The German Right, 1860–1920: Political Limits of the Authoritarian Imagination.

Bonnie J. White is a Ph.D. candidate in History Department at McMaster
University.

Retallack’s monograph seeks to challenge the view that the shift from the “politics of notables” to mass politics was a single event whereby old-style Conservatism was marginalized both on the Right and in national politics. Rather than accepting that the Right functioned as a single cohesive block, Retallack sets for himself the more ambitious task of examining the “interpenetration of the old and new Right” by acknowledging the “adaptation (not demise) of older practices in the face of new challenges.” Retallack pays particular attention to how the Right negotiated its place between the state and the masses and the type of political strategies it employed in its attempt to retain traditional sources of power, while at the same time attracting new political recruits.

Retallack’s study is successful on a number of fronts. He convincingly argues that the Right, in its attempt to appeal to the masses, did not break all ties with the past as some historians have asserted, but instead retained organizational features and a familiar political vocabulary that allowed right-wing groups to connect more easily with a mass audience. Within this framework, Retallack’s revisionist approach focuses on political continuities, rather than crediting the 1890s as the turning point in the development of a political mass market. According to Retallack, Germany’s political institutions continued to appeal to a large number of citizens because many believed that the German empire would not only survive but would even thrive in latter half of the 20th century.

At the centre of Retallack’s study is the Right’s regional and ideological diversity. Through his examination of Wüttemburg and Saxony, Retallack demonstrates the willingness of Liberals and radical Conservatives to accommodate political change in the interest of system stabilization, and he challenges the suggestion that Germany could not be both modern and authoritarian. By rejecting the argument that the Conservatives enjoyed a hegemony in Imperial Germany, Retallack instead demonstrates the complex and difficult relations that existed between Conservatives and the Wilhelmine state in the years prior to the First World War.

The German Right is well written, insightful and contains a wealth of historiographical information that will appeal to the academic historian.