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The massive historiography dealing with the problem of Germany's development in the first half of twentieth century has been strongly influenced by the notion that certain peculiar national characteristics led Germany down a Sonderweq, or "special path," which diverged from that of other Western European nations. However, by helping to focus scholarly attention on various political, social and intellectual developments which took place in Germany in the nineteenth century, the Sonderweq thesis has distracted scholars from examining more closely the possible impact which the interplay of international relations had on Germany's development during this pivotal period. The present study examines the extent to which British foreign policy affected the growth of authoritarianism and the decline of liberalism in Prussia during the period 1848-1871, and how certain Intellectual currents in England at the time affected both the formulation and the expression of British policy regarding Prussia. By examining both the policies pursued by British statesmen at certain key points during the period 1848-1871, and the views expressed by a group of highly idealistic British liberal commentators who watched affairs in Prussia closely during this period, I have attempted to demonstrate the following: firstly, that existing interpretations of British policy regarding Prussia have overemphasized the role of liberal idealism in the calculations of British policy-makers, who appear instead to have consistently pursued pragmatic policies aimed at a Prussian-led unification of Germany; and secondly that it was this latter group of British commentators who provided policy-makers with a style of rhetoric which obfuscated the pragmatic considerations underlying British policy. Moreover, it was this same corpus of liberal, "Whig" commentary which laid the conceptual foundations for what was to become the standard interpretative approach to German history, particularly amongst Anglo-American historians writing since 1945 - the Sonderweq thesis. Thus, by separating the rhetoric from the actual practice of British policy, and by identifying the liberal biases which pervaded British liberal discourse on Prussia during this period, I have attempted to clarify Britain's role in the important developments taking place in Germany at this time, while broadening our appreciation of how and why subsequent scholarship on the German question has so readily embraced the notion that German history is "peculiar". / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

This thesis film is an overview of Nazi Germany, primarily told through the use of their own propaganda images, and structured in such a way as to make the viewer question what they think they know about the past, present, and future. This paper is a discussion of the process that went into making the film and some of the ideas connected to it that could not be brought out in the documentary.

Pfungstadt is a small German town which to date has not earned a footnote in the histories of either the Weimar Republic or the Third Reich. Based upon the efforts of men in towns like Pfungstadt (and towns which were not like Pfungstadt) the members of the Nazi party built a political structure which reached to the pinnacle upon which Adolf Hitler stood. Researching the growth of the Nazi party, the intense struggles that occurred with democratic forces, the seizure of power and the installation of a workable system of government is the problem. This thesis in no way purports to be more than a study of the history of the town of Pfungstadt between 1928 and 1935. Such a research problem demands field research. During a period of four months (September, 1971, to January, 1972) I lived in Pfungstadt. The main sources of the date which I gathered during that time were the town's newspaper, the Pfungstädter Anzeige, and the SPD newspaper, which was published in Darmstadt, the Hessischer Volksfreund. Daily accounts of the political and social events in Pfungstadt were carried in the Anzeiger; the Volksfreund contained a predominate amount of SPD party activities. Also consulted were various records from the town hall's archives. Supplementing, putting some flesh on the bones of the written records of Pfungstadt's history, were personal interviews with all of the living political leaders of the age, plus a broad cross-section of the general populace. The backbone of Pfungstadt's society was the middle class. Imbedded within that class were the seeds of Nazism. The working class was divided along political lines between the SPD (Social Democrats) and the KPD (Communists). The working class and the middle class (the bürgerlich), political competitors since the 1890's, grew wider and wider apart in political outlook with the advent of the depression in 1929. Ignoring their old association with liberalism, first a small portion, and then, by 1932, nearly the entire middle class fell into the Nazi's hands. The working class fought a double-barreled battle of its own. The KPD constantly scored the SPD for losing its “class identity” and took a sizable portion of the SPD's traditional electorate. The SPD, not desiring the radical programs of the KPD, formulated a liberal set of objectives, but was not able to stem the tide which was running for a "change." Democracy died in Pfungstadt because of the shortsighted vision of the middle class, a shortsightedness brought on by the seemingly insolvable depression. Faced with a choice, in their minds, between losing their social and political significance and voting for a change (any change) the middle class succumbed to an overwhelming political immaturity and voted for the Nazis. On March 7, 1933, with the middle class support assured, the Nazis seized power with the assistance of SA members from Darmstadt. Once in physical control of the town, a systematic series of measures assisted the Nazis in coordinating the town into their system. Everyone in Pfungstadt then was forced to pay an exorbitant price for the political blindness of the bürgerlich.

The subject of this thesis is Hermann Lietz and the Landerziehungsheime. Its purpose is to discover the sources of the Heime in Lietz's life and thought. It seeks to answer the basic question, "Why did Lietz become an educator and what were his motives in establishing the Landerziehungsheime?" The thesis is divided, generally, into three sections. The first attempts to isolate and reconstruct those events in Lietz's biography which were decisive in the shaping of the educator. The second part investigates certain aspects of the thought of J. G. Fichte, P. de Lagarde end R. Eucken, the three major intellectual influences upon the development of Lietz's idealistic Weltanschauung. The third section considers the Landerziehungsheim itself as a result of the interaction between Lietz' s concrete life experience and his philosophical-religious world-view.

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Text in German / Die wirtschaftspolitische Konzeption der Bundesrepublik Deutschland wird seit 1948 als „Soziale Marktwirtschaft“ bezeichnet. Es beruht auf den Prinzipien des Leistungswettbewerbs, geregelt durch staatliche Ordnungen und ergänzt durch einen sozialen Ausgleich. Die „Soziale Marktwirtschaft“ geht dabei einen Mittelweg zwischen einer liberalen laissezfaire Wirtschaftsordnung und einer staatlichen Planwirtschaft. Vorliegende Arbeit untersucht zum ersten Mal im Detail ein Vorläuferdokument der Sozialen Marktwirtschaft, die „Freiburger Denkschrift“ aus dem Jahr 1943. In dieser Nachkriegsordnung, eine Auftragsarbeit der „Bekennenden Kirche“, finden sich alle Grundprinzipien der später eingeführten Sozialen Marktwirtschaft, eingebettet in ein umfangreiches christliches Reformprogramm für den Wiederaufbau Deutschlands. Die Arbeit analysiert den Hintergrund der Verfasser und die Inhalte der Denkschrift. Konkret wird gezeigt, welche Überzeugungen der christlichen Ethik sich in den wirtschaftspolitischen Forderungen der Denkschrift niedergeschlagen haben. Außerdem wird die Denkschrift in den biographischen Kontext der Verfasser und die zeitgeschichtlichen theologischen Zusammenhänge eingeordnet, denn viele Thesen des Dokuments reflektieren Diskussionsprozesse der damaligen Zeit. Zudem kann gezeigt werden, dass in die Freiburger Denkschrift sowohl protestantische wie auch römisch-katholische Elemente Eingang gefunden haben. / Since 1948 the economic system of the Federal Republic of Germany is called “Social Market Economy”. It is based on the principles of competitive markets, ensured by governmental competition policy and supplemented by social insurance and public assistance. The “Social Market Economy” takes a middle road between a liberal laissez-faire economy and a a centrally planned economy. The current study examines for the first time in detail the document that preceded the “Social Market Economy,” the 1943 “Freiburg Memorandum”. In this work, commissioned by the Confessing Church of the Third Reich as a post-war system, all fundamental principles of the later “Social Market Economy” can be found embedded in a comprehensive Christian reform program for the reconstruction of Germany. This dissertation analyzes the background of the authors and the contents of the memorandum. We will show specifically which convictions of Christian ethics were incorporated into the economic-political requests of the document. In addition the memorandum will be connected to the biographical context of the authors and the theological context of their time, as many theses put forward in the document reflect discussions that were in progress at that time. Also, it can be shown that Protestant as well as Roman-Catholic elements found entrance into the “Freiburg Memorandum”. / Philosophy, Practical & Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Theological Ethics)