[GBay] Rezension: D. J. Weiss, Kronprinz Rupprecht von Bayern

["Dr. Daniel Schlögl" <schloegl_AT_ifz-muenchen.de>]

Nachfolgend eine Uebernahme aus H-German:


Betreff:     REV: Grutchfield on Weiss, _Kronprinz Rupprecht von Bayern 
(1869-1955)_
Datum:     Wed, 10 Jun 2009 06:24:37 -0500
Von:     Susan Boettcher <susan.boettcher_AT_MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU>
----------------------------------------------------------------

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-German_AT_h-net.msu.edu (June, 2009)

Dieter J. Weiss. _Kronprinz Rupprecht von Bayern (1869-1955): Eine 
politische Biografie_. Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet Verlag, 2007. 464 
pp. EUR 39.90 (cloth), ISBN 978-3-7917-2047-0.

Reviewed for H-German by Michael Grutchfield, Department of History, 
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

"Uncrowned, and Yet a King"

This new book explores the life of a man whose political career was 
defined by not being king of Bavaria. Crown Prince Rupprecht was robbed 
of that opportunity by the revolution in Bavaria after the First World 
War, and all his subsequent efforts toward restoration were frustrated. 
In spite of having never achieved his primary political goal, however, 
Rupprecht was not irrelevant to the political history of Bavaria, or of 
Germany, as his birth, popularity, and position guaranteed him influence 
during democratic governments, particularly within conservative circles, 
and made him a suspicious enemy in times of dictatorship. Writing on 
this intriguing subject, Dieter J. Weiss has produced a book that will 
be of interest to anyone studying the political history of the time and 
place, giving us insight into an area often neglected by Anglophone 
scholars.

Weiss has researched the history of southern Germany, knightly orders, 
and Catholicism for the past two decades.[1] For this project, which 
touches on these themes, he made extensive use of family archives, ego 
documents, and correspondence, as well as wide-ranging secondary source 
materials. The notes are well organized and useful, the bibliography 
partial but adequate. The book includes twenty-four pages of beautifully 
reproduced photographs (four in color), and a family tree, both of which 
assist the reader in recalling the identities of the most important 
individuals in the subject's life. The book is well written and 
engaging, with a style that does not lose sight of maintaining reader 
interest even while adhering to the standards of German academic 
scholarship. Researchers at every level should find it useful and enjoyable.

Rupprecht was born in 1869, and spent nearly his entire early life in a 
Bavaria that had integrated into the Wilhelmine Empire, but which 
remained fiercely protective of its autonomy as laid out in the 
constitution of the German Empire. His education and upbringing were in 
many ways typical-- military training was emphasized, and Rupprecht was 
expected to serve as an officer--but in others quite innovative: he was 
the first royal Bavarian to attend a public _Gymnasium_, and his 
interest in natural science and art were cultivated at the university. 
Rupprecht's grandfather, Luitpold, never held the title of king, serving 
instead as regent to the mentally incapacitated kings Ludwig II and 
Otto. Rupprecht's father, Ludwig III, was installed by the Bavarian 
parliament, effectively deposing the still-living Otto only in 1913, 
shortly before the outbreak of the war that would end the Bavarian monarchy.

In an interesting parallel to the more familiar life of Crown Prince 
Rudolf of Austria, Rupprecht's youth and early life was overshadowed by 
his bad relationship with his conservative father, and characterized by 
his belief in liberal constitutionalism, which he saw as the only way 
for monarchy to survive in a changing world. Unlike Rudolf, however, 
Rupprecht found it possible to remain optimistic or at least hopeful for 
change without reaching despair. Once his years of schooling were at an 
end, Rupprecht dedicated much time to foreign travel and art collecting, 
visiting India, China, and Japan, as well as European art centers such 
as Florence and Paris. During this period he made what seems to have 
been a happy marriage, in spite of the health problems of his wife, 
Marie Gabriele, and the deaths of four of their five children (one in 
childbirth).

During the First World War, Rupprecht commanded the Sixth Army in 
Lorraine, achieving promotion to general field marshal. His 
accomplishments as commander were in some dispute in early histories, 
especially those written by other commanders during the Weimar years 
wishing to place blame for the German military defeat, but Weiss's 
evidence confirms the more recent view that Rupprecht was among the very 
best royal commanders in the German army at the time. His success in 
holding back the French at the Battle of Lorraine earned glory for both 
him and the Bavarian Army, disproving the Prussian claim to a monopoly 
on military prowess in Germany. Rupprecht was an early critic of the 
unrealistic war aims of the kaiser and high command; although at first 
he supported territorial acquisitions in the West that could accrue to 
Bavaria, he quickly renounced such aims as he perceived the folly of a 
war of position. Rather than blindly pursue an impossible victory, 
Rupprecht favored negotiating a peace from a position of relative 
strength before it was too late.

His suggestions were ignored, criticized, refuted, and sometimes 
suppressed by the kaiser, the General Staff, Paul von Hindenburg and 
Erich Ludendorff, and also his father. The consensus was that he was 
"pessimistic" due to personal disposition. As the situation worsened, he 
foresaw the possibility of the collapse of German federalism and 
Bavarian monarchy--the two things he believed in most--but he was 
powerless to act as the revolution brought it about. Naturally critical 
of the revolution that dethroned his father in 1918, Rupprecht remained 
a dedicated monarchist throughout his life. During the Weimar Republic, 
he maintained a "court" with money from his estate, and gave audiences 
to those who respected his position. He moved in national conservative 
circles, but refused to support any party - believing that it was 
necessary for a monarch to remain aloof from parliamentary politics, 
even once dethroned. Rupprecht's friends included Gustav von Kahr, who 
Adolf Hitler hoped would support the putsch attempt in 1923, but 
Rupprecht himself regarded Hitler as irresponsible, untrustworthy, and 
possibly mad. Approaches by monarchist sympathizers within the National 
Socialist Party such as Ernst Roehm tended to alienate Rupprecht 
further, as when Roehm theatrically humbled himself on his first visit, 
much to the embarrassment of the crown prince.

Rupprecht's cool relations with the Nazis only worsened after their 
seizure of power in 1933. The political police suspected monarchists 
like Kahr to be enemies of the state, and Rupprecht found his 
opportunities for political action and economic freedom shrinking. 
Finally, he found it wiser to spend more and more time abroad, 
emigrating to fascist Italy rather than risk arrest at home during the 
Second World War. By the time of the fall of the Salo Republic, this was 
no longer a safe refuge, although Rupprecht himself was fortunate enough 
to be captured and treated well by the British. His family was not so 
fortunate, however, and his wife and children were arrested as suspected 
enemy sympathizers by the Gestapo in the final months of the war. The 
last years of Rupprecht's life were increasingly embittered, as he saw 
Bavarian particularism finally eradicated by the occupying powers and 
the new Basic Law, and as efforts to build sympathy for monarchism were 
banned by law.

Biography often runs the risk of passing into hagiography, particularly 
when the scholar is dependent upon the good graces of the family to gain 
access to vital archival materials. At any rate, one cannot expect an 
exposé under such conditions. At times, the story presented here of 
Rupprecht seems in danger of being too uncritical and too supportive, 
particularly in terms of his service during World War I. Apparently he 
never condoned an improper action by an inferior or supported a 
tactically questionable move by the General Staff, in spite of his 
position of responsibility on the western front (and particularly in 
view of his responsibility for the occupying powers of Belgium). The 
documentary evidence may well support this position, but at times it 
seems improbable that Rupprecht had such astonishing insight into the 
errors of imperial German policy, yet no power to alter it.

That said, the book does not completely ignore Rupprecht's faults. 
Although highly critical of his own father's stubborn conservatism, 
Rupprecht attempted to block his son's marriage to a woman of lower 
noble status. This marriage could have been seen as endangering a 
possible restoration after the fall of the monarchy, as it went against 
the traditional requirement for an heir to the Bavarian throne to marry 
royalty, but with the benefit of hindsight, it seems old-fashioned and 
foolish to worry about an inheritance that was never restored (doubtless 
_Erbprinz_ Albrecht saw it this way at the time). His refusal to 
immigrate with his family to the United States ultimately resulted in 
the internment of his wife and daughters in concentration camps at the 
end of the war, creating a rift from which the family never recovered. 
Finally, although he eschewed putschism and especially Nazism, Weiss 
does not deny that Rupprecht was active among the anti-republican forces 
that paved the way for "national revolution" and dictatorship, or that 
Rupprecht himself was at times antisemitic. This error in judgment cost 
Bavaria, and the Wittelsbachs, dearly, for support from a popular figure 
such as Rupprecht for the Weimar constitution could have been very 
influential, at least in his _Heimat_.

Implicit in the political life of Crown Prince Rupprecht is an argument 
never openly stated by the author or by Rupprecht himself: that perhaps 
a continued or restored monarchy in Germany during the interwar period 
could have provided a conservative constitutionalist counterweight to 
extremism and prevented the "national revolution" that brought the Nazis 
to power. Such an argument is, of course, counterfactual, not provable, 
and perhaps far-fetched, but certainly no more so than speculations from 
the Left that Germany "lost its chance" through the suppression of 
revolutionary movements in Bavaria and elsewhere in 1918-19. What 
Rupprecht did argue, consistently through his life, was that a monarch 
could serve as a responsible, super-parliamentary force for stability 
and reason in the life of the nation, and that monarchy was necessary to 
preserve Bavarian sovereignty and particularism. These arguments, 
however historians choose to evaluate them, represent an important, 
interesting part of the historical record.

Note

[1]. See, for example Dieter J. Weiss, _Das Exemte Bistum Bamberg: Die 
Bischofsreihe von 1522 bis 1693_ (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2000), 
published as part of the _Germania Sacra_ series of the Max Planck Institut.

Citation: Michael Grutchfield. Review of Weiss, Dieter J., _Kronprinz 
Rupprecht von Bayern (1869-1955): Eine politische Biografie_. H-German, 
H-Net Reviews. June, 2009. URL: 
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=23944

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.



_________________________________________________

       E-Mail-Forum "Geschichte Bayerns"
       http://www.geschichte-bayerns.de/

                  Redaktion:
        redaktion_AT_geschichte-bayerns.de
_________________________________________________