Introduction to Max Weber’s article ‘The “Threatening” of the Reich Constitution’

Abstract

In May 1904 Max Weber published a short article in the Frankfurter Zeitung. It has gone unnoticed in the extensive Weber literature and it appears here in English translation for the first time. It is an important statement of Weber’s political views after his withdrawal from his active political engagement in the 1890s. He defends the Reich Constitution from attack and a possible coup d’état. He demands that the German Parliament (Reichstag) stand up to autocratic plans, closely linked to Emperor William II, to suppress democracy and voting rights. A constitutional conflict would require not a great statesman but an ‘unscrupulous idiot or a political adventurer’ who would undermine ‘all our institutions and the security of law for many generations’. The article marks the start (earlier than previously assumed in the literature) of Weber’s consistent championing of Parliament and democratic institutions.