From Recovery to Catastrophe: Municipal Stabilization and Political Crisis (Monographs in German History, 3)

Lieberman, Ben

ISBN 10: 1571811044 ISBN 13: 9781571811042

Publisher: Berghahn Books, 1998

Synopsis

Historians of the stabilization phase of Weimar Germany tend to identify German recovery after the First World War with the struggle to revise reparations and control hyperinflation. Focusing primarily on economic aspects is not sufficient, however, the author argues; the financial burden of recovery was only one of several major causes of reaction against the republic. Drawing on material from major German cities, he is able to trace the emergence of strong local activism and of comprehensive and functional policies of recovery on the municipal level which enjoyed broad political backing. Ironically, these same programs that created consensus also contained the potential for destabilization: they unleashed intense debate over the needs of the consumersand the purpose and extent of public spending, and with that of government intervention more generally, which accelerated the fragmentation of bourgeois politics, leading to the final destruction of the Weimar Republic.

About this title

About the Author

Ben Lieberman teaches in the Department of Social Science at Fitchburg State College, Mass.

Edition details

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1571811044
• ISBN 13: 9781571811042
• Binding: Library Binding
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192