Moritz Föllmer, who in the past decade has written a number of excellent essays on suicide, the apartment and popular novels in Weimar Germany, expands his focus in this new monograph to the notoriously nebulous concepts of individuality and modernity, as found in Berlin between c. 1930 and 1961. A book-length study has allowed Föllmer to flesh out his thesis that, contrary to much of the existing literature, individuality was present, albeit in a multitude of guises, in Berlin from the late Weimar period onward. This runs counter to the position of Ulrich Herbert and others that residents of (West) Germany only began to shake off collectivist mentalities and accept modernity around 1960. Föllmer deliberately draws his study to a close at this juncture to underscore his revisionist stance.
Föllmer does not argue that a single form of individuality developed across these three decades and the four regimes they encompassed. Crucial to the persuasiveness of his argument is the concept of ‘multiple individualities’ (p. 3). In short, the forms of individuality found in Weimar, Nazi, East and West Berlin varied considerably, even within each regime. Residents of Weimar Berlin experienced ‘existential uncertainty’, which Föllmer describes as a ‘key dimension of individuality in modern times’ (p. 46), and witnessed the competing claims of Communists and Nazis to provide individualist benefits, even as these ran counter to their ideologies. The Nazi regime promoted an ‘aggressive individualism’, positing ‘legitimate’ vs. ‘illegitimate’ individuals (p. 120), which went hand-in-hand with the völkisch tenets of National Socialist thought. Both post-war regimes stressed their opportunities for individual advancement vis-à-vis their construction of a strictly collectivist Third Reich, and, in the case of West Berlin, a statist and individuality-suppressing East Berlin. As Föllmer demonstrates, neither of these constructions was accurate. West Berlin became ‘the crucial site of totalitarianism theory’ (p. 246) because it wanted to claim individuality as an entity separate from the Nazi and SED regimes. And Berliners in both East and West separated individuality from Nazism, allowing them to distance themselves from personal culpability in the Third Reich.
This brings us to the fate of Jewish Berliners. Föllmer argues convincingly that individuality in Nazi Germany was defined in direct relation to the perception of ‘Jewishness’, which included traits such as cunning, dishonesty and sexual depravity. ‘Legitimate’ German individuality was pitted against ‘illegitimate’ Jewish individuality, to the extent that displays of negative ‘Jewish’ qualities in the non-Jewish population could be excused by associating them with the Jewish threat. The chapter on ‘Jewish Berliners’ ambiguous quest for agency’ is arresting, although Föllmer does not satisfactorily differentiate Jewish from non-Jewish behaviours. While Jewish Berliners did undertake a range of individually motivated actions during the years of persecution, these would better be described as ‘stories of self-preservation’ (p. 145), as Föllmer himself implies, rather than as manifestations of individuality. The examples provided differ too radically from those of non-Jewish Berliners found in the rest of the study to warrant a direct comparison.
Although Föllmer grounds his thesis well in the relevant theories, one does sometimes get the feeling of being lost in examples. There is no doubt that Föllmer must have trawled through a veritable mountain of archival material to furnish the amount of supporting evidence he provides, and while this is commendable, it does make the narrative a little disjointed. Cohesion and flow are often sacrificed in favour of consecutive references to newspaper articles, personal correspondence, government records, diaries and novels. Another problem is that, while the book's title contains individuality and modernity, even a casual reader would notice that Föllmer devotes much more attention to manifestations of individuality – modernity is more or less implied to be developing alongside it. And although individuality and modernity are (some would argue inextricably) linked, a clearer, more focused analysis might have resulted had Föllmer restricted his focus to individuality alone. This is also the more original part of his argument, as fewer dispute that Weimar, Nazi and East and West German societies were, in different ways, all examples of modernity.
These criticisms aside, Föllmer has written an impressive and convincing study. It is meticulously footnoted, with concise summaries of some of the recent historical debates, skilful condensation of primary source material and an extensive bibliography. The book is accessible enough that it could enrich an undergraduate's understanding of twentieth-century Germany, while containing enough fresh perspective and original insight to give an expert in this field food for thought. A Germanophone scholar, Föllmer apologizes unnecessarily for any ‘linguistic clumsiness’ that may have sneaked into his first English-language book. The prose is in fact crystal clear and easy to follow. Likewise, the book's structure is logical and balanced. It is also refreshing to read, every once in a while, a study that begins ‘This book is about…’.
