Germany's 'Fortress Truce', August I9I4 - November I9I7

Arthur Marwick

Germany's declaration of war on Russia and France seems to have been greeted with the same kind of hysterical enthusiasm with which crowds of ordinary people in every country demonstrated that there really was a 'will to war' in pre-1914 Europe: exuberance was not restrained by the news that from midnight (Berlin time) Britain too was involved, though this meant, among other things, that the 'Cafe Piccadilly' in Berlin had to become 'Cafe Vaterland'. Yet some contemporary evidence does suggest that below the surface there existed real fears that 'encirclement' might now be more than a nightmare. The immediate emotional impact of war took two forms: hysteria against the 'outsider', and a deep sense of togetherness among the German people themselves.

 On 2 August the state of Burgfrieden (literally, 'fortress truce') was declared. The expression is a medieval one and implied that just as all personal feuds among the defenders in a beleaguered fortress were suspended till the defeat of the enemy, so now the German employers and trade unions agreed to suspend all labour strife for the duration of the war. The German Social Democrats, as members of the Socialist International, were committed to the policy that, should 'capitalist' war break out, socialists should not take part in it, but should instead turn the occasion to the advantage of socialism and the working class. The government's mobilization plan called for the arrest of all socialist leaders the moment it went into operation. But, in the event, the Social Democrats gave their support to the war; and the government decided not to arrest the socialist leaders. There was a ban on the sale of socialist literature at military installations and at railway stations, but this was lifted on 2 September.

 The German Social Democrats had a very strict code of party discipline; there was a strong minority opposed to the war, but majority opinion prevailed, and, in the Reichstag, the party voted en bloc in favour of the granting of war credits to the government. Gradually. however, as the war wore on, a definite split developed between the Majority Social Democrats and the Independent Socialists who took up a positive anti-war stand (in 1916, furthermore, the extreme Marxist group, the Spartacists was formed - though till the end of the war they remained part of the parent Socialist party). But in 1914 the position was as one socialist deputy, who was personally in sympathy with the minority, explained it:

We stand today before the brutal fact of war, and the terrible threat of enemy invasion. The decision to be made is not whether to take sides for or against the war but rather on the means necessary for the defence of our country. Our heartiest wishes go out to our brethren, irrespective of party affiliations, who are called to the colours. Much if not all would be lost to our people and its future independence in the event of a victory for Russian despotisms

 Intellectuals as well as trade unionists and Socialists rallied enthusiastically to the national cause. Max Weber, the sociologist, declared to a friend that 'this war with all its ghastliness is nevertheless grand and wonderful. It is worth experiencing.  There was truth in the Kaiser's emotional utterance of 4 August, 'henceforth I know no parties, only Germans'. 

Hatred of the enemy was canalised (not created) by postcards with such slogans as: Jeder Schuss ein Russ ('every shot, a Russki'); Jeder Stoss ein Franzos ('for every blow a Frenchy'); Jeder Tritt ein Britt ('for every step, a Brit'). And by such songs as Ernst Lissauer's 'Hymn of Hate': 

Hate by water and hate by land; Hate by heart and hate of the hand; We love as one and hate as one; We have but one foe alone-England.

Germany proved possibly even more prone to spy scares than any other country (with the possible exception, later, of the United States). As a Danish-speaking deputy from Schleswig-Holstein noted sardonically early in August

 The Gods alone know how many 'spies' have been beaten and imprisoned today! The mobilised reserve officers do not get by unmolested. They have in many instances become fat and round during peace-time and perhaps their bad-looking uniforms account for the mistakes in identity. It is commonly believed that spies go around dressed like Prussian officers.

The social narrative of the war well fits the threefold division given above - with the final stage culminating in revolution. Germany mobilised her army of 5,250,000 much more efficiently than any other country; none the less, the period to the beginning of 1915 was marked by the same kind of sheer unawareness of the economic and social implications of this mighty war of the nations as we shall find in even greater degree in the other countries.

From the beginning of 1915 to the end of the year we have a middle period in which, as much because of the enforced state of siege as because of any innate German 'efficiency', more effective forms of government control over the national effort were established. In December 1916 there were drastic changes in the German High Command designed to bring more unified control; but 1917 was a year of hardship and political crisis. After the hopeful news of the big German advances on the western front in March 1918 there was a collapse into greater despondency and privation: this is the period of run-up to the German Revolution....

One distinctive feature of the outbreak of war in all countries was the spate of emergency legislation. The Reichsbank discontinued redemption of notes in gold on 31 July and special 'Loan Banks' were established to provide credits for business. It became extremely difficult to change large notes as people hoarded the smaller silver coins. General mobilisation was accompanied by the proclamation, in each of the twenty-four army corps' districts into which the empire was divided, of the Prussian Law of Siege (Bavaria, however, was excepted). The proclamation, followed in traditional style by three trumpet blasts, gave sole responsibility for 'public safety' to the Deputy Commanding Generals in each district. The sense of immediate emergency lifted fairly quickly in Germany (as also in Britain) when it became clear that any fears of direct invasion were unfounded. But, as was to be expected, the economy as a whole suffered severe dislocation and general industrial activity dropped by about 30 or 40 per cent. In 1913 unemployment had run at 2.9 per cent: in August 1914 it rose to 22.4 per cent, but thereafter it fell off rapidly to 15.7 per cent In September, 10.9 per cent in October, and 8.2 per cent in November.

 Because of her 'encircled' position Germany very quickly found herself facing drastic scarcities. By October all reserves were used up, so that she became completely dependent upon new production; in November both munitions and agricultural production had reached crisis point. From the very beginning the problem had been foreseen by Walter Rathenau, a leading Jewish industrialist: thanks to his persistence and initiative a War Raw Materials Department (K.R.A.), which created government control of procurement of raw materials, was established in August. But when Rathenau also suggested that the War Ministry should control food supply this was turned down as beyond the scope of military authority. But for the mass utilization by Professor Fritz Haber of his process for fixing nitrogen from the air, agricultural and munitions production might well have failed to survive the first months of war - a good example of war fostering the exploitation of a previous scientific discovery. 

The story of the establishment of the War Wheat Corporation (November 1914) shows dearly the conflict of interests which bedevilled the German war effort, and the manner in which collaboration between big business and the Prussian government was to set the pattern for the second phase of the war. As early as September two industrialists, Alfred Hugenberg and Hugo Stinnes, together with some mayors from the Ruhr, sought government aid for the establishment of a corporation to buy up two million tons of wheat in order (the concern was national rather than social) to raise prices, reduce consumption, and save food for the following year. Since the Imperial State Secretary of the Interior, Clemens van Delbruck, rejected the plan, its supporters turned to the Prussian Ministry of Finance (there was no Finance Ministry for the Empire as a whole), where they got a specially warm welcome from the under-secretary Georg Michaelis (a name to remember). When the Corporation was established, Michaelis became its head; business operations were in the hands of officials of two major private companies, North German Lloyd and the Hamburg-America line.

 Various restrictions and controls were introduced in 1915. 'War bread', which contained a proportion of 'ersatz' (substitute) material -potato to begin with, later turnips - had been introduced in October 1914: bread cards for rationing appeared in January, followed shortly by cards for fats, milk, meat and butter. In October two meatless days per week were legally imposed. Already German civilians were undergoing conditions which did not reach Britain for another two years.  In March beer production was cut to 60 per cent of the pre-war level, and by the end of 1915 to 25 per cent. In a situation of growing labour shortage rival industrialists began to 'raid' each others' factories for workers: thus in January it was decreed that no workman could move without a 'leaving certificate'. However, so strong was the force of participation that leaving certificates were not withheld if the worker had bona fide been offered a higher wage. Other consequences of war-time participation can also be clearly detected. In November 1914 the socialists and the trade unions mounted a massive campaign against rising prices; early in the following year the imperial government, fearful that the Burgfrieden might break down, introduced a system of price controls. At about the same time a youthful labour expert from the Society for Social Reform, Dr Tiburtius, was brought into the Prussian War Ministry where he strongly advocated more equal relations between workers and employers. Labour leaders. too. found themselves welcomed into a kind of tacit partnership with General Groener, chief of the War Ministry.

 Even national minorities looked to be making substantial gains, despite the initial attempts of the military authorities to cow their leaders. Soon after the war began one Polish deputy boasted 'The Foreign Office is soft as prunes these days. It is willing to make large concessions to us. It understands how to estimate our strategic strength. By December the Centre Party was calling for the abolition of the Exceptional Laws (which imposed disabilities on national minorities): 'We must enter upon a new Germany, a greater Germany - greater in righteousness. We must set a good example to the whole world.'. It is a key argument in this book that such emotional utterances must not be dismissed out of hand. But they must yield proper place to the unpremeditated realities of war, recognised, for instance, by another Polish minority leader when he remarked: 'We now have a million Poles under arms, 600,000 in the Prussian and Austrian armies and 400,000 in the Russian army. We are thus a belligerent power and should take advantage of the situation.'

 Despite the new restrictions and controls, this middle period of the war began to show very clearly some of the basic weaknesses in Germany's position. Despite the needs of war German agriculture was going into steady decline: vital manpower had been carted off to the front, and there was a desperate shortage of fertilizers; farmers were harried by petty bureaucrats and had their best horses taken by the army; they were forced to slaughter their pigs, and they were not allocated enough fodder for their surviving animals; the entire kind was suffering from over-cultivation. The harvest of 1916 fell below expectation by a million tons; requisitions from conquered territories and imports from Austria and from such neutrals as Holland and Denmark could not make good the shortfall. It was just as really terrible shortages of food and fuel, which culminated in the notorious 'Turnip Winter' of 1916-17, began to appear that the new semi-dictatorship of Hindenburg as Chief of the General Staff and Ludendorff as First-Quarter-Master-General was announced (29 August 1916) in place of the discredited military command of Falkenhayn. 

At the end of the year the 'Hindenburg programme' of all-out 'war socialism' was promulgated. A law of 5 December 1916 created the 'Patriotic Auxiliary Service' into which every male German citizen between seventeen and sixty, not already on active service, was to be drafted. However, it remained possible for the rich and influential to buy their way out, while, paradoxically, the main long term effect was to intensify the co-operation between government and the official leaders of organised labour. While membership of the free trade unions had declined in the first two years of the war, it now began to rise again, from 967,000 in 1916 to 1,107,000 at the end of 1917. German organization for war now reached its peak. For the first time there were systematic attempts to exploit the labour-power of women, though women were specifically excluded from the compulsory aspects of the Hindenburg programme. Nothing was done about the flourishing black market, which indeed became almost a systematic organization in its own right.

 As 1917 began, grievances and social tensions broke out into the open. In the Reichstag on 22 March 1917, an Independent Socialist deputy expostulated:

 It appears as if neither the House nor the government knows the conditions prevailing in the country. It appears not to be known, or they pretend not to know that workers collapse at their work because of hunger. Although censorship bars much of what happens in the country from publication, it is known well enough. Gentlemen don't try to deny it, but use your efforts to overcome famine as soon as possible. 

By April it was obvious to the government that it would have to impose a cut in the bread ration from 200 grams to 170 grams a day. Significantly the government first entered into negotiations with the trade union leaders; official leaders, however, were no longer in control of their embittered rank-and-file. The Kaiser, in his Easter message, promised 'the extension of our political, economic and social life, as soon as the state of war allows'. Then, in a sentence which summarises both the propagandist and the practical implications of wartime participation, he declared that: 'After the great achievements of the whole people in this terrible struggle, there is no room, in our opinion, for the three-class franchise.' Six days later Bethmann-Hollweg referred to 'the transformation of our political life, which in spite of all opposition must result from the experiences of the war'. The government's nervousness was intensified by the feeling that unrestricted submarine warfare, resumed in February in a desperate bid to bring the war to an end, was not producing the desired results: instead, 2 April brought American entry on the side of the western Allies. The bread cuts had to be announced on 15 April: they were followed at once by demonstration strikes of at least 300,000 workers in Berlin and Leipzig. Accordingly the bread cuts were withdrawn, though the government seemed powerless to handle a situation in which, increasingly, citizens were not able to obtain the ration to which they were officially entitled. In Leipzig the employers agreed to increase wages and to cut the working week to fifty-two hours.

From:  Arthur Marwick, War and Social Change in the Twentieth Century (Macmillan: Houndmills, 1986), pp.25-31.