ABSTRACT
The German Sonderwen (special development) The SonderweB thesis may be briefly stated as follows: From a Western perspective Germany's political development was tragically retarded by its failure to develop an effective democratic system until after the Second World War. According to this view, until 1945 the liberal movement in Germany was too weak to overcome the entrenched forces of monarchical government, the system of government in which power was concentrated in the hands of the ruler and a privileged elite dominated by the aristocracy. In contrast to western Europe, where absolutism was phased out by the early nineteenth century, there had never been a successful liberal revolution in Germany. In the nineteenth century Germany defmed its national identity in opposition to the progressive (Le. libertarian and equalitarian) ideas of the French Revolution. The SonderweB thesis culminates in a major indictment: the German bourgeoisie failed to fulfill its historic mission of creating a liberal parliamentary form of government. 1 The unfortunate consequence of this historic omission, so adherents of the SonderweB thesis conclude, was the triumph of Nazism in the twentieth century.
