German Culture Past and Present

E >> Ernest Belfort Bax >> German Culture Past and Present

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

In foreign politics, in the earlier part of the nineteenth century,
during the Napoleonic wars, Prussia, as yet hardly recovered from her
defeats under Buonaparte, almost entirely followed the lead of
Austria. But perhaps the most important measure of the Prussian
Government at this time was the foundation of the famous Zollverein or
Customs Union of various North German States in 1834. The far-reaching
character of this measure was only shown later, being, in fact, the
means and basis by and on which the political and military ascendancy
of Prussia over all Germany was assured. Friedrich Wilhelm III, who
died on June 7, 1840, was succeeded by his son, Friedrich Wilhelm IV.
The new reign began with an appearance of Liberalism by a general
amnesty for political offences. Reaction, however, soon raised its
head again, and Friedrich Wilhelm IV, in spite of his varnish of
philosophical and literary tastes, was soon seen to be _au fond_ as
reactionary as his predecessors. The conflict between the reaction of
the Government and the now widely spread Liberal and democratic
aspirations of the people resulted in Prussia (as it did under similar
circumstances in other countries) in the outbreak of the revolution of
1848.

It is necessary at this stage to take a brief survey of the political
history of the Germanic States of Europe generally from the time of
the Peace of Vienna, in 1815, onwards, in order to understand fully
the role played by the Prussian monarchy in German history since 1848;
for from this time the history of Prussia becomes more and more bound
up with that of the German peoples as a whole. During the Napoleonic
wars Germany, as every one knows, was, generally speaking, in the grip
of the French Imperial power. To follow the vicissitudes and
fluctuations of fortune throughout Central Europe during these years
lies outside our present purpose. We are here chiefly concerned with
the political development from the Treaty of Vienna, as signed on June
9, 1815, onward. The Treaty of Vienna completed the work begun by
Napoleon--represented by the extinction of the mediaeval "Holy Roman
Empire of the German nation" in 1806--in making an end of the
political configuration of the German peoples which had grown up
during the Middle Ages and survived, in a more or less decayed
condition, since the Peace of Westphalia, which concluded the Thirty
Years' War. The three hundred separate States of which Germany had
originally consisted were now reduced to thirty-nine, a number which,
by the extinction of sundry minor governing lines, was before long
further reduced to thirty-five. These States constituted themselves
into a new German Confederation, with a Federal Assembly, meeting at
Frankfurt-on-the-Main. The new Federal Council, or Assembly, however,
soon revealed itself as but the tool of the princes and a bulwark of
reaction.

The revolution of 1848 was throughout Germany an expression of popular
discontent and of democratic and even, to a large extent, of
republican aspirations. The princely authorities endeavoured to stem
the wave of popular indignation and revolutionary enthusiasm by
recognizing a provisional self-constituted body, and sanctioning the
election of a national representative Parliament at Frankfurt in place
of the effete Federal Council. The Archduke of Austria, who was
elected head of the new, hastily organized National Government, was
not slow to use his newly acquired power in the interests of reaction,
thereby exciting the hostility of all the progressive elements in the
Parliament of Frankfurt. When after some months it became obvious that
the anti-Progressive parties had gained the upper hand alike in
Austria and Prussia, the friction between the Democratic and
Constitutional parties became increasingly bitter.

The Prussian Government meanwhile took advantage of the state of
affairs to stir up the Schleswig-Holstein question, so-called, driving
the Danes out of Schleswig, an insurrectionary movement in Holstein
having been already suppressed by the Danish King. Prussia, alarmed
by the attitude of the Powers, agreed to withdraw her troops from the
occupied territories without consulting the Frankfurt Parliament, an
act which involved Friedrich Wilhelm in conflict with the latter. The
issues arising out of this dispute made it plain to every one that the
Parliament of all Germany was impotent to enforce its decrees against
one of the German Powers possessed of a preponderating military
strength. By the end of 1848 the revolution in Vienna was completely
crushed and a strongly reactionary Government appointed by the new
Emperor. Meanwhile in Berlin the Junkers and the reactionaries
generally had already again come into power, a crisis having been
caused by the attempt of the democratic section of the Prussian
National Assembly, convened by the King in March, to reorganize the
army on a popular democratic basis. We need scarcely say the Prussian
army has been the tool of Junkerdom and reaction ever since.

The last despairing attempt of the Frankfurt Parliament to give effect
to the national Germanic unity, which all patriotic Germans professed
to be eager for, was the offer of the Imperial crown to the King of
Prussia. Against this act, however, nearly half the members--i.e. all
the advanced parties in the Assembly--protested by refusing to take
any part in it They had also declined to be associated with a previous
motion for the exclusion of German Austria from the new national
unity, in the interest of Prussian ascendancy. Both these reactionary
proposals, as we all know, at a later date became the corner-stones of
the new Prusso-German unity of Bismark's creation. On this occasion,
however, the Prussian King refused to accept the office at the hands
of the impotent Frankfurt Assembly, which latter soon afterwards broke
up and eventually "petered out." Meanwhile Prussian troops, led by the
reactionary military caste, were employed in the congenial task of
suppressing popular movements with the sword in Baden, Saxony, and
Prussia itself.

The two rival bulwarks of reaction, Prussia and Austria, were now so
alarmed at the revolutionary dangers they had passed through that, for
the nonce forgetting their rivalry, they cordially joined together in
reviving, in the interests of the counter-revolution, the old
reactionary Federal Assembly, which had never been formally dissolved,
as it ought to have been on the election of the Frankfurt Parliament.
Reaction now went on apace. Liberties were curtailed and rights gained
in 1848 were abolished in most of the smaller States. Henceforth the
Federal Assembly became the theatre of the two great rival powers of
the Germanic Confederation. Both alike strove desperately for the
hegemony of Germany. The strength of Prussia, of course, lay generally
in the north, that of Austria in the south. Austria had the advantage
of Prussia in the matter of prestige. Prussia, on the other hand, had
the pull of Austria in the possession of the machinery of the Customs
Union. In general, however, the dual control of the Germanic
Confederation was grudgingly recognized by either party, and on
occasion they acted together. This was notably the case in the
Schleswig-Holstein question, which had been smouldering ever since
1848, and which came to a crisis in the Danish war of 1864, in which
Austria and Prussia jointly took part.

Among the most reactionary of the Junker party in the Prussian
Parliament of 1848 was one Count Otto Bismarck von Schoenhausen,
subsequently known to history as Prince Bismarck (1815-98). This man
strenuously opposed the acceptance of the Imperial dignity by the King
of Prussia at the hands of the Frankfurt Parliament in 1849, on the
ground that it was unworthy of the King of Prussia to accept any
office at the hands of the people rather than at those of his peers,
the princes of Germany. In 1851 Count von Bismarck was appointed a
Prussian representative in the revived princely and aristocratic
Federal Assembly. Here he energetically fought the hegemony hitherto
exercised by Austria. He continued some years in this capacity, and
subsequently served as Prussian Minister in St. Petersburg and again
in Paris. In the autumn of 1862 the new King of Prussia, Wilhelm I,
who had succeeded to the throne the previous year, called him back to
take over the portfolio of Foreign Affairs and the leadership of the
Cabinet. Shortly after his accession to power he arbitrarily closed
the Chambers for refusing to sanction his Army Bill. His army scheme
was then forced through by the royal fiat alone. On the reopening of
the Schleswig-Holstein question, owing to the death of the King of
Denmark, German nationalist sentiment was aroused, which Bismarck knew
how to use for the aggrandisement of Prussia. The Danish war, in which
the two leading German States collaborated and which ended in their
favour, had as its result a disagreement of a serious nature between
these rival, though mutually victorious, Powers.

In all these events the hand of Bismarck was to be seen. He it was who
dominated completely Prussian policy from 1862 onwards. Full of his
schemes for the aggrandisement of Prussia at the expense of Austria,
he stirred up and worked this quarrel for all it was worth, the
upshot being the Prusso-Austrian War (the so-called Seven Weeks' War)
of the summer of 1866. The war was brought about by the arbitrary
dissolution of the German Confederation--i.e. the Federal Assembly--in
which, owing to the alarm created by Prussian insolence and
aggression, Austria had the backing of the majority of the States.
This step was followed by Bismarck's dispatching an ultimatum to
Hanover, Saxony, and Hesse Cassel respectively, all of which had voted
against Prussia in the Federal Assembly, followed, on its
non-acceptance, by the dispatch of Prussian troops to occupy the
States in question. Hard on this act of brutal violence came the
declaration of war with Austria.

At Koeniggratz the Prussian army was victorious over the Austrians, and
henceforth the hegemony of Central Europe was decided in favour of
Prussia. Austria, under the Treaty of Prague (August 20, 1866), was
completely excluded from the new organization of German States, in
which Prussia--i.e. Bismarck--was to have a free hand. The result was
the foundation of the North German Confederation, under the leadership
of Prussia. It was to have a common Parliament, elected by universal
suffrage and meeting in Berlin. The army, the diplomatic
representation, the control of the postal and telegraphic services,
were to be under the sole control of the Prussian Government. The
North German Confederation comprised the northern and central States
of Germany. The southern States--Bavaria, Baden, Wuertemberg,
etc.--although not included, had been forced into a practical alliance
with Prussia by treaties. The Customs Union was extended until it
embraced nearly the whole of Germany. Prussian aggression in Luxemburg
produced a crisis with France in 1867, though the growing tension
between Prussia and France was tided over on this occasion. But
Bismarck only bided his time.

The occasion was furnished him by the question of the succession to
the Spanish throne, in July 1870. By means of a falsified telegram
Bismarck precipitated war, in which Prussia was joined by all the
States of Germany. The subsequent course of events is matter of recent
history. The establishment of the new Prusso-German empire by the
crowning of Wilhelm I at Versailles, with the empire made hereditary
in the Hohenzollern family, completed the work of Bismarck and the
setting of the Prussian jack-boot on the necks of the German peoples.
The Prussian military and bureaucratic systems were now extended to
all Germany--in other words, the rest of the German peoples were made
virtually the vassals and slaves of the Prussian monarch. This time
the King of Prussia received the Imperial crown at the hands of the
kings, princes, and other hereditary rulers of the various German
States. Bismarck was graciously pleased to bestow unity and internal
peace--a Prussian peace--upon Germany on condition of its abasement
before the Prussian corporal's stick and police-truncheon. Such was
the united Germany of Bismarck. Germany meant for Bismarck and his
followers Prussia, and Prussia meant their own Junker and military
caste, under the titular headship of the Hohenzollern.

Yet, strange to say, the peoples of Germany willingly consented, under
the influence of the intoxication of a successful war, to have their
independence bartered away to Prussia by their rulers. In this united
Germany of Bismarck--a Germany united under Prussian despotism--they
naively saw the realization of the dream of their thinkers and poets
since the time of the Napoleonic wars--which had become more than ever
an inspiration from 1848 onwards--of an ideal unity of all
German-speaking peoples as a national whole. It is unquestionable that
many of these thinkers and poets would have been horrified at the
Prusso-Bismarckian "unity" of "blood and iron," It was not for this,
they would have said, that they had laboured and suffered.

As a conclusion to the present chapter I venture to give a short
summary of the internal, and especially of the economic, development
of Prussia since the Franco-German War from an article which appeared
in the _English Review_ for December 1914, by Mr. H.M. Hyndman and the
present writer:--

"From 1871 onwards Prussianized Germany, by far the best-educated, and
industrially and commercially the most progressive, country in Europe,
with the enormous advantage of her central position, was, consciously
and unconsciously, making ready for her next advance. The policy of a
good understanding with Russia, maintained for many years, to such an
extent that, in foreign affairs, Berlin and St. Petersburg were almost
one city, enabled Germany to feel secure against France, while she was
devoting herself to the extension of her rural and urban powers of
production. Never at any time did she neglect to keep her army in a
posture of offence. All can now see the meaning of this.

"Militarism is in no sense necessarily economic. But the strength of
Germany for war was rapidly increased by her success in peace. From
the date of the great financial crisis of 1874, and the consequent
reorganization of her entire banking system, Germany entered upon that
determined and well-thought-out attempt to attain pre-eminence in the
trade and commerce of the world of which we have not yet seen the end.
From 1878, when the German High Commissioner, von Rouleaux,
stigmatized the exhibits of his countrymen as 'cheap and nasty,'
special efforts were made to use the excellent education and admirable
powers of organization of Germany in this field. The Government
rendered official and financial help in both agriculture and
manufacture. Scientific training, good and cheap before, was made
cheaper and better each year. Railways were used not to foster foreign
competition, as in Great Britain, by excessive rates of home freight,
but to give the greatest possible advantage to German industry in
every department. In more than one rural district the railways were
worked at an apparent loss in order to foster home production, from
which the nation derived far greater advantage than such apparent
sacrifice entailed. The same system of State help was extended to
shipping until the great German liners, one of which, indeed, was
actually subsidized by England, were more than holding their own with
the oldest and most celebrated British companies.

"Protection, alike in agriculture and in manufacture, bound the whole
empire together in essentially Imperial bonds. Right or wrong in
theory--which it is not here necessary to discuss--there can be no
doubt whatever that this policy entirely changed the face of Germany,
and rendered her our most formidable competitor in every market.
Emigration, which had been proceeding on a vast scale, almost entirely
ceased. The savings banks were overflowing with deposits. The position
of the workers was greatly improved. Not only were German Colonies
secured in Africa and Asia, which were more trouble than they were
worth, but very profitable commerce with our own Colonies and
Dependencies was growing by leaps and bounds, at the expense of the
out-of-date but self-satisfied commercialists of Old England. Hence
arose a trade rivalry, against which we could not hope to contend
successfully in the long run, except by a complete revolution in our
methods of education and business, to which neither the Government nor
the dominant class would consent.

"This remarkable advance in Germany, also, was accompanied by the
establishment of a system of banking, specially directed to the
expansion of national industry and commerce, a system which was clever
enough to use French accumulations, borrowed at a low rate of
interest, through the German Jews who so largely controlled French
financial institutions, in order still further to extend their own
trade. It was an admirably organized attempt to conquer the
world-market for commodities, in which the Government, the banks, the
manufacturers and the shipowners all worked for the common cause.
Meanwhile, both French and English financiers carefully played the
game of their business opponents, and the great English banks devoted
their attention chiefly to fostering speculation on the Stock
Exchange--a policy of which the Germans took advantage, just before
the outbreak of war, to an extent not by any means as yet fully
understood.

"Thus, at the beginning of the present year, in spite of the
withdrawal, since the Agadir affair, of very large amounts of French
capital from the German market, Germany had attained to such a
position that only the United States stood on a higher plane in regard
to its future in the world of competitive commerce. And this great and
increasing economic strength was, for war purposes, at the disposal of
the Prussian militarists, if they succeeded in getting the upper hand
in politics and foreign affairs."

FOOTNOTES:

[25] Works on the Thirty Years' War are numerous. Many scholarly and
exhaustive treatises on various aspects of the subject are, as might be
expected, to be found in German. For general popular reading Schiller's
excellent piece of literary hack work (translated in Bonn's Library) may
still be consulted, but perhaps the best short general history of the
war with its entanglement of events is that by the late Professor S.R.
Gardiner, of Oxford, which forms one of the volumes of Messrs. Longman,
Green & Co.'s series entitled "Epochs of Modern History."

CHAPTER X

MODERN GERMAN CULTURE

It is important to distinguish between the meaning of the German term
"Kultur" and that commonly expressed in English by the word "culture."
The word "Kultur" in modern German is simply equivalent to our word
"civilization," whereas the word "culture" in English has a special
meaning, to wit, that of intellectual attainments. In this chapter we
are chiefly concerned with the latter sense of the word.

Germany had a rich popular literature during the Middle Ages from the
redaction of the _Nibelungenlied_ under Charles the Great onwards.
Prominent among this popular literature were the love-songs of the
Minnesingers, the epics drawn from mediaeval traditionary versions of
the legend of Troy, of the career of _Alexander the Great_, and, to
come to more recent times, to legends of _Charles the Great and his
Court_, of _Arthur and the Holy Grail_, the _Nibelungenlied_ in its
present form, and _Gudrun_. The "beast-epic," as it was called, was
also a favourite theme, especially in the form of _Reynard the Fox_.
In another branch of literature we have collections of laws dating
from the thirteenth century and known respectively from the country of
their origin as the _Sachsenspiegel_ and the _Schwabenspiegel_. Again,
at a later date, followed the productions of the Meistersingers, and
especially of Hans Sachs, of Nuernberg. Then, again, we have the prose
literature of the mystics, Eckhart, Tauler, and their followers.

Towards the close of the mediaeval period we find an immense number of
national ballads, of chap-books, not to mention the Passion Plays or
the polemical theological writings of the time leading up to the
Reformation. Luther's works, more especially his translation of the
Bible, powerfully helped to fix German as a literary language. The
Reformation period, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, was rich in
prose literature of every description--in fact, the output of serious
German writing continued unabated until well into the seventeenth
century. But the Thirty Years' War, which devastated Germany from end
to end, completely swept away the earlier literary culture of the
nation. In fact, the event in question forms a dividing line between
the earlier and the modern culture of Germany. In prose literature,
the latter half of the seventeenth century, Germany has only one work
to show, though that is indeed a remarkable one--namely,
Grimmelshausen's _Simplicissimus_, a romantic fiction under the guise
of an autobiography of wild and weird adventure for the most part
concerned with the Thirty Years' War.

The rebirth of German literature in its modern form began early in the
eighteenth century. Leibnitz wrote in Latin and French, and his
culture was mainly French. His follower, Christian Wolf, however,
first used the German language for philosophical writing. But in
poetry, Klopstock and Wieland, and, in serious prose, Lessing and
Herder, led the way to the great period of German literature. In this
period the name of Goethe holds the field, alike in prose and poetry.
Goethe was born in 1749, and hence it was the last quarter of the
century which saw him reach his zenith. Next to Goethe comes his
younger contemporary, Schiller. It is impossible here to go even
briefly into the achievements of the bearers of these great names.
They may be truly regarded in many important respects as the founders
of modern German culture. Around them sprang up a whole galaxy of
smaller men, and the close of the eighteenth century showed a
literary activity in Germany exceeding any that had gone before.

Turning to philosophy, it is enough to mention the immortal name of
Immanuel Kant as the founder of modern German philosophic thought and
the first of a line of eminent thinkers extending to wellnigh the
middle of the nineteenth century. The names of Fichte, Schelling,
Hegel, Schopenhauer and others will at once occur to the reader.

Contemporaneously with the great rise of modern German literature
there was a unique development in music, beginning with Sebastian Bach
and continuing through the great classical school, the leading names
in which are Glueck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert,
etc. The middle period of the nineteenth century showed a further
development in prose literature, producing some of the greatest
historians and critics the world has seen. At this time, too, Germany
began to take the lead in science. The names of Virchow, Helmholtz,
Haeckel, out of a score of others, all of the first rank, are familiar
to every person of education in the present and past generation. The
same period has been signalized by the great post-classical
development in music, as illustrated by the works of Schumann, Brahms,
and, above all, by the towering fame of Richard Wagner.

From the last quarter of the eighteenth century onwards it may truly
be said of Germany that education is not only more generally diffused
than in any other country of Europe, but (as a recent writer has
expressed it) "is cultivated with an earnest and systematic devotion
not met with to an equal extent among other nations." The present
writer can well remember some years ago, when at the railway station
at Breisach (Baden) waiting one evening for the last train to take him
to Colmar, he seated himself at the table of the small station
restaurant at which three tradesmen, "the butcher, the baker, and the
candlestick-maker" of the place were drinking their beer. Broaching to
them the subject of the history of the town, he found the butcher
quite prepared to discuss with the baker and the candlestick-maker the
policy of Charles the Bold and Louis XI as regards the possession of
the district, as though it might have been a matter of last night's
debate in the House or of the latest horse-race. Where would you find
this popular culture in any other country?

Germany possesses 20 universities, 16 polytechnic educational
institutes, about 800 higher schools (gymnasia), and nearly 60,000
elementary schools. Every town of any importance throughout the German
States is liberally provided in the matter of libraries, museums, and
art collections, while its special institutions, music schools, etc.,
are famous throughout the world. The German theatre is well known for
its thoroughness. Every, even moderately sized, German town has its
theatre, which includes also opera, in which a high scale of all-round
artistic excellence is attained, hardly equalled in any other country.
In fact, it is not too much to say that for long Germany was foremost
in the vanguard of educational, intellectual, and artistic progress.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14