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4 Police Stud.: Int'l Rev. Police Dev. 28 (1981-1982)
The Weimar Police Experiment

handle is hein.journals/polic4 and id is 74 raw text is: The Weimar Police Experiment Paul Bookbinder University of Massachusetts, Boston, U.S.A. The period which followed the end of the First World War was a time of trauma and chaos for Germany. The loss of the war, the end of the monarchy, the humiliating peace treaty and the birth of the Weimar Republic created an atmosphere of crisis. For the conservative forces in Germany who had been content with the old regime, the events of 1919 and 1920 were an unmitigated disaster. However, the republican and radical leftist forces found elements of hope and cause for optimism in the midst of tragedy. Expectations of what would rise from the ashes of defeat varied from Kurt Eisner's socialist Utopia to Otto Braun's less grandiose concept of a representative constitu- tional government protecting the rights of its citizens and offering them opportunities for successful employment and a decent standard of living. Neither Eisner's vision nor Braun's program was finally realized, and the Weimar Republic is studied as a transitional phase between the monarchy and the Third Reich. Scholars have been concerned with the lessons that can be learned from the failures of the Republic. In the last few years, increasing interest has focused on areas of vitality within the Weimar period. Particularly in Germany, there is a growing awareness of what was lost when the Republic fell. However, the reevaluation of the period has largely been the province of cultural historians emphasizing accomplishments in the arts.' There has not been a substantial ef- fort to reappraise the major institutions of Weimar society and to see them in a more positive light. It is time that this should be done. The failure of the Republic did not necessarily signify the failure of all its institutions. While much can be learned from the failures of Weimar, there may be hidden success stories which of- fer lessons as well. Among the institutions that deserve more study, the police present a fertile field for discussion. They played a vital role in the major conflicts of the Weimar years and were a significant force in the politics of the streets, one of the characteristics of the period. The Social Democratic leadership made a substantial effort to create a different type of police force consistent with the needs of a democratic state. Their efforts are particularly relevant to the present debate in Germany and the United States concerning the relationship between police who have political functions and the maintenance of a democratic society. In the course of these debates, advocates of sweeping police powers and of strict limita- tions have cited examples from the Weimar era to support their arguments. The evaluation of these arguments rests on an apraisal of the performance of the Weimar police who carried out political functions. Such an appraisal must consider whether the police supported the prin- ciples of the Weimar Republic, whether they were objective or predisposed toward the right, and whether they carried out their assign- ments effectively. Much of the evidence for the assessment of police performance is implicit in the perceptions and responses of extremist forces on the left and the right who continually confronted authority and in the publications of individuals and groups within the ranks of the police themselves. At the end of World War I, the Social Demo- crats emerged as the strongest political force within Germany. Yet major disagreements in orientation within their ranks were destined to result in debilitating conflict. The Socialists ranged from the Majority Socialists through the Independent Socialists to the Spartacists. The Majority Socialists had been the largest and most moderate section of the pre-war Social Democratic Party. They were steeped in the revisionism of Eduard Bernstein and close- ly connected to the trade union movement. Their leadership was mainly composed of men who had begun their careers as skilled workers and had risen through the trade unions and the party bureaucracy. They had, according to Carl Schorske, become successful in their own terms and had developed a stake in the status quo of the monarchy.2 These men were not very

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