The Weimar Century (ebook)

Argumento de The Weimar Century (ebook)

"This remarkable book describes how a group of German intellectuals who were persecuted by Hitler helped defeat Fascism and redefined the postwar world. Drawing on groundbreaking research and bringing key figures to life, Udi Greenberg shows how these individuals created a Cold War community in the West that defeated Communism and set the stage for our contemporary era. This is one of the most important books written on the history of our times."--Jeremi Suri, author of Liberty's Surest Guardian

"Although postwar Germans often protested that 'Bonn is not Weimar,' Udi Greenberg allows us to see the extent to which they erred, but in a surprising way. Examining the critical role five émigrés played in establishing the democratic culture of West Germany, Greenberg shows that their experiences before being forced by the Nazis to leave the country still informed their thinking after they returned. Greenberg demonstrates how the constructive lessons of their Weimar past, refracted through exile in America, enabled the political miracle of the Federal Republic."--Martin Jay, University of California, Berkeley

"An extraordinary and highly original study of two historical fronts: the fate of German political theorists exiled by Hitler, and the shaping of American Cold War ideology by those same Weimar intellectuals. With his remarkable archival discoveries and brilliant interpretations, Udi Greenberg has written a dramatic book that will reshape scholarship."--Susannah Heschel, author of The Aryan Jesus

"Dramatizing the exile of Germans to a United States about to rise to global leadership after World War II, this ingeniously conceived study shows how these intellectuals ushered much of the world into their Weimar century. In our era of transnational and global history, Udi Greenberg demonstrates that traffic in ideas across long distances needs to be studied in both directions. No other book does what this one does--and with such impressive success."--Samuel Moyn, Harvard University

"The Weimar Century is a lucid, balanced, and carefully researched book about five German intellectuals who developed ideas of democracy and anti-Communism in the Weimar era. Demonstrating a worldly sensitivity, it shows how these intellectuals, as émigrés to the United States, came to exercise tremendous influence over the ideological and strategic self-understanding of the West during the Cold War."--Peter E. Gordon, Harvard University

"The Weimar Century is a stimulating, original, and timely meditation on politics and ideas."--Michael Kimmage, New Republic

Winner of the 2016 European Studies Book Award, Council for European Studies

"A fascinating and readable study of five thinkers who are mainly forgotten but were influential in the early Cold War era and postwar Germany."--Jörg Meindl, Yearbook of German American Studies

"[A] fantastic new study."--Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, Dissent0Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
The "Miracle" of Germanys Reconstruction 5
The Foundations of Postwar Thought: The Weimar Republic and Its Discontents 11
Émigrés and the American Cold War: Knowledge and Power 17
Chapter I: The Search for "Responsible Elites": Carl J. Friedrich and the Reform of Higher Education 25
Protestant Legitimacy and Elite Education in Heidelberg 28
The Heidelberg Mission in the United States: The Creation of a New American Academia 45
Cold War Universities: "Responsible Elites" in Cold War United States and Germany 56
Chapter II: Socialist Reform, the Rule of Law, and Labor Outreach: Ernst Fraenkel and the Concept of "Collective Democracy" 76
Democracy, Labor, and Law in Frankfurt and Berlin 79
Social Democracy and U.S. Power: Fraenkel in the United States and Korea 89
The German Left and the Cold War 107
Chapter III: Conservative Catholicism and American Philanthropy: Waldemar Gurian, "Personalist" Democracy, and Anti-communism 120
Catholicism, "Personalism," and Democracy in the Rhineland: The Origins of Gurians Thought 122
The Path to the "Theory of Totalitarianism": The Personalist Campaign against Nazism in Exile 134
Personalism and American Philanthropy: Transatlantic Democracy and Anti-communism 144
Chapter IV: Individual Liberties and "Militant Democracy": Karl Loewenstein and Aggressive Liberalism 169
The Internal Struggle of Liberal Democracy 172
"Militant Democracy" and U.S. Diplomacy in Latin America 181
"Militant Democracy" in the Cold War: Liberalism and Anti-communism in West Germany 198
Chapter V: From the League of Nations to Vietnam: Hans J. Morgenthau and Realist Reform of International Relations 211
International Politics, Law, and War 213
Morgenthau and the Cold War Establishment 225
Power and Morality: Opposition to the Intervention in Vietnam 237
Conclusion 256
List of Abbreviations 263
List of Archives 265
Index 267