From general estate to special interest

by Kenneth F. Ledford

The easy success of National Social "coordination" of German lawyers in private practice in 1933 has puzzled historians. Within five months, a profession that had been considered a bulwark of civil society bowed to the demands of a party whose leader viewed lawyers with contempt and valued race over right. Through a detailed empirical study of the practicing bar in Germany, Ledford traces the history of German lawyers from the heady days of reform to 1878 to their abject defeat in 1933. In the 1870s, lawyers basked in the widespread assessment of their profession as a sort of Hegelian "general estate," representing the general interest and entitled to respect, deference, and leadership. Many believed that reform of the legal profession was the key to success in the project of the liberal Burgertum. Liberal reformers and lawyers achieved almost all of their aims in the great legislative reform of 1878, carving out space for the bar to create its own institutions, to govern its internal