Politics after Hitler: The Western Allies and the German Party System (Studies in Modern History)

Convinced that the Allies' policies formed an important story in and of themselves, and yet prevented from assigning specific human authorship to many of them, I have adopted the stylistic expedient of synecdoche. In other words, the whole is made to stand for an anonymous part, as when "the United States" may actually cover for decisions by Edward Litchfield, "France" for those of Jean Sauvagnargues, or "the British" for actions ordered by Christopher Steel. When individuals or small groups are clearly responsible, I identify them. Normally, however, these men usually hid themselves behind the letterhead of their official stationery, and I am forced to comply with their unspoken, perhaps even unintentional request for historical anonymity. I owe more words of thanks than this brief introduction can accommodate. But at the great risk of omitting mention of many whose kindness made this book possible, I would like to acknowledge my most profound practical and intellectual debts. Politics after Hitler is the first book to demonstrate the importance of America, Britain, and France in the development of party politics in Germany after 1945. In the wake of the war, rightists of all descriptions, Communists, nationalists, and founders of small splinter parties all came under intense and deliberate pressure from the Western occupying forces. The occupiers arrived in Germany in 1945 without firm plans for reviving German politics and were forced to improvize by hastily constructing a licensing system for new parties. The Allies then used their licensing powers to limit and steer party politics in desirable directions, disempowering reactionary and hypernationalist forces, diluting fears of a Communist revolution, and preventing the political fragmentation that led to the collapse of the Weimar Republic a generation earlier. Based on extensive archival research, Politics after Hitler concludes that interference by the occupying forces made a stable and moderate party system in the FRG much more likely than has previously been assumed. The Allied occupation of Germany was therefore a resounding success in helping move the German political system toward the stability it enjoys to the present day. Annotation `The demise of the Cold War requires that we look back to the moment and place of its birth in order to reassess those institutions most affected by it. Politics After Hitler is a significant contribution to this scholarly reappraisal and is must reading for students of German history.' - James F. Tent, The University of Alabama at Birmingham This book concerns the efforts of Britain, France and the United States to reshape German party politics immediately after the Second World War. Based on extensive archival research in the four countries involved, it concludes that interference by the occupiers made a stable and moderate party system in the Federal Republic of Germany much more likely than has been previously assumed. This interference was propelled not by concrete Allied plans for a German political revival, but by fears of reaction, revolution, nationalism and political fragmentation