German Society 1914

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Wilhelm Solf , chairman of the German Society in 1914

The German Society 1914 was a political club founded on November 28, 1915 by Karl Gustav Vollmoeller . It was supposed to bring together moderate representatives of different worldviews for discussion in order to preserve the spirit of 1914 and the civil peace policy . Wilhelm Solf ( State Secretary of the Reich Colonial Office ) was the first and last president of the club.

history

With the outbreak of war in 1914 , the political differences were forgotten and the representatives of different views came together for the first time informally under the sign of the same ideals. Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg and his government members Wilhelm Solf and Gottlieb von Jagow wanted to maintain this political atmosphere .

In connection with the appeal "To the cultural world" in 1914, Karl Gustav Vollmoeller founded the club together with Richard Dehmel and in close consultation with Walther Rathenau and Robert Bosch . Various contemporary witnesses report on this, according to Count Harry Kessler in his Rathenaubiographie:

“He [Walther Rathenau] participates in the founding of clubs that were supposed to strengthen the 'Burgfrieden' through social contact between representatives of different political directions: in particular in the German Society founded by Carl Vollmöller in 1914 'and that of Ludwig Stein and the Reichstag deputy Bassermann founded the 'Wednesday Society'. "

In his opening speech in November 1915 in Munich, State Secretary Solf expressed the purpose of the society: It should offer members of different classes and especially spokesmen for opposites the opportunity to speak from person to person . In the spirit of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Solf called for the ennoblement of patriotism to become the cover of the eternal . At the same time he praised the individuality of each individual personality and the work of the free man . He quoted Freiherr von Stein as saying that the weakness of the Prussian monarchy against its neighboring states must be counterbalanced by moral and intellectual forces. It is about quality, not quantity of people. Bernd Sösemann describes the start of the foundation as follows:

“On November 28, 1915, the 'German Society 1914' was founded. Their greatest patron, the industrialist Robert Bosch, donated the furnishings for the rooms in the Pringsheimschen Palais, which he also made available for a small rent. The opening address was given by the first president of the club, the State Secretary in the Reich Colonial Office, Wilhelm Solf. "

Soon after it was founded, the number of members in the Berlin and Munich- based society rose to over 900. In the mid-1920s, the club even gathered over 2,000 members. In his biography of Robert Bosch , Theodor Heuss also wrote a passage about the German Society in 1914:

“Germany did not know the political club of the Anglo-Saxon world, it was supposed to be modeled here, but not in an exclusive, but in a comprehensive sense: the conservative and social democrat, the industrialist and scholar, the artist and civil servant, the landowner and union leader, if so they struggled out of the technical confines and interests and represented a certain rank in their personality, could meet here, freely resolved. The prerequisite was the patriotic attitude, which the partner was to be granted even with different programs. "

In 1934 the company dissolved itself. In doing so, Solf anticipated the forced Aryanization desired by the Nazis. Even at that time, Jews still made up just under a third of the club's members. The German Society in 1914 was one of the few well-known organizations that Hitler banned from speaking on their premises until he came to power. A small number of members went over to the "successor institution" SeSiSo-Club . From the circles of these associations, the resistance group Solf-Kreis was formed during the National Socialist era . There were also connections as of July 20th .

Famous members

literature

  • Frederik D. Tunnat: The German Society 1914 and its founder . Edition Vendramin, Berlin, 2014.
  • Wilhelm Solf: Speech in the German Society in 1914 . Reprint Insel-Verlag , Leipzig 1918.
  • Eberhard von Vietsch: Wilhelm Solf - ambassador between times . Rainer Wunderlich Verlag, Tübingen 1961. S. 142 ff.
  • Harry Graf Kessler: Walther Rathenau. His life and his work . Wiesbaden, Rheinische Verlags-Anstalt, undated
  • Bernd Sösemann: Political communication in the "state of siege" - program, structure and effects of the club "German Society 1914" . in: Report volume of the 31st working conference of the "German Society for Media and Communication Studies" together with the "Austrian Society for Media and Communication Studies", Verlag Olschläger GmbH 1987

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Beyond the party and parliament - W. Rathenau's "constructive ideas policy" in the "DG 1914" "Solon-line.de. Retrieved June 8, 2018 (German).
  2. ^ Th. Heuss: Robert Bosch . 1946. pp. 305 f.