The Saturnalian state: Carnival and the survival of the Volk, 1890-1939

This dissertation explores how people mobilized Carnival in different ways in Germany from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, as Carnival, its forms, applications, and meanings changed dramatically alongside the flux of German history at this time. Carnival was a set of practices and symbols that became part of a city holiday through the efforts of citizens and municipal leaders, in cities like Cologne, within regions with predominantly Catholic populations like the Rhineland. But people elsewhere also took up practices and symbols under the mantle of “Carnival” at this time, as was the case in cities like Berlin, within heavily Protestant regions like Prussia. Indeed at different points within Carnival’s history during this period, a highly diverse spectrum of people in Germany—bourgeois Carnivalists, religious moralists, Social Democratic statesmen, Rhenish separatists, French, British, and Belgian occupation authorities, queer communities, women of all demographics, and members of the far right, among many others—connected Carnival to an equally diverse spectrum of agendas and aspirations: civic pride, commercial success, triumph in the First World War, autonomy in the Rhineland, social unrest, international diplomacy, the reconstruction of Germany, moral health, community formation, the fight against internal enemies, and ultimately the strength of a German race. My principle argument then is that Carnival was a set of practices that different groups instrumentalized in diverse ways, which when studied together crystalize important themes in German history of this period. A study of Carnival over time in Germany is significant for how it demonstrates dramatic change over time. It also reveals how consistently and broadly Carnival was connected to danger, anxiety, and even violence within society across the German regimes of the nineteenth to the early twentieth century. This scholarship is also novel though because it brings together themes and contexts historians of modern Germany wouldn’t normally think about together and invites them to think about these topics anew. Indeed Carnival opens up certain larger themes in German history and enables historians to look at them with fresh eyes. By bringing together these disparate cultures, this dissertation often brings out the spaces of overlap between them, as Carnival repeatedly pointed to issues around identity and community membership, public order and security, morality and respectability, and commercialization and economic issues. In this way then Carnival both displayed important debates and perspectives about central issues in German society, but also took part in the maintenance of these issues during several critical moments in modern German history. Carnival is thus a powerful interpretive tool for socio-cultural battles in modern Germany, a prism through which to view some of the most important issues in Germany during these periods as they evolved over time.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference