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In 1949 Bavaria was not only the largest and best known but also the poorest, most agricultural, and most industrially backward region of Germany. It was further its most politically conservative region. The largest political party in Bavaria was the Christian Social Union (CSU), an extremely conservative, even reactionary, regional party. In the ensuing twenty years, the leaders of the CSU's small liberal wing (in particular Franz Josef Strauss, long-time party chair and the most colorful and polarizing politician in postwar Germany) broke with the anti-industrial traditions of Bavarian Catholic politics and made themselves useful to industry. With tactical brilliance the politicians pursued their individual political ambitions, rather than a coherent modernization strategy, which, by 1969, had turned Bavaria into a prosperous Land, the center of Germany's new aerospace, defense, and energy industries, with a disproportionate share of its research institutes.
List of contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Bavaria, 1949
The Question
Bavaria and Germany
Postwar Climate of Opinion
CSU and CDU
Industrial Modernization in CSU-Dominated Bavaria
Chapter 1. Industrial Modernization Just Below the Horizon, 1949-1954
In a Tight Corner
Sealing the Deal with Industry
Strauß Pushes Forward
Turning the Economic Ministry to Account
Seeing Industry in Science
Between Interest-Group Politics and Industrial Modernization
Chapter 2. Inventing a Politics of Modernization, 1954-1957
Liberalizing the CSU
Challenge: the Social Democrats Make Science and Technology a Political Issue
Response: Strauß Gains the Upper Hand
Connecting Defense-Industrial Ideas and Interests
Turning the Defense Ministry to Account
Turning Point
Chapter 3. The Great Leap Forward, 1957-1962
A Window of Opportunity
Black Politics and Red Oil
Big Science
NATO Nuclear Strategy and Bavarian Interest Solidarity
Starfighter, Space Flight, and Military R & D
Strauß's Fall
Chapter 4. New Tactics in a Time of Transition, 1963-1969
Changing Times
Liberalism and Interventionism in Bavaria
The National Scene
The Western Alliance
The American Challenge and Airbus
Bavaria and the Big World
Conclusion: Bavaria, 1969
Circumstances and Their Masters
Results
A New CSU and a New Bavaria
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Mark Milosch currently works as a Special Advisor to the U.S. Congress.
Summary
In 1949 Bavaria was not only the largest and best known, but also the poorest, most agricultural, and most industrially backward region of Germany. It was further its most politically conservative region. The largest political party in Bavaria was the Christian Social Union (CSU), an extremely conservative, even reactionary, regional party.
Additional text
“Milosch has written a well-researched monograph that places a crucial period of recent history into its proper political and economic context. This work should be required reading for anyone interested in late twentieth-century German and European history.” · German Studies Review
“…provides a very helpful interpretation of the Christian Social Union’s role in general, and Franz Josef Strauß’s role in particular, in Bavaria’s political and economic modernization up to 1969…Underlying Milosch’s narrative account of Bavaria’s technical, scientific, and economic modernization…lay an important contribution to our theoretical understanding of the modernization process itself.” · Central European History
