Manufactured Necessity: Organized Pressure, Command Autonomy, and the Erosion of Civilian Authority in Germany's Submarine Decision, 1915–1917

Abstract

This article asks why Germany’s leadership adopted unrestricted submarine warfare in January 1917, despite foreseeing that it would likely bring the United States into the war. It argues that the decision reflected an internal struggle for power rather than neutral military calculation. Civilian authority proved structurally unable to resist the autonomy of the military command (Kommandogewalt). An alliance of military leaders, heavy industry and the radical right organized pressure that manufactured a popular will, amplified by the hardship of the Turnip Winter. The navy’s strategic logic and the contradiction with the Hindenburg Programme reinforced this dynamic. American mediation failed because Berlin had no responsible partner. The study favors an institutional reading over Fischer’s voluntarism.