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A Response to David Abraham's “Reply”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Gerald D. Feldman
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Extract

Iregret that David Abraham's lengthy, bizarre, obfuscating, and often mendacious reply to my charges requires me to impose on the generosity of CEH once again, but readers will understand why I insisted that Abraham not be allowed to have the kind of “last word” granted him in the AHR. In my article, I deliberately refrained from a discussion of the various circular letters sent around by Abraham, myself, and others for the simple reason that most readers would have no direct means of checking the evidence for themselves, that the whole affair had been utterly confusing, and that it was most appropriate in this journal to concentrate on what had appeared in print. This is not a tabloid, but a scholarly journal, and I find the airing of Abraham's personal grievances against me inappropriate in this forum. The way in which I treated Abraham can have no bearing whatever on the reliability of his book or other writings. Although I initially contemplated writing a detailed reply to Abraham's plaints, I have concluded that this would be an abuse of CEH's hospitality. Since this is a historical journal, however, falsifications of the historical record and certain charges should not go totally without comment, and I will now make a number of brief responses to certain of Abraham's charges for that purpose.

Type
Debate: David Abraham's The Collapse of the Weimar Republic
Information
Central European History , Volume 17 , Issue 2-3 , June 1984 , pp. 245 - 267
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1984

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References

1. Abraham to Turner, November 18, 1983. I find it curious that this circular letter goes unmentioned by Abraham. It does have major relevance in the context of the debate over this case since it demonstrates, first, that Abraham did not think that the open, printed AHR exchange with Turner fully satisfied his need to exculpate himself and, second, that my intervention of November 28, 1983, was a direct response to a circular letter sent by Abraham.

2. I did not know that Abraham was a candidate for a job at Tel-Aviv when I visited Israel in early January 1984—not February or March—and I only learned this in April. Had I known he was a candidate, I would have been much more active about informing the department there but would also have asked them to inform Abraham about my actions. His presentation of the number of phone calls I made to Catholic University and Santa Cruz is exaggerated and thus tendentious. On December 30, 1984, the Council of the American Historical Association refused to consider the complaints made about my disclosures.

3. Abraham's reply, p. 184.

4. Ibid, p. 195.

5. Ibid.

6. Feldman, Gerald D., Vom Weltkrieg zur Weltwirtschaftskrise: Studien zur deutschen Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte 1914–1932, Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft 60 (Göttingen, 1984), pp. 7–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Ibid., pp. 221–22.

8. Abraham's reply, p. 197.

9. American Historical Review 89 (1984): 467–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Turner to Abraham, June 27, 1983.

11. Abraham's reply, p. 243.

12. Ibid., p. 199.

13. Feldman to Colleagues, Nov. 28, 1983.

14. Lebovics, Herman, Social Conservatism and the Middle Classes in Germany, 1914–1933 (Princeton, 1969), p. 94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15. Neebe, Grossindustrie, pp. 90ff. It is impossible here to repeat all the information in the sources I cite, an obvious point that never would have to be made if Abraham had not so severely undermined the normal trust that exists in scholarly discourse about matters of fact. In order to assist readers who would like to check certain of my points about documents that are published, I shall in certain instances go so far as to indicate the lines on the page that illustrate what I am talking about.

16. Neebe, Grossindustrie, pp. 85ff., 181ff., 237n. 122.

17. Blank to Reusch, Oct. 14, 1931, Maurer, and Wengst, , Politik und Wirtschaft, 2: 1044–47Google Scholar. The information on the DVP is contained on the last three lines of p. 1044, while Blank's expectation that Brüning would stay in power is to be found on p. 1046, lines 3–6 from the top and p. 1047 in the third full paragraph from the top.

18. “… Im Endergebnis zeigte sich, dass die von Thyssen und Brandi angeführte Opposition auch innerhalb der Schwerindustrie zu schwach war, um die politische Ausrichtung des Reichsverbandes grundlegend zu ändern. Mehr als die Zusage des RDI, in Zukunft grössere politische ‘Zurückhaltung’ üben zu wollen, hatte der Bergbau-Verein nicht erreichen können. Zudem war die Position Kastls, der sich ‘geschickt’ verteidigt hatte, eher gefestigt als geschwächt, weil mit der Beilegung des Konfliktes am 5. Mai zugleich die Voraussetzung für die Präsidentschaft Gustav Krupps in Nachfolge des aus Altersgründen im Herbst 1931 ausscheidenden Carl Duisberg geschaffen wurde. Der Versuch der Opposition im RDI, bei dieser günstigen Gelegenheit die Person des Geschäftsführenden Präsidialmitgliedes mit auszuwechseln, hatte keinen Erfolg gehabt.” Neebe, Grossindustrie, p. 88.

19. Ibid., pp. 129ff., 176ff.

20. It was published in Berlin, not Düsseldorf, and while it reflected the social and economic attitudes of heavy industry, its political line was a different one. Neebe argues it was the line of Silverberg, ibid., pp. 125 and I54f., while Turner, in chapter 6 of his forthcoming German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler, suggests that the chief influence was exercised by Schacht. They both agree, however, that Berlin is not Düsseldorf.

21. Abraham's reply, p. 200.

22. Blank to Reusch, Dec. 17, 1928, HA/GHH, No. 4001012024/4b.

23. Abraham, Collapse, p. 320.

24. This is discussed in Nocken's forthcoming article and in Turner's forthcoming book.

25. Feldman, Vom Weltkrieg zur Weltwirtschaftskrise, p. 230.

26. All references are to the 1971 article in this journal cited in note 27 of my “A Collapse in Weimar Scholarship.”

27. For Abraham's argument, which runs counter to all the research and writing cited, see Abraham, Collapse, pp. 132–43. For usable accounts, see Weisbrod, Schwerindustrie; Nocken, Ulrich, “Inter-Industrial Conflicts and Alliances as Exemplified by the AVI Agreement,” in Mommsen, Hans et al. , eds., Industrielles System und politische Entwicklung in der Weimarer Republik (Düsseldorf, 1974), pp. 693–704Google Scholar; Stegmann, Dirk, “Die Silver-berg-Kontroverse 1926,” in Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, ed., Sozialgeschichte Heute: Festschrift für Hans Rosenberg (Göttingen, 1974), pp. 594–610CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Feldman, Gerald D. and Steinisch, Irmgard, “Die Weimarer Republik zwischen Sozial und Wirtschaftsstaat: Die Entscheidung gegen den Achtstundentag,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 18 (1978): 353–439Google Scholar, and “Notwendigkeiten und Grenzen sozialstaatliche Intervention: Eine vergleichende Fall-studie des Ruhreisenstreits in Deutschland und des Generalstreiks in England,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 20 (1980): 57–117.Google Scholar

28. Bry, Gerhard, Wages in Germany, 1871–1914 (Princeton, 1960), p. 467.Google Scholar

29. Abraham's Reply, p. 219.

30. Ibid., p. 199.

31. Abraham, Collapse, pp. 133, 166n., 230n., 259–60, 273n.

32. The indices for Textiles and Clothing are taken from Abraham's source, Hoffmann, Wachstum, p. 392.

33. Abraham's Reply, p. 225.

34. New York Times, Dec. 23, 1984, p. 19.

35. Abraham's Reply, pp. 228–30.

36. The explanation was sent to Abraham by me on November 3, 1984, with a correction of the text to account for the document in question. Since Abraham was so far along with his piece that it would have slowed things down to have my change put in and for him to make the corresponding changes, I withdrew my change in order to leave it for the response. Abraham certainly could have changed the opening sentence, however, which suggests I may have had ulterior motives.

37. “Gleichzeitig soll sie versuchen, den Nationalsozialismus dahingehend zu beeinflussen, dass er in seinen wirtschaftlichen Zielen in vernünftige Bahnen gelenkt wird.” Reusch to Jung, Jan. 2, 1931, HA/GHH, No. 400101293/11.

38. “3. die Nationalsozialisten müssen von ihren wirtschaftlichen undfinanz politischen Utopien abrücken.” Gilsa to Reusch, Oct. 30, 1930, Maurer und Wengst, Politik und Wirtschaft, 1: 457.

39. Abraham's reply, pp. 229–30.

40. The crucial qualifying sentence can be found by reading the last word in the text on page 457 of Maurer and Wengst (see note 37) and then turning the page to page 458 and reading the first four lines.

41. Ibid.

42. Abraham's reply, pp. 238–39.

43. Turner to Herzog, June 7, 1982. A copy of this letter has been provided to me by Turner. Since Turner was writing his book at the time, Abraham's sources were terribly important, especially since Turner could not find anything like them in his own notes and materials. How are scholars supposed to work effectively when they come up against work of the sort done by Abraham?

44. This letter, formally addressed to Turner and the cause of my open intervention against Abraham, is on file with this journal.

45. Ibid., Appendix, p. 242.

46. “Es fehlt mir schon viel schwerer, eine Erklärung dafür zu finden, dass Abraham in der AHR auf die Jung-Version in der Frage des Christmas Exchange verfallen ist, nachdem ich ihm—unabhängig von Neebe—auf die Autorschaft Heinrichsbauers hingewiesen hatte.”

47. He has not, however, given up spinning tales. He now provides us with interpretations of the underlinings of the Heinrichsbauer document and tedious and irrelevant details trying to suggest that Heinrichsbauer's authorship strengthens his overall case because of the latter's association with Reusch. Since Heinrichsbauer was the editor of an industrialist newspaper, he obviously had connections with Reusch, which does not make him Reusch's agent. There is no basis for making strained connections between the stream of independently inspired reports coming into Reusch's office. What is true is that important changes in industrialist attitudes were triggered by the banking crisis of the spring of 1931, but the second half of 1931 is not the second half of 1930.

48. Abraham's Reply, p. 184. As the New York Times reported: “Dr. Abraham said recently, in one of several long interviews, that ‘there are errors in every work’ and that no one knows if there are more in his book than in other histories. ‘No work that I know of in recent years has been subjected to that kind of scrutiny,’ he said. New York Times, Dec. 23, 1984, p. 19.

49. Abraham, David, “Corporatist Compromise and the Re-Emergence of the Labor/Capital Conflict in Weimar Germany,” Political Power and Social Theory 2 (1981): pp. 59–109Google Scholar. Ulrich Nocken has been asked by the editor of that journal to write a comment on the errors in this article which will appear shortly. It should be noted that no one has yet checked Abraham's use of the materials he found in the East German archives. I have no intention of taking the trouble, but what he is likely to have done with those documents should be obvious from his record.

50. Abraham's Reply, p. 184.