In this new book, Thomas Adam proposes to present “a radical reinterpretation of German history” (1). Based on his own earlier publications and on the literature produced by German scholars of philanthropy over the last three decades, he wants to demonstrate to an English-language readership that German society in the long nineteenth century was not state-centered, as is often assumed, but characterized instead by private initiative and a vibrant civil society. The history of philanthropy, Adam argues, proves that German citizens did not leave everything to the state but were actively willing and able to shape their world according to their own visions. Particularly in the Wilhelmine era, German society was, according to Adam, even more “civil” than British or American society in the same period—when measured in terms of voluntary private funding for public purposes.
In the six chapters of the book, Adam describes a wide range of civic engagement in the fields of culture, education, research, and social welfare, combining illuminating examples with concise sketches of the overarching developments of philanthropy over the past two centuries. The first chapter starts with the rise of bourgeois support for cultural institutions such as art galleries and museums. From the early nineteenth century, middle-class citizens began to invade these originally monarchical domains, sometimes creating their own civic institutions and sometimes cooperating with ruling houses and state governments. The next chapter focuses on the role of philanthropy in higher education and particularly on scholarship endowments, a very old and traditional form of bequeathing private wealth for the benefit of future generations. In this context, Adam underlines the discriminatory sides of philanthropy, as many donors continued to attach to their bequests restrictive instructions regarding the social origins and religious faith of potential beneficiaries.
The third chapter, by contrast, turns to a highly modern expression of philanthropy by looking at the funding of archeological expeditions and scientific research institutes through prestigious organizations such as the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft and the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft. These ambitious endeavors were designed to be national rather than local or denominational in scope, and their ultimate aim was to further the international standing of the German empire. The fourth chapter deals with civic engagement in the field of social welfare, taking social housing projects as the main example. This gives Adam the opportunity to discuss how bourgeois donors tried to mold the working-class family. Chapter five offers a snapshot of German philanthropy on the eve of World War I, whereas the sixth and final chapter gives an overview of developments from the Weimar Republic to German reunification in 1990. Overall, Adam draws a picture of spectacular expansion of the philanthropic sector during the nineteenth century, peaking in the Wilhelmine era, followed by a decline that was initiated by the ruining of financial assets through the hyperinflation and the devaluation of war bonds in the 1920s, and furthered by the unfriendly attitudes of state governments. At the end, however, he briefly hints at recent changes that led to a revival of philanthropy since 1990, not least as a consequence of cuts in public spending and the accumulation of wealth in private hands.
Adam's book offers a fine and very readable introduction to the history of philanthropy in modern Germany. It discusses examples from various fields of action and from different regions, thus illustrating the diversity and changeability of philanthropic cultures. While emphasizing that philanthropy enhanced the formation of a bourgeois class identity, he does not ignore inner fissures and repeatedly highlights the special roles played by Jews and women. Although Adam describes philanthropy as a basically progressive force that “contributed to the modernization and improvement of German society” (124), he makes clear that it was never altruistic but instead a strategic investment. In exchange for their generosity, donors expected to receive public recognition, as well as the opportunity to spread their norms and values to wider society. For the affluent bourgeoisie, philanthropy was thus a vehicle of power that underpinned their social advancement and their superiority over the so-called lower classes. These are important reflections that add up to a nuanced and multifaceted account.
In one respect, however, the story Adam tells seems a bit oversimplified, for he more or less equates “philanthropy” with “civil society.” He suggests not only that philanthropic giving was at its height in Wilhelmine Germany, but that civil society was as well—and that both declined concomitantly under the democratic Weimar Republic. He consequently maintains that sociological theories that causally link civil society with the emergence of democracy are incorrect: in the German case, civil society never flourished more than under the “authoritarian” empire, whereas the democratic and socialist systems of the twentieth century suffocated civic engagement. But is this an adequate conclusion?
That obviously depends on how one defines the key terms, which Adam never does explicitly. His examples suggest that philanthropy includes many kinds of “doing good,” ranging from building foundations and endowments to engaging in various kinds of collective fundraising for non-profit projects. When talking about the parallel decline of philanthropy and civil society after World War I, however, Adam narrows the focus mainly to the financial assets of foundations and endowments. Would the image of decline also hold true if he had paid more attention, instead, to the myriad charities and voluntary associations that financed their activities through membership fees and small-scale donations? To put it differently: is the flourishing of civil society necessarily correlated with the large-scale philanthropic investments of a rich elite—and thus with massive social inequality? Adam seems to think so; he even qualifies concepts of a more inclusive civil society as “naive” (169).
Adam's insistence on an exceptionally vibrant civil society in the days of the Wilhelmine empire clearly alludes to debates about the so-called German Sonderweg (special path). Germany's fatal path toward modernity, an older school of historical scholarship believed, was stamped by a strong monarchical state, as well as by a weak and passive bourgeoisie that never managed to gain the same type of agency and influence as its counterparts did in Western democracies like France and Britain. According to Adam, German historians began to revise this misconceived state-centered image of nineteenth-century Germany three decades ago, whereas Anglophone historians allegedly still adhere to it: that is why he claims to present a radically new interpretation of German history to English-speaking readers. This claim is slightly misleading. After all, Anglophone historians such as David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley played an eminent part in dismantling the special-path thesis right from the start (The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Germany [1984]), and many other British and American scholars have followed in their wake. In the field of social-welfare history, for example, Andrew Lees's Cities, Sin and Social Reform in Imperial Germany (2002) and Larry Frohman's Poor Relief and Welfare in Germany from the Reformation to World War I (2008) deserve mention; both argue that social reformism was not primarily the work of the state but rather of the urban bourgeoisie. What Adam describes as a revisionist approach became, in fact, the mainstream narrative quite a while ago. His book nevertheless valuably enlarges the literature on middle-class culture and civic engagement, adding many details to the general picture. And it stimulates us to ponder further the relationships among private philanthropy, civil society, social hierarchy, and public responsibilities in the context of different systems of rule.
