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The Catholic Historical Review 88.1 (2002) 135-136



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Book Review

Katholiken auf die Barrikaden?
Europäische Revolutionen und deutsche katholische Presse 1815-1848


Katholiken auf die Barrikaden? Europäische Revolutionen und deutsche katholische Presse 1815-1848. By Bernhard Schneider. [Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Zeitgeschichte, Reihe B: Forschungen, Band 84.] (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. 1998. Pp. 413. DM 108.00.)

Although the title's reference to barricades might lead one to believe that this revised German Habilitationschrift will examine Catholic participation in Europe's "Age of Revolution," Bernhard Schneider focuses not on Catholic action, but Catholic words. Specifically, he traces the contours of the discourse on revolution that emerged in German Europe's Catholic press between 1815 and 1848. As a group, Schneider contends, the Catholic newspapers and journals tended to brand "revolution" as a negative quality, dangerous to the social-political order as well as the interests of the Catholic Church. Indeed, by the 1840's, most Catholic publicists had concluded that the very health of society and state depended on a viable Catholicism, the only true and effective protection against the scourge of revolution.

In and of itself, Schneider's representation of the general Catholic attitude toward revolution in the decades between 1815 and 1848 breaks little new historical ground. But his analysis of the reception of the French Revolution and Napoleonic era, on the one hand, and the French and Belgian Revolutions of 1830, on the other, meaningfully advances our understanding of the German press and German Catholicism. Schneider's investigation highlights the pre-1848 division of German Catholicism into three theological camps: enlightened (aufklärisch), ultramontane, and Hermesian. He shows that in their respective papers and journals, each group elaborated a reading of revolution, both to justify its own theological position and to denigrate those of its Catholic (and Protestant) competitors. Schneider argues that at no time did this discourse pretend to offer a more scholarly and "objective" analysis of the recent past. Rather, it served to achieve narrow, pragmatic goals of the particular camp.

Katholiken auf die Barrikaden also develops a fuller picture of how the German press, even in the face of heavy censorship and legal restrictions, shaped social and political consciousness between 1815 and 1848. Schneider's description of the organs of the Catholic press in the first chapter prepares the [End Page 135] ground for the subsequent discussion. And it is one of the best sections in the volume. He surveys the types of publications, their press runs, and the diversity of theological positions they presented. Then he offers a convincing account of who wrote for these papers and who had access to them, arguing that lending libraries and reading societies created a broader readership than the journals' prices would otherwise permit. Schneider contends that through the discussion of revolution--particularly its social and religious consequences--the papers could indirectly comment on current events and, thereby, escape the censors' intervention, especially at the height of reaction (1818-1830). Moreover, the papers' discussion of the Revolutions of 1830 and their consequences for French and Belgian Catholics also promoted the emergence of a Catholic consciousness in German Europe, which was international rather than national in orientation. That this awareness was also tinged with ultramontanism, Schneider maintains, resulted from the dominant position of ultramontane papers within the Catholic press's offerings.

Ultimately, this volume is a mixed success. Schneider's rich portrait of the German Catholic press will be of great value to historians. He also makes a strong case for viewing the Catholic press as a central arena of intra- and interconfessional competition in the religiously charged atmosphere of the 1830's and 1840's. Yet, his point that the press nurtured a new Catholic consciousness (Öffentlichkeit) or that its discussion of revolution prepared German Catholics for the events of 1848 remains largely unsupported. This derives from the absence of an argumentative center to the heart of the volume: the exposition of how the press represented and discussed the revolutions of 1789 and 1830. Similarly, while...

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