Sonderweg

• Sonderweg


  The theory that Germany industrialised rapidly in the late 19th century but did not democratise
• Sonderweg theory


  • Proposed by Fritz Fischer and Hans Ulrich-Wehler
  • Argues that industrialisation in Germany was very successful and coincided with the period of autocracy under the kaisers
  • Germany was powerful because of an efficient civil service and 'reform' from above (e.g. unification of 1871)
  • Reached a climax in the years leading up to 1914
  • German autocrats were successful in rewriting the narrative of World War One not least through the myth of Dolchstosslegende (teleology)
  • The weakness of liberal democracy continued to be a powerful force in German political thinking
  • These attitudes hindered the development of liberal democracy and facilitated the rise of Nazism which was never the intended outcome of the autocrats within German policy
• Meta-narrative


  The theory that Germany is instinctively autocratic and predisposed, with a natural psyche to associate autocracy with success, underpinning all events
• Postmodernist view


  • Rejects the meta-narrative
  • Works with more granular theories of Johnson & Gellately, Peukert
  • Rejects tautology
  • Rejects 'great man history'
  • Need to look at history from the bottom-up
• Criticism of Sonderweg theory

  • By Geoffrey Eley and David Blackburn
  • Dismissed Sonderweg theory as a western view of history
  • Argued for normalisation and evolution of democracy
  • Sonderweg is abnormal
  • Dismisses the German experience
  • Rejects cultural relativism