COMPARISON OF THE CONSTITUTION OF GERMANY: BEFORE WORLD WAR –I (1871-1914) AND AFTER (1918-1933)

Module-I

History can be understood in many ways. The golden way is narration in the form of story with timeline and context. Straddling from one point of history to the other, and then coming back to the original point, connecting threads, allowing the thread to move freely and wrapping the reel of thread suddenly as in the game of kite-running. Surprises, astonishment, and then all known territory. Thus moving in different zone of timeline, story-teller prepares audience for the next journey. So the art of story-telling is the preferred vehicle to discuss events of history.

Events have contexts, and contexts have wings and aspirations to melt and fuse. Thus an event turns into history. But layers can be peeled in certain cases depending upon the process of melting and fusion, and exact causes of unfolding of the events can be churned out. This art of deciphering the fusion process is critical analysis of past events. Thus history is very obvious in some cases and very complex on many occasions.

So it is important to segregate period before the occurrence of an event and after the conclusion of the event. On some cases real conclusion of event is not possible to define, so quasi-conclusion stage is defined. The purpose is to magnify the canvas on the said timeframe so as to get better view of the event. Thus bringing clarity on changing pattern of event and its ramification to the observer.       

Another approach may be to transmit event frame-by-frame in real time of yesteryear interspersed with well intentioned commentary. This task is a bit mechanical except live commentary part. But at times it is essential to move in this way. Always peeling layers to unearth something dramatic is not desirable. Some historical events and their ramifications may be straightforward. So accepting these and moving forward is normal and appreciable.

So I will follow both approach depending upon event, time, context and necessity.

For understanding the First World War, I would like to make a bridge, though it may be bumpy at times. This will give us glimpse from different frames of reference. And the best bridge we can make is that of the Constitution of Germany. So we will see the structure of the German Empire before the First World War (1871-1914) and Weimar Republic, after the war (1918-1933).  The edifice of time tested German empire under the Emperor /Kaiser crumbles, and new Democratic order takes its place eventually to meltdown making room for some bigger catastrophe. But it is the way history shapes its path leaving aside some lessons for coming generation. But the same mistake is repeated many times as we don’t want to grow. Or we prefer to write new chapter in history making more illustrations and examples. Anyway we will straight away go to the Constitutional change in the next module.