Wilhelmine Germany: An Entrenched Authoritarian State

‘The Wilhelmine Germany was an entrenched authoritarian state’. How far do you agree with this judgement? The question of whether Wilhelmine Germany was an entrenched authoritarian state has been the subject of much debate. Those who have argued that it was have pointed mainly to the constitutional balance of powers to substantiate this view, which indeed appeared to give the Kaiser nearly complete authority over German politics. Some historians such as Wehler have offered an alternate version of the argument that Germany was ‘authoritarian’ by suggesting that it was in fact elites, such as the army and judiciary, who controlled German politics. However, other structuralists have argued that mass political movements were consistently growing throughout the period, and did in fact have influence over politics, and as such if Germany was to some extent authoritarian, this authoritarianism was by no means entrenched. In this essay I will discuss these
Although the substantiation of Roehl’s view through the personal letters of the Kaiser would appear to make it incontestable that the Kaiser played a key role in German politics, the interpretation can be taken even from these that it was in fact the Kaiser’s advisors that were flattering him into believing that he was making the decisions. It has been argued that although Wilhelm II was an intelligent man, he was also megalomaniacal, lazy and lacked the necessary understanding of critical issues to have any real involvement in decision making. This view of the Kaiser suggests either that the state was centred around a very questionable figure, or that the Kaiser did not have authoritarian control. The latter view lends itself to the interpretation that it was in fact elites that ran