Demokratie erschreiben. Bürgerbriefe und Petitionen als Medien politischer Kultur 1950–1974 by Michaela Fenske (review)

What really concerns citizens of a country? How do people relate to their country, politics, and democracy? How do citizens connect to politicians, especially following a failed democracy and a dictatorship? Given the drastically changed communicative environment and the technological revolution in the early 2000s, Michaela Fenske attempts to answer these questions in Demokratie erschreiben. The author challenges ideas of passive and resigned citizenship, hypothesizing that democracy can be achieved through writing—the writing of letters in particular. She rightly criticizes the fact that academics and researchers ignore the culture of letter writing as a sign of active political participation. As an element that familiarized people with democracy, letter and petition writing becomes particularly important in German history. Yet as a form of political participation and a way to shape democracy, it is often overlooked and not just in German historiography. This “ethnography of writing” (10) examines the culture of writing during the early decades of West German democracy, grounding it within the larger cultural tradition of writing in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe. A diverse and colorful picture of German citizens and their communication emerges through the letters sent to the minister president and the parliament of Lower Saxony. Despite the book’s regional focus on one federal state, one can draw general conclusions about issues concerning ordinary citizens and the state of democracy in West Germany more broadly.

Demokratie erschreiben studies the culture of writing between the 1950s and 1974. Fenske differentiates between petitions and letters, and highlights the role of writing in processing historical developments on the one hand and minimizing the distance between the government and its subjects on the other. She carefully observes the evolution of letters from the writer to the politician or the state parliament to a depersonalized archival record. With her volume, however, the author restores character and meaning to the letters. The second part examines the authors in terms of their social identities like gender and class; their personal reasons for writing; and obstacles that these letter writers of various socioeconomic backgrounds had to overcome to write a letter in the first place such as literacy, language, and decorum. These obstacles included the decision of whom to contact: the minister president or the state parliament. The author draws attention to stylistic and creative elements of the letter-writing process. One interesting exploration concerns how specific politicians and their staff dealt with letters ranging from inquiries, statements, and pleads to tributes and vilifications; and how in return writers reacted to the responses they did or did not receive. Fenske highlights the fact that no official rules existed for how to deal with citizens’ letters. The response processes depended largely on the type and content of letters as well as the personalities working in the addressed institutions (111).

The most stimulating but also longest part of the book compares and contrasts the themes of letters, ranging from war and dictatorship to socioeconomic concerns such as housing and job security. Though not the main theme of the book, the study also makes clear that letters became one minor instrument for coming to terms with Germany’s Nazi past: both substantiating the Germans’ perceived victimhood and creating a much needed outlet for a discussion that was not otherwise facilitated by society. Fenske notes that not a single letter addressed German accountability for the suffering Germany imposed on millions during World War II (150). Despite the necessary reflection and engagement with postwar responsibilities, the preponderance of this theme displays one weakness of this volume. The author could have offered a more balanced account of the 1960s and especially the 1970s, when the political climate began to change. Normalization, democratization, and socioeconomic justice emerge as important themes, and “everyday life became political” (289). In this context, letters became one medium through which writers internalized democratic processes and debated liberalizing society. The language, length, and...