The Voluntary Associations of German Social Democracy: Separation and Resistance

Abstract

Jointly sponsored by the AHA and the Association of Voluntary Action Scholars, this session at the Chicago convention featured two prominent historians with a long-standing interest in German Social Democracy, Vernon L. Lidtke (Johns Hopkins University) and William S. Allen (State University of New York, Buffalo.) Professor Lidtke's report, "Social Democratic Cultural Organizations in Imperial Germany," despite its title dealt with singing societies, particularly in Weinheim an der Weinstrasse. Although the subject matter at first seemed excessively narrow, the speaker used it to draw some broad and interesting inferences. These singing societies represented one case among many of the workers' exclusion from the established mainstream of German social life; they existed because workers were blackballed from existing middle-class groups. Consequently, these workers' societies reflected a sense of exclusion and exclusivity in their membership, in their singing repertoire of working class songs, and in the names of their societies, names such as "Lassale," "Freedom," "Progress," and "Forward." Lidtke's research did, however, reveal certain characteristics of integration into the larger society. Such society names as "Germania," or "Teutonia," evidenced a national consciousness. Folk songs, as well as folk costumes at song festivals, testified to a sense of local tradition; and the presence of non-workers in some societies revealed a dilution of the exclusive working class outlook. Sociability mattered a great deal, and it had little to do per se with exclusion or integration of the working class. Members joined to have a good time and quit when they lost enthusiasm. Most societies engaged skilled musicians as choir directors, and the more emphasis societies and directors placed on music, the more considerations of sociability and class receded into the background. The larger society of Germany reacted in varying ways to the workers' singing societies. On occasion, municipalities welcomed, even subsidized, songfests and parades (Nuremberg did so) while some cities (Breslau, e.g.) absolutely forbade public festivities. The conclusion, stated tentatively because the investigation did not warrant so sweeping a judgment, was that analysts dealing with organizations such as the SPD need a new analytical model to replace the simpler one used by such prominent investigators as Roth who analyzed the SPD in terms of its exclusion from the larger society. The case of the singing societies clearly reveals instances of exclusivity and class consciousness alongside instances of values shared with the larger society and certain characteristics such as musicianship and sociability which were neutral in terms of class relations. Mr. Lidtke proposed an alternative analytical model which would deal with the multiple points of contact between the SPD and the larger society, a model which can deal with the complex of integrations and exclusions.