eberhard Kolb, The Weimar Republic (Second Edition) (P. S. Falla and R. J. Park, trans.) (2005), pp. 3‐52.
• Martin Cormack, Wild Socialism: Workers Councils in Revolutionary Berlin, 1918-21 (University Press of America, 2012)
• Wolfgang Mommsen, ‘The German Revolution 1918‐1920: Political Revolution and Social Protest Movement’, in Richard Bessel & E. J. Feuchtwanger (eds.), Social Change and Political Development in Weimar Germany, (Barnes and Nobles Books, 1981), pp. 21‐54.
• Reinhard Rurup, 'Problems of the German Revolution 1918-19', Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 3, No. 4 (1968), pp. 109-135
• Colin Storer, A Short History of the Weimar Republic (I. B. Tauris, 2013) - Chapter 1

Political Culture in the Weimar Republic:

• Ben Fowkes, The German Left and the Weimar Republic: A Selection of Documents (Brill, 2014)
• Larry Eugene Jones (ed.), The German Right and the Weimar Republic (Beghahan, 2014)
• Anthony McElligott, Rethinking the Weimar Republic (Bloomsbury, 2014), Chapters 2-4
• Manuela Achilles, ‘Reforming the Reich: Democratic Symbols and Rituals in the Weimar Republic’ in Kathleen Canning, Kerstin Brandt and Kristin McGuire (eds.), Weimar Publics/Weimar Subjects: Rethinking the Political Culture of Germany in the 1920s (Oxford, 2010).
• Manuela Achilles, 'With a Passion for Reason: Celebrating the Constitution in Weimar Germany', Central European History, Vol. 43, No. 4 (2010), pp. 666-689
• Manuela Achilles, 'Anchoring the Nation in the Democratic Form: Weimar Symbolic Politics beyond the Failure Paradigm', in Geoff Eley, Jennifer L. Jenkins, and Tracie Matysik (eds.), German Modernities from Wilhelm to Weimar: A Contest of Futures (Bloomsbury 2016), pp. 259-81
• Richard Bessel, ‘The “Front Generation” and the Politics of Weimar Germany’ in Roseman, M. (ed.), Generations in Conflict; Youth Revolt and Generation Formation in Germany 1770–1968 (Cambridge, 1995).
• Eric Bryden, "Heroes and Martyrs of the Republic: Reichsbanner Geschichtspolitik in Weimar Germany", Central European History, 43, 4 (December 2010), pp 666 ‐ 689.
• Rudiger Graf, 'Either-Or: The Narrative of "Crisis" in Weimar Germany and Historigraphy', Central European History, 43, 4 (2010), pp. 592-615
• Moritz Follmer, 'Which Crisis? Which Modernity? New Perspectives on Weimar Germany' in J. Hung, G. Weiss‐Sussex & G. Wilkes (eds.), Beyond Glitter and Doom: The Contingency of the Weimar Republic (2012)
• Stephen E. Hanson, Post-Imperial Democracies (Cambridge, 2010), Chapter 5
• Larry Eugene Jones, German Liberalism and the Dissolution of the Weimar Party System (University of North Carolina Press, 1988)
• William Mulligan, ‘The Reichswehr and the Weimar Republic’ in Anthony McElligott (ed.), Weimar Germany (Oxford, 2009).
• Colin Storer, A Short History of the Weimar Republic (I. B. Tauris, 2013) - Chapter 2
• Dirk Schumann, Political Violence in the Weimar Republic, 1918–1933 (Thomas Dunlap, trans.) (2009)

On the Theory of 'Militant Democracy':

• Karl Lowenstein, 'Militant Democracy and Fundamental Rights, I', The American Political Science Review, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Jun., 1937), pp. 417-432
• Karl Lowenstein, 'Militant Democracy and Fundamental Rights II', The American Political Science Review, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Aug., 1937), pp. 638-65
• Jan-Werner Müller, 'Militant Democracy' in Michel Rosenfeld and András Sajó (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law (OUP, 2012)