著者

石田 勇治

出版者

JAPAN ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

雑誌

国際政治 (ISSN:04542215)

巻号頁・発行日

no.96, pp.51-68,L9, 1991

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The election of an avowed monarchist, seventy-seven-years old Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg as the president of the Weimar Republic in April 1925 symbolizes the remarkable continuity in political attitude of the Germans from the time of empire to the republic. Many of them were uncritically attached to the old "Kaiserreich".<br>In spite of the total defeat and the revolution 1918-19 the aims and roles of imperial German policy in the outbreak of the World War had not yet been clarified. Every government during the Weimar period blocked full disclosure of the empire's war aims and engaged in a political cover up.<br>It was the Independent Socialist Kurt Eisner, head of the revolutionary government in Munich, who released special reports in November 1918 showing the responsibility of the German Empire for the beginning of the World War. Eisner wished to discredit the old regime and persisted in purging the representatives of the "Kaiserreich".<br>Threatened by Eisner's revelation the foreign ministry insisted that such a free debate about the war guilt question would make the peace negotiations unfavorable to Germany. The new foreign minister Urlich Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau decided to take the lead and refute any charges that Germany had made preparations for the war in 1914 and was responsible for it. He was determined to exonerate the imperial German policy.<br>After the acceptance of the Versailles Treaty in June 1919 the foreign ministry planned an antiwar-guilt campaign. With the purpose of revising the treaty the foreign ministry mobilized the Germans beyond all classes and parties and lead a national movement ("Volksbewegung") against the Allies' verdict on Germany's war guilt. A War Guilt Section ("Schuldreferat") was established in the ministry which should direct research and discussion about this question at home and abroad in favour of German foreign policy.<br>The purpose of this paper is firstly to describe how the war guilt question was dealt with in the German foreign ministry at the first stage of the Weimar Republic. It will show the process how the antiwar-guilt campaign was formed and developed.<br>The second purpose is to analyze the meaning of this campaign for the Weimar political culture. Its influence on the radical-right thoughts and movements such as Nazism will be also discussed.