Gustav Stresemann: The Crossover Artist

By Karl Heinrich Pohl

As a foreign minister and chancellor of Weimar Germany, Gustav Stresemann is a familiar figure for students of German history – one who, for many, embodied the best qualities of German interwar liberalism. However, a more nuanced and ambivalent picture emerges in this award-winning biography, which draws on extensive research and new archival material to enrich our understanding of Stresmann’s public image and political career. It memorably explores the personality of a brilliant but flawed politician who endured class anxiety and social marginalization, and who died on the eve of Germany’s descent into economic and political upheaval.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Release date: May 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781789202182

Karl Heinrich Pohl

Karl Heinrich Pohl taught history and pedagogy at the University of Kiel before his retirement in 2010. He was awarded the Wolf-Erich Kellner Prize in 2002 and published widely on German history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Book preview

Chapter 1

A LIFE

Autobiography as Composition

My parents got married on October 20, 1903. The wedding took place in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church built in the late nineteenth century. It was followed by a most opulent reception in the English House of the restaurant A. Huster, 49 Mohrenstraße. . . . [The wedding meal] consisted of five courses with a choice between poultry broth and consommé, turbot and Rhine salmon, beef filet and saddle of mutton, lobster and goose liver pâté, pheasant and saddle of venison. There were also vegetables, salads, and preserved fruits in abundance. The culinary potential of our ancestors must have been impressive. After the fish and meat courses, various ice creams in figures, cheese rolls, and Chester cake as well as fruit and dessert followed. Beverages included sherry, Port, German and French wines from 1891, ’92, and ’93. There was also an entertainment program . . ., apart from dancing, the skit The First Lunch was performed.¹

This might have been how the wedding of Dr. Gustav Stresemann and his wife Käte, née Kleefeld, looked in Berlin on 20 October 1903: a cheerful reception with an opulent meal and fine wines, celebrated by people from high society, with dancing and performances. In the center: Gustav S., an ambitious, intelligent, popular, and endearing young man and Käte Kleefeld, now Dr. Käte S., a young and beautiful woman with considerable private means.

This describes the image of successful festivities, documented for the private memory of family and friends, but also for contemporaries and future generations.² There is no sign of potential discord, no hint of the insecurity of a young social climber. Bourgeois soundness, sociability, and joy dominate the narrative. It seems almost as if Wolfgang, the son, who describes the wedding of his parents with great affection, had been with them at their celebration, and had anticipated his father’s wishes, echoing them in his biography.³ To this extent, the image depicts the incarnation of the dream of a beautiful family.

Figure 1.1. Käte Stresemann (1883–1979) with the eldest son Wolfgang (1904–1998). Photo from ca. 1907. Courtesy Politisches Archiv, Auswärtiges Amt, Berlin (PA AA).

However, Wolfgang Stresemann only used oral reports for his description,⁴ some information provided by Rudolf Schneider,⁵ Stresemann’s old confidant, as well as an invitation to his parents’ wedding. His main source was probably his parents, and primarily his father Gustav.

Therefore, many questions remain unanswered. Why did the wedding take place in Berlin rather than in Stresemann’s new home of Dresden, where he had just established himself? Who were the guests? Who paid for the reception?⁶ How did the two families get on, the beer seller and the wealthy Jewish merchant family that had converted to Protestantism? Were Stresemann’s siblings among the guests? How did Richard, the alcoholic brother, act surrounded by fine wines?⁷

Was everything truly rosy between the two spouses? Had the husband not been desperately in love recently, at least according to his own account—not with his wife, but with a school friend who had rejected his proposal?⁸ Was marrying the sister of a fraternity brother really a case of true love as conveyed at the time and later? How did the 20-year-old bride feel when she was mocked in a skit at the wedding reception for her lack of cooking skills?

The depiction raises question upon question, which clearly cannot all be answered. At any rate, an odd mixture of facts and fiction, of density and openness comes to light in their place. It can therefore be hoped that the comprehensive estate of Stresemann’s papers may be of help. Let us have a look.

Private estates are a very special kind of source material. Extreme caution is necessary because they never reflect the entire life of the protagonist, but only individual and selected aspects. This can be due to gaps in the chronology of the sources or the loss of documents. Not everything that historians today consider interesting was deemed worth keeping by the one who left the estate. Personal reasons might also play a role since the estate owner would usually only leave material behind which he wished to be known. Often, historians find only little evidence that would compromise the protagonist. It must therefore always be assumed that important events have been obscured; the way this is done perhaps provides some hints as to how the protagonist wanted to present himself to future generations.

At first glance, the estate of Stresemann’s papers does not look like a work of deliberate composition,⁹ seeming instead to be virtually inexhaustible and dense. The documents are meticulously organized for business and office purposes. This is no surprise given that at times three private assistants worked for Stresemann. Everything, ranging from children’s photographs to reflections made during his old age, from business letters to diplomatic secret documents, from begging letters to complaints lodged with authorities, seems to have been kept. Stresemann thus seems like an open book that one only has to read in order to get to know and understand everything about him.¹⁰

Figure 1.2. Gustav Stresemann at the age of three. Courtesy PA AA.

It is, however, a fact that large parts of this seemingly open book were written by Stresemann himself. With his estate of private documents, Stresemann left a composition of his life that aligned with his ideas and wishes: the image of a stunning rise in economics, politics, and culture.

The fact that Stresemann never wanted to keep a large number of these papers secret fuels some skepticism. From the mid-1920s, he knew his death was approaching, and his faithful secretary, Henry Bernhard, fulfilled his wish to publish important documents immediately afterwards—an extraordinary event. These documents were therefore meant for posterity and to illustrate a skillful composition.¹¹

The estate is, first and foremost, not complete. Stresemann himself pointed out that politicians must not write down, let alone document, every important incident. For example, he criticized the Vienna central bank for documenting and even archiving discrediting and discriminating financial transactions by pointing out: The gentlemen seem to be beginners in this area [to obfuscate matters in written remarks]. Half-ironically, he added: Please do not put this remark on file.¹²

And yet, it is difficult to substantiate that Stresemann arranged and selected certain materials for his estate because deliberately not documenting, omitting, or even suppressing written archival material can hardly be proved. To deduce an intentional strategy from blank areas is almost impossible. Nevertheless, let us try.

At first glance, it is already striking that documents about certain aspects of Stresemann’s life are missing: almost all of the archival material on Stresemann’s activities for the Association of Saxon Industrialists (Verband Sächsischer Industrieller, VSI), including his work as a legal advisor, only exists in rudimentary form.¹³ The comprehensive estate of the Saxon entrepreneurial dynasty of Niethammer¹⁴ can serve as a counternarrative. It shows that during this period Stresemann conducted intensive correspondence. Its analysis brings a different Stresemann into view than the one we know from his own estate: a restless and very politically and economically active man who was not always very likeable,¹⁵ an extremely ambitious young manager and politician who did not shy away from anything to climb the social ladder.¹⁶ But first and foremost, in the documents of the Niethammer estate an almost intolerable self-opinionated brawler comes to the fore.

There is not only a lack of source material on Stresemann as an economic manager and regional politician, but the private correspondence is also almost completely missing.¹⁷ Some of it is stored in closed stacks appeared later in his private estate. In the official estate, large parts of his early correspondence, family documents, various documents from his student life and his activities in the fraternity are missing, as well as those on his financial situation. In short, there is almost nothing beyond the official version of the young man, the later family father, the husband, and the wealthy bourgeois citizen, and most notably nothing on his illnesses during his adolescence.

The fact that Kurt Koszyk discovered Stresemann’s correspondence with his childhood friend Kurt Himer, which is now accessible, shows that source material of his early years does exist and thus has been deliberately omitted.¹⁸ The same is true for the letters to his wife and various other private documents that were made accessible to scholarship only later. Nevertheless, source material from the private realm is still fragmented in comparison to official documents on Stresemann the politician.¹⁹

But why is this source material missing? One might assume that Stresemann thought private documents had no place in a politician’s estate. However, the fact that fragments from his private life do in fact exist contradicts this view. Did Stresemann deliberately want to omit certain aspects of his childhood and adolescence and highlight others? What sort of image did he want to paint of himself that could have been darkened by the unpublished sources?²⁰

It would appear—and this is one of the main theses of this account—that Stresemann wanted to create the image of a beautiful, educated, bourgeois adolescence, a straightforward life trajectory. His aim was to present the life of a sentimental, well-educated young man, eager for knowledge, who gradually matured into a statesman while preserving the dreamy, human, and emotional personality of his adolescence. It is no coincidence that he chose the title Traumjörg: Gedichte einer Jugend²¹ for his first planned biography and a collection of poems from 1920.²² He skillfully spread this interpretation of himself within his estate and deepened it by including several key source documents. Future generations have eagerly seized this view of Stresemann, which also resonated in his biographies.

An example of Stresemann’s subtle technique consists of his inclusion of one rather extensive source in his estate instead of many original documents in which he himself reports on his adolescence, his emotions, and ideas. That is, he interprets his own life and provides this interpretation as a guideline for future biographers. This document is his early Abitur essay.²³ Stresemann apparently counted on the fact that every biographer would have to refer to it.

Strictly speaking, an Abitur essay, written for a teacher toward the end of one’s secondary education as a reflection on one’s life, is of little significance. Nowhere else do people lie as much as in an Abitur essay; they distort the truth, make every effort to write for the recipient, and mix facts and fiction. Usually, they only include what their authors think will be useful for the future, what the recipients expect, and perhaps what the authors want to be, hence, their visions of themselves. They rarely say anything about what the authors really think or what is really true about their lives up to that point.²⁴

Stresemann’s Abitur essay is no different in this respect. It highlights certain aesthetic interests—literature and poetry, but, above all, history and religion, and repeatedly Schiller and Goethe. It almost goes without saying that the writer was also interested in Shakespeare and the great French authors. Thus, the report lists everything that a teacher would expect from a young student with an interest in education.

Figures 1.3–1.6. The young Stresemann—four pictures from his youth. Courtesy PA AA.

This alone prompts skepticism, particularly since there are additional sources originating from enthusiastic former teachers and fellow students written in the 1920s that confirm and thus seem to objectify the report. But they are highly idealizing and were intended predominantly to bring their Reich Minister Stresemann honor. Moreover, Stresemann revised these almost hagiographical writings shortly before his death, and his wishes and suggestions were taken into account in the texts.²⁵ In this way, they corroborated the overall impression Stresemann had intended and thus served his construct.²⁶

Therefore, the memories of Stresemann’s youth, composed by himself and his followers, fully correspond to the model career of a member of the educated bourgeoisie, as described by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in his novels on Wilhelm Meister depicting the formative years and education of their protagonist. Stresemann was so fascinated by these books that he later wrote several scholarly articles about them. Both forms of remembrance have one thing in common: they mainly aim to create consistency in the biography, in particular, as seen from the angle of its successful ending.

But what is missing in Stresemann’s sugarcoated Abitur essay? It is striking that the economic situation of his parents is mentioned merely in passing, and information on the family background is touched upon only briefly and in an idealized fashion. Stresemann’s eldest brother lived in the most difficult financial circumstances, his sister Agnes died when she was 17 years old, his brother Emil shortly after birth, his brother Robert at 22 years of age, presumably through suicide,²⁷ another brother was an alcoholic. None of this is even mentioned. Highlighted, on the other hand, is his deep mourning after his beloved mother’s death.²⁸ He omits that his parents always struggled economically, working day and night, and that their business nonetheless grew less profitable. Stresemann later analyzed this reality from a scholarly perspective in his doctoral thesis and came to terms with it somewhat.²⁹

But did the young Stresemann really have nothing to do with the real-life circumstances of an emerging industrial state? Later, as the shrewd legal advisor of the Association of Saxon Industrialists, had he no eye for such economic problems only a few years before he started his economic activities? Did these activities, as he complained, really only keep him away from his literary studies, which he deemed much more important? Of all the days of the week I dislike Saturdays the most because then I must work in my parents’ business, I must receive money, pay out salaries, and do various other things.³⁰

These remarks reflect neither a great interest in the social reality of his parents, nor a strong sense of responsibility toward his family. Stresemann not only lived off his parents’ business and his siblings who helped them, but he also used his social background for literary purposes when he published his early poems in the Deutsche Gastwirtschaftszeitung in 1895.³¹

In his Abitur essay, he mainly lamented his loneliness due to his siblings being much older than him, so that he did not have a proper family life.³² He did not help in the family business because he was rather weak. He treated himself to a life of freedom, particularly during the holidays, and started traveling: These travels brought me to the most beautiful parts of Thuringia, to the Harz Mountains, and, above all, to the sea. According to his own account, he indulged in juvenile self-discovery rituals and attempted to flee the ugly real world, an aesthete equipped by his father with sufficient means despite the scarce resources at home and favored financially over his siblings. Thus, he presented himself as an innocent, bourgeois Traumjörg, longing for education and the beauty of nature.

If this description is accurate, the question arises as to what kind of a boy he was who would have his father, mother, and siblings work hard while he indulged in intellectual pleasures?

At first glance, his early correspondence with Kurt Himer,³³ which today is part of Stresemann’s private estate, underpins his self-constructed image of himself as a dreamer. Yet when one takes a closer look at this source material, Stresemann proves to be much more reasonable and realistic, especially when it comes to his own interests and his future career.

In a letter of almost twenty pages, he reflected in detail on his professional future, meticulously weighing out the pros and cons of his career options like an accountant. He pointed out that he had systematically prepared for a career in journalism (school, early newspaper articles, Berliner Briefe) and argued that he had interrupted these activities only temporarily to review for his Abitur exam, which was very useful. Nothing recalls a dreamer here. This is the letter of a cold and calculating young man who thought rationally about his options.³⁴

Thus, the unilinear life trajectory, the image of the unworldly dreamer, and his alleged educated, bourgeois background were largely just wishful thinking and a construct. Apparently, they made life easier for Stresemann—but they were far from the reality of his early years.

The fact that he deliberately stage-managed his life is mirrored in the way the first contemporary biographies on him came about. Again, Stresemann’s signature and his agenda are clearly visible. This holds true first and foremost for the book written by his nephew, Franz Miethke, published in 1919.³⁵ As early as 1909, Stresemann asked him to write a short biography of my life and my aspirations as a national economist, politician, and as a human being in the event of his early death. You know that I was no egoist; please highlight this.³⁶

It is striking that Stresemann thought about dying early when he was just 31 years old, that he made literary provisions, and gave instructions regarding the content of his biography. Stresemann wanted his children to get to know me in the light of the Stresemannian tradition so that not every opinion that lives in me and in you [Miethke] will be extinguished. It is perfectly obvious which traditions Stresemann was referring to: the liberal-bourgeois image that he had constructed of himself. In a way, this was once again corroborated by these specific instructions.

However, Miethke did not fulfill his uncle’s wish before 1919, when he wrote this early biography. Because he was personally close to and financially dependent on Stresemann, the booklet was very much a panegyric. Nevertheless, it was revised and approved for publication by the protagonist.³⁷ The strategist within him wanted to make sure that the focus of the biography was put on Stresemann as an economic politician in the crisis year of 1919. This did not quite correspond to his extensive political activities during the war but took into account the political circumstances of the publication year of 1919.

The politician Stresemann, the warmonger and annexationist who had brought down the Reich chancellor, was not popular in 1919. On the contrary, highlighting his political wartime activities might have been counterproductive. His competence as an economic expert, on the other hand, could be placed center stage as a positive and consistent factor in his life. He could hope this would have a positive effect on the bourgeoisie, which was quaking in fear of potential nationalizations during the revolution. The biography was crucial for Stresemann to present himself as someone who would be politically tenable in the future.³⁸

Stresemann also gave specific instructions to his confidant, the former State Secretary to the Chancellery, Rochus Baron von Rheinbaben, for the publication of his writings in 1926 and Rheinbaben’s biography on Stresemann, published in 1930.³⁹ At this time, the political circumstances were quite different; accordingly, the presentation of Stresemann changed. In this year, dominated by the conclusion of the Locarno Treaties and Germany’s entry into the League of Nations, Stresemann saw himself as an internationally esteemed and successful peace politician. Thus, he focused on his personality as a human being and on his political achievements. His activities as an economic politician and legal advisor were less in demand at that time.

The objective of this biographical composition was to present his previous life and political activities as an entire unit that had served the same purposes from the outset, without any detours or exceptions, even during the war. According to this construct, it was only the (desired) consistently direct nature of his policy that led almost inevitably to the year of success in 1926. The crucial point was the consistent line of my policy since the turn of the century. Thus, Stresemann allowed himself to cast the important stages of his life in this collection of essays and speeches according to these selection criteria.⁴⁰

Stresemann himself took responsibility for the overall conception of the two volumes. To name but one example, he selected the poems intended for publication. They were supposed to create the impression of both a romantic and a national-minded bourgeois citizen. Rheinbaben’s plan to initially only publish the first volume of speeches up to the year 1918 concerned Stresemann. He was afraid that this would jeopardize the consistent narrative of his life. He also believed that the Left would point a finger at him saying: look, the man of war, while the Right would blame him: during the war, you were in alignment with us; after the war, you switched sides for oppositional reasons.⁴¹

The initially intended title Stresemann, from London to Geneva was out of the question for him since it would limit the period of my activities to my time as a minister.⁴² He preferred the title he had chosen himself: Stresemann, Statesman and Personality, a title that not only highlighted his personal character but also emphasized his soundness and the continuity of his life. Thus, the biography was published with the subtitle Der Mensch und der Staatsmann (The man and the statesman) and the volume with his essays and speeches bore the subtitle Politik—Geschichte—Literatur (Politics—history—literature). This subtitle reflects his special concern with emphasizing the cultural components that had allegedly influenced him throughout his life.⁴³

These few examples⁴⁴ indicate how eager Stresemann was to shape his own image and the view of himself and his policy for future generations, incorporating them into his biographies as objective facts. Stresemann virtually co-authored these early biographies.⁴⁵ He was not only familiar with the overall structure but also knew all the details very well.

Moreover, he contributed considerably to the creation of legends concerning his liberal and bourgeois upbringing. The statement that his parents deliberately maintained the liberal tradition of the revolution of 1848 (which his early biographers also spread) was clearly incorrect, as Kurt Koszyk has meticulously proven.⁴⁶ Gustav Stresemann’s allegedly politically active grandfather whom he, according to his own words, highly admired, the active revolutionary of 1848, "had been buried for eight years in the Alter Friedhof [Old Cemetery] in 1848."⁴⁷ Stresemann falsely claimed that the books on the revolution, which he owned and which were later included in his estate, were a revolutionary family tradition. Again, he was keen to create the desired bourgeois-liberal line of continuity.

Gustav Stresemann and His Physiognomy

Both then and now, Stresemann’s looks provoked (critical) comments.⁴⁸ Thus, we should examine how his physiognomy potentially affected his attitude in personal and social contexts, and in his political career. How and why was Stresemann able to develop a positive image and win trust as a politician, despite not having a very captivating appearance at first glance? What role did caricatures play in this respect?⁴⁹

Figure 1.7. Portrait of Gustav Stresemann by Augustus Edwin John (1878–1961), March 1925, oil on canvas, Albright Knox Art Gallery/Art Resource, New York. © Estate of Augustus John / Bridgeman Images. Used with permission.

Stresemann in the Spotlight of Physiognomy Research

Research literature on physiognomy is rather sparse, and scientific studies are still in short supply, although scholarship on this topic took off particularly during the Weimar period—not only by conservative and racialist science.⁵⁰ The following considerations are based on press reports during Stresemann’s lifetime and (the always very) subjective opinions of his contemporaries.

Many of his contemporaries, and not just his opponents, thought of Stresemann as the epitome of the disagreeable German, not exactly Germany’s most likeable face.⁵¹ He apparently embodied what people in other countries called the ugly German.⁵² Two examples, one from Poland, the other one from France—not exactly friends of Germany—illustrate this: When encountering . . . Dr. Stresemann for the first time, a stout man with a huge bald head, a man you can tell likes eating and drinking and dislikes exercising, one would think of him as the embodiment of what is usually called the German type.⁵³ The contemptuous and disparaging French term Boche referring to German soldiers in World War I was meant by this. Stubby and sturdy, with a round and shiny head, his fat neck squeezing out of the collar, a clunky body on firm legs—Mr. Stresemann’s makes a first impression of somewhat brutal power.⁵⁴ In short, according to these two judgments in the foreign press, Stresemann was a man that nature had given a very poor figure.⁵⁵

Whereas Reich Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno was the cosmopolitan owner of a shipping company and one of the most handsome men in Germany,⁵⁶ his successor Stresemann had a pyknic figure: round and well-fed, with a broad, fleshy face, short limbs, and hunched shoulders,⁵⁷ a pronounced forehead, small bulging eyes, a strong swelling of the eyelids, broad nasal wings, and pronounced nasolabial folds. His face looked puffed up and pale, mostly due to his illness. His round cheeks and very full lips underscored this impression. His huge bald head was another prominent feature of his physiognomy.⁵⁸ It seemed that nature had not been generous to Gustav Stresemann.

However, this negative impression only arises upon a first glance. A closer look does Stresemann’s personality more justice, as the correspondent of a prominent French journal pointed out. Just as a close look is directed at Mr. Stresemann’s face, the impression vanishes with banality. This is no common face. A willful chin, a big, luscious mouth, a very high forehead and most of all two deep-set eyes, small, intelligent, eager for knowledge, inquiring, and surprisingly agile that interrogate and penetrate his counterpart without ever revealing their own secrets.⁵⁹

Although at first glance Stresemann seemed to be robust, strong, and confident, in some pictures he appeared almost shy. Many photographs show a man whose body language signaled defense, radiating discontentment, uneasiness, and the wish to get away from disturbances and impositions such as photo sessions.⁶⁰ The clumsy stiffness of his movements underlined . . . the impression of a man who is embarrassingly aware of his unlucky appearance, noted a perceptive contemporary journalist.⁶¹

Figure 1.8. Gustav Stresemann in the spa gardens of Bad Wildungen, 1926. Courtesy PA AA.

Figure 1.9. Gustav Stresemann and his wife, ca. 1927/1928. Courtesy PA AA.

This impression is stronger still when his charming and universally popular wife appears next to him in family or official photographs. Of medium height and wiry . . . she is one of the best-dressed women in Berlin, a Berlin journalist pointed out, accurately echoing the opinion of the entire Berlin tabloid press.⁶² With good reason, many saw Stresemann as the husband of the wisest, most ambitious, and most energetic woman of Berlin, a wife who often facilitated his career and incited his ambition.⁶³ This referred to the common perception that Käte Stresemann tirelessly and unwearyingly supported her husband, who sometimes gave the impression of helplessness, in social situations.⁶⁴ She very skillfully knew how to conceal her husband’s ponderousness with elegance and charm.⁶⁵

Although Käte Stresemann’s house was indeed the center of the diplomatic corps and the official world of the Reich capital during the Weimar Republic,⁶⁶ the cosmopolitan Count Harry Kessler, a longstanding observer of the family and Berlin’s high society, did not consider the foreign minister and his wife truly elegant. He compared their soirées with the Tuileries balls of Napoleon III, where many mostly inelegant women with false and real pearl necklaces [were accompanied by] sweaty men in ill-fitting tailcoats, sitting in beautiful old traditional rooms.⁶⁷

Figure 1.10. Gustav Stresemann with State Secretary Carl von Schubert in San Remo, 1927. Courtesy PA AA.

Figure 1.11. Stresemann writing postcards, September 1929, Vitznau, Switzerland. Seated to the right of him is Attaché Wolf. Courtesy PA AA.

Countess von Schubert, née von Harrach and married to Stresemann’s state secretary, multimillionaire, and grandson of the industrialist Carl Ferdinand Freiherr von Stumm Halberg from the Saar area, shared this impression. To her, Stresemann and his wife were misfits in high society, as documented by Count Kessler in March 1926:

Renata [von Schubert] has remained the beautiful, elegant, impertinent aristocrat, inside and out. To her, Stresemann, Luther, the members of the Reichstag are still only people, grotesque bourgeois riffraff that has seized power against all order. . . . She is the only grand dame of the republic. Compared to her, Mrs. Stresemann, Mrs. Luther, not to mention Mrs. Löbe, all look like typists in their Sunday frocks.⁶⁸

Deep down, Stresemann probably knew about his deficits—and suffered on account of them, as his confidant and perceptive observer, Eugen Schiffer, detected:

He was well aware of his bad breeding. In fact, he did not go as far as the Social Democrat Ignaz Auer, who once admitted that he would give all his knowledge to know precisely whether it was adequate to eat fish or asparagus with only a fork or with both knife and fork. But it sounds like a confession when he [Stresemann] wrote in his obituary on Rathenau that this man, familiar with wealth and high society, was one of those who had a self-confident manner like old noblemen that others had to acquire.⁶⁹

The older (and more ill) Stresemann became, the more he refused to participate in social activities that increasingly bothered him, but not his wife. In his eyes they were nothing but coercion:

We need to finish the season in Berlin, otherwise I’ll fall apart as Blücher, whose letters I have been reading, writes to his wife. It agrees with me so well to stay away from all these festivities and parties and I do not intend to comply with this coercion. Mussolini does not accept out-of-house invitations; the same applies to Briand; Chamberlain gives two dinner parties per season; why shall I die in five years time just because I must dine every night? I wouldn’t dream of it!⁷⁰

This illustrates the contrast between Stresemann and his wife. Not only did the couple have different interests and health conditions, but they were also burdened with different stresses and strains. Not entirely selflessly, Stresemann pointed out the risks of the high number of activities to his wife: Why, he asked, do you make yourself a slave to ‘society’? You should rest because not even you can withstand the speed of this life in the long run!⁷¹ Unsurprisingly, this advice proved to be futile.⁷² It might well have been a cry for help to stop tormenting him with the social activities that he disliked so much.⁷³

Yet his attitude was rather ambivalent when it came to the basic question of whether and to what extent he accepted the noble upper class as a role model and could enjoy its elitist culture.⁷⁴ He was very blunt in his contempt for the lifestyle of the German ambassador to Paris, Leopold von Hoesch, whom he highly esteemed politically:

I do not like von Hoesch, I mean personally. He is more arrogant than the former emperor of China. A cordial mood is almost impossible under these circumstances; only a festivity like the one at Schwabach’s [a befriended banker]. He has 16 (in words: sixteen) servants and employees, among them 3 chefs. And he is a bachelor. I do not want to stay there again.⁷⁵

Stresemann’s Physiognomy as a Symbol of Trust

So what effect did such a man have in politics? How and why was Stresemann so successful as an election campaigner, especially during the Weimar Republic? How did he manage to be seen as down to earth and to become popular among large parts of the population?

These questions are all the more important in view of the fact that the political and social landscape of the Weimar Republic differed substantially from that of Imperial Germany. Much more importance was placed on politicians’ appearance, with visual representations playing a growing role.⁷⁶ Just like sports and society, albeit more slowly,⁷⁷ politics used pictures of politicians that allowed voters to identify with them.⁷⁸ Politicians’ faces gained importance⁷⁹ as they came to be increasingly rated on their looks.⁸⁰ Stresemann had encountered this trend during his visit to the United States in 1912, when he observed Woodrow Wilson’s election campaign on the ground.⁸¹

In 1923, Stresemann entered the grand political stage as Reich chancellor for the first time. Overnight, he became a well-known public figure and had to prove himself in contests of beauty, trust, and conviction.⁸² He was tremendously successful in this respect because he was able to create a positive image by turning his initially unfavorable looks into an advantage.

One of the important types within the visual world of the Weimar Republic was the new man of action, a type clearly distinguishable and identifiable who represented a break from prewar bourgeois traditions. This type embodied confidence, strength, and toughness in uncertain times, as well as a radical new beginning. Due to his looks and the values related to them, Stresemann represented this type only to a lesser extent. Moreover, he had no history as a warrior, unlike men such as Waldemar Pabst and Georg Escherich, whom he had admired and courted for years.⁸³

A counter-type to the warrior was the cultivated and honorable bourgeois citizen who stood for German continuity. This type suited Stresemann much better. But it was highly doubtful whether he was able to fully and positively represent it, at least among the bourgeoisie, due to his political attitude during the war.⁸⁴ His looks and appearance did not exactly help in this respect.⁸⁵ Rather, some contemporary critics saw him as the member of the stratum between the proletariat and the so-called educated bourgeoisie, but with survival skills superior to both of theirs.⁸⁶ There was something specifically proletarian and common, perhaps even vulgar, about his face.⁸⁷

Figure 1.12. Book cover of the second volume of Stresemann’s three-volume written legacy, Vermächtnis. Courtesy PA AA.

But trust or trustworthiness was crucial.⁸⁸ Trust was a decisive factor for gaining and accumulating social and subsequently political capital. Having a face that instills trust was all the more important because Stresemann belonged to a party of the political center, the DVP (Deutsche Volkspartei [German People’s Party]). But the friends and, even more, the opponents of this party referred to it as a turntable: flexible and versatile, always open to everything, never fixed on anything. Its leaders therefore faced allegations of not being trustworthy due to a lack of principles. Nevertheless, Stresemann was able to become a trustworthy figure in 1923.

Count Kessler’s notes provide an initial explanation of how Stresemann managed to accomplish this. This perceptive and critical observer of the Weimar Republic described the potential metamorphosis of a man who initially symbolized mistrust into one who instilled trust by taking a speech of the Center Party politician Matthias Erzberger from July 1919 as an example.

Erzberger had been attacked beyond measure in the Reichstag by the German Nationals due to his policies and defended himself in a way that turned him from a man with a slappable face into a popular, trustworthy figure. According to Count Kessler, this transformation largely resulted from Erzberger’s inner truthfulness, which sidelined the dominant negative connotations associated with him:⁸⁹

Erzberger with his philistine figure, his coarse accent, his grammatical mistakes, did not make a good first impression. . . .

I was standing right behind him at the rostrum, I saw his poorly made, flat boots, his ludicrous trousers whose corkscrew creases ended in a full moon bottom, his broad, pyknic peasant shoulders, the entire fat, sweaty, dislikeable, most petit-bourgeois person before me at close range: every clumsy movement of the heavily built form, every change in color of his fat cheeks, every drop of sweat on his greasy forehead. But step by step, this ludicrous, inarticulate, clumsy figure came up with the most terrible accusations; the poorly constructed, poorly spoken sentences delivered fact after fact; they formed columns and battalions, came down like blows with a rifle butt on the political Right, which grew pale and slumped down to the ground, getting smaller and smaller until it sat in the corner, completely isolated.

Stresemann’s transformation, though not directly comparable, was similar in some ways. In 1923, the cautiously maneuvering, indecisive, and in many respects disliked politician turned into the new statesman Stresemann. He convinced the public by means of his crisis management during the year and was able to present himself as a politician of the republic who radiated truthfulness and inner conviction even in times of crisis and therefore had to be taken seriously. He enjoyed this positive image until his death, both among the majority of the bourgeoisie and even large parts of the Social Democratic bloc.

Stresemann’s skill as a trust-instilling public speaker played an important role in this transformation, just as in Erzberger’s case. His admirer Heinrich Bauer provided a knowledgeable description of the impact Stresemann had as a speaker:

Where does this trust in him come from, where his popularity? There is nothing in his appearance or his looks that could make him popular. His short, thickset figure with broad head and neck are by no means endearing at first glance.

But when he gives a speech, the force of his energy breaks forth, his whole body contracts, and there is a suggestive fire in his eyes—he seems to be a completely different man. The high, metallic, and sharp voice that might initially repulse the audience suddenly sounds thrilling and exciting and fascinates and carries an audience of thousands, friend and foe alike, for two or three hours without resistance.⁹⁰

Stresemann’s skill as a public speaker clearly helped him gain trust. The famous speech he gave in the crisis year of 1923, in which he prepared his ultimate entrance into active participation in the politics of the Reich, also demonstrates this.⁹¹

In this parliamentary speech, which met with great applause and broad approval, Stresemann made his mark as a politician who could instill trust inside and outside the Reich and overcome the political trenches within Germany and between Germany and the Allies. This suggested that he could be one who would resolve the most severe crisis of the Weimar Republic yet. In fact, only a few months after the speech, he became the youngest Reich chancellor of the republic. A new image of Stresemann was born.

Figure 1.13. Portrait of Gustav Stresemann, undated. Courtesy PA AA.

It was of particular importance for this image change that contemporary visual representations were based on drawings, woodcarvings, and processed photographic material rather than on actual photographs. The common frequent result was the iconic, ‘fossilized’ representation of people that depersonalized them in a certain way and made them a symbol.⁹² They became a type. The bourgeois type was usually presented as hairless and with a stern look,⁹³ gaining dignity and significance precisely for these reasons. Under these circumstances, Stresemann’s physiognomy by no means precluded his chances. He was probably the one who (co-)created the visual power of this type.

In addition, the fact that Stresemann’s looks made him suitable for caricatures had a positive effect.⁹⁴ In this field, Stresemann was able to gain substantial ground quickly. Between 1923 and 1929, several hundred caricatures were produced, most of them