1. The recent reader on Kaiser Wilhelm II: New Interpretations (New York, 1982), ed. Röhl, J.C.G. and Sombart, N.Google Scholar, though rehabilitating Bernhard von Bülow, does not include an essay on Bethmann.

2. For earlier appraisals see von Vietsch, E., Bethmann Hollweg: Staatsmann zwischen Macht und Ethos (Boppard, 1969)Google Scholar; Stern, F., “Bethmann Hollweg and the War: The Limits of Responsibility,” in The Responsibility of Power (Garden City, 1967)Google Scholar; and Jarausch, K. H., The Enigmatic Chancellor: Bethmann Hollweg and the Hubris of Imperial Germany (New Haven, 1973).Google Scholar

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5. E.g., Steiner, Z. S., Britain and the Origins of the First World War (New York, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Williamson, S. “Vienna and July 1914,” in his and P. Paster's Essays on World War One: Origins and Prisoners of War (New York, 1983), 9–37.Google Scholar

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7. Baron, S. and Pletsch, C., eds., Introspection in Biography (Hillsdale, N.J., 1985)Google Scholar. Bethmann's curious personality, combining pensiveness, unconventionality, and self-criticism with lethargy, distance, and pessimism, and the professional disgrace of his elder brother who escaped to Texas indicate that a psychological explanation might uncover new dimensions. Unfortunately the destruction of his papers in 1945 eliminated the necessary documentary evidence.

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10. von Strandmann, H. Pogge, “Rathenau, die Gebrüder Mannesmann und die Vorgeschichte der Zweiten Marokkokrise,” in Geiss, I. and Wendt, B.-J., eds., Deutschland in der Weltpolitik des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Düsseldorf, 1973), 251ffGoogle Scholar.; and “Warum die Deutschen den Krieg wollten,” Die Zeit, 11 Mar. 1988.

11. Berghahn, V. R., Germany and the Approach of War in 1914 (London, 1973), 86ff., 189ff.Google Scholar

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20. Thompson, Wayne C., In the Eye of the Storm: Kurt Riezler and the Crisis of Modern Germany (Iowa City, 1980)Google Scholar, is an indispensable guide to the Riezler diaries, edited by K. D. Erdmann.

21. Schoenbaum, David, Zabern 1913: Consensus Politics in Imperial Germany (London, 1982).Google Scholar

22. Kaiser, D., “Germany and the Origins of the First World War,” Journal of Modern History 55 (1983): 442ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. fails to discriminate between hardline military-naval imperialism and Bethmann's more cautious economic-cultural expansionism.

23. Chickering, R., We Men Who Feel Most German: A Cultural Study of the Pan-German League (Boston, 1984), 289ff.Google Scholar

24. Retallack, James N., “The Road to Philippi: The Conservative Party and Bethmann Hollweg's ‘Politics of the Diagonal,’ 1909–1914,” forthcoming in Fout, John, ed., Politics, Parties and the Authoritarian State: Imperial Germany, 1871–1918, vol. 2.Google Scholar

25. Hildebrand, K., Bethmann Hollweg–der Kanzler ohne Eigenschaften? (Düsseldorf, 1970).Google Scholar See also Snyder, Jack, “Civil-Military Relations and the Cult of the Offensive, 1914 and 1984,” International Security 9 (1984): 108ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.; and Kagan, Donald, “World War I, World War II, World War III,” Commentary 83, no. 3 (1987): 21ff.Google Scholar

26. While a number of West German historians such as H. Rothfels had advised Riezler's brother against publication, his daughter M. White allowed Fritz Stern and myself access to the typescript before it appeared in print.

27. Fritz Fellner's review of Kurtz Riezler, Tagebücher, Aufsätze, Dokumente, in: Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Institutes für Geschichte, 1973, 490ff.; and Sösemann, B., “Die Erforderlichkeit des Unmöglichen: Kritische Anmerkungen zu der Edition,” Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte 110 (1974): 261ff.Google Scholar

28. Fischer, F., Juli 1914: Wir sind nicht hineingeschlittert: Das Staatsgeheimnis um die Riezler Tagebücher (Reinbeck, 1983), 83.Google Scholar

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31. See the letters to the editor by Sösemann and others (including myself), “Dieses dunkle Geheimnis,” Die Zeit, 1983, no. 33 and Mommsen's, W. J.summary review in the Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, 14 (Autumn 1983): 28–33Google Scholar.

32. Sösemann, B., ed., Theodor Wolff: Tagebücher 1914–1919., 2 vols. (Boppard, 1984), 1: 1ffGoogle Scholar. Cf. also Wolff, T., Der Krieg des Pontius Pilatus (Zurich, 1934), 255ffGoogle Scholar. Though it would be tempting to draw on the rich general insights of the diaries, the following remarks shall confine themselves only to first-hand material on Bethmann Hollweg.

33. Sösemann, , Wolff Tagebücher, 1: 156ffGoogle Scholar. While he admitted that Bülow's greater finesse might have found a way out, Bethmann also insisted that it would have been irresponsible to resort to more threatening rhetoric. Cf. Young, H., Prince Lichnowsky and the Great War (Athens, 1975), 128ffGoogle Scholar, and Chickering, R., We Men, 283ff.Google Scholar

34. Tagebücher, 1: 265fGoogle Scholar. The chancellor regretted that the British had not accepted the German compromise to end the naval race and maintained: “I still believe that [Grey] wanted war–not only the people around him—he himself stumbled into it.”

35. Ibid., 1: 521 and 2: 951. Cf. also Mommsen, W. J., “Domestic Factors in German Foreign Policy before 1914,” Central European History 6 (1973): 3–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36. Tagebücher, 1: 155ff. Cf.Google ScholarFischer's, F. classic, Germany's Aims in the First World War (New York, 1967), 95ff.Google Scholar

37. Tagebücher, 1: 267f.Google Scholar

38. Ibid., 320ff. Cf. Jarausch, Enigmatic Chancellor, 407ff. Bethmann wanted to control the enemy “attack routes” (Einfallstore).

39. Tagebücher, 1: 159ffGoogle Scholar. Still somewhat useful is Ritter, G., Die Tragödie der Staatskunst, 3: Bethmann Hollweg als Kriegskanzler (Munich, 1964)Google Scholar, tr. as The Tragedy of Statesmanship — Bethmann Hollweg as War Chancellor (1914–1917) (Coral Gables, Fla., 1972)Google Scholar.

40. Tagebücher, 1: 266f.Google Scholar Wolff offered his services towards France.

41. Ibid., 320f.

42. Ibid., 357f. Cf. Doerries, R., Washington-Berlin 1908/1917 (Düsseldorf, 1975)Google Scholar, on German policy and the U.S. entry into the war.

43. Tagebücher, 1: 410.Google Scholar

44. Ibid., 523.

45. Ibid., 154. Cf. Kozyk, K., Deutsche Pressepolitik im Ersten Weltkrieg (Düsseldorf, 1968).Google Scholar

46. Tagebücher, 1: 263–66.Google Scholar The struggle for world opinion has yet to be more fully investigated.

47. Ibid., 300.

48. Ibid., 320ff.

49. Ibid., 358f. Once again, he rejected open discussion of war aims, since debate would be divisive and the fighting was not yet over, rendering it “impossible to fix details.”

50. Ibid., 1: 410f., 2: 894f. Yet the chancellery did work for the lifting of the prohibition. For another dispute cf., ibid., 1448f.

51. Ibid., 522f.

52. Ibid., 159ff. These comments foreshadowing the moves towards Prussian suffrage reform and better cooperation with parliament are a surprisingly early and complete statement.

53. Ibid., 267, 321, 357: “The people have a right that the responsible leaders not let themselves be pressured into impulsive political and military actions.”

54. Ibid., 428ff, interview with Undersecretary of the Chancellery Arnold Wahnschaffe, 20 Sept. 1916.

55. Ibid., 520ff.

56. Ibid., 109, 124, 229, 234, 239, et. seq.

57. Ibid., 139, 197, 229, 440. These quotations are only a small sample of the dozens of statements about Bethmann which could not be adduced due to space limitations.

58. Ibid., 300f, detailing a relaxed chat about the French government crisis in October 1915. For some further material on Bethmann Hollweg, such as drafts of two memoir chapters and other partly inaccessible documents, see the recent re-edition of his memoirs by Düllfer, J., Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg: Betrachtungen zum Weltkriege (Essen, 1989).Google Scholar

59. Jarausch, K. H., “Statesmen versus Structures: Germany's Role in the Outbreak of World War One Reexamined,” Laurentian University Review 5 (1973): 133ffGoogle Scholar. Cf. also Stern, F., “Introduction” to Dreams and Delusions: The Drama of German History (New York, 1987)Google Scholar, and Cecil's, L.Wilhelm II: Prince and Emperor, 1859–1900 (Chapel Hill, 1989).Google Scholar

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64. Bethmann also had a streak of secretiveness (“I don't want to put my cards on the table!”) which reinforced ambiguity. Wolff, , Tagebücher, 1: 384.Google Scholar

65. For the latest round see Wehler's concessions in “Wie bürgerlich war das deutsche Kaiserreich?” in Kocka, J., ed., Bürger und Bürgerüchkeit im 19. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 1987)Google Scholar, and Eley's, G. “Introduction” to From Unification to Nazism: Reinterpreting the German Past (Boston, 1986).Google Scholar

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70. Williamson, “The Origins of the First World War,” passim. The incompleteness of documentation on the consultations among Serbians, Russians, or French will probably render a full appraisal of their actions in the crisis impossible, thereby leaving crucial decisions in the dark. Cf. also Schöllgen, G., Das Zeitalter des Imperialismus (Munich, 1986), 141ff.Google Scholar

71. Tagebücher, 1: 523.Google Scholar By covering such decisions as unrestricted submarine warfare with his moral authority, he became an accomplice to irresponsible policies which he opposed. This pervasive sense of guilt explains his compensatory interest in the Neuorientierung. Ibid., 479, 490f.

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