Heinrich von Treitschke

From Vero - Wikipedia
(Redirected from Heinrich Treitschke)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Short description Template:Infobox person Heinrich Gotthard von Treitschke (Template:IPA; 15 September 1834 – 28 April 1896) was a German historian, political writer and National Liberal member of the Reichstag during the time of the German Empire.

He was an extreme nationalist,<ref>The German Historians and England: A Study in Nineteenth-century Views By Charles E. McClelland page 189</ref> who favored German colonialism and opposed the British Empire. He also opposed Catholics, Poles, Jews and socialists inside Germany. According to Hans Kohn, Treitschke's "prominent position as a national scholar and popular prophet gave to anti-Semitism in Germany a recognized standing."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Early life and teaching career

Treitschke was born in Dresden. He was of Czech descent.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> He was the son of an officer of the Kingdom of Saxony's army who became governor of Königstein and military governor of Dresden. Treitschke developed an increasing hearing problem at a young age, and so was prevented from entering public service. After studying at the universities of Leipzig and Bonn, where he was a student of Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann, he established himself as a Privatdozent at Leipzig, lecturing on history and politics. At one time he became very popular with the students, but his political opinions made it impossible for the Saxon government to appoint him to a professorship.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Interlanguage link, Heinrich von Treitschke (Yale University Press, 1957)</ref>

At that time Treitschke was a strong Liberal; he hoped to see Germany united into a single state with a parliamentary government, and all the smaller states annexed.Template:Sfn He praised colonialism, stating: Template:Blockquote

Treitschke also endorsed Social Darwinian theories of brutal competition among races. In an essay published in 1862, Treitschke praised the "pitiless racial struggle" of Germans against Lithuanians, Poles and Old Prussians; he claimed that "magic" emanated from "eastern German soil" which had been "fertilised" by "noble German blood". While his main objective was to give historical legitimisation to the Germanising of Poles in Prussia, he also praised the migration eastward performed by German ancestors that would eventually become a means of legitimising claims to further eastern territories.<ref>Heinrich von Treitschke, "Das deutsche Ordensland Preussen", Preussische Jahrbücher, 10 (1862), p. 96, cf. Michael Burleigh, Wolfgang Wippermann The Racial State: Germany, 1933–1945; Cambridge University Press, 1993; p. 27</ref>

He was appointed professor at the University of Freiburg in 1863. In 1866, at the beginning of the Austro-Prussian War, his sympathies with the Kingdom of Prussia were so strong that he went to Berlin, became a Prussian subject, and was appointed editor of the Preussischen Jahrbücher. His violent article, in which he demanded the annexation of the Kingdoms of Hanover and Saxony, and attacked with great invective the Saxon royal house, caused an estrangement from his father, a personal friend of the king. It was only equalled in its ill humour by his attacks on Bavaria during 1870.Template:Sfn After getting appointments at the University of Kiel and the University of Heidelberg, he was made professor at Friedrich-Wilhelms-University (what is now named Humboldt-University) in Berlin in 1874.<ref>Dorpalen, Heinrich von Treitschke (1957)</ref>

Treitschke was influenced by Aristotle, Hegel, Wilhelm Roscher, Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann, and Rudolf von Gneist.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Political career

Template:Conservatism in Germany Treitschke became a member of the Reichstag in 1871 and until his death was one of the best known people in Berlin. He was largely deaf during this period and had an aide sit by his side to transcribe discussion into writing so that he could participate.<ref>A deaf legislator. (1871). American Annals of the Deaf, 16 (3), 208.</ref>

On Heinrich von Sybel's death, Treitschke succeeded him as editor of the Historische Zeitschrift. He had outgrown his early Liberalism and become the chief panegyrist of the House of Hohenzollern. He made violent and influential attacks on all opinions and all parties which seemed in any way to be injurious to the increasing power of Germany. He endorsed Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and his program to subdue the Socialists, Poles and CatholicsTemplate:Sfn (Kulturkampf), but the attempts were unsuccessful because the victims organized themselves and used universal male suffrage to their advantage in the Reichstag until Bismarck finally relented.

A strong proponent of German colonialism, Treitschke was a strong critic of the British Empire, and his condemnations were favoured by some German imperialists. His increasingly-chauvinistic Anglophobia in the late-19th century increasingly considered England as the strongest potential adversary of the rapidly-industrialising German Empire.

In the Reichstag, he had originally been a member of the National Liberal Party, but in 1879, he was the first to accept the new commercial policy of Bismarck. During his later years, he joined the Moderate Conservatives though his deafness prevented him from taking a prominent part in debate.Template:Sfn

Treitschke rejected the concern of the Enlightenment and liberalism for individual rights and the separation of powers, in favour of an authoritarian monarchist and militarist concept of the state.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He deplored the "penetration of French liberalism" (Eindringen des französischen Liberalismus) within the German nation.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Treitschke was one of the few celebrities who endorsed antisemitic attacks which became prevalent from 1879 onwards. He accused German Jews of refusing to assimilate into German culture and society and attacked the flow of Jewish immigrants from Russian Poland. Treitschke popularised the phrase "Die Juden sind unser Unglück!" ("The Jews are our misfortune!"), which would be adopted as a motto by the Nazi publication Der Stürmer several decades later. He made several antisemitic remarks such as the following: Template:Blockquote

Because of his prominent status, Treitschke's remarks aroused widespread controversy.<ref name=HHBS>Ben-Sasson, H.H., ed. (1976): A History of the Jewish People. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press), p. 875.</ref>

Treitschke was considered favorably by the political elites of Prussia, and Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow personally declared that he kept a copy of von Treitschke's book for "several years" on his desk.<ref>Ethics and extermination: reflections on Nazi genocide by Michael Burleigh, Cambridge University Press, 1997, page 17</ref>

Death and legacy

In 1896, Treitschke died in Berlin at 61 and is buried at the Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof Berlin.

Throughout his life, Treitschke endorsed militarism and racism, praised the conquest of other nations and eradication of inferior peoples ("Brave peoples expand, cowardly peoples perish") and claimed that people of African heritage were "inferior".<ref>The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics Western International Theory, 1760–2010 John M. Hobson May 2012 page 156</ref><ref>Ideology of death: why the Holocaust happened in Germany – Page 133 John Weiss – 1996</ref><ref>Wayward Reproductions: Genealogies of Race and Nation in Transatlantic Modern Thought: Genealogies of Race and Nation in Trasatlantic Modern Thought Alys Eve Weinbaum page 229</ref>

Endorsing the idea of exterminating conquered nations, he wrote: Template:Blockquote

Treitschke's tomb in Berlin.

Treitschke considered political history as a German nationalist and emphasized periods of great political change. He was a patriotic historian devoted to Prussia. His great achievement was the History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century. The first volume was published in 1879, and for 26 years, four more volumes appeared. At his death, he had only advanced to 1847.Template:Sfn

He also wrote biographical and historical essays, as well as essays concerning contemporary politics. The most important essays were collected as Historische und politische Aufsatze.<ref>Heinrich von Treitschke: Historische und politische Aufsatze (4 vols., Leipzig, 1896)</ref> A selection from his more controversial writings was made with the title Zehn Jahre deutscher Kämpfe. In 1896 a new volume was published, Deutsche Kämpfe, neue Folge. After his death his lectures on political subjects were published with the title Politik.Template:Sfn

He also published in 1856 a short volume of poems named Vaterländische Gedichte and another volume the next year. His first works to be translated into English were two pamphlets on the War of 1870, What we demand from France (London, 1870) and The Baptism of Fire of the North German Confederation (1870).Template:Sfn

Treitschke's students included Heinrich Claß, Hans Delbrück, W. E. B. Du Bois, Otto Hintze, Max Lenz, Erich Marcks, Friedrich Meinecke, Karl Peters, Gustav Schnürer, Georg Simmel and Friedrich von Bernhardi. During World War I, many writers in the West, particularly in Britain, blamed Bernhardi for creating attitudes among the political class of Germany that were considered an incitement to war. This opinion was repeated by historians such as Fritz Fischer, who deemed him a major influence on decision-makers before World War I.

A complete translation of both volumes of Treitschke's Politics was published in London in 1916. Politics was published in 1963 in an abridged English translation edited by Hans Kohn.

Bibliography

See also

Notes

Template:Reflist

References

Attribution:

  • {{#if: |
   |{{#ifeq: Treitschke, Heinrich von |
                |{{#ifeq: |
                             |Public Domain 
                             |Wikisource 
                           }}
                |Wikisource 
               }}
  }}{{#ifeq:  |
   |{{#ifeq:  |
                                    |This article
                                    |One or more of the preceding sentences
                                   }} incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: 
  }}{{#invoke:template wrapper|{{#if:|list|wrap}}|_template=cite EB1911
   |_exclude=footnote, inline, noicon, no-icon, noprescript, no-prescript, _debug

   | noicon=1
  }}{{#ifeq:  ||}}

Further reading

  • Davis, H. W. Carless, The political thought of Heinrich von Treitschke, 1914; online
  • Template:Interlanguage link. Heinrich von Treitschke (New Haven 1957), the standard biography in English
  • Hausrath, Adolf, ed. Treitschke, his doctrine of German destiny and of international relations: together with a study of his life and work (1914) online edition pp. 1–136 comprise a popular biography by Hausrath
  • Joll, James. "Treitschke and the Prussian Legend" History Today (1952) 2#3 pp 186–190 online.
  • Kilgour, Johnathan Bruce. "Heinrich von Treitschke| Creating a German national mission." (MA Thesis, University of Montana, 2004) online
  • Kohler, George Y. "German Spirit and Holy Ghost – Treitschke's Call for Conversion of German Jewry: The Debate Revisited", Modern Judaism 30:2 (2010), pp. 172–195
  • Langer, Ulrich. Heinrich von Treitschke (Düsseldorf 1998) in German

Template:Wikiquote

Template:Historical school economists Template:Authority control

Retrieved from "https://wiki.sarg.dev/index.php?title=Heinrich_von_Treitschke&oldid=156578"