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Strassenpolitik. Zur Sozialgeschichte der offentlichen Ordnung in Berlin 1900 bis 1914. - book reviews
Journal of Social History, Winter, 1997 by David Crew
Indeed, this early (pre-)history of street demonstrations ends, not with mass demonstrations against but in favor of World War I. By the end of July, 1914, the streets belonged to the war enthusiasts. Lindenberger explains this paradox by showing that "cross-class enthusiasm for the nation" was not simply the result of the immediate political conjuncture, but was able to connect with the potentials created, between 1900-1914, by a series of diverse nationalistic mass experiences - such as the enormous crowds which turned out to welcome the Zeppelin airship to Berlin in 1909. In the years just before World War I, street politics had, in fact, expanded to embrace new forms of public representation of the monarchical state and new forms of mass mobilization on Berlin's streets in the name of the "Nation" and the "Fatherland" which made the triumph of war fever in August, 1914 possible.
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This is an extremely rich and rewarding book. Its most significant accomplishment is the challenge it presents to conventional definitions of the "political" in German history. Lindenberger shows that, in the late Kaiserreich, the street had become an important political arena for the direct assertion of interests that, under other constitutional conditions, might equally well have been advanced through the organizational forms and languages of conventional politics. But, he also argues that "street politics" gave expression to interests, needs and desires that even a reformed sphere of formal politics would not recognize or sanction. (pp. 17-18) Frequently involving "physical or symbolic violence," the forms of self-assertion in which Berliners on the street engaged "offered or promised at least the possibility of a non-alienated, 'self-assertive' [eigen-sinnige] articulation of interests, that took place, not at a distance, but in immediate proximity to the body and the senses." (pp. 17-18) This "body politics" allowed Berliners to satisfy expressive and symbolic "needs" as well as to promote their material interests. For example, engaging in physical violence, which was a "normal" attribute of lower-class masculinity, symbolically asserted (gendered) identity. It was thus an "end in itself" as well as a "means to an end." (p. 284) Yet, these symbolic opportunities were open primarily to men. Although the SPD did manage to lay the foundations for a tradition of women's street demonstrations after 1911, "street politics" remained a masculine preserve. Lindenberger also shows that fears, fantasies and imaginings shaped the politics of the street every bit as much as social "realities." For the authorities, the "street" and the "crowd" were imaginary, symbolic constructs as well as real social spaces and entities. The "imagined other" deeply influenced the actions not only of the authorities, but also of the SPD who occupied an ambivalent position in "street politics," seeking both to represent the interests of those "below," while at the same time attempting to discipline the "lower classes" from above. (p. 399)
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