September program

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The September program of Reich Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg on September 9, 1914 reflected the war aims of the Reich leadership at the beginning of the First World War .

backgrounds

Immediately after the outbreak of the First World War, a broad discussion about the goals of the war began in German politics and in public. Basically, two positions can be distinguished. One aimed at a mutual agreement without annexations, the other demanded more or less extensive territorial cedings by the opposing states. There was also the question of whether German hegemony should be expanded, especially in the West or the East, after an expected victory.

The best-known and most controversial catalog of war targets is the September program of Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg. The actual author was possibly Kurt Riezler , then a high official in the Reich bureaucracy. It began to develop immediately after the start of the war and received its final form on September 9, 1914, when a victorious peace for Germany seemed possible at times at the height of the Battle of the Marne . In his diary, Riezler presented the development of his Central Europe ideas related to the September program several times:

“Coblenz 19/8 [1914] In the evening long conversation about Poland and the possibility of a looser affiliation of other states to the Reich - Central European system of differential tariffs. Great Germany with Belgium Holland Poland as narrow, Austria as broad protected states. "

“Charleville 18/4 [1915] Yesterday long sat with the Chancellor to tell him about my new Europe, i. H. the European trimmings of our will to power to grapple. The Central European Empire of the German Nation. The box system common in stock corporations, the German Reich an AG. With a Prussian majority in shares, every addition of new shareholders would destroy this majority, on which the Reich stands as a Prussian hegemony. Hence a confederation of states around the German empire in which the empire has the majority as Prussia has in the empire - hence Prussia also has the actual leadership in this confederation. Solve the Belgian question in such a way that it does not stand in the way of this future development, but on the contrary helps to bring it about itself. Then treat Austria in such a way that it grows into it by itself. [...] Then strengthen the European idea in Scandinavia and Holland [...] This Central Europe is economically and politically the world-historical task. "

Overall, there was no well thought-out concept behind the program. Rather, the government had accepted demands from different quarters and the details could also be revised, yet it was representative of the goals of the Chancellor, the high bureaucracy, industry and parts of the military.

The program clearly reflects the time of its creation. In view of the German advance in the West, the goals were still concentrated on Western and Central Europe, while England, Russia and colonial policy only played a subordinate role. A parallel program of the right Pan-German Association shifted the focus towards Eastern Europe.

As a result, the Chancellor did not always stick closely to the program, but it still served as a guideline. The occupation policy in Belgium already corresponded to the idea of ​​a vassal state .

The wording of the program remained secret, but the tenor became known to the public through the participation of numerous experts and interested parties. This increased the pressure of the supporters of annexation on the political leadership. The demands, which were still intensified from different sides, were later viewed by the war opponents as evidence of the German war guilt .

content

The central goal was formulated in an introductory core statement:

"Securing the German Reich to the West and East for the most conceivable time. For this purpose, France must be weakened so that it cannot rise again as a great power, Russia must be pushed aside from the German border if possible and its rule over the non-Russian vassal peoples broken. "

Overall, the idea of ​​Central Europe as a weapon against Great Britain was of importance for the program . The economic and political supremacy of the empire was to be guaranteed via a central European customs and economic association ruled by Germany. France should be brought into "economic dependency" by means of a trade agreement. Belgium should become economically and politically a German "vassal state" . Other neighbors such as Denmark , Holland and Poland , which did not exist at the time , as well as possibly Sweden , Norway and Italy "under external equality ... but actually under German leadership" will be linked in terms of customs policy.

In addition, the program also envisaged a number of direct territorial changes. This included taking over the ore mining areas around Longwy - Briey in Lorraine . In Belgium, Liège and Verviers were to be ceded to Prussia . Luxembourg should lose its independence, become a German federal state and be expanded to include Belgian territories.

Holland was supposed to become part of the German-ruled Central Europe, but a closer relationship to be striven for had to be “free of any feeling of coercion for them given the peculiarity of the Dutch.” Holland was to remain externally independent, but internally be dependent on Germany. As a possibility of binding, one thought of a protective and defensive alliance that included the colonies .

Further questions were initially excluded. Though a Central African colonial empire was being considered, this was not further specified. The Russian question in particular was postponed.

Assessment in research

The assessment of the September program in historical research was based on the fault lines of the Fischer controversy .

For Fritz Fischer the importance of the program lay in the fact that the guidelines laid down in it were , in principle, the basis of the entire German war target policy until the end of the war , even if individual modifications would have occurred depending on the overall situation .

“The September program, the outline of this world power position, was the framework into which the stones of guarantees and safeguards were pressed, depending on the war situation, the hope of victory or the pain of defeat. It was not the aim to be slavishly pursued, but in it the claim and the dynamics of the German Reich were captured as in a burning mirror: contoured, understandable, alternative to the goals of narrow rule, drive against defeatist status quo thinking. Despite all the crises, the September program remained a faithful reflection of the aspirations of Europe's central geopolitical power. "

According to Fischer's student Imanuel Geiss , the September program had become the key document for understanding German war policy in the First World War .

For Gerhard Ritter , who defended the Reichsleitung and Bethmann Hollweg, the September program had a purely defensive character . It was unthinkable to stand up for the status quo at this point, the program was the ultimate in… moderation that could be achieved . Ritter saw more consideration than decision in the whole program and described Fischer's thesis as incorrect.

Karl Dietrich Erdmann countered Fischer's later thesis that the September program was intended to realize long-cherished plans of conquest: the war aims of the program were much more a product of the war than its cause.

According to Peter Graf Kielmansegg , the Chancellor's September program reflected the ideas of leading circles in Germany in politics, business and the military, drawing on considerations from industry and banking in the prewar years. Industry in particular hoped for extensive competition privileges from peace treaty regulations by interfering with the autonomy of the countries concerned. In his opinion, the September program was unrealistic in view of the historical structure and political tradition of a nation-state Europe. It clearly shows the overestimation of the possibilities of pure power politics, which does not even raise the question of a viable European order.

The British historian David Stevenson thinks that Fischer exaggerates the importance of the document, since it has never been given the status of an official, binding political declaration and has not been signed by the emperor.

literature

  • Gunther Mai: The end of the empire . Politics and warfare in the First World War. In: The German history of the latest time . 3rd updated edition. dtv 4510, Munich 1997, ISBN 978-3-423-04510-0 .
  • Volker Ullrich : The Nervous Great Power: Rise and Fall of the German Empire 1871-1918 . 1st revised edition. Fischer Taschenbuch 17240, Frankfurt 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-17240-5 (with a current epilogue: new research on the empire).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Kurt Riezler: Diaries - Articles - Documents. (Ed .: Karl-Dietrich Erdmann). Göttingen 1972, p. 198.
  2. ^ Kurt Riezler: Diaries - Articles - Documents. (Ed .: Karl-Dietrich Erdmann). Göttingen 1972, p. 268.
  3. ↑ Wolfgang J. Mommsen: The German Empire in the First World War. In: Wolfgang J. Mommsen: The First World War. Beginning of the end of the bourgeois age. Verlag Fischer, Bonn 2004, ISBN 3-596-15773-0 , pp. 37-60, here p. 42.
  4. ↑ Klaus Hildebrand : Bethmann-Hollweg, the chancellor without qualities? Judgments of historical research. A critical bibliography . Droste, Düsseldorf 1970, p. 55.
  5. ↑ Ulrich Cartarius (Ed.): Germany in the First World War. Texts and documents 1914–1918. Munich 1982, ISBN 3-423-02931-5 , pp. 181f. (Doc. No. 126).
    Gunther Mai: The end of the empire. Politics and warfare in the First World War. Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-04510-8 , pp. 199-203.
  6. ↑ Ulrich Cartarius (Ed.): Germany in the First World War. Texts and documents 1914–1918. Munich 1982, ISBN 3-423-02931-5 , pp. 181f. (Doc. No. 126).
    Karl-Volker Neugebauer (Ed.): Basic features of German military history. Work and source book. (= Basics of German military history. Volume 2). Military History Research Office, Rombach, Freiburg 1993, ISBN 3-7930-0662-6 , p. 239.
  7. ^ Fritz Fischer: Reach for world power. The war policy of imperial Germany 1914/18. Düsseldorf 1964, p. 119.
  8. ^ Fritz Fischer: World power or decline. Germany in the First World War . Frankfurt am Main 1965, p. 69.
  9. ↑ Imanuel Geiss: The German Empire and the First World War . Munich / Vienna 1978, p. 90.
  10. ^ Gerhard Ritter: Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk. The problem of "militarism" in Germany. Volume 3: The tragedy of statecraft. Bethmann Hollweg as war chancellor (1914–1917) . Munich 1964, pp. 44 and 47 and 52.
  11. ^ Karl Dietrich Erdmann: The First World War . Munich 1980 (= Gebhardt: Handbuch der deutschen Geschichte Volume 18), ISBN 3-423-04218-4 , p. 219.
  12. ^ Peter Graf Kielmansegg: Germany and the First World War. Frankfurt am Main 1968, p. 224.
  13. ^ Peter Graf Kielmansegg: Germany and the First World War. Frankfurt am Main 1968, p. 223.
  14. ↑ David Stevenson: 1914-1918. The First World War. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2006, ISBN 3-538-07214-0 , p. 164.