The history
of Germany in the past hundred and forty years or so makes it very difficult to
revisit famous characters and events from before this period, free of the
ghastly ideological accretions which occurred during this time. From the
unification of Germany Germany ’s
attempts to dominate Europe and the world also led to widespread ideological
interpretations of German history by those who succeeded in defeating these
aspirations, from the USA to
France and from Britain to Russia
It is, in
all events, a chimera to seek for some kind of “objective” history, beyond a
dry chronicle of events – and even such chronicles are the result of
“subjective” selection of events seen as significant enough to be recorded and
included. History is always at least as much about the attempt of contemporary
generations to understand themselves in the multidimensional aspect of what
went before and what is currently happening as it is about “what really
happened.” We constantly create our own versions of significance and meaning in
order to dynamically define our own identity. In this sense, whole memes,
themes, concepts and categories are constantly coming into existence which then
extend themselves into our understanding of our histories, giving rise to whole
new chains of meaning, significance and, frequently, complete stories.
The events
of the first half of the 20th Century have given rise to a unique
and very difficult situation for Germans in with respect to their relationship
with the past (and the present as the organic development of this past) and the
whole way they regard and do history.
One of the consequences of the disaster of the Nazi period is that many
categories which are unquestionably accepted by most other societies have
become deeply suspicious in the German context. No-one has any problems, for
example, in speaking of le Nation Français
or the American People. But use
the expression das Deutsche Volk, and
already the echoes of Hitler’s Nuremberg
One of the
themes in which the problem of the prism of subsequent events becomes most
apparent in German history is that of Prussia Germany
In our
general way of thinking, Prussia Germany Frederick
I don’t
want to carry on a discussion over historical interpretations of German
history, its meaning and the lessons which may be drawn from it, interesting
though the arguments over a possible German Sonderweg [special way] may be, though I
have a feeling I won’t be able to avoid it completely. But, so far as possible,
I would like to step back beyond the interpretative floodlights of the
intervening years in the next few paragraphs to consider a man who was regarded
by his contemporaries and many of their descendants as one of the most
important figures of the 18th Century.
Frederick II
von Hohenzollern – Frederick Frederick Frederick
The
drastic, sadistic measure worked. Frederick submitted to his father’s wishes
and plans; accepting the overarching concept expressed by the Prussian/German
word Pflicht [inadequately translated
into English by the word “Duty”] as the organising principle of his life. It
also twisted, perhaps even broke, something essential within him. Frederick Prussia Prussia Prussia
as the fourth great power in Europe, alongside France ,
Russia
In this he
very largely succeeded. Turning his keen intelligence to military matters, he
was regarded by his fellows – and indeed by Napoleon, the greatest military genius
of all – as the paramount general of his century, both in a tactical as well as
a strategic sense. As an enlightened absolutist ruler, he reorganised his
realm; professionalising public administration, introducing a basic code of
law, abolishing torture and corporal punishment, guaranteeing religious
freedom, encouraging trade, industry and modernisation, establishing
rudimentary general education, being a continuous patron of the arts, science
and philosophy.
To achieve
his military aims he spent the lives of hundreds of thousands of his soldiers
(and caused the deaths of many hundreds of thousands more Austrians, Poles and
Russians), yet he was respected and even generally loved by his subjects. Still,
spiritually deformed and damaged by his youthful experience, he grew increasing
cynical about human nature. It is possible that he was homosexual – shy as a
boy, as a man he wanted as little as possible to do with women, never fathering
a child and consistently preferring male company. As he grew older, his
misogyny developed into an even more general misanthropy. In later life he
preferred, when possible, to withdraw to his
While
Prussian intellectuals (and even the elites in general in the kingdom)
generally sympathised with ideals of the French Revolution, there was little
practical agitation in the Prussian territories to follow the concrete path
taken by the French. It seemed so unnecessary, after all, most of what the
French Revolutionaries were agitating for in their country had already been
achieved in Prussia Germany
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