Weimar Cities by John Bingham

Author:John Bingham [Bingham, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Germany, Military, World War I, Modern, 20th Century
ISBN: 9780415957441
Google: jHiwAAAAIAAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2008-01-15T16:15:14+00:00

Even if, viewed from a material standpoint, the transfer of an area of [communal] responsibility to the Kreis were more economical, the advantage would be outweighed by the destruction of imponderables, leading to the end of love for the homeland and the exclusion of the townsperson from participation in determining his community’s fate.46

The towns’ principal disadvantage was a lack of political power. Both the Reichsstädtebund and the Western townships association lamented continually that very few deputies in the Prussian Landtag had roots in small-town politics or were familiar with local concerns. Neither of the town associations had the press attention or access to ministry and planning officials enjoyed by the Städtetag and Landkreistag.47 Many of the big cities had special offices in Berlin for on-the-spot lobbying, an expense small towns could not afford. With little political clout, insufficient publicity, and no compelling solution for the urban growth problem in the Ruhr, the towns could not go it alone. Choosing the lesser of the two evils, they ranged themselves with the counties, the traditional rural administration they knew, and against the cities.48

From the towns’ awareness of futility and helplessness came an unyielding antagonism towards the Grossstadt and all things urban. Lacking other resources, only public pressure could help the towns stave off reform in 1928–29. They launched a furious offensive against the cities, “directing] an appeal to all German people, in the interest of the general welfare, to protect the self-administration of the small and middling cities” and highlighting in inflammatory terms the most unpopular and problematic aspects of urban modernity.49 The towns charged that the 1929 reform would “create métropoles at any price” to feed the “insatiable evil six,” the Ruhr’s biggest métropoles, who would “overshadow everything around them” and turn living, flourishing communities into dead satellites.50 The year 1929 was one of “consolidation sickness… when many communes fell sacrifice to the interests of the Grossstädte, to their greed for power and their party-political omnipotence.”51

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.