Theoretical foundations for the analysis of the political elite in Weimar Germany

The author analyses theoretical principles of studying political elite and on this basis characterizes the political elite of a particularhistorical period - Weimar Germany of 1919-1933. Firstly such notions as elite and an abstract model of political elite are beingconsidered from the point of view of interdisciplinary approach on the intersection of history, polythology, elithology, sociology and philosophy.Later the author argues the validity of using political approach for revealing the whole picture of social development of Germany toclear up the peculiarities of genesis and the reasons of evolution fuehrungsgruppen which started to be identified with a notion elite inthe scientific terminology of XX century. The expediency of singling out exactly this political factor for Germany is underlined in the article.The political elite of Weimar Germany is characterized as an elite of transitional period, a period of democratization. A particular placing ofpolitical forces in the society in the period of ending the World War I and the beginning of revolution, reformist spirit among the existedpolitical authorities caused entering a new political elite into the union with a traditional one which had neither developed overall selfconsciousnessnor common ideas about basic life values because of the lack of national identity. At the same time democratically orientedpoliticians of Weimar Germany tried to spread democratic values to the German society which at the beginning of XX century was mainlythe traditional one with the elements of the modernized society. This fact led to seizing the ideas of democracy. Basing on the theoreticalanalysis of three stages of democracy development the author shows that already on the early stage of adjusting different political forces toeach other while concluding the first compromise in the form of Weimar constitution by which the democracy was established, its viabilityturned out to be problematic because both Weimar republic and its constitution appeared to be not the product of own revolution will of thenation but the result of the lost war. Analyzing the features of political elite of transitional period the author keeps to the point of view thatfor Weimar Germany both homogenic and heterogenic state was typical in accordance with the level and the importance of problems underdiscussion. Two approaches - exciting of an authoritative elite and pluralistic elite dont come into contradiction but mutually supplementeach other as they help single out two perspectives for studying an elite issue while analyzing the authoritative structures.

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