Prussian virtues

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The term Prussian virtues refers to an unfixed canon of several Lutheran virtues dating from the Enlightenment. Prussian virtues and the Prussian value system have influenced aspects of wider German culture.

Historical Development

These virtues derive from King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia, the "soldier-king" and frugal "bourgeois" reformer of Prussian administration, and from his son, King Friedrich II. The father saw himself as moral role-model, while the son saw himself as an exemplar of reason for the religiously, ethnically, and linguistically diverse Prussian State.

The Prussian "Era of Reform," from the military loss to Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battles of Jena and Auerstedt, until the Congress of Vienna in 1815, was also an important influence. These included reform of community-boundaries, the army, schools, universities, and taxes; enfranchisement of Jews.

Despite a meager economic basis which caused Prussia to be known as the dustbowl of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, and despite the great devastation and human loss of the Thirty Years' War, Prussian virtues gave Prussia a modern legal order and administration, an officer corps loyal to the crown, and a reasoned patriotism, which caused Prussia to develop from an ordinary baroque state of a grand elector to a modern great power.

Virtues

Chosen examples

• Sincerity
• Humility
• Industriousness
• Obedience (but not without Frankness)
• Straightness
• Sense of Justice („Suum cuique“ = Jedem das Seine = To each his own)
• Godliness coupled with religious Tolerance
• Toughness, against oneself even more than against others
• Courage
• Sense of Order
• Pflichtbewusstsein (Sense of Duty)
• Probity
• Self denial (Walter Flex 1915: „Wer je auf Preußens Fahne schwört, hat nichts mehr, was ihm selbst gehört.“ = He who swears on Prussia's flag has nothing left that belongs to himself)
• Austerity
• Bravery without sniveling („Lerne leiden ohne zu klagen“ Learn to suffer without moaning!)
• Loyalty
• Incorruptibility
• Subordination
• Self-effacement („Mehr sein als scheinen!“ Be more than you seem to be)
• Reliability
• Punctuality

Critics

In Germany, Prussian virtues have always been criticized by some, as example by the bourgeoisie for its original distance to natural sciences and art and its state-economy and soldierly shape - "order and obedience". Also the worker movement went especially against the last two aspects.

In the Protests of 1968 it was seen with distrust as loyalty and obedience was mostly also committed to the National Socialist government and devalued against their concept of emancipatory primary virtues. During the controversy surrounding the NATO Double-Track Decision, in 1982 German SPD chancellor Helmut Schmidt demanded a return to Prussian virtues, whereupon Saarbrücken's SPD mayor Oskar Lafontaine remarked that those were "perfectly suited to run a concentration camp".

To this day though sometimes Prussian virtues are a theme in political debates. As example in January 2006 the prime minister of Brandenburg Matthias Platzeck demanded a return to more Prussian virtues.

See also

• Furor Teutonicus
• Kingdom of Prussia
• Prussian Army
• Knightly Virtues

Literature

• Oswald Spengler, Preußentum und Sozialismus, München: C. H. Beck, 1919
• Hans-Joachim Schoeps: Kapitel „Preußische Tugenden“ in „Preußen – Bilder und Zeugnisse“ (zuletzt postum in „Preußen – Geschichte eines Staates“, Frankfurt a. M./ Berlin 1995. ISBN 3-549-05496-3, S. 442f.)
• Christian Graf v. Krockow: „Die Pflicht und das Glück“ (Rede am 17 August 1991 im Neuen Palais zu Potsdam) in: Hans Bentzien: Die Heimkehr der Preußenkönige, 1. Auflage, Berlin 1991. ISBN 3-353-00877-2

External links

• www.Preussen.org
• www.Preussen.de: Ministerpräsident Platzeck: „Der Umgang mit dem preussischen Erbe in Brandenburg“