Matthias Erzberger

German politician

• Born: September 20, 1875
• Birthplace: Buttenhausen, Germany
• Died: August 26, 1921
• Place of death: Near Bad Griesbach, Germany

Erzberger was the dominant voice of the progressive wing of the Catholic Center Party in the German parliament during and just after World War I. He led the fight for Germany’s acceptance of the 1918 armistice and for Germany’s ratification of the Versailles Treaty.

Early Life

Matthias Erzberger (EHRTZ-behr-guhr) was born in the village of Buttenhausen in Germany. His father, Josef, was a tailor and postal worker, who, although a Roman Catholic in a village divided almost evenly between Protestant and Jew, served for some time as an elected village official. Josef’s wife, Katherine Flad, was a protestant from the village of Fladhof, but she converted to Catholicism on her marriage in 1873. Matthias was the first born of the Erzberger’s six children. He was the only one of the children to achieve prominence. Matthias was sent to Catholic school in the nearby village of Bichishausen. He excelled in his studies, and it was suggested to his family that Matthias prepare for a career in teaching. At age fourteen, he was sent to the preparatory school in Gmund (1889-1891) and then to the teachers’ seminary in Saulgau (1891-1894), where he did very well.

Erzberger began his teaching career as an apprentice in Marbach but soon became interested in politics. He regularly attended political meetings of socialists and liberals, at which he was outspoken in his challenges to elder leaders. When Erzberger was offered an editorial position at Deutsches Volksblatt, a Catholic newspaper published in Stuttgart that aimed at spreading Catholic social doctrine, he quickly accepted and began a career as a journalist.

Between 1896 and 1903, Erzberger devoted his time to the Catholic social movement in Württemberg. He became involved in leading the Stuttgart office of the People’s League for German Catholics, an organization founded to improve the economic circumstances for workers and peasants. In 1896, Erzberger was sent to the Catholic University in Freiburg, Switzerland, to prepare him better for his leadership role. On his return to Württemberg, he gave frequent lectures in which he explained Catholic social doctrine to meetings of peasants and workers. His speeches were stridently anti-Marxist.

Erzberger devoted much of his time after 1897 to informing workers of their rights under the law through the establishment of workers’ educational leagues. In addition, Erzberger began to produce influential pamphlets in which he made the case for Christian trade unions as opposed to socialist trade unions. Not surprisingly, he became a leader in the rise of Germany’s Christian Trade Union Movement, serving on the national executive board.

On February 13, 1900, Erzberger married Paula Eberhard, the daughter of a successful Rottenburg merchant. Three years later he was elected to the Reichstag (parliament) for the sixteenth district located in southeastern Württemberg. He campaigned against Marxist solutions for economic and social problems. He was a Catholic progressive, but he did not hesitate to frighten his constituents with the specter of Marxist socialism. Erzberger was elected at age twenty-eight and thus became the youngest member in the parliament. He entered parliament in full support of the Catholic Center Party’s platform, which called for legal reform, progressive social policies, the end of laws against Jesuits, and support for the military.

Life’s Work

Erzberger quickly rose to prominence in the Reichstag through the Catholic Center Party. With his considerable ego, Erzberger ran roughshod over party leaders from the beginning. He irritated all Reichstag members by speaking more often than was appropriate for a new delegate. His speeches, however, were marked by eloquence and by sound information; thus, he gained respect even while he broke from protocol. He was in these years, and later, a relentless opponent of Marxist philosophy. In 1904, he gained a place on the important budget committee of the Reichstag, wherein he proved himself adept at handling complicated financial and legal questions. Erzberger’s most important, and spectacular, work during his first five years in parliament, however, was his exposure of mismanagement in the government’s conduct of colonial affairs, which caused many officials to resign.

After his reelection in 1907, Erzberger continued to support progressive measures. He denounced German oppression of Poles in East Prussia and urged the government to embark on financial reform. Erzberger played a big part in the budget reform of 1909 that eliminated an imperial deficit and made it possible for the government to show a surplus over several years. He also was influential in helping to drive conservative Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow from office in 1909. In the five years preceding World War I, Erzberger supported Germany’s military expansion. He seemed to think that Germany was threatened by an encirclement effort involving England, France, and Russia. He also believed that a powerful Germany was a guarantee of European peace. Like Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, Erzberger completely misunderstood England’s interests with regard to the Continent.

Between 1915 and 1917, Erzberger gave almost all of his attention to international concerns. He was heavily involved in diplomatic activities with Italy, Austria-Hungary, and the Vatican. In all these endeavors, he worked closely with Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg. Sometime in 1916, Erzberger reached the conclusion that Germany’s war aims were not attainable. He was also alarmed by the social and economic dislocation that the war was causing. Erzberger opposed Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz’s insistence that unrestricted submarine warfare would turn the struggle in Germany’s favor. Basing his opposition on utilitarian, rather than humanitarian, concerns, Erzberger concluded (correctly) that submarines would prove ineffective.

Erzberger’s disillusionment with the war effort led him to introduce on July 6, 1917, a resolution calling for a negotiated peace, with Germany giving up all claims to territory in Europe. Erzberger was motivated by a sense that Germany was about to suffer a decisive defeat. Shortly after the peace resolution was introduced, Bethmann Hollweg, who had lost support from the German military, resigned.

In the summer and autumn of 1917, Erzberger suffered much abuse from German nationalists as a result of his peace resolution. The newly created Fatherland Party and the conservative wing of the Catholic Center Party accused him of sabotaging the will of Germans for victory. Erzberger defended himself well by sharing secret military information with conservative members of his party. The Catholic Center Party eventually endorsed the peace resolution.

Erzberger made more enemies on the right when, in 1918, he protested against the harsh terms that Germany demanded from Russia in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk . He insisted that the German government should stop meddling in the affairs of Eastern European peoples. In November, 1918, Prince Max of Baden, who had assumed the chancellorship in October, appointed Erzberger to the Armistice Commission. In this capacity, Erzberger represented the German government in armistice discussions in France. On November 11, 1918, Erzberger signed the agreement on terms presented by French Marshal Ferdinand Foch. In the three days before Erzberger signed the armistice, the situation in Berlin had changed drastically. Prince Max had been forced out, Emperor William II had abdicated, and Germany was declared a republic with a socialist provisional government in Weimar under the leadership of Friedrich Ebert. Erzberger, isolated in France, was only vaguely aware of these developments.

On Erzberger’s return to Germany, the Ebert government showed its appreciation for his efforts by asking him to continue as chair of the Armistice Commission while the terms were implemented. Erzberger played no role in preparing the Weimar Constitution, and he was not a member of the German peace delegation at Versailles. He did, however, urge German officials to refrain from belligerence in the face of Allied demands. When the German delegation was ordered to ratify the Versailles Treaty in June, 1919, there was great opposition in the provisional government and in the National Assembly. Erzberger recognized that the terms were overly severe but agreed that to refuse to sign would mean that the war would resume. Believing that reparations would be based on Germany’s ability to pay, he contended that the country could find ways to maintain economic stability. He knew that his position would further infuriate German nationalists, but he saw only military occupation if Germany resisted.

In a reorganization of the provisional government on June 21, 1919, Erzberger accepted the post of finance minister. Through bold if often unpopular action, he rechanneled taxation in Germany and, until the reparations undermined his efforts, succeeded in putting the country on a course of financial recovery.

His work on the budget came during a time when his enemies intensified their accusations that he had betrayed German interests in 1918 and 1919. He had held the knife that stabbed Germany in the back, they said. Erzberger’s principal attacker was Karl Helfferich, a former treasury secretary and bitter foe of the republic. Helfferich leveled sweeping charges against the finance minister in print, and Erzberger eventually sued for libel. The ensuing trial gave Helfferich an opportunity to question nearly everything in Erzberger’s life. The basic charges included embezzlement, impropriety in government, lying to the people, and tax evasion. The charges were unsubstantiated. The trial was bizarre. The courtroom was filled with upper-class opponents of Erzberger, who jeered him repeatedly. The trial was delayed several weeks when an unemployed soldier shot Erzberger in the shoulder and chest in January, 1920. The verdict, given on March 12, went in favor of Erzberger, although the judgment contended that he was guilty of some of the charges, including six instances of perjury.

The trial finished Erzberger’s political career. He resigned from the government and spent the next year trying, with some success, to restore his reputation with the public. The right wing, however, passionately hated him and there were assassination plots. Just before he intended to resume his political career, Erzberger and his family visited Bad Griesbach, a resort in the Black Forest. On August 26, 1921, while returning from a leisurely walk, Erzberger was murdered by two gunmen.

Significance

To a great extent Erzberger’s political career was defined by his devotion to Catholicism and his origins in Swabia, where democratic traditions were firmly rooted. His Catholic beliefs and his democratic inclinations brought him to the progressive wing of the Catholic Center Party. He could not feel comfortable with the liberals or the socialists because they were decidedly anticlerical and saw the world through the prism of materialism. The conservatives, on the other hand, represented the powerful interests of the Protestant elite.

Erzberger was a self-made politician, and he exhibited most of the characteristics expected of persons who achieve more than was imagined possible. He was, at times, headstrong, belligerent, overly confident of his abilities, and inclined to take on more than he could handle. His strength of will, his well-developed oratorical skills, and his basic integrity gave him influence unusual for one of his modest educational background. In fact, Klaus Epstein believes that Erzberger’s lack of advanced education made it possible for him to proceed without introspection, and thus without self-doubt.

Erzberger’s political career was substantial enough before 1917, but in that year and for the next four years he moved to a new level of political importance. He became the darling of the Left (which had always viewed him with suspicion) for his peace resolution, his support for the armistice, his insistence that Germany accept the Versailles Treaty, and his financial reforms. The right wing saw him as a symbol of Germany’s defeat and, more significant, as symbolic of the weakness that led to that defeat. His murder made him a martyr to the German republic, yet it brought celebration from those who were caught up in virulent politics. It was an unmistakable sign that too many of his countrymen rejected the Christian democratic principles that had shaped his life.

Bibliography

Epstein, Klaus. Matthias Erzberger and the Dilemma of German Democracy. 1959. Reprint. New York: H. Fertig, 1979. Based largely on Erzberger’s papers, which were protected from the Nazis by a close friend, this book is comprehensive and definitive and is essential reading.

Erzberger, Matthias. The League of Nations. Translated by Bernard Miall. New York: Henry Holt, 1919. A strong argument in support of the League of Nations, which Erzberger believed to be wholly consonant with Christian and German traditions.

Fischer, Fritz. Germany’s Aims in the First World War. New York: W. W. Norton, 1967. In this most important book, Fischer assigns Erzberger a major role in encouraging the Reichstag to assert itself against government leaders in 1917.

Frye, Bruce. Erzberger and German Politics, 1914-1921. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1954. Although Frye lacked access to German primary sources, including Erzberger’s papers, this study provides a solid account of Erzberger’s last seven years.

Halperin, S. William. Germany Tried Democracy: A Political History of the Reich from 1918 to 1933. New York: W. W. Norton, 1965. In this well-known and widely heralded account of the fall of the Weimar Republic, Halperin devotes considerable space to Erzberger. Halperin is especially strong in his discussion of Erzberger’s role in the armistice agreement in 1918 and on the reaction to Erzberger’s death.

Robbins, Keith. The First World War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. An excellent account of World War I that is brief but inclusive. Robbins’s book touches all of the important issues in the war and places Erzberger’s role in the context of German politics.

Tomuschat, Christian. “The 1871 Peace Treaty Between France and Germany and the 1919 Peace Treaty of Versailles.” In Peace Treaties and International Law in European History: From the Late Middle Ages to World War One, edited by Randall Lesaffer. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. An essay comparing the Treaty of Versailles to an earlier French-German peace treaty; concludes a collection of essays on the major preceding European peace treaties, which are also useful to place the Treaty of Versailles in perspective.