• DOI:10.1080/13507480120116182
• Corpus ID: 145167949

The Rise of Vo¨lkisch-Nationalism and the Decline of German Liberalism: A Comparison of Liberal Political Cultures in Schleswig-Holstein and Silesia 1912-1924

@article{Kurlander2002TheRO,
  title={The Rise of Vo¨lkisch-Nationalism and the Decline of German Liberalism: A Comparison of Liberal Political Cultures in Schleswig-Holstein and Silesia 1912-1924},
  author={Eric Kurlander},
  journal={European Review of History: Revue europ{\'e}enne d'histoire},
  year={2002},
  volume={9},
  pages={23 - 36}
}

• Eric Kurlander
• Published 1 January 2002
• History
• European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire

Historians have tended to focus on political economic and political organisational factors in order to explain the rise of liberalism in the nineteenth century and the decline of liberalism in the twentieth. But these factors tell only part of the story, particularly in the German case. For the precipitous decline of German liberalism after 1890 cannot be understood without examining the rise of Austro-German völkisch (ethnic) nationalism in the same period. Comparing Germany's two most liberal regions, Schleswig-Holstein and Silesia, this article argues that liberalism became increasingly dependent for its political survival on an accomodation with ethnic nationalism. It is hoped that such a comparison will lead to a reexamination of the conventional ways in which German liberal success and failure are understood, and a re-evaluation of what it meant to be a liberal in Germany and Europe during the first third of the twentieth century.