German militarism was a broad cultural and social phenomenon between 1815 and 1945, which developed out of the creation of standing armies in the 18th century. The numerical increase of militaristic structures in the Holy Roman Empire led to an increasing influence of military culture deep into civilian life. Independent jurisprudence, conscription, but also increasing isolation of soldiers from the rest of society, as a result of the development of barracks at the end of the 18th century, led to this development being particularly strong in Germany. Several dozen German states had their own standing armies by about 1800. Besides the large army of the Kingdom of Prussia, the states of Württemberg, Saxony, Bavaria, the two Hessian states (Electoral Hesse and Hesse-Darmstadt), Hanover, Baden and Münster all had standing armies of up to 35,000 men. The Austrian Empire also played an important role in the development of German militarism up until 1866.
The 19th century saw a combination of militarism and nationalism. Within the then-dominant Prussian Army, reactionary and right-leaning tendencies were highly influential. Increasingly, the army developed to be the "School of the Nation". As a result, millions of young German men experienced a year-long process of socialisation as conscripts or reservists within the institution of the army. The socially well-respected army played a key role in the development of a hierarchical and uniformed society. Several paramilitary structures with the characteristics of mass movements developed in the German-speaking regions of Europe within the 19th and 20th century. During the first half of the 20th century, German militarism reached its peak with two World Wars, which were followed by a consistent anti-militarism and pacifism within Germany since 1945, with a strong non-conformist tendency within subsequent generations.
After 1945, the particular kind of militarism as present in Germany came to be viewed as unique and, in that context, especially negative (see also Sonderweg). The apparent fixation of the German people on their military, combined with a strong belief in the central German state, were viewed as the main causes of Fascism in Germany.
History The roots of German militarism in the traditional understanding can be found in Prussia in the 18th and 19th centuries, with the Unification of Germany under Prussian leadership serving as an important event. German nobel laureate Elias Canetti summarised the influence of militarism in Germany after the Franco-Prussian War as following: "Peasants, the bourgeois, workers, Catholics, Protestants, Bavarians, Prussians – they all saw the army as the symbol of the nation."Elias Canetti: Masse und Macht, Abschnitt: "Das Deutschland von Versailles". Frankfurt am Main 1982, Fischer TB, S. 198.
Brandenburg–Prussia as a military monarchy
Since 1648, landed German princes were allowed to create their own standing armies. This occurred in a broader European context of professionalisation and permanence of armies, with mercenary armies being the norm beforehand. During the regency of the "Great Electors" in the second half of the 17th century, the Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia Friedrich Wilhelm, the Prussian army was expanded to 30,000 men during wartime, with further reforms leading to a decrease of marauding by soldiers through disciplining. A centralised military apparatus, which was controlled by the Kriegskommissariat, started to develop. To strengthen his own position both internally and abroad, the "soldier-king" Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia began a set of military reforms and broad focus on all military matters in state affairs. The forms of social life began to be increasingly directed towards the military in Prussia throughout this period. Increasingly, the state began to serve the army, with the state support of the army becoming almost a prerequisite for the defence of the state through the army. The annual military budget of Prussia made up 73% of the overall annual budget.vgl. Michael Mann: The Sources of Social Power. 1986, S. 488 Since that period, military officers held a higher status at the Prussian court than civilian officials. In contemporary analyses, Prussia was usually considered to be a military monarchy, a feudal state, in which a military caste served as the backbone of the state. At the time of Friedrich Wilhelm's death in 1740, the Prusian army had grown to 83,000 men,Hartwin Spenkuch: Preußen – eine besondere Geschichte: Staat, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft und Kultur 1648–1947. 2019, S.36 one of the largest in Europe during a time in which the total population of Prussia numbered only 2.5 million. The Prussian military author Georg Heinrich von Berenhorst later wrote: "The Prussian monarchy will always remain – not a state with an army, but an army with a state, where the former is only quartered into."Aus dem Nachlasse von Georg Heinrich von Berenhorst. Herausgegeben von Eduard von Bülow. Erste Abteilung 1845. Verlag von Aue in Dessau.S. 187 books.google. Rezension in Literaturblatt (Beilage zum Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände) No. 48 vom 7. Juli 1846, S. 191 rechts oben books.google (often misattributed to Voltaire and Mirabeau)
Despite the militarisation of Prussian public life in the 18th century, there was no level of appreciation for the military as later came to be in the era known as Wilhelminism. Soldiers were despised and the prestige of the military generally low. The quartering of troops was especially bothersome to the population. Recruitment was often forced until the introduction of a centralised conscription system, leading to a large number of flights and desertions in Prussia.
From the 1740s to the 1760s, Frederick the Great used the Prussian forces built by his predecessors in a series of aggressive wars to great effect, elevating Prussia from a middle power to a great power in Europe. After 1763, the army retained its status as the highest priority of the state with the main goal of the preservation of the state both internally as well as externally. Prussia remained in a state of "continual stress of permanent overexertion" for the benefit of the army, at the cost of all forces of civil society.Wolfgang Neugebauer: Handbuch der preußischen Geschichte: Band III, Vom Kaiserreich zum 20. Jahrhundert und große Themen der Geschichte Preußens, Walter de Gruyter, 1992 Berlin New York, S. 354
Other German states went different paths. The Electorate of Saxony gave up its ambitious foreign policy in 1763 and resigned itself to its limited military potential. It instead favoured a course of socioeconomic soft power and limited the size and influence of its army. By this principle, all German middle states acted after 1763, as they increasingly lost all hope for becoming a great power akin to Prussia.
Standardisation and social discipline in the 18th century Within the early modern societal development at the beginning of the 18th century brought about societal impulses, which, guided by the state, caused the formation of new institutions and led to a more differentiated society as a whole. Most importantly, the army became the most important and most powerful instrument of the developing princely state, which could increasingly intervene within society.
The uniformisation of society, introduction of military lines with marching of larger masses, disciplinary edicts, command structures and hierarchies became important competencies and characteristics of society as a whole, which made the creation of more complex structures from the top to bottom possible.
Militarism went in line with bureaucraticism, fiscalism and etatism as important forces in the process of differentiation. In this period, it served as a socially progressive force, reduced the application of violence within the population and led to an orderly and goal-oriented cooperation of many individuals with very different personal interests with a prioritised goal, without any consideration for the individual.Stefan Kroll, Kersten Krüger: Militär und ländliche Gesellschaft in der frühen Neuzeit, Herrschaft und soziale Systeme in der Frühen Neuzeit, Band 1, LIT Verlag, Hamburg 2000, S. 335
From mercenary army to people's army With the French Revolution, the early modern period came to a close. A new age began, with new structures and the transformation of institutional rules, which also affected military sector. The third estate and the bourgeoisie began demanding political rights. Prussia's army, but also its state and feudal societal model entered a period of continuous decline. Reforms started appearing more infrequently – the army fell behind the other European militaries in terms of effectiveness. During the War of the First Coalition, the army, as a protective organ of feudal and absolutist princely state was no match for the nation-state of France led by the third estate and Sans-culottes, in part as a result of the lack of unity within the Prussian army, whose soldiers were kept together by sanctions and punishments and little else. Another factor in the lacking performance of the Prussian army can be found in the fact that a large share of the command was held by non-Prussian officers, who, as mercenaries, did not have much connection to the land of Prussia. French soldiers, due to their higher willingness to serve in arms, were capable of far more flexible tactics and maneuvres outside of the static line formation. Out of fear of desertion, Prussian officers forbade such flexibility outside of the line formation. Within that formation, junior officers were able to guard the flanks from desertion. That tactic proved to be far inferior to the more flexible French Jäger tactics.
After Napoleon Bonaparte conquered Prussia during the War of the Fourth Coalition in 1806, he enforced the reduction of the Prussian army to 42,000 men in the Peace of Tilsit. To subvert that restriction, the Prussian king enrolled the maximum allowed number of recruits into the army to then release them, which was repeated every year, creating a vast number of reservists. This was known as the Krümpersystem, invented by Gerhard von Scharnhorst.
The majority of officers were members of the landed gentry, which allowed for a pervasive influence of the Junker within the Prussian state. After the defeat of 1804, the army leadership was increasingly opened to the bourgeoisie.
That army, which was built through the Prussian reforms after the defeat by Napoleon, was far more of a "People's Army", as opposed to the relatively mercenary-dependent army of pre-war Prussia. The "citizen in uniform" became a dominant model. Differences between the estates were to be abolished, and instead of force, conviction was now to be the main reason for serving the army, with the aim of greater cohesion of the armed forces. Brutal punitive measures such as running the gauntlet were abolished. Officers were to now serve as inspiring examples for their troops, and not simply keep them in line by brute force. Pedagogy and the recognition of a legitimate emotional apparatus (fear) of the individual soldier entered the training culture of the army. To serve as a paramilitary organisation in civilian life, the Landwehr was introduced, as was conscription.
The army as a royal pretorian guard and state within the state