"Wir wollen keine Paradetruppe, wir wollen eine Kriegstruppe": Die reformorientierte Militärkritik der SPD unter Wilhelm II, 1890-1913

Before the First World War, social democrats not only voiced a void-directed fundamental criticism of Wilhelmine militarism - as previous research suggests - but also seriously constructive and reform-oriented military criticism. In an attempt to deal the deathblow to conservative militarism, they increasingly participated in the public "war-adequacy" discourse before 1914, which in view of the tense domestic and foreign policy situation was to prove a serious tactical error. The book contributes to resolving the supposed contradiction between the SPD's irreconcilable criticism of militarism on the one hand and its increasing integration into the German Empire on the other.