The experienced German historian Karl Heinrich Pohl has written a learned but idiosyncratic biography of Gustav Stresemann, first published in 2015 with the subtitle Biografie eines Grenzgängers. That subtitle should be rendered as something like The Biography of a Boundary Breaker, and in the body of this text, the translators often fail to convey the nuances in Pohl's argument. There are also major gaps in this life story; Pohl distrusts the tendency by most biographers to construct tidy narratives with a clear meaning. He endorses instead the argument by the sociologist Niklas Luhmann that most lives resemble “a chain of coincidences that organize themselves into something that gradually becomes less and less flexible” (3). Readers should therefore know a good deal about the subject already if they hope to follow Pohl's reasoning. He raises important issues nevertheless, arguing that a scholarly consensus has emerged to support an interpretation of Stresemann's career that is almost completely uncritical. Pohl's main target is Jonathan Wright (Gustav Stresemann: Weimar's Greatest Statesman, 2002), who argues that Stresemann became a passionate defender of the Weimar Republic despite his monarchist past and that as foreign minister in the mid-1920s he came to renounce German nationalism and embrace a new vision of European integration. Pohl finds both arguments greatly exaggerated (9, 211–15, 270–77).
For Pohl, Stresemann was animated above all by a frantic desire to conceal his humble origins as the son of a struggling small businessman and gain recognition as a member of the wealthy and cultivated bourgeoisie. Four of this book's seven chapters focus therefore on Stresemann's early career in Dresden from 1902 until 1912. Pohl presents substantial new evidence regarding Stresemann's efforts to climb the social ladder as the chief lobbyist for the regional association of Saxon manufacturers and to accumulate wealth and prestige as a cultivated man of learning. Stresemann presented himself, for example, as someone who did not merely love the writings of Goethe but was an erudite analyst; Pohl demonstrates, however, that his forays into literary scholarship were clumsy and amateurish (60–63). Stresemann presented himself as a music lover and long-time participant in Dresden's most illustrious choral society, but he sang in it for just one year and only joined to network with business clients (104–6). Pohl reconstructs in detail the growth of Stresemann's investment portfolio and participation in numerous corporate supervisory boards. The author judges that Stresemann made improper use of his political contacts on at least one occasion to facilitate an illegal export transaction, and then helped to cover up the crime (128–32, 199–201).
Pohl also emphasizes, however, that Stresemann deserves great credit for three progressive reforms during his Dresden years as a rising star in the National Liberal Party: the growing acceptance by Saxon industrialists of collective bargaining agreements with the socialist trade unions (117–20), a moderate reform of Saxony's oligarchic suffrage law, which granted social democrats meaningful representation in the state parliament for the first time (150–52), and a federal law to extend to white-collar workers the programs for health insurance and disability and old-age pensions granted to blue-collar factory workers in the 1880s (121–24). Stresemann thus served the public good while seeking to advance his career. By 1912, he had certainly achieved recognition and honor from the wealthy and powerful of Dresden, so Pohl expresses some bewilderment about his decision to move to Berlin and start over as a small fish in that very large pond. The author speculates that Stresemann found the tireless struggle to gain recognition and “cross over” from the petite into the grande bourgeoisie far more satisfying than the secure enjoyment of recognition (154–61).
Pohl notes in agreement with most scholars that Stresemann became a fanatical supporter of colonial expansion before 1914 and a rabid annexationist during World War I who denounced all advocates of a compromise peace as faint-hearted or unpatriotic. At the war's end, he was politically isolated and profoundly depressed, and he yearned for the restoration of the monarchy (168–80). Most historians are chiefly interested in how Stresemann adapted to become a highly successful politician in the Weimar Republic and promote rapprochement with Germany's former enemies. Pohl contributes little to this discussion. Jonathan Wright presents strong evidence that Stresemann evolved in the years 1920–1922 from grudging acceptance of the Weimar Republic to heartfelt support (see Chapter 5 of Weimar's Greatest Statesman). Pohl breezes through that topic in just two pages (184–85), emphasizing the firmness of Stresemann's monarchist principles; he does not rebut Wright's arguments but simply ignores them.
Pohl's brief discussion of Stresemann's career as foreign minister focuses on his support for the creation of the International Raw Steel Community in 1926 to harmonize the interests of French, German, and Belgian steel industrialists. Pohl notes that this was a major step toward the economic integration of West Europe, but it was achieved at the cost of government support for the concentration of German heavy industry in the hands of a few magnates. Stresemann thus helped to grant Ruhr industrialists excessive political influence and fostered dangerous imbalances within the German economy (216–22). Stresemann also excluded Poland from participation in European economic integration, but Pohl agrees with Wright that he sought “reconciliation in the west” and deserves his “outstanding reputation as politician and statesman in the realm of foreign policy” (228). Pohl also shows, however, that Stresemann remained a lifelong admirer of all things military and maintained close personal ties with some of the most infamous practitioners of counter-revolutionary violence in 1919–1920. This behavior suggests a profound emotional ambivalence regarding militarism and nationalism (228–36).
Pohl's argument that Stresemann never truly accepted parliamentary democracy is not well supported. The author presents strong evidence, nevertheless, regarding the ways in which the quest for social status and financial security influenced Stresemann's career. Pohl is, moreover, doubtless correct that Johnathan Wright went too far by suggesting that Stresemann came to renounce the tradition of Great Power politics and embrace a new vision of European integration. Indeed, Pohl might be too charitable regarding Stresemann's record as foreign minister; he does not investigate the issues of covert rearmament and long-term planning in the Foreign Office with regard to union with Austria and the provinces lost to Poland in 1919. The most lucid argument that Foreign Minister Stresemann remained a fierce nationalist who was cleverly biding his time remains the classic work by Hans Gatzke (Stresemann and the Rearmament of Germany, 1954), which still offers valuable clues for future research in the history of international relations.
