EPSTEIN_From Traditionalism to Conservatism

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From Traditionalism to ConservatismThe Genesis of German Conservatism by Klaus EpsteinReview by: Donald J. MattheisenThe Review of Politics, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Jul., 1968), pp. 388-390Published by: Cambridge University Press for the University of Notre Dame du lac on behalf of Review ofPoliticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1406405 .

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THE REVIEW OF POLITICSHE REVIEW OF POLITICS(p. 110), ignoring the changes contained in the Potsdam Agreement,in Byrnes's statement (December 12, 1945) on economic principles,and in Byrnes'sStuttgart speech (September 6, 1946), which Schwarzacknowledgesfive pages later; bizonal unification had made no signifi-cant progress before the Moscow Foreign Ministers Conference in1947 (p. 119), but this statement ignores the September, 1946, con-tractual agreements and the December 2, 1946, Bevin-ByrnesAgree-ment; Marshall deliberatelychose reparationsas the issue on which toask for adjournment of the London Foreign Ministers Conference inDecember, 1947 (p. 122).Schwarz accepts evidence of suspect credibility. A gross exampleis acceptance of a PM story (p. 725) which reports that SenatorBridgessaid he saw Clay's December, 1947, cable to the War Depart-ment stating that scheduled dismantling should continue, becauseGermany lacked sufficientresources to operate the plants for the next34 years. Since the time factor is obviously an estimate, why shouldClay have hit upon the unusual figure of 34 years? Consideration ofthe tortuous route by which the figure was made public should havearoused suspicion. A look at the current press would have suggestedthat Clay probably said 3 to 4 years, which is what he did say. Asecond example: Schwarz uses a statement by a third-echelonOMGUS official to a Berlin SPD representative, who reported it toSPD headquarters in Hanover, to note domestic disagreements onsocialization in the United States (p. 735). Curiously, Schwarz notesthat the SPD report's summary of Clay's view is obviously in error,but he accepts the part he wants to use. Schwarz too readily acceptsstatements by the Alsop brothers and Marguerite Higgins as thoughthey were the policy pronouncements of official American sources.Lastly, his account of the July, 1948, Koblenz and Riidesheim discus-sions on the formation of the West German government seems to havebeen unduly influenced by Carlo Schmid's notes, especially sinceSchwarz claims to have read the stenographicminutes of the MinisterPresidents'conferences (p. 701). -JOHN GIMBEL

FROM TRADITIONALISM TO CONSERVATISM*The Enlightenment was a challenge to traditional religious, social,

and political values which the old regime could not ignore. It criti-cized cherished institutions and vested interests which therefore hadto be defended. Champions soon came forth to justify the good oldways against their opponents. At some point the accumulation ofspecific defenses of particular institutions evolved into the complexof ideas and attitudes called conservatism. This new work by KlausEpstein traces the processby which "unreflectivetraditionalism turned* Klaus Epstein: The Genesis of German Conservatism. (Princeton, NewJersey: Princeton University Press, 1966. Pp. xiii, 733. $17.50.)

(p. 110), ignoring the changes contained in the Potsdam Agreement,in Byrnes's statement (December 12, 1945) on economic principles,and in Byrnes'sStuttgart speech (September 6, 1946), which Schwarzacknowledgesfive pages later; bizonal unification had made no signifi-cant progress before the Moscow Foreign Ministers Conference in1947 (p. 119), but this statement ignores the September, 1946, con-tractual agreements and the December 2, 1946, Bevin-ByrnesAgree-ment; Marshall deliberatelychose reparationsas the issue on which toask for adjournment of the London Foreign Ministers Conference inDecember, 1947 (p. 122).Schwarz accepts evidence of suspect credibility. A gross exampleis acceptance of a PM story (p. 725) which reports that SenatorBridgessaid he saw Clay's December, 1947, cable to the War Depart-ment stating that scheduled dismantling should continue, becauseGermany lacked sufficientresources to operate the plants for the next34 years. Since the time factor is obviously an estimate, why shouldClay have hit upon the unusual figure of 34 years? Consideration ofthe tortuous route by which the figure was made public should havearoused suspicion. A look at the current press would have suggestedthat Clay probably said 3 to 4 years, which is what he did say. Asecond example: Schwarz uses a statement by a third-echelonOMGUS official to a Berlin SPD representative, who reported it toSPD headquarters in Hanover, to note domestic disagreements onsocialization in the United States (p. 735). Curiously, Schwarz notesthat the SPD report's summary of Clay's view is obviously in error,but he accepts the part he wants to use. Schwarz too readily acceptsstatements by the Alsop brothers and Marguerite Higgins as thoughthey were the policy pronouncements of official American sources.Lastly, his account of the July, 1948, Koblenz and Riidesheim discus-sions on the formation of the West German government seems to havebeen unduly influenced by Carlo Schmid's notes, especially sinceSchwarz claims to have read the stenographicminutes of the MinisterPresidents'conferences (p. 701). -JOHN GIMBEL

FROM TRADITIONALISM TO CONSERVATISM*The Enlightenment was a challenge to traditional religious, social,

and political values which the old regime could not ignore. It criti-cized cherished institutions and vested interests which therefore hadto be defended. Champions soon came forth to justify the good oldways against their opponents. At some point the accumulation ofspecific defenses of particular institutions evolved into the complexof ideas and attitudes called conservatism. This new work by KlausEpstein traces the processby which "unreflectivetraditionalism turned* Klaus Epstein: The Genesis of German Conservatism. (Princeton, NewJersey: Princeton University Press, 1966. Pp. xiii, 733. $17.50.)

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REVIEWSinto self-conscious Conservatism" in Germany (p. 24). The bookdeals with the period 1770-1806, ending with the collapse of the vener-able Empire and the nadir of conservative prospects at the time ofNapoleon's greatest victories.The book is partly a survey of the ideas of the bureaucrats andstatesmen who viewed religious and political reformism with alarm.For these early conservatives were not philosophers. German conserva-tism received its full theoretical statement only at the time of itsgreatest practical triumph. The major works of Haller and Stahl werepublished during the Restoration, after the defeat of Napoleon. Theearlier conservativewriters, by contrast, were men of affairs who pre-sented their views in books, pamphlets, and official memorandadirected at particular current issues- the masonic "conspiracy,"forexample. Most famous was Justus Moeser, sometime newspapereditorand historian, but also the advocatus patriae (state attorney) of theprincipality of Osnabrueck. There were many others. Moeser andhis colleagues entered the religious, social, and political debates of theeighteenth century firmly on the side of the status quo. Every existingevil, from the barbaric penal codes to the ubiquitous and superfluousstanding armies, found its conservative supporter, as Epstein amplydemonstrates.

But Epstein is not content with merely presenting conservativeideas. He devotes much of his book to an analysis of the institutionsand society of eighteenth-century Germany. He gives careful atten-tion to Moeser's Osnabrueck, for example, because environment wasimportant in forming Moeser's attitudes. Austria, Prussia,the Empire,and the peculiarly Germanic phenomena of Free Imperial Cities, FreeImperial Knights, and ecclesiastical principalities also receive theirdue, for these were important parts of the status quo which con-servatives wanted to maintain. In fact, the broad scope of the bookwould give it a hopelessly miscellaneous character in the hands of aless gifted historian. Happily, Epstein succeeds in establishing therelevance of this multitude of detail to his central theme.A major aspect of that theme is the inherent weakness of theforces of change in Germany, and the correspondingstrength of theconservative position. The forces for change were minimal becausethey lacked any firm social basis. The writers of the German Enlight-enment recognized this fact. They criticized obscurantistreligion andsocial inequality, but not political absolutism. For they could rely onlyon a strong prince, not on existing popular forces, to carry out theirprogram. Their ideal was the philosopher king, the Enlightened Des-pot. Their program was partially fulfilled during the Napoleonicconquest because domestic German despots- Enlightened and other-wise-could serve their own interests by cooperating with Enlight-ened Napoleonic policy. But there was nothing inherently progressivein princely absolutism. After Napoleon, the princes adopted a re-actionarypolicy. The Napoleonic interlude left German society largelyunchanged, and German conservatismcould then rely on a favorable

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THE REVIEW OF POLITICSsocial climate as well as on princely cooperationduring the Restoration.It is hard to define a conservative ideology before the Restorationbecause ideological lines were not clearly drawn. A particular contro-versy might ally a conservative like Moeser with such an Enlightenedfigure as the journalist Friedrich Nicolai. But the author finds thatthere were men who consistently resisted change and who could givecoherent explanations for their resistance. He calls them "status quoconservatives." Then there were the articulate reactionaries who ob-jected to changes recently made. He also constructsa third category,called "reform conservatism," for those who recognized that timelychange was also a powerful conservative device. One may recognizethe validity of such a category in principle. But it is difficult to distin-guish reformist conservatism from the cautious reformism of laterGerman liberalism. Where, in this scheme of things, does reform con-servatismend and liberalismbegin? There is some danger of blurringa distinction which is, I think, a real one. For example, Epstein'sarchetype of a reform conservatism is August Wilhelm Rehberg, aHanoverian bureaucrat sufficiently reform-minded to favor peasantparticipation in politics. In what sense can Rehberg be labelled con-servative, while his friend and associate, the famous Baron von Stein,the soul of the Prussian reform movement (who was, according toEpstein, in "perfect agreement" with Rehberg on political principles[p. 565]), stands by common consent in the German liberal tradition?The question is important because only by examining such borderlinecases can we really define the subject under discussion, German con-servatism. German conservatism has never been noted for an excessof reformingzeal. It may be unwise to emphasizesuch an exceptionalcase as Rehberg without attempting to locate the line that separatedhim from his liberal colleagues, if that line indeed exists. In otherwords, it is possible to claim a particular type of wisdom and foresightfor a political tradition that has lacked just those qualities by appro-priating representatives of the opposing camp. But that would ob-scure our understandingboth of that tradition and of German liberal-ism as well.There are few good studies of German political thought in theeighteenth century which seek, as this one does, to synthesizethe workof writers who were not primarily philosophers. (Fritz Valjavec'spioneering but more general work Die Entstehung der politischenStroemungen in Deutschland 1770-1815 [Munich, 1951] is the onlyone that comes to mind.) There are fewer still that combine such awork with a discussion of the relevant social background, perhaps be-cause- as Epstein admits- "The social historyof eighteenth-centuryGermany . . . is still largely a virgin field of scholarship" (p. 678). Itis difficult to imagine the job done more successfullythan in this book.DONALD J. MATTHEISEN

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EPSTEIN_From Traditionalism to Conservatism