Historians of the stabilization phase of Weimar Germany tend to identify German recovery after the First World War with the struggle to revise reparations and control hyperinflation. Focusing primarily on economic aspects is not sufficient, however, the author argues; the financial burden of recovery was only one of several major causes of reaction against the republic. Drawing on material from major German cities, he is able to trace the emergence of strong local activism and of comprehensive and functional policies of recovery on the municipal level which enjoyed broad political backing. Ironically, these same programs that created consensus also contained the potential for destabilization: they unleashed intense debate over the needs of the consumersand the purpose and extent of public spending, and with that of government intervention more generally, which accelerated the fragmentation of bourgeois politics, leading to the final destruction of the Weimar Republic.
- ISBN10 1571811044
- ISBN13 9781571811042
- Publish Date 15 October 1998 (first published 1 September 1998)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Berghahn Books, Incorporated
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 192
- Language English
- URL http://berghahnbooks.com/title/LiebermanFrom