Socialism and the Left in Germany since 1848

Objectives

This unit considers the development of the left wing movement as a force in German politics from 1848, the year of the liberals’ ascendancy in the Frankfurt Parliament and of the publication of the Communist Manifesto, through to the present day. The left has invariably been a splintered force, and we shall explore the divisions between the socialist, social democratic, communist and autonomous parties and forces from their emergence in the late 19^th century through the turbulent years of the Weimar Republic, the period of repression under the Third Reich, the bitter divides of the Cold War and the uneasy relationships in united Germany. The spectrum of political opinion covered is broad, ranging from the ‘New Centre’ approach of Gerhard Schröder’s SPD in the late 1990s to the Stalinist phase of the early GDR and the terrorism of the Red Army Faction. We shall also consider the changing social constituency of these parties and place the development of the German left into the broader European context, tracing its role within the ‘Internationals’ and the influence of external forces, notably the Soviet Union.

Programme

1 x 2hr slot weekly

Recommended Reading

• David Barclay and Eric D. Weitz (eds), Between reform and revolution: German socialism and communism from 1840 to 1990 (Berghahn, 1998)
• Stefan Berger, Social democracy and the working class in nineteenth and twentieth century Germany (Longman, 2000)
• Catherine Epstein, The last revolutionaries. German communists and their century (Harvard University Press, 2003)
• Franz Walter, Die SPD: Vom Proletariat zur neuen Mitte (Alexander Fest, 2002)

 A full reading list will be provided at the start of the unit.

Assessment