Martel Gordon. A Companion to Europe 1900-1945
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formerly ruled from Vienna, Berlin, and St. Petersburg, it was assumed that linguistic,
religious, and historical forces would combine to establish a coherent, stable, and
constitutional state; it would not be aggressive or expansionist because the goal of
national unity would have been achieved. The same principle was, in essence, applied
to Czechoslovakia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia – as well as to Austria and
Hungary. Everywhere in Europe the nationalists had claimed that ruthless autocratic
regimes had prevented them from realizing their dreams of establishing nations based
upon the will of the people through the instrument of representative governments.
Thus was the new Europe designed to endure for as far into the future as anyone
could foresee; sorting out the frontiers between the national states was difficult and
messy, but with good will to guide those who drew the boundaries, and with a new
League of Nations to assist in resolving disagreements, the grievances and instability
that had plagued the old Europe would gradually disappear. Thus was the Europe
of the interwar years simultaneously old and new. The peacemakers of 1919 had
recognized both the complexities of national identities and ambitions and the power
that nationalism had to undo their efforts – and had created a new international code
of behavior in the form of “Minority treaties” which sought to give rights to minori-
ties that had been created by their frontier adjustments and to protect them from
the majority.
The victorious powers who had conceived of and then created the new Europe
laid themselves open to the charge of cynical self-interest. The most compelling case
against them could be made by looking at the map outside of Europe. Here there
was no more than lip-service paid to the principle of national self-determination: the
empires of the British and French were expanded to an unprecedented extent; those
of the Germans and the Turks dismantled. The British succeeded in limiting the old
tsarist threat to their empire in Asia; the French succeeded in limiting the German
threat in Europe through the imposition of demilitarization, punishing reparations
and recapturing Alsace and Lorraine. The peace of enlightened progress could be
dismissed by its critics as one of hypocrisy; Germans and Russians could agree that
it was not national self-determination that established its foundations, but acquisitive
imperialism. The complaints of Poles, Hungarians, and Italians concerning this or
that frontier arrangement were petty in comparison with those of Germans and
Russians who argued that the French and the British were seeking to keep them
forever in chains.
And thus was the new Europe of 1919 beleaguered by attacks on its very essence.
According to its critics, the only thing that had changed since 1900 was the
Machiavellian realization of the goals of western imperialism. And the way to reverse
the judgment imposed by the French and the British was to restore those elements
of imperial might that had enabled their opponents to succeed: they must rebuild
their armies and navies. Indeed, in order to succeed where they had previously failed
they needed to go further: they would have to build political and social systems that
were more cohesive and dynamic than those that had collapsed under the weight of
war. Thus, in Soviet Russia, then fascist Italy, and finally in Nazi Germany, there was
little nostalgic yearning to restore the world of 1900; instead, they promoted a
“futurist” vision of a new society that would harness the power of modernity to
overcome the limitations imposed by history and tradition. Mass communications
and massive assemblies would allow a charismatic leader to mobilize his nation, race,
xxviii gordonmartel
or class to an unparalleled extent; individuals and groups, customs and laws that stood
in the way would be, had to be, marginalized, removed, or destroyed.
In this way were the foundations of the new Europe, grounded in the principles
of nineteenth-century idealism, eroded and assaulted by forces that regarded these
ideals as backward, as bourgeois, as decadent. While they attacked the adherents of
the old order as hypocrites, they had no wish to force them to live up to the promises
of their rhetoric: the fascists, Nazis, and communists of the interwar years had no
interest in creating a system of limited national states with mechanisms for mediating
or arbitrating the inevitable disputes that arose over this or that bit of frontier. They
strove for higher ideals than the bourgeois complacency of liberal democracy: a new
imperial Rome, a third reich, a proletarian paradise. The divisive tendencies of the
prewar years became violent ideological confrontations between the wars. Everywhere
in Europe people took to the streets: marches, demonstrations, and strikes were the
order of the day. The temperature of political culture became feverish; every issue
was hotly contested because it seemed part of a much larger struggle for the shape
of the future for nation, race, or class.
Against the assaults of the new ambitions the proponents of the old order
seemed fumbling and powerless. The charges of hypocrisy and decadence stuck
because the liberals and conservatives, the bourgeoisie and the aristocrats, the demo-
crats and constitutionalists looked like old-fashioned fuddy-duddies next to their
modern, militarized opponents; top hats, tails, furled umbrellas, and patent-leather
shoes were no match for blackshirts and brownshirts, for jackboots and holstered
revolvers. Between the wars the tide of history seemed to be moving in another
direction. Areas of life that were previously immune from (or at least remote from)
politics – painting, music, sport, leisure – were now part of a wider political culture,
where their relative decadence or purity were debated as if the future of civilization
depended upon them.
No doubt the realities of life after 1919, the poverty, the unemployment,
the upheavals of inflation and deflation, the loss of husbands, fathers, and sons,
accounts for much of the ideological confrontation in Europe between the wars.
And yet different cultures responded differently to these realities. While there were
communist and fascist parties everywhere, they did not all succeed in overcoming
the old order. And when, in 1939, Nazi Germany rolled the dice and attacked
Poland, the old democracies of the west decided that they could not stand by on the
sidelines and watch. And in this decision they were generally supported by their own
people who were, in spite of the horrific memories of 1914–18, prepared to go to
war once again.
But this war was different, both in the manner of its fighting and in the nature of
the issues involved. New strategies, tactics, and weapons were employed to escape
another war of attrition like that of 1914–18. Blitzkrieg, the rapid deployment of
troops using armored personnel carriers supported by tanks and fighter planes and
dive bombers, was the kind of war designed by those strategists horrified by trench
warfare and fixed fronts. Compared with World War I, World War II was one of
movement, of shifting fronts, of stunning victories and crushing defeats. And this
time civilians were involved to an unparalleled extent. Those who had fought in the
trenches the first time around believed that the war would not have been allowed to
continue as it did if the older generation – safe and comfortable at home – had to
introduction:europeinagony1900–1945 xxix
endure the same horrors they faced. Concurrent with the tactical innovations of
blitzkrieg, then, was the strategy of terrifying civilians by bombing their cities from
the skies. The consequence of the strategy was ironic: instead of eroding the will to
fight, the bombing intensified the will to resist. And thus World War II became a
“total war” in a way that World War I had not been.
As with World War I, World War II altered the course of European history. Before
the war, few were prepared to face the horrors of another war. Unlike 1914, there
was no rejoicing, no spontaneous demonstrations in the streets in 1939. Everyone
expected that this war would be even more devastating: there was little or no popular
enthusiasm for the war even in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or fascist Italy.
Nevertheless, the “totalitarian” regimes were able to mobilize sufficient support to
fight the war – but so were the old regimes of the parliamentary democracies. The
stunning defeat of France in 1940, followed by the battle of Britain and the invasion
of the Soviet Union, brought the Axis states to the brink of total victory. By 1941
they controlled, directly or through compliant, puppet regimes all of continental
Europe. And it was at that point that the tide, both strategically and culturally, began
to change. The consequences of a Europe under Nazi domination quickly became
clear: political opposition would not be tolerated, economies would be pillaged for
the sake of Germany, racist ideals would be fulfilled. The conquered, the occupied,
or the controlled could choose either to submit and obey or to resist. Where World
War I had, in retrospect, seemed to have been fought for nothing more than the
dynastic or imperial ambitions of the great powers, World War II seemed to live up
to the promises of the propaganda that surrounded it: it did seem to be about the
future of civilization – and it soon seemed impossible to be indifferent to it. The
outcome of this war would determine how people lived their lives every day, and for
as far into the future as anyone could foresee.
The memory of that struggle has changed over the course of time, but in a manner
that has produced even starker contrasts and more vivid lessons. No one went to war
in 1939, 1940, or 1941 in order to save the Jews of Europe from annihilation. But
the horrors of the extermination camps, the gas chambers, and the killing squads
have, in the twenty-first century, worked themselves into the consciousness of Europe
and the west. Those who believe that the war was unnecessary and immoral have
rarely been heard from. Unlike the debates and the disillusionment that followed
1919, the controversy surrounding World War II consists largely of debating when
and where Hitler and Mussolini should have been stopped – not whether their
demands were reasonable or whether they were susceptible to policies of moderation.
Despite the even greater horrors of World War II it has come to be regarded as a
just and necessary war.
The agony suffered by Europe between 1900 and 1945 changed fundamentally
the way Europeans regarded themselves, their past, and their future. Fundamental
beliefs in what it means to be European, what Europeans can and cannot tolerate,
changed dramatically as a result of the two world wars, revolutions, civil wars, the
experience of totalitarianism, the purges and the holocaust. Few periods in history
were as dramatic, as important, as painful, and as heartbreaking as this half century.
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Part I
Continuity and Change; Forces
and Movements
Chapter One
Urbanization, Poverty, and Crime
Paul Lawrence
Thus on every side the strange and artificial growth of our cities confronts us . . . We
cannot but observe the evil effects of the enforced severance from natural conditions of
life. (C. F. G. Masterman, The Heart of the Empire, 1901)
It is relatively easy to construct a portrait of Europe during the first half of the twen-
tieth century as intrinsically “modern.” After all, the “metropolis” – blazing with
electric light, crowded with commuters, flanked by suburbs – was already an estab-
lished feature of European society by World War I. The growth of fledgling welfare
state initiatives across Europe revolutionized living conditions for many during the
period. Paid holidays, slum clearances, town planning, and improving educational
provision – all seem indicative of early “progress” towards the comfortable present
of twenty-first century Europe. Similarly, the period can also be viewed as a “Golden
Age” of policing in some countries. The lack of public legitimacy and problems with
professional conduct which had beset crime control institutions for much of the
nineteenth century were subsiding, and the advent of early forensic science and the
development of international institutions such as Interpol (set up in 1923) again seem
indicative of a Europe not dissimilar to our own. It is tempting, therefore, in looking
back on the first half of the twentieth century, to discern in retrospect only our current
Europe in its nascent form.
However, caution must be exercised. It is inadvisable to look back from the
vantage point of twenty-first century Europe and perceive only its smooth genesis.
Rather than a history of progress, even the most cursory study of the Europe of the
first half of the twentieth century also throws up startling incongruities. In the first
place, significant regional and temporal variations are apparent when any single vector
of change is considered. For example, while more than half of all Britons had been
classed as living in urban areas by the mid-nineteenth century, it took until the 1930s
for this proportion to be reached just across the Channel in France. Equally, welfare
provision and the amelioration of poverty varied widely across time and place. While
Germany, Denmark, and Norway all pioneered the introduction of welfare legislation,
4 paul lawrence
as late as 1931 barely 40 percent of houses in Moscow had running water. In the
field of crime and policing, too, while there is certainly some evidence of growing
public acceptance of increasingly professional policing, a “revisionist” history of crime
and policing might also be presented, which might highlight the London Metropolitan
Police baton charging Hunger Marchers in 1932 or the disturbing uses to which the
police were put in Nazi Germany (and, to a lesser extent, in Nazi-occupied
nations).
Perhaps even more significantly, however, not only were there wide variations in
social conditions across Europe, in patterns of urbanization, and in the nature of
crime and policing, but there were also big divergences in the ways in which these
topics were perceived by contemporaries. The nature of modern urban life and “the
city” were often hotly debated. Some, like the German art critic August Endell,
believed that the urban environment was “a marvel of beauty and poetry . . . a fairy
tale, brighter, more colorful, more diverse than anything ever invented by a poet.”
1
Others, however, believed that the city was primarily a degenerating, enervating, and
unnatural environment, marked by a divisive “urban morality” which glorified the
most egoistic, inconsiderate, and destructive traits of human nature. Similarly diver-
gent views and fierce debates concerning poverty (or, more specifically, the poor) and
criminality can also be identified. What is also particularly striking is how these three
themes – the urban environment, poverty, and criminality – were continually inter-
twined. One of most obvious vehicles via which these conceptual links were made
were the Eugenics movements which existed in most European countries during the
period and which (despite postwar efforts to indicate the contrary in Britain and
France) were a seriously considered response to the issues of poverty, welfare costs,
and criminality.
Care must be taken, therefore, not to underplay either the extent of regional and
temporal diversity in Europe in the period 1900–45, or the extent to which ways of
thinking about urbanization, poverty, and crime may have differed from our own
contemporary views. With this in mind, this chapter will provide an overview of these
three themes – urbanization, poverty and welfare, and crime and policing – and will
illustrate the diversity of developments across Europe during the period. In addition,
it will highlight the range of intertwined perceptions, debates, and opinions which
these issues aroused.
Urbanization and the “Metropolis”
While urbanization in Europe was a long process (most of the major cities we know
today were founded before 1300), rapid urbanization is usually associated with the
nineteenth century and with the rise of industrial societies. During the period 1800–
1910, the urban population of Europe grew about six-fold, partly because of a growth
in overall population sizes and partly because of a shift towards urban living. It might
be assumed, therefore, that this process was largely tailing off by 1900. In fact,
Europe as a whole remained more rural than urban up until 1914, and even until
after World War II if the Soviet Union is included. This is because the trend towards
urbanization before 1900 disguised considerable regional variations. Thus, while
England had a predominantly urban population by 1871, Russia had barely begun
to urbanize by World War I. While almost 80 percent of the Welsh population and
urbanization, poverty, and crime 5
57 percent of Belgians were classed as urban in 1920, this figure was only 46 percent
for the French, and 30 percent for Swedes and Norwegians.
2
Clearly, urbanization
was neither an even process, nor largely complete by 1900. Variations between coun-
tries were marked, and even within individual nations processes of urbanization could
vary considerably. London was by far the biggest city in Europe at the turn of the
century – twice the size of Paris and almost five times as populous as Moscow.
However, Paris in 1911 (together with its suburbs), dominated urban life in France
to a greater extent than London did England, and had more inhabitants than all
other French cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants put together. In Germany,
the landscape of the west was dominated by the Ruhr conurbation. While described
as a “city of cities,” this huge industrial sprawl in fact had no unified direction of any
form until 1920.
Thus, diverse urban contexts could be found across Europe in the period before
World War I. And yet, by 1950, almost all of the countries of Europe could be
described as industrial and urban. The period 1900–45 was therefore certainly still
one marked by the significant expansion of major towns and cities, often into subur-
ban hinterlands. Unlike the factory industrialization of the nineteenth century,
however, which had concentrated people near coalfields and water sources, the capi-
talism of the twentieth century favored large capital cities and commercial centers.
Concerns generated by this continued urbanization led, in many countries, to the
development of town planning – something relatively unknown during the chaotic
first wave of nineteenth-century urbanization. While moves towards planning had
begun around the turn of the century, interest (and indeed a new profession of “town
planning”) grew rapidly. Authors like Patrick Geddes, the Scottish biologist and
pioneer of town planning, argued that only a “new association of civic and social
action with architectural and artistic effort” could counter slums and “the mean
ugliness of our towns.”
3
While some gains were made, the results of town planning
were very mixed. Municipal planners sometimes struggled to cope with the rapid
development of existing major cities and the infrastructure demands this created. An
official report on Paris, for example, noted in 1908 that the suburbs were “not suffi-
ciently prepared to receive such a large and a rapid addition of new inhabitants” and
that “old villages, scattered here and there, have become in a few years large centers
of population, which in an uninterrupted chain meet to form a disorderly mass like
a single city.”
4
The Parisian banlieue (suburbs) had few effective building regulations
between the wars. Despite this, however, public funds contributed to 77,000 of the
320,000 dwellings built in Paris between 1920 and 1938 and similar successes can
be found elsewhere. In Vienna, Social Democrats managed to house 1/8 of the
population in Gemeindebauten and British local councils helped to demolish many
slums and build 1.5 million out of 4 million new homes.
Centralized planning in regard to cities perhaps reached its peak under the com-
munist and fascist regimes of the interwar period, yet even here results were mixed.
In Russia, socialism had an immediate impact after the revolution, as it authorized
the subdivision of large houses owned by the middle classes, and their occupation by
workers. Thus, the pre-revolutionary spatial distinctions of class and income were
swept away. However, low priority was given to housing in the early five-year plans
from 1928 onwards, and the 1935 “General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow”
was deprived of funding. This meant that urban conditions in many Russian cities
6 paul lawrence
remained among the worst in Europe until the 1950s. In Germany the National
Socialist approach to urban issues suffered from inherent contradictions. While fascist
propaganda scorned the decadent morality of urban populations, the Nazis also
invested heavily in grandiose urban redevelopment schemes during the period before
World War II, particularly in Berlin.
The impact of the two world wars themselves should also not be neglected when
considering the major factors influencing urban development during the first half of
the century. World War I had a considerable impact on the urban infrastructure
(housing stock, transport networks, municipal services) of most of Europe. Lack of
investment during the war created complications for planners throughout the 1920s
and 1930s. However, the destruction wrought by World War II was of another
magnitude altogether. Aerial bombardment quickly became the weapon of choice for
strategists. This had grave implications for the cities of most combatant nations and
for Germany in particular. Fifty percent of the built-up areas of German cities with
more than 100,000 inhabitants in 1939 had been destroyed by 1945. Equally, con-
flict on the ground could have similarly grave consequences for cities, as in the case
of Stalingrad. Destruction wrought by retreating troops also reduced parts of many
cities (including much of Rotterdam and a staggering 80 percent of Warsaw) to
rubble.
The spread and nature of urbanization thus varied greatly across Europe during
the period 1900–45. However, there is no doubt that this period saw the rise of the
“metropolis,” in the modern sense of the word. Indeed, it was at the start of the
century that statisticians first began to distinguish between normal cities, big cities
( grandes villes or Grossstädte), and metropolises (Weltstädte). In 1900 there were only
eight cities in Europe with over a million inhabitants. By 1950 this number had risen
to 22. These vast new agglomerations were closely linked to modernity and the
notion of progress, and in many senses this faith was justified. Paris, London, Berlin,
and Moscow were all early pioneers of the futuristic novelty of underground train
systems. All major cities were associated with the excitement generated by electric
light, seen as one of the crucial attributes of modern metropolitan life. In October
1928, for example, the “Berlin in the Light” festival celebrated just this – the practical
aspects of electric lighting (in terms of safer travel and leisure) as well as its symbolic
relationship with progress and modernity. However, as was the case with urbanization
in general, contrasts and incongruities abound where metropolitan life is considered.
In Moscow between the wars, for example, a metropolis of well over a million inhab-
itants, overcrowding was such that an average small apartment was home to nine
individuals. Water was in such short supply that it was frequently rationed, and dis-
eases such as cholera remained widespread. This was hardly an exemplar of modernity
and progress. Even in London, Paris, and Berlin, the “success stories” of urban
development, the veneer of modernity was often perilously thin. Stepping away from
the renovated central districts, visitors still encountered slum conditions of the worst
sort. Even the prized features of electricity and electric light could initially only be
found in certain central districts. A visitor to Berlin in 1930 remarked that “a step
into the side streets, and you felt set back by centuries.”
5
In London before World
War I, competition between boroughs meant that there were 65 electricity suppliers,
49 different supply systems, 10 frequencies, and 24 voltage levels. And, presumably,
frequent interruptions to supply.
urbanization, poverty, and crime 7
While inevitably impressionistic, these examples indicate that, while the period
1900–40 was marked by continued urbanization and the growth of large cities,
experiences of these processes varied widely due to geography and social status. In
other words, who and where you were determined your impressions of urban life.
Hence it is perhaps unsurprising that a great diversity of opinion (and often heated
debate) existed concerning urbanization and urban life. Specific debates about “urban
man” and a specifically “urban” mode of living were already becoming entrenched
in the social sciences by the turn of the century. Theorists such as Emile Durkheim
and Max Weber came to posit a distinction between urban life (characterized by
formal, rationalized, social organizations which nonetheless give the individual great
freedom of action) and rural life (which they saw as dominated by spontaneous,
informal social organizations founded upon tradition and kinship). Such notions were
further elaborated on. Georg Simmel, for example, sought to delineate in more detail
a specifically “metropolitan type of man.” He admitted that variants of this type
existed, but felt that the basic distinction between city and rural life would eventually
produce a new type of human. As he noted: “With each crossing of the street, with
the tempo and multiplicity of economic, occupational and social life, the city sets up
a deep contrast with small town and rural life with reference to the sensory founda-
tions of psychic life.”
6
The work on these issues of American sociologists of the
Chicago School, such as Robert Parks and Louis Wirth, was also widely debated in
Europe.
Obviously, the concept of a specifically “urban” way of life also generated discus-
sion well beyond the academic sphere. Most commentators had mixed views, but
among some, in the artistic field for example, primarily positive views prevailed.
Avant-garde artists in particular were captivated before World War I by the modernity
which the city represented. The Italian futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti aimed at
an art that would “sing of the great crowds in the excitement of labor, pleasure, and
rebellion, of the multi-colored and polyphonic surf of revolutions in modern capital
cities; of the nocturnal vibrations of arsenals and workshops beneath their violent
electrical moons.”
7
The author Ford Madox Hueffer (later Ford Madox Ford) simi-
larly praised the diversity and freedom which the big city represented, writing of
London that it had “as it were on show . . . the best products of the cook, of the
painter, of the flower-gardener, of the engineer, of the religious and of the
scientists.”
8
Inevitably, there were plenty who disagreed, and who viewed urbanization and
city life in a much more sinister light. Adverse critiques often tended to focus on the
putative problematic attributes of city dwellers (both physical and moral). C. F. G.
Masterman, for example, writing in the context of England, claimed to have identi-
fied “a new race, hitherto unreckoned and of incalculable action.” Physically deficient
and morally weak, this new type of “City Man” was “ineffective, battered into futility
by the ceaseless struggle of life.”
9
Other authors also focused on the detrimental
effects of cities on their surroundings and on the national society. These critiques
often focused on demographics and the birth rate (a subject of almost universal
concern in Europe at the time). City dwellers were seen as inherently unlikely (either
for physical or moral reasons) to have large families. Hence cities were seen as a drain
on the surrounding countryside and on the vigor of the population of the nation as
a whole. Oswald Spengler, in his widely read 1922 essay “The Soul of the City,”