Habsburg German liberals abandoned democratic reform once it threatened their dominance

Evidence

Writing in the immediate wake of World War I, he noted that, until the mid nineteenth century, Germans in the Habsburg Empire had taken their cultural superiority and dominance for granted; ‘Whoever rose became German’, he wrote. When the Empire’s other nationalities rejected this civilising path and demanded national independence, it was a painful realisation for the liberal German milieu. From this point on, they threw their support behind the monarchy, Mises recounted, and rejected demands for national autonomy and democratisation, which would have subjected Germans to the rule of Slavic majorities. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 109

Categorization

• XREF: Supports the book’s overarching thesis that liberal elites flip against democracy when it endangers their social position — connects to debates on democratization and political rights. — connects to: The ruling classes abandoned constitutional restraint while Social Democrats kept obeying it — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 956; Liberal German elites backed monarchy to avoid Slavic-majority democratic rule — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 109