‘Can One Go Along With This?’ German Diplomats and the Changes of 1918–19 and 1933–4

Abstract

This article explores the responses of German diplomats to the two central instances of political upheaval in pre-1945 German history, the November Revolution of 1918–19 and the establishment and consolidation of the ‘Third Reich’ in 1933–4 from a comparative historical angle. Based on the examination of contemporary records and the autobiographical writings of a cross-section of high-ranking diplomats, it substantiates and empathically illustrates the actual meaning of conservative behaviour and sensibilities in the face of radical change. It thereby explores the effect of the sudden arrival of discontinuity and rupture in otherwise rather continuous lives and accordingly points to the presumed tension between abstract historical development and the subjective nature of human agency. In line with more recent developments in the history of international relations, the subsequent assessment has to be seen an attempt to prosopographically probe into the mentality, the habitus, and the ideological disposition of German diplomats in the first half of the twentieth century. In doing so, this article directly contributes to current political debates in Germany about the history of the German foreign ministry, the Auswärtiges Amt, in the Third Reich.