Germany after the Kaiser: The Empire's Relevance?

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I’ve always thought about the sort of void which forms when an old political order collapses, for whatever reason, and a new one is installed which simply can’t fit the former’s shoes. Germany after World War I is practically a case study of this.

The Kaiser’s German Empire was orderly and relatively cohesive, howsoever undemocratic; at least, it gave this impression well. From the outside, it genuinely seemed like Germans took pride and ceremony in their national story. And when the monarchy fell in 1918, the whole structure of German society seemingly collapsed. As we know, the Weimar Republic was not as cohesive for the Germans at all, and felt like a mere bandage at best.

Wilhelm II suddenly abdicated the throne, fled, and then the German people were expected to put faith into this new “democratic” ideal of the Weimar Republic which had no traditions at stake for. To this end, I don’t think we retrospectively pay enough attention to how emotionally dissonant the Weimar Republic was for so many Germans. A whole new system of government, with all the facets — and laws, anthems — that come with such, was virtually forced upon them. Not only that, but they still bore unabashedly bad things which bogged them (German people) down: mind-numbing amounts of war debt. It is thus no surprise reactionaries could get a foothold, propagating myths so infamously.

I believe it is fair to say that some Germans may have missed the Kaiser. Or at the very least, they missed the idea of a coherent and relatively shameless German identity. Before all the debt and new, forced political “order”. Others, unfortunately as we all know, were willing to take a very risky gamble on a much more potent leader promising to bring an end to these shames. I believe there is a very straight line to be drawn between the highly disorganized fall of the German Empire and the rise of the deceitfully promise-giving Nazis.

Thus the German Empire wasn’t, in my view, remembered for its policy at all. But rather, the emotions it could gather: stability and pride. Even if most Germans weren’t part of the elite of course, they still held a degree of admiration.

So what happens in a society where a longstanding ancien regime’s remains are a memory stronger than the new regime? Are there other examples of such transitions that we can compare and contrast with?

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I would raise the entire history of modern Greece post-independence. The Greek government at that time pulled their sense of political legitimacy from varying sources, as did all European governments, but the shadows of the Ancient Greeks, who dominated/dominates classical European education and culture, were deliberately resurrected. The choice of Athens as capital was one such deliberate call-back. Athens in 1830 was little more than a large village, overshadowed by Nafplion (which had been built up for centuries before by both Venetians and Turks).

Greece has gone on to suffer many coups, military regimes, and is now a democratic republic, but at all times, leaders have drawn on the rich heritage of the Ancient Greek world to help define the identity of the Greek state and the Greek people, rather than pointing to some of the other examples of Greek-dominated states/statelets (such as the Maniots in the far south, the Muslim-led but Greek-majority Emirate of Crete, or the Epirote State formed after the 4th Crusade). There have even been major cities renamed to fit, such as Heraklion (formerly Chandax/Kandiye).

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