Heinrich von Treitschke

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The German historian, politician, and political publicist Heinrich von Treitschke (1834-1896) was the most famous and influential member of the Prussian school of history in 19th-century Germany. He advocated a powerful German state under Prussian leadership.

Heinrich von Treitschke was born on Sept. 15, 1834, in Dresden. His father, who rose to general officer's rank in the service of the Saxon monarchy, was of German-Czech descent, had been ennobled in 1821, and maintained his aristocratic conservatism and loyalty to the Saxon royal family throughout his life. Young Heinrich showed early intellectual promise in his schooling, which, however, was interrupted at the age of 8 by a severe case of measles complicated by glandular fever which led to increasing loss of hearing. Thus a career of public service as a soldier or statesman-politician became impossible, and Heinrich decided on a life of scholarship.

His Education

Attending Dresden's Holy Cross Gymnasium (high school) from 1846 to 1851, Treitschke was exposed not only to the traditional classical education but also to liberal ideas critical of the semiabsolutism of the times. The study of German literature under Julius Klee and personal observations of the political events of the revolutionary years 1848-1849 molded Treitschke's tendency toward strong political conviction into an attitude of enthusiastic support for a constitutional, united Germany under Prussian leadership.

From 1851 to 1854 Treitschke studied at the universities of Bonn, Leipzig, Tübingen, and Freiburg, attending classes under F. C. Dahlmann, the political economist Wilhelm Roscher, and the eminent Tübingen philosopher Friedrich Theodor Vischer.

After a brief interlude in Dresden, Treitschke studied at Göttingen and Leipzig. He succeeded in publishing two volumes of poems, Patriotic Songs (1856) and Studies (1857). In 1858 he finished his habilitation thesis, Die Gesellschaftswissenschaft (1859; The Science of Society), which earned him an appointment as lecturer at the University of Leipzig in 1859.

The political atmosphere in Leipzig did not prove congenial, and in 1863 Treitschke accepted a professorial appointment at Freiburg. Here he wrote his famous essay Bundesstaat und Einheitsstaat (1863-1864; Federation and Centralization). In 1866, when Baden joined Austria in war against Prussia, Treitschke resigned his position at Freiburg and demanded in a pamphlet, The Future of the North German Middle States, the annexation of Hanover, Hesse, and Saxony by Prussia.

Political Activities

Although Treitschke was estranged from his father, his fame as a political publicist had now reached national eminence. Positions at Kiel (1866) and Heidelberg (1867-1874) followed before he finally settled in Berlin. His strong Prussian sentiments had earned him appointment as editor of the Preussische Jahrbücher (Prussian Annals) in 1866 and election to the German Reichstag (House of Deputies) in 1871. Although originally affiliated with the National Liberal party, he left that party in 1879 to support Bismarck's new commercial policy and held his seat until 1884 as an independent member with conservative leanings.

The period from 1859 to 1871 is important for Treitschke's development. More and more he abandoned his original liberal constitutional attitude and became an ever more ardent advocate of the power state, of war as the noblest activity of man, and of a German expansionist, cultural mission under Prussian leadership which would establish Germany as an equal among the world powers. Although he counted among his close friends a number of Jews, he participated in the anti-Semitic movement of the late 1870s, proclaiming that Jewry could play an important role only if its individual members were to merge themselves with the nationality of their state.

History of Germany

Treitschke had planned to write a history of Germany since 1861; but not until he had settled in Berlin, where the Prussian archives were close at hand, did the work progress. The first volume of his Deutsche Geschichte im 19. Jahrhundert (German History in the 19th Century) was published in 1879, starting with the Napoleonic period. The fifth volume, published in 1894, brought the narrative only to the beginning of 1848. Although this, the greatest of his works, also suffered from the shortcomings of Treitschke's emotional patriotic nature and was limited to the almost exclusive use of the Prussian archives, it nevertheless constitutes a major contribution to historical writing. Its literary style and power of expression have been likened to Friedrich von Schiller's diction and Johann Gottlieb Fichte's rhetoric. In spite of his tendency to oversimplify complicated events, Treitschke exhibited a grasp of detail and power to synthesize that produced a general cultural historical setting uncommon among the works of historians of his time.

Other important historical and political essays were published in four volumes as Historische und Politische Aufsätze (1896; Historical and Political Essays); and his lectures on politics were collected and published in two volumes as Vorlesungen über Politik (1898; Politics).

Treitschke died on April 28, 1896, in Berlin. His influence during his lifetime was threefold: as teacher, political propagandist, and historian. A generation of students and of the general public was affected by his political lectures and nationalistic journalism, and even abroad he was often regarded as an official mouthpiece of German policy.

Although after his death Treitschke's influence among German historians, who generally preferred to follow the more balanced methodological example of the Ranke school of historical writing, became largely dormant, it was revived in coarsened form by Nazi ideologists, who utilized his unbridled nationalism as a point of departure for their thought and actions.

Further Reading

The best full-length biography of Treitschke is Andreas Dorpalen, Heinrich von Treitschke (1957). Adolf Hausrath, Treitschke: His Doctrine of German Destiny and of International Relations (1914), combines a section on Treitschke's life and work with a number of his essays reprinted in English. Henry W.C. Davis, The Political Thought of Heinrich von Treitschke (1914), attempts to analyze Treitschke's work within the context of his time. For background see G.P. Gooch, History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century (1913; rev. ed. 1952); Antoine Guillard, Modern Germany and Her Historians (1915); and Georg Iggers, The German Conception of History (1968).

Treitschke, Heinrich von (Dresden, 1834-96, Berlin), was the son of a Saxon general ennobled in 1821. Treitschke studied history and politics at Bonn, Leipzig, Tübingen, and Heidelberg universities, publishing two volumes of poems before qualifying to lecture (Habilitationsschrift: Die Gesellschaftswissenschaft. Ein Versuch, 1859). Deafness marred his ambition for a career in the civil service and in politics; instead he became one of the most influential historians of the 19th c.

In the early stages of his career he was a strong Liberal, advocating a united Germany under a parliamentary and constitutional monarchy. Unacceptable because of these views in Saxony, he obtained in 1863 a professorial chair in Freiburg. His strong Prussian sympathies during the Austro-Prussian War (see Deutscher Krieg) caused him to resign his chair in anti-Prussian Baden; he moved to Berlin, acquiring Prussian nationality. Treitschke's increasingly nationalistic writings used history as a means of furthering his own brand of patriotism. Soon after his arrival in Berlin he became editor of the Preußische Jahrbücher, in which he published his unswervingly nationalistic articles and studies until 1871. These included a fiercely polemical essay advocating the incorporation of Saxony in Prussia, which resulted in a breach with his family and with his native country. In spite of his deafness he was elected to the first Reichstag (1871-4) of the new Empire. His Liberalism vanished, and he became a leading propagandist for Prussian hegemony in Germany and one of the strongest supporters of Bismarck, as well as an anti-Semite (see Anti-Semitism).

Treitschke possessed considerable literary powers; his works have many vivid and dramatic descriptions of historical events, and for some time his reputation as a historian was not confined to Germany. His contributions to the Preußische Jahrbücher were collected with other earlier essays as Historische und politische Aufsätze (3 vols., 1886, to which a fourth volume was added posthumously in 1897), and in Zehn Jahre deutscher Kämpfe (1874). Among the studies included in these volumes and in Deutsche Kämpfe. Neue Folge (1896) are Die Grundlagen der englischen Freiheit (1888), Bundesstaat und Einheitsstaat (1864), and Das konstitutionelle Königtum in Deutschland (1869-71). Treitschke's best-known work, Deutsche Geschichte im 19. Jahrhundert (5 vols., 1879-94), is unfinished, reaching only to the threshold of the 1848 Revolutions (see Revolutionen 1848-9). It extends back beyond the beginning of the 19th c. in order to provide a basis for the understanding of later events. A selection of stirring passages was published by the National Socialist A. Rosenberg, and a popular abridgement (2 vols.) in 1934. Treitschke wrote one study in which literature and political history intersect, Heinrich von Kleist (1858).

Heinrich von Treitschke
Heinrich von Treitschke
Born	September 15, 1834 Dresden
Died	April 28, 1896
Nationality	German
Occupation	historian
Employer	Freiburg and Berlin Universities

Heinrich Gotthard von Treitschke (September 15, 1834 – April 28, 1896) was a nationalist German historian and political writer during the time of the German Empire.

Contents 1 Early life and teaching career 2 Political career 3 Literary career 4 Notes 5 References

Early life and teaching career

Treitschke was born in Dresden. He was the son of an officer in the Saxon army who rose to be governor of Königstein and military governor of Dresden. Treitschke went deaf 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 point he became very popular with the students, but his political opinions made it impossible for the Saxon government to appoint him to a professorship.

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 swept away. In one statement he said that "Every virile people has established colonial power. All great nations in the fullness of their strength have desired to set their mark upon barbarian lands and those who fail to participate in this great rivalry will play a pitiable role in time to come." This harsh statement reflects on his increasing aggressiveness of European nationalism after Otto von Bismarck's wars toward the unification of Germany. It also discusses the Social Darwinian theories of brutal competition among races. In 1863 he was appointed professor at Freiburg; in 1866, at the outbreak 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 Preussische Jahrbücher. His violent article, in which he demanded the annexation of the Kingdoms of Hanover and Saxony, and attacked with great bitterness the Saxon royal house, led to an estrangement from his father, a personal friend of the king. It was only equalled in its ill humour by his attacks on Bavaria in 1870. After holding appointments at Kiel and Heidelberg, he was made professor at Humboldt University in Berlin in 1874.

Political career

In 1871, Treitschke became a member of the Reichstag, and from that time till his death he was one of the most prominent figures in Berlin.

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 appeared in any way to be injurious to the rising power of Germany. He supported the government in its attempts to subdue by legislation the Socialists, Poles and Catholics (Kulturkampf).

As a strong advocate of colonial expansion, Treitschke was a bitter enemy of the British Empire. He was to a large extent responsible for the chauvinistic anti-British feeling of the last years of the 19th century.

In the Reichstag Treitschke 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, and in his later years he joined the Moderate Conservatives, though his deafness prevented him from taking a prominent part in debate.

Treitschke was one of the few important public figures who supported antisemitic attacks which became prevalent from 1878 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 coined a phrase "Die Juden sind unser Unglück!" ("The Jews are our misfortune!") adopted as a motto by the Nazi publication Der Stürmer several decades later. Because of his respected status, Treitschke's remarks aroused widespread controversy.^[1]

Literary career

Treitschke approached history as a politician, and confined himself to those periods and characters in which great political problems were being worked out: above all, he was a patriotic historian, and he never wandered far from Prussia. His great achievement was the History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century. The first volume was published in 1879, and during the next sixteen years four more volumes appeared, but at his death he had only advanced to the year 1847. He also wrote biographical and historical essays, and essays on contemporary politics.

The most important essays were collected as Historische und politische Aufsatze. ^[2] A selection from his more controversial writings was made under the title Zehn Jahre deutscher Kämpfe; in 1896 a new volume appeared, called Deutsche Kämpfe, neue Folge. After his death his lectures on political subjects were published under the title Politik. He brought out also in 1856 a short volume of poems called Vaterländische Gedichte, and another volume in the following 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).

Treitschke's students included Heinrich Class, Hans Delbrück, W. E. B. Du Bois, Otto Hintze, Max Lenz, Erich Marcks, Friedrich Meinecke, Karl Peters, Ludwig Schiemann, 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 seen as an incitement to war. A complete translation of both volumes of Treitschke's Politics was published in London in 1916. Politics also appeared in an abridged English translation edited by Hans Kohn and published in 1963.

Notes

1. ^ Ben-Sasson, H.H., ed. (1976): A History of the Jewish People. (Harvard University Press, Cambridge). ISBN 0-674-39730-4, p.875
2. ^ Heinrich von Treitschke: Historische und politische Aufsatze (4 vols., Leipzig, 1896)

References

• Theodor Schiemann, Heinrich von Treitschkes Lehr und Wanderjahre, 1836-1866 (Munich, 1896)
• Gustav Freytag und Heinrich v. Treitschke im Briefwechsel (Leipzig, 1900)
• Deutsche Rundschau (October 1896)
• Obituary article by James Wycliffe Headlam, English Historical Review (December 1897)
• Heinrich von Treitschke, A Word about our Jews, (1879-1880)
• Andreas Dorpalen, Heinrich von Treitschke (New Haven 1957)
• Ulrich Langer, Heinrich von Treitschke (Düsseldorf 1998)
• Politics, (English Edition 1916) Volume One Volume Two

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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