Central office for research into the causes of war

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The Central Office for Research into the Causes of War was a private institution financed by the Foreign Office from 1921 onwards , which, with revisionist intentions , was supposed to collect and publish information and arguments against the German war guilt established in Article 231 of the Versailles Treaty . This attempted to influence not only decision-makers and multipliers in Germany, but also abroad. In addition to the Working Committee of German Associations , the Central Office was one of the most important propagandists for the German position in the debate on the question of war guilt . With the de facto termination of the Versailles Treaty by Adolf Hitler , this work lost its importance and the central office was dissolved in 1937.

Goal setting

Within the Foreign Office, the War Debt Department was a separate department for invalidating the war guilt declaration in the Versailles Treaty. The German revision policy was to be supported by the argumentative refutation of the war guilt. For reasons of efficiency, the War Debt Department founded two formally independent organizations in 1921. The establishment took place against the background of the dispute over the war guilt paragraph at the London Reparations Conference of 1921. In fact, both were controlled and financed by the Foreign Office. The Working Committee of German Associations was an umbrella organization of around 2000 associations, organized events and published the magazine Der Weg zur Freiheit . The president was Heinrich Schnee . The central office was more demanding in terms of content and also aimed at the international public.

Initially, the central office was under the direction of the Swiss Ernst Sauerbeck . In contrast to the mass propaganda of the working committee, the central office made a scientific claim and addressed selected addressees from science and journalism. She was independent and avoided everything in order to appear as the mouthpiece of the government.

She defined the following goals:

  1. Collection and safeguarding of the sources and the discussion in the newspaper literature at home and abroad.
  2. scientific and literary information
  3. Placement of scientific work
  4. Publication of leaflets which clearly compile individual areas of the question of guilt based on the latest research results.

Organization and activity

Although the anti-war debt organizations were partially financed with gold marks during the inflationary years, which underlines the importance of the institutions, the devaluation of the currency resulted in underfunding of the central office. Sauerbeck was also overwhelmed with the management, so that the Foreign Office gradually withdrew his authority before he finally resigned in 1923. Alfred von Wegerer worked for the central office from October 1921 and rose to become a leading figure in the management. He had served as an officer in the general staff during the war and later worked for the national and anti-socialist League for German Culture .

Since 1923 the central office was officially headed by a directorate chaired by Hans Delbrück . Count of Montgelas was deputy. The committee also included Sauerbeck, the archaeologist Georg Karo , the publicist Hermann Lutz , Eugen Fischer-Baling as secretary of the parliamentary committee of inquiry into questions of guilt , and the former Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow as head of the war debt department of the Foreign Office. The Directory had no real influence. It mainly served as a representative figurehead. Von Wegerer had the real say.

The Central Office also received donations from private sources and earned proceeds from the sale of its publications and magazines, but it still relied on subsidies from the Foreign Office. For example, the institution received 84,000 RM from the ministry in the 1929/30 financial year . This contrasted with own income of 24,000 RM. Of this, the sale of fonts is likely to have made up a higher proportion than donations.

Under Wegerer's leadership, the position soon gained a very high reputation in Germany. Through the German diplomatic missions abroad, she also had important international contacts. To promote these contacts, a “Society for Research into the Causes of War” was founded in 1923 as a kind of friends and support group. The society was initially headed by the diplomat Ludwig Raschdau and from 1929 by the former Chancellor of the Weimar Republic, Wilhelm Marx , who belonged to the center . The society included former ministers, high-ranking officials, members of the Reichswehr , influential scientists, publicists and journalists. Their meetings were not public and the results were not published. However, as multipliers, the members ensured that other representatives of the German upper classes were interested in the central office.

The cooperation of the central office with the Reichszentrale für Heimatdienst or the working committee of German associations was geared more towards exerting public influence . The central office's mouthpiece was initially the “Leaflets on the Question of Guilt.” Since 1923, these have been replaced by the magazine “ The War Guilt Question ”. This was renamed in 1929 to "Berlin Monthly Issues for International Enlightenment". It was published by Quader-Verlag, which belongs to the central office. The establishment of the publishing house was made possible with the help of a guarantee from the Foreign Office. The magazine had a circulation of 3500 to 4000 copies in 1931. A quarter of the circulation was sent to foreign recipients, mainly from the United States.

In addition to the forces of society, a solid base of journalists and scientists wrote for the paper. Von Wegerer alone published around 200 articles on the question of war guilt by 1931. The relatively small circulation of the magazine belies the actual reach of the central office. Contributions that first appeared in the association's magazine were printed in 1930 by 53 magazines and newspapers from Germany and abroad. The responsibility for the publication lay with von Wegerer. The Foreign Office had a right of veto, but made hardly any use of it.

Content position and criticism

In terms of content, the Allied declaration of German war guilt was broadly drawn. In addition to article 231, it includes the sharply defined mantle note, which goes back to Georges Clemenceau . This made it possible to reinterpret the statement of war guilt in an anti-German condemnation judgment. Responsibility for the outbreak of war by the Central Powers was denied. On the other hand, France and Russia had territorial interests with Alsace-Lorraine or in the Balkans , for the realization of which a war was necessary. In the opinion of the Central Office, the military of the Central Powers, which was inferior to France and Russia, also spoke against aggression by the Germans. Although the naval policy was politically unwise, it would not ultimately have been seen by Great Britain as a real threat. Berlin would have supported Austria-Hungary , but after the Serbian response to the ultimatum from Vienna, it would have pushed for the conflict to be localized. The Russian mobilization would have removed the foundations of the course. Ultimately, the Russian mobilization was seen as the actual triggering factor, while the German declaration of war and the invasion of Belgium were downplayed.

On the basis of this framework of theses, the authors who write for the central office tried in numerous contributions to identify the states responsible for the outbreak of war. Then came Russia, Serbia and France at the top . The responsibility of Austria-Hungary, Germany and Great Britain was then significantly lower. The central office particularly emphasized Serbia's guilt. This was partly based on very dubious newspaper reports and not on real official documents.

In Germany, criticism of the Central Office's positions came largely from only a few, mostly left-wing pacifists. These included Hans Wehberg , Hermann Kantorowicz , Walter Fabian , Siegfried Kawerau , Otto Lehmann-Rußbüldt , Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster , Richard Grelling and Heinrich Kanner . Their contributions to the central office were only printed in a few sheets. Although the majority of these authors opposed the position of German sole guilt, as advocated by Clemenceau, they saw the Central Powers as the main culprits for the war. In particular, they criticized the propaganda of the Central Office and the Committee of German Associations as the " General Staff of German Innocence Fighters ."

Historian and central office

Relatively few of the historians took part in the work of the central office. Bernhard Schwertfeger most clearly called for the participation of historians in "war guilt research". Hans Delbrück, Friedrich Thimme , Paul Herre , Hans Rothfels , Hans Herzfeld , Siegfried Kachler and Wilhelm Mommsen took part at times .

This does not mean that most historians took other positions on the war debt article. The more anti-republican part of the historians may have been deterred by the close connection between the central office and the Foreign Office and the renunciation of the argument of the stab in the back . In addition, for the majority of historians, the world war was still too close in time to be a scientific subject.

There was also methodological criticism from Paul Herre, for example, of the questionable and selective treatment of sources by the central office. Critical comments also came from others. The attitude of the Central Office, ultimately not willing to compromise, made the historians who have been involved so far less willing to cooperate. In the course of time, the central office developed a life of its own that moved away from the other organizations of the “revision movement” and, in terms of content, came closer to the “national opposition”. The Foreign Office was increasingly dissatisfied with the work. However, there was no fundamental renovation.

Work abroad

It was particularly important to find journalistic advocates for the German position on the question of war guilt among foreign authors, academics and politicians. The diplomatic missions reported possible contacts to the central office. Most of the time, this also addressed the people in question. In some cases she left this to other agencies. The diplomatic missions abroad also collected information on the attitude to the question of war guilt in the host countries. Texts from the central office have been translated and published. The Foreign Office tried to remain in the background as much as possible during this activity.

The central office published almost all pro-German statements. The dissemination of these voices by German publicists increased the public's impression that there was considerable support for the German position abroad. The Foreign Office did not indulge in this illusion, but spoke out in favor of including foreigners who did not agree with the German position in the discussion of the war objectives. This attitude met with criticism from the central office.

In 1926, the central office organized a conference with "war debt researchers" from Germany, Austria , Hungary and Bulgaria in Berlin . The participants tried to agree on a common approach to the war guilt issue. For the other countries, similar institutions were planned for the central office, which should work with it. Those involved were hoping for the financing of an international war guilt conference from the Carnegie Foundation . Aside from the money issue, that would have made the company appear less biased. The concrete contact was made by representatives of the committee of German associations, while the central office held back. Although efforts were made to establish a scientific claim, the Foundation rejected the proposal.

Central office at the time of National Socialism

After 1933, more and more foreign authors withdrew from working on the Central Agency's publications. Many of them were politically leftist. They disliked Wegerer's willing adaptation to the new circumstances and his exuberant praise for Hitler as a “ shining example ” in the fight against the “ war guilt lie ”. The number of foreign subscribers to the publications published by the Central Office also fell by 60%.

The practical settlement of the reparations question at the Lausanne Conference in 1932 and Hitler's attacks on the Versailles Treaty led to the war guilt debate becoming less important. At first, however, it looked as if the central office could expand its position. The number of employees had risen sharply. But the Foreign Office had increasing doubts about the effective work of the facility. Von Wegerer verbally defended himself against criticism and suggested that the formally private institution be turned into a Reich office. These efforts were in vain.

When the German government withdrew its recognition of war guilt in the Versailles Treaty in 1937, the question of war guilt had largely lost its political significance. Against this background, the central office was closed in 1937. The Berlin monthly issue continued with a slightly different concept.

literature

  • Ulrich Heinemann: The suppressed defeat. Political Public and War Guilt Question in the Weimar Republic. Göttingen, 1983. Digitized

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ulrich Heinemann: The suppressed defeat. Political Public and War Guilt Question in the Weimar Republic. Göttingen, 1983 p. 21.
  2. ^ Ulrich Heinemann: The suppressed defeat. Political Public and War Guilt Question in the Weimar Republic. Göttingen, 1983 p. 94
  3. ^ Ulrich Heinemann: The suppressed defeat. Political Public and War Guilt Question in the Weimar Republic. Göttingen, 1983 pp. 94-98
  4. ^ Ulrich Heinemann: The suppressed defeat. Political Public and War Guilt Question in the Weimar Republic. Göttingen, 1983 pp. 98-104
  5. ^ Ulrich Heinemann: The suppressed defeat. Political Public and War Guilt Question in the Weimar Republic. Göttingen, 1983 pp. 104-110
  6. ^ Ulrich Heinemann: The suppressed defeat. Political Public and War Guilt Question in the Weimar Republic. Göttingen, 1983 pp. 110-117
  7. ^ Ulrich Heinemann: The suppressed defeat. Political Public and War Guilt Question in the Weimar Republic. Göttingen, 1983 pp. 117-119