Treitschke, his doctrine of German destiny and of international relations : together with a study of his life and work |
 | Treitschke: A Study of His
Life and Work. |
| I. |
| II. |
| III. |
| IV. |
| V. |
| VI. |
| VII. |
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|
 | Treitschke: A Study of His
Life and Work. Treitschke, his doctrine of German destiny and of international relations : |  |
Treitschke: A Study of His
Life and Work.
I.
There are some names which we instinctively
connect with eternal youth. Those of
Achilles and Young Siegfried we cannot conceive
otherwise than as belonging to youth itself. If
amongst the more recent ones we count Hoelty,
Theodore Koerner, and Novalis the divine youth,
this is due to death having overtaken them while
yet young in years. But if involuntarily we also
include Heinrich von Treitschke, the reason for it
lies not in the age attained by him but in his
unfading freshness. Treitschke died at the age
of sixty-two, older or nearly of the same age as
his teachers—Häusser, Mathy, and Gervinus, all
of whom we invariably regard as venerable old
men. And yet he seemed to us like Young Siegfried
with his never ageing, gay temperament,
his apparently inexhaustible virility. To his
students he seemed new at every half term, and
living amongst young people he remained young
with them. Hopeful of the future and possessed
joy and sunshine of eternal youth. Thus Death,
when he came, appeared not as an inexorable
gleaner gathering the withered blades in the barn
of his Lord, but rather as a negligent servant destroying
in senseless fashion a rare plant which
might yet have yielded much delicious fruit.
We cannot, therefore, call it a happy inspiration
which prompted the representation of Treitschke
as a robed figure in the statue about to be erected
in the University in Berlin.
It is, of course, not the figure of a Privy Councillor,
who has assumed some resemblance with
Gambetta, but that of a tall, distinguished-looking
strong youth, with elastic muscles, whose every
movement attests health and virility, a figure such
as students and citizens were wont to see in Leipzig
and Heidelberg, and which would have served
an artist as the happiest design for monumental
glorification. But to represent the opponent of
all academic red-tapeism in robe is analogous
with Hermann Grimm's proposal to portray the
first Chancellor of the German Empire as Napoleon
in the Court of the Brera—that is to say, in the
full nude. Nevertheless, we greet with joy the
high-spirited decision to honour Treitschke by a
statue. In the same way as the name of Hutten
will be connected with the revolt against the Pope,
and the name of Koerner with that against Napoleon,
so the name of Treitschke will always be
connected with the redemption of our people
to the magnificence of 1870.
It was in August, 1863, that I heard the name of
Treitschke for the first time, when, before an
innumerable audience, he spoke at the Gymnastic
Tournament in Leipzig, in commemoration of the
Battle of Leipzig. A youth of twenty-nine, a
private University lecturer, and the son of a
highly-placed officer related to Saxon nobility,
he proclaimed with resounding force what in his
family circle was considered demagogical machination
and enmity against illustrious personages,
and as such was generally tabooed. But the
principal idea underlying his argument—that
what a people aspires to it will infallibly attain—
found a respondent chord in many a breast; and
I, like many another who read the verbatim report
of the speech in the South German Journal
Braters, resolved to read in future everything put
into print by this man.
We were overjoyed when, in the autumn of
1863, the Government of Baden appointed Treitschke
as University Deputy Professor for Political
Science. It was so certain that at the same time
he would give historic lectures that, on hearing
of Treitschke's appointment, Wegele of Würzburg
—who had already accepted the position of Professor
of History at Freiburg—immediately asked
to be released from his engagement, as henceforth
he could no longer rely on securing pupils. The
new arrival was pleased with his first impressions
gardens stretching towards the River Münster.
In the University he gave lectures on politics and
on the Encyclopædia of Political Science; but before
a much larger audience he spoke in the Auditory
of Anatomy, and later on in the Aula, on German
History, the History of Reformation, and similar
subjects, creating a sensation not only at the
University but also in Society. It was his phenomenal
eloquence—not North-German verbosity,
but fertility of thought surging with genius and
flowing like an inexhaustible fountain—which
drew his audience at public lectures and festivities.
His success with students gave him less cause for
gratification. Possibly Science, on which he
lectured for practically the first time, offered inadequate
facilities for the development of his
best faculties, but the principal fault seems to
have rested with his audience. "The students,"
he wrote to Freytag, "are very childish, and, as
usual in Universities, suffer from drowsy drunkenness."
It can be imagined how this failure
affected and depressed the eager young professor,
for whose subsistence the Leipzig students had
sent a deputation to Dresden, and whom they had
honoured on his departure with a torchlight procession.
To me he said: "The Freiburg students
are lazy—abominably lazy." More than once
he had been compelled to write to truant-playing
pupils asking whether they intended hearing
lectures at all in future, since he could well employ
that these experiences biassed his opinion of the
whole population, and he judged the fathers'
qualities by those of their dissolute sons. Society
also left him discontented, and to his father he
wrote: "I do not find it easy to adjust myself to
the social conditions of this small hole; anybody
with as little talent for gossiping as I possess
suffers from an ignorance of individual peculiarities,
and stumbles at every moment." The
Freiburg nobility being not only strictly Catholic,
but also thoroughly Austrian, he, with his outspoken
Prussian tendencies and attacks against the
priests, stirred up a good deal of unrest. Among
his colleagues, he associated principally with
Mangold, the private lecturer von Weech, the
lawyer Schmidt, and the University steward Frey,
all of whom were of Prussian descent. The letter
in which he informs his godfather, Gutschmid,
that he had again been asked to act as godfather
is, from the point of view of phraseology, truly
"Treitschkean": "A few weeks ago I again acted
as godfather, to a daughter of M., and on this
occasion silently implored the immortals that the
child might turn out better than her uncommonly
good-for-nothing brothers. For my godchild in
Kiel this prayer was superfluous; in my presence
at least, your Crown Prince always behaved as an
educated child of educated parents." Through
his Bonn relatives, the two Nokk, he became
acquainted with Freiherr von Bodman, the father-in-law
was he at the house of von Woringen, the Doctor
of Law, where he saw a good deal of Emma von
Bodman, who subsequently became his wife, and
at that of von Hillern, the Superior Court Judge,
whose wife, the daughter of Charlotte Birchpfeiffer,
consulted him in regard to her poetical creations.
Already, after the first half term, the deaf young
professor was the most discussed person in local
Society, and he himself boasted to my wife that
for his benefit several Freiburg ladies learned the
deaf-and-dumb language. They waxed enthusiastic
over the young and handsome scholar, and
in their admiration for him sent for his poems,
only to be subsequently shocked, like Psyche
before Cupid. Yet it is characteristic that he
started his literary career with historic ballads
which he called Patriotic Poems (1856), and
Studies (1857).
The political life of the Badenese, which at that
time principally turned upon the educational
question, was not to his taste. The Ultramontanes
he simply found coarse and stupid, and he
writes: "It is empty talk to speak of doctrinal
freedom and freedom to learn in a University
with a Catholic faculty. All Professors of Theology
are clerks in holy orders, and so utterly dependent
upon their superiors that only recently
the archbishop asked the brave old Senator Maier
to produce the books of his pupils. Furthermore,
the students of Theology are locked in a convent,
step by step by mutual secret control. That is
what is called academic liberty." But here, also,
is his opinion regarding others: "The grand-ducal
Badenese liberalism is nothing but cheap charlatanism
without real vigour"; nay, he calls "particularist
liberalism" the most contemptible of all
parties which, however, unfortunately, would play
an important part in the near future. "Look for
instance at this National Coalition. Has ever a
great nation seen such a monster?" In his opinion
it sides with the Imperial Constitution of
1849, although the leaders themselves are convinced
of their inability to carry through the
programme, and at the same time the future
political configuration of Germany is declared to
be an open question, consequently it has on the
whole no programme at all.
Soon I was destined to make the personal acquaintance
of the much-admired and much-criticized
one. It was at an "At Home" at
Mathy's. Scarcely had I entered the vestibule
when I heard a very loud voice in the drawing-room
slowly emphasizing every syllable in the
style of a State Councillor. "This is Treitschke,
of Freiburg," I said immediately, and it was really
he. The Freiburg ladies had by no means exaggerated
his handsome appearance. A tall, broad-shouldered
figure, dark hair and dark complexion,
dark, pensive eyes, now dreamy, now vividly
glistening—unmistakably Slav. With his black
that time, and his vivid gesticulations, he could
not conceal his Slav origin. He looked like a
Polish nobleman, and his knightly frame reminded
one of a Hussite, a Ziska for instance. Later,
he told me of his exiled ancestors—Czech Protestants
of the name of Trschky, referred to by
Schiller in Wallenstein, although the editions
mostly spoke of Terzky's Regiments. At about
midnight, when wending our way through the
silent town, a policeman approached us, intending
to warn the loud, strange gentleman to moderate
his voice. The arm of the law, however, quickly
retired when, in company of the disturber of the
peace, he recognized Herr von Roggenbach and
several Ministerial Secretaries. As Treitschke
at that time made use of the Karlsruhe Archives,
he from time to time came to Karlsruhe, where
he sought the society of Mathy, Nokk, von Weech,
and Baumgarten. Under Mathy's influence a
gradual change took place in him, which transmitted
itself to all of us. At first he was an eager
adherent of Augustenburg, and the first money
received for his lectures in Freiburg he invested in
the Ducal Loan. Through Freytag he had likewise
recommended his friend, von Weech, to the
Duke of Augustenburg with a view to his securing
an appointment in Kiel for publicistic purposes.
After that his attitude totally changed. When
he realized that Bismarck earnestly aspired gaining
for Prussia the dominating power in the East
of Prussia to be the supreme national duty.
Häusser intended to pin him down with his former
views by citing Treitschke's first Augustenburg
dissertations in the Review of the Prussian Annuals
of 1864. Treitschke, however, by way of reply,
in an essay on the solution of the Schleswig-Holstein
question, proved that the compliance with
the Augustenburg demands was detrimental to
Germany's welfare. Again he had spoken the
decisive word, and all writers of our circle now
advocated annexation. We were nicknamed
"Mamelukes and Renegades" by our Heidelberg
colleague Pickford, then editor of the Konstanzer
Zeitung. Treitschke was now as violently against,
as formerly for, the Duke. Now he sees the latter
as "the miserable pretender, whom he despises
from the bottom of his heart. Not only has he
not come to the noble decision which Germany is
entitled to expect from him, but by his unscrupulous
demagogical agitations he has utterly unsettled
his country." In Karlsruhe, the quiet town
of officials, such a political point of view was perhaps
admissible; not so, however, in the high country
filled with animosity against Prussia. Every child
was convinced that Prussia now, as formerly, intended
handing over the dukedoms to the King of
the Danes. Junker Voland, who had persuaded the
King to break with the Constitution, was, of course,
bribed long ago by England and Russia to again
restore the dukedoms to Danish supremacy.
Everything that had happened after the short,
hopeful glimpse of Prussia's new era was an object
of sarcasm for the South German population.
When a boy talked very stupidly, his comrades
would call out: "Go to Königsberg and have yourself
crowned"; and at Mass the beggar-women,
pointing with their sticks to the Prince's image,
shrieked out mocking insults.
This coarseness of the street and the tone of the
Freiburg democratic journals against Prussia
filled the politician, so inconsiderate against his
own Saxony, with immense indignation. In a
letter to Freytag he finds the Badenese "quite
steeped in the quagmire of phrases and foul
language. Examining these parties, the moral
value of both sides seems identical; the meaningless
mendacity of our average liberalism fills me
with deep disgust. How long shall we labour
ere we again are able to speak of German faith?
If I am now to choose between the two parties,
I select that of Bismarck, since he struggles for
Prussian power for our legitimate position on the
North and East Sea." He considered as impossible
the peaceful conversion of the Badenese to
Prussia. "Amid this abominable South German
particularism it has become perfectly evident to
me that our fate will clearly be decided by conquest.
Six years of my life I have spent in the
South, and here I have gained the sad conviction
that even with a Cabinet composed of men of the
type of Stein and Humboldt, the hatred and jealousy
not diminish. I am longing for the North, to
which I belong with all my heart, and where also
our fate will be decided." His public lectures
were very largely frequented. "But," he says,
"the Philistines are prejudiced when entering
the Aula, and are firmly determined to consider
as untrue every word I say about Prussia. The
opinion is prevalent that the South Germans are
the most modest of our people. I say they are
the most arrogant; to a man they consider themselves
the real Germans, and the North a country
half of which is still steeped in barbarity, this
quite apart from a dissolute braggadocio the mere
thought of which fills me with disgust. Believe
me, only the trusty sword of the conqueror can
weld together these countries with the North."
Later on, when I conversed with him every evening
at a round table in the Heidelberg Museum, I
realized the reasons for his lack of understanding
of our people. We seemed to him lukewarm,
because we did not strike the national chord with
the power which he expected of a good German.
But why should we do that? In the Saxony of
Herr von Beust, and in Prussia's time of reaction,
national ideas were tabooed, and that is why the
patriots felt compelled to bear witness in season
and out of season. But we lived in a free country,
under a Prince harbouring German sentiments,
and where it would have been an easy matter to
feign patriotism quite apart from the fact that we
I told him that in the same way as I,
despite my warmest feelings for my family, could
not bring myself to proclaim pompously the excellence
of my wife and child, so was I reluctant
to publicly praise my Fatherland; and subsequently
I reminded him of the Yankee who declared
that immediately a man spoke to him of
patriotism he knew him to be a rascal. In regard
to our sympathy for France, which he reviled as
the Rhine Confederation sentimentality, it would
be difficult for him to place himself in our position.
During the last century we had received nothing
but kindness from France, namely, deliverance
from the Palatine Bavarian régime, from Jesuits
and Lazarists, from episcopal and Junker rule,
from guild restrictions and compulsory service:
all this and the very existence of the country which
we enjoyed we owed directly or indirectly to
Napoleon and the Code Napoleon, from which
the hatred of the French arose. This, it is true,
I found quite natural, considering Napoleon
weakened Prussia and abused Saxony. He was
indignant when he noticed in corridors of inns and
even in parlours the small lithographs which,
under the First Empire, were poured out in thousands
from Paris even across the States of the Rhine
Convention, representing the Victor of Marengo,
the Sun of Austerlitz, Napoleon's Battle at the
Pyramids, etc., and which, owing to the conservative
spirit of the peasantry, decorated the walls,
brought about their destruction. He even took
offence at the attitude displayed by Frenchmen
in the Black Forest watering places, and in Baden-Baden.
When, finally, a Heidelberg lawyer declared
in the Reichstag that for him the cultured
Frenchman is still the most amiable of all European
beings, Treitschke stigmatized us as incorrigible
partisans of the Rhine Confederation.
But a glance at the letters of Frau Rat Goethe,
in Frankfort, who prayed God that French and
not Prussian soldiers should be quartered in her
house, might have taught him that the expressions
of a long historical epoch find expression in these
remarks, which could not be effaced by proud
words. Furthermore, when the Prussian Ministry
trampled on the Budget rights of Parliament, and
by a sophistical theory about a defect in the Constitution
exasperated the sense of justice of every
honest-thinking German, when the most extraordinary
verdicts of the Supreme Court, accompanied
by the removal from office of the most
capable officials, provoked the population, it was
really not the time to stimulate among South
Germans the desire to become incorporated with
Prussia. The moment was, therefore, most unpropitious
for his propaganda. In those days
even such old admirers of a Union with Prussia
as Brater became converts to the triad-idea, and
Treitschke's friend, Freytag, commented on it in
merely the following manner: "It is always very
easily become asses." Why, therefore, should the
unintelligent masses be judged as harshly as was
done by Treitschke? In regard to our clerical-political
struggles—and this was the second reason
for his lack of understanding of our population—
he found himself in the position of a guest who
enters a room in which a heated discussion has
been going on for hours past and, not having been
present from the beginning, is unable to appreciate
the intensity of the contending parties. Even at
that time I was annoyed at the haughty tone with
which he and his non-Badenese friends—Baumgarten
in particular—discussed the Badenese
struggles. They considered the educational problem
trivial compared with the mighty national
question at stake; and overlooked the fact that to
get rid of the clerical party was to be the primary
condition for joining hands with Protestant Prussia.
They knew less of the situation as far as the population
was concerned than of events in the Ministry
and at Court. Thus they constantly looked behind
the scenes, and thereby missed the part which
was being played on the stage. That is why none
of the North German politicians achieved a really
cordial understanding with their citizens, while
Bluntschli of the South, in spite of his suspicious
political past, could boast of great respect among
the Liberals.
In the autumn of 1868 Treitschke made a long
stay at Karlsruhe; he spent his days mostly in
in the family circle of his friends or hard at work.
He had not become more favourably impressed
with the "townlet of clericals," and expressed the
desire more and more frequently to be nearer a
town where there were controversy and quarrelling,
and where the mind was exercised, and deeds were
done. Nevertheless, few towns in Germany could
have been found at that time where he could
express so freely his political opinions without
interference from headquarters, as is proved by
the publication of his famous dissertation on
"Union of States and Single State." In regard
to this he himself thought it "extraordinary"
that it could have been published in Freiburg.
That the German Confederation is not a Coalition
of States, but a Coalition of Rulers, that Austria
cannot be called a German State, and that the
Minor Powers are no States at all, lacking as they
do power of self-determination: all these axioms
to-day have become commonplace, but at that
time the particularist press raised a fierce outcry
against them. Although an official of a Small
State himself, he nevertheless put into print that
a ship a span in length is no ship at all, and that,
should the Small States of Prussia be annexed,
what would happen to them was only what they
themselves in times gone by had done to smaller
territories; for they owed their existence to annexations.
Of the German Princes he said: "The
majority of the illustrious heads show an alarming
almost everywhere. And this generation,
not very lavishly endowed by nature, has
from early youth had its mind imbued with the
doctrines of monarchy, and with the traditions of
particularism. From childhood it is surrounded
by that Court nobility which is Germany's curse,
for it has no fatherland, and if it does not completely
disappear in stupid selfishness, it rises at its
highest to chivalrous attachment of the Prince's
personality and the princely family. Should
that Coalition State, which the princes prefer to
the Centralized State, come about, their fate would
not be an enviable one. If, even at this day, the
pretentious title of King of the Middle States
bears no proportion to its importance, we shall in
a Coalition State be unable to contemplate without
a smile the position of a King of Saxony or
Würtemberg. Monarchs in such position would
be quite superfluous beings, and the nation sooner
or later would ask the question whether it would
not be advisable to discard such costly and useless
organizations." This essay he sent to the Grand
Duke, who graciously thanked him for the valuable
gift. In few German States would a similar
reception have been given to such a treasonable
publication. "The Karlsruhe official world"—
so he informed Freytag on December 27, 1864—
"has recovered from the first absurd shock which
my book occasioned"; he himself, therefore, did
not deny its startling character. Nevertheless, he
and in spite of his political heresy he was
still a much sought after and distinguished personality,
and already regarded as possible successor
to Häusser.
When the crisis, anticipated by him long before,
really broke out he decided to relinquish his
thankless duties in Freiburg, in spite of the fact
that he was too far away from the theatre of
events to take an active part in the press campaign.
Roggenbach's resignation had not endeared
Baden to him. As regards Stabel, Lamey,
Ludwig, etc., he thought they did not even bestow
a thought upon Germany. "Edelsheim is no good
at all. Mathy, ironically smiling, keeps aloof;
he is above the question of Small States; he was
the first to predict that nowadays a Small State
cannot be governed by Parliament. The downfall
of our friend is only a question of time, and presumably
it will be accelerated by the extraordinary
ineptitude of the Chamber. Naturally, at
the next session ministers will be harassed by
flippant interpellations until the Liberals resign
and the strong bureaucrats take office. That will
then be called a triumph of parliamentary principles."
Still more drastic are his views on June
12, 1866: "Lamey's views on politics are on a level
with the beer garden; and then this fool of an
Edelsheim! Roggenbach's resignation was a fatal
mistake." Treitschke's friends were infallible,
but not the later "Ministry of Emperor Frederick."
spoke in his letter of "Bismaerckchen" (Little
Bismarck), and of the waggish tricks of this
"hare-brain," of which in reality he was afraid.
Comparing the clear, self-confident letters of
Bismarck with the excited correspondence of these
spirited political amateurs, no doubt can be entertained
as to where was the superiority of mind and
character. But to know better was then the
order of the day, and the mischievous attempts of
Oscar Becker and Blind Cohen, which aimed at
removing King Wilhelm and Bismarck because
they were not the right people to frame Germany's
Constitution, were only a crude expression of the
self-same desire to know better. At the same time
these gentlemen were no more agreed among
themselves than they were in agreement with the
Government, and when Baumgarten warned the
Prussians to think more of the threatening war
than of the constitutional contest, he received in
the journal Der Grenzbote, from Freytag, a very
impolite answer for his "craziness." The Prussians
had no wish to be taught their duties by the
Braunschweigers. Meanwhile Bismarck's attention
had been directed to Treitschke, and through
the medium of Count Fleming, the Prussian
Ambassador at Karlsruhe, he was invited to a
personal interview to Berlin. The Count, a very
musical and easy-going gentleman, gave Treitschke
such scanty information as to the object of the
journey that, on June 7, 1866, the latter himself
to Treitschke when Bismarck suggested
that he should take part at his side in the great
impending developments, should draw up the
Manifesto to the German population, and write
in the papers for the good cause, while, after the
conclusion of peace, he would be given a position
in Berlin as University Professor of History. How
many of those who at that time called him a
Mameluke and a Renegade would have resisted
such temptation? He replied that, as hitherto,
he would support Bismarck's Prussian external
policy, but he refused to become a Prussian functionary
until after the re-establishment of the
Constitution. Until this had come to pass no
power of persuasion in the world, and not even the
whisperings of angels, would make an impression
upon the nation. He even refused to draw up the
War Manifesto. He did not wish to sacrifice his
honest political name for the sake of a great sphere
of activity. When, on a later occasion, Bismarck
invited to dinner "our Braun," in order to win
him over to his protective duty plans, Braun—
adamant, as he told me himself—declared that
he could not renounce his convictions of the past,
not having been educated in protective ideas.
Bismarck, infuriated, threw down the serviette,
rose, and slammed the door behind him; whereupon,
Braun, in spite of the Princess's entreaty
not to argue with her ailing husband, told the
ladies he could not put up with everything, and
predicament, must have been held in higher esteem
by Bismarck, for, in spite of his refusal, he was
invited to headquarters for the second time after
the victories. Treitschke had persistently declined
any semi-official activity until the reestablishment
of the Constitution, yet Bismarck
granted him unrestricted use of the Archives until
the day on which he himself took over the ministerial
portfolio; furthermore, Treitschke's wounded
brother was under the personal care of the Prince.
Treitschke's disposition in those days is apparent
from a letter to Gustave Freytag of June 12th,
which runs as follows: "During such serious times,
surrounded only by madly fanatic opponents,
I often feel the desire to chat with old friends.
The uncertainty and unclearness of the situation
has also been reflected very vividly in my life.
I have some very trying days behind me. Bismarck
asked me to his headquarters: I was to
write the War Manifesto, to work for the policy
of the German Government, and was assured a
Professorship in Berlin, the dream of my ambitions;
I could write with an easy conscience the
proclamations against Austria and for the German
Parliament. Briefly, the temptation was very
great, and all the more enticing as my stay here is
slowly becoming unbearable. Even Roggenbach,
now an out-and-out Prussian, did not dare
dissuade me, but I had to refuse; I could not pledge
myself to a policy, the final aims of which only
defects. I could not for the sake of a very doubtful
success stake my honest name. According to
my political doctrine even one's good name is to
be sacrificed to the Fatherland, but only to the
Fatherland; and consequently, only when in
power, and when hopes exist of really furthering
the State by steps which the masses consider
profligate. I am differently placed." He had
chosen the right way, and his sacrifice was not in
vain. It must have impressed Bismarck that
even such fanatics of Prussianism as Treitschke
did not pardon the way he dealt with the clear
rights of the country. In those days he permitted
negotiations with President von Unruh, in order
to settle the constitutional conflict. Treitschke's
renunciation, tantamount to an adjournment of
his most ardent wishes, is to be praised all the
more as his isolated position in Freiburg would
have determined any other man less brave than
himself to take his departure speedily. The
posters and threats of the Ultramontanes were
quite personally directed against him. Police
had to watch his house; for in the midst of an
excited Catholic population he was more openly
exposed to danger than Bluntschli was in Heidelberg,
with its national tendencies. He smiled,
however. "Beneath the screaming insubordination
of the South German rabble"—so he writes—
"there is not sufficient courage left to even smash
a window-pane." When, however, the Edelsheim
that Baden was determined to stand by Austria,
he sent in his resignation. "I cannot gamble with
my oath," he wrote to Freytag; "that is to say,
I cannot remain official servant in a State of the
Rhine Convention which I, as a patriot, must
endeavour to damage in every way. I cannot
commit political suicide, and in times like these
retire into the interior of the enemy's country.
These are my simple and telling reasons." To
Gustav Freytag alone he, however, confessed how
difficult this step had been for him, and on July
4th he wrote as follows: "What made these weeks
particularly trying, and rendered so difficult my
radical decision, I will confess to you, but to you
alone. On June 18th, immediately before my
resignation, I became engaged." At a moment
when an assured position meant everything to him
he departed from his country without knowing
whether he would be able to gain a footing elsewhere.
On the day on which Freiburg danced
with joy on account of the Prussian defeat at
Frautenau, he received information that his resignation
had been accepted. On the following
morning, June 29th, he departed by railway for
Berlin in search of a new post. The Freiburg
rabble had planned honouring him with a Dutch
Concert, but it was found that he had already left.
More with a view to travelling quickly—the
Badenese lines being blocked by military trains—
than on account of apprehensions of unpleasant
he travelled via Strasburg and Lothring. Upon
his arrival at Münster of Stein the display of
black and white flags taught him the real meaning
of the Prussian defeats which caused such rejoicing
amongst his Freiburg patrons.
II.
After his exodus to Berlin, our patriot found
temporary employment at the Preussische Jahrbucher
(Prussian Annuals), where he was appointed
deputy to Wehrenpfennig, the editor of the journal.
"For the moment of course," he wrote to Freytag,
"the guns talk, and how magnificently they
talk!" He also thought that every Hussar who
knocked down a Croat rendered greater service
to his country than all the journalists. All the
same, his aim was to be as useful as possible with
his pen to the cause of the Prussian eagles. He
approved of Bismarck's constitutional plans, but
the introduction of universal suffrage appealed to
him as little then as later on. "I consider universal
suffrage in Germany a crude and frivolous
experiment," he wrote. "We are yet a cultured
people, and under no obligation to submit to the
predominant lack of sense. If we once stretch
this point it will, in view of the jealous ambition
for equality prevalent in this century, be almost
impossible to regain it. Of all the Bismarckian
actions I am afraid this is the least beneficial one.
Parliamentary majority; there is, however, incalculable
confusion in store."
Under his editorship the Preussische Jahrbucher
were distinguished by exceptionally cutting
language. After three months Wehrenpfennig,
however, again took up his duties, and at the beginning
of October, at the house of his fiancée at
Freiburg, the news reached him of his appointment
as Professor for History and Politics at Kiel.
Immediately after the winter term his wedding
took place in Freiburg, and the honeymoon was
spent in the north of Italy, the couple subsequently
leaving for their new home to enjoy a
second spring on the eastern sea. It would have
been quite within his power to obtain an appointment
as Professor at Heidelberg. It was even
the wish of the Grand Duke that he should take
the historical subjects in place of Häusser, who
was suffering from an incurable heart disease.
Treitschke's refined sentiment was, however, opposed
to introducing himself as the joyful heir to
the dying man, who was his old master.
When Häusser, amid the peals of the Easter
bells of 1867, closed his worldly account, Treitschke
told his young wife that for him Häusser's
death had come a good many years too soon, and
that the departed one had lost a great chance.
To be active during the years of youth in beautiful
Heidelberg, and then, after many struggles and
victories, at the eve of life to march triumphantly
Professor. Besides, as in consequence of his
recent writings during the war his appointment
in a Small State had become almost impossible,
he prepared for a longer stay in the new home, and
on the beautiful Bay of Kiel enjoyed married
bliss. The great crowd of public functionaries
and cultured citizens who thronged his lectures
proved to him that here also there was useful
work to do. He was very pleased with the Kiel
students, energetic and conscientious as they were.
In Gutschmid and Ribbeck he found true political
adherents, but soon he also began to understand
the disposition of the Holsteins. At the house of
Fräulein Hegewisch, the daughter of the well-known
medical practitioner and patriot, who preeminently
belongs to the group of the "Children
of Sorrow," and the "Up ewig Ungedeelten," he
made the personal acquaintance of the leader of
the Augustenburgs. Friendly relations developed,
although he did not fail to sneer at the Holsteins,
who considered themselves Normalmenschen (normal
beings). "On one occasion," Fräulein Hegewisch
informed me, "on account of the crowd, I
walked in the footpath of the Heidelberg high
street instead of on the pavement, when behind
me some one shouted, `Normalmensch, Normalmensch!
Why don't you walk on the pavement
like others?' " In the letters to Freytag, also, he
mentioned a good deal of Holstein conceit and
self-praise, and in course of conversation he was
Schleswig student by the fact that everybody
knew his Hardevogt who was ready to attest that
this or the other patriot was needy and deserved
to be exempt from paying college contribution.
That the rest of the world was nailed with "normal"
planks as far as the Holsteins were concerned
was also one of the obliging expressions
with which he favoured the population. In the
same way his lady friend, when praising the beauty
of Holstein, was usually annoyed by his remark
that there were eight months of winter and four
months of rain in Kiel. When, however, asked
by Nokk whether he would care to return to
Baden, he replied: "Not for all the treasures of
India to Freiburg, but willingly to Heidelberg."
His writings since his departure from Freiburg
had not rendered probable his recall. His essay
"On the Future of the North German Middle
States," written in Berlin, 1866, attempting to
prove that the dynasties of Kurhessen, Hanover,
and of his own Saxony, were "ripe—nay, overripe—for
merited destruction," could not serve
exactly as a recommendation for appointment in
a Small State. The intention of the Badenese
Government was somewhat paradoxical, as everything
he wrote about Small States and the Napoleonic
crowns applied to Baden as well as to
Saxony and Nassau. And how he had sneered
at the poor small potentates. "Germany," he
wrote, "will not perish even if the Nassau Captain
fowls should gaily enter the Marxburg again, the
stronghold of the Nassau Realm. Whether the
Frankfurter will be able to call himself in future
a Republican, whether the Duke Bernhard Erich
Feund and Princess Karoline of the older line
will again ascend the throne of their parents, all
these are third-rate matters which fall to the background
in face of the question of the future of the
three Middle State Courts of the North." He
quite realized, he wrote, that the punctilious
Counsellor of Court, Goething, would lose faith
in his God if Georgia Augusta were to be deprived
of the euphonic title "The Jewel in the Crown of
the Welfs," and as for the Leipzig Professor, the
thought is inconceivable that he should cease to
be "a pearl in the lozenged wreath of Saxony."
The doctrinaire is annoyed and offended when
brutal facts disturb his circle. He cannot approve
of the way Prussia has made use of her needle
guns: "But picture the scene of King Johann's
entry into his capital, how the Town Council of
Dresden, faithful at all times, receives the destructor
of the country with words of thanks and adoration;
how maidens in white and green, with lozenged
wreaths, bow to the stained and desecrated crown;
how another dignitary orders the foolish songs of
particularist poetry to be delivered: `The Violet
blossoms, verdant is again the Lozenge'; really,
the mere thought fills one with disgust; it would
be a spectacle to be likened to grown-ups playing
Germans with good Prussian sentiments this was
somewhat strong language. In the presence of
the Prussian General, who occupied Dresden, the
essay was confiscated by the Saxon Public Prosecutor,
but was released again by order of the
military authorities. Treitschke's father expressed
himself in angry words against his son's pamphlet,
and in return received an autograph letter from
the King expressing sympathy. It is evident,
that, under these circumstances, it was no easy
matter for the Badenese Court to call the author
to Heidelberg. In the same way as his former
articles against the Middle States prevented his
being present at the wedding of his favourite
second sister—he wished to avoid meeting the
Karlowitz—so did he through this publication
stand in the following year isolated and shunned
at the grave of his father, in addition to almost
losing his appointment to Heidelberg.
When the question of filling Häusser's chair
arose for discussion it caused the opening of negotiations
in the first instance with Sybel, a gentleman
who, especially in our Karlsruhe circle,
enjoyed great reputation, and on his visits even
charmed our particularists by his extraordinary
amiability. Baumgarten had worked with him
in Munich. Von Weech was his pupil. He was
an intimate friend of Philip Jolly. I was also
pleased at the prospective appointment, for when
I spent a few delightful weeks with him and Hermann
had rendered me several literary services, and had
so warmly recommended me to his Karlsruhe
friends that I was cordially received by them.
But Sybel, occupying the position which he did,
considered himself, in view of the Parliamentary
quarrel, unjustified in abandoning Prussia.
Meanwhile the agitated waves had somewhat
subsided, and Mathy had never given up the
bringing back of his "Max Piccolomini" to Baden.
Only in Heidelberg his impending appointment
met with opposition. Hitzig—who was, later,
Pro-Rector—on November 22, 1866, after Königgrätz,
in a festive speech entitled, "What does it
profit a man to conquer the world if thereby he
lose his soul?" and expressing unerring confidence
in the return of Barbarossa, and the black-red
golden Kyffhauser magnificence, declared to me
at the General Synod in Karlsruhe that he and his
friends would do all in their power to prevent
such an unhappy choice. They did not want a
writer of feuilletons who would make the giddy
Palatines still more superficial. Besides, owing
to his deafness, Treitschke was useless for all
academic functions, which in Heidelberg were of
the greatest importance. The actual Pro-Rector,
Dr. Med. Friedreich, a Bavarian by birth, was
likewise opposed to the appointment, and later
on, after the outbreak of the academic disputes,
declared in a letter to the minister that it was a
matter for regretful doubt whether the mental
considered a normal one. After long struggles
Treitschke was at last proposed in third place by
the Faculty. In the first place, Pauly was mentioned,
in order to teach a lesson to the Würtemberg
Government for having transferred him, by
way of punishment, from the University to a
Convent School. In the second place, there was
Duncker, and in the third, Treitschke. In the
Senate, Duncker was placed first, but Jolly did
not trouble about this order, and after Sybel's
refusal the choice fell upon Treitschke. He
however, had now certain points to consider. His
work made him dependent upon the Berlin
Archives, the unrestricted use of which Bismarck
had granted him till the day when he himself
became minister; there he found the greatest
possible assistance for his history on the Custom
Union. "How stupid of the Berliners," he told
me on a later occasion, "to bury all their acts, and
allow Nebenius to enjoy the fame of being the
founder of the Custom Union." It would, however,
have been much more difficult to use the
Archives in Berlin from Heidelberg, and he, of
course, did not know how long this favour would
be granted to him. The difficulties in connection
with his appointment at Heidelberg were not
exactly encouraging either, and it could not be
expected of him to display great sympathies
towards Badenese Liberalism, which he had seen
at work in 1866. In a letter to Jolly, he gratefully
of the Grand Duke, who had again stretched out
the hand, in spite of his former sudden resignation
from Badenese official service; but he made the
acceptance of the position dependent upon the
consent of the Prussian Government. In those
days his friends, Mathy, Hofmeister, and Nokk,
did their utmost, personally, to persuade Treitschke,
and only after having received the assurance from
Berlin that his views were appreciated there, that
his activity in Baden for the national cause would
be regarded with favour, and that the King would
continue to consider him a Prussian subject, he
accepted the call to Heidelberg. Having simultaneously
received my appointment as Assistant
Professor for the Theological Faculty, we once
more met. As until the last moment I was uncertain
whether the proposal for the creation of this
Faculty would materialize, not even the slightest
preparations for the winter lectures had been
made by me, and, overwhelmed with work as I
now was, I resolved to pay no visits at all. It was
Treitschke who, although older and "Ordinarius,"
called on me, the younger and Assistant Professor.
Thus our relations were renewed, and, as Prussophils
and Prussophobes kept more and more apart,
quite naturally we became closer attached to
each other. On November 22d the Pro-Rector,
Dr. Med. Friedreich, at the dinner in honour of the
dies academicus, had, in accordance with custom,
to deliver a speech. The South German Progressive
consequently hit upon a medical comparison of the
two newly-appointed gentlemen with the Siamese
Twins, whose nature and history he exhaustively
detailed. The one, the stronger, lifted the weaker
one when disobedient up in the air until he yielded.
The joy and sorrow of the one transmitted itself
to the other one; when one drank wine, the other
felt the effects, etc. Subsequently he spoke of
the relations of the Theological Faculty to medical
science, in view of the fact that it had undeceived
orthodoxy; and finally he drank the health of the
new arrivals. In very touching words Treitschke
recalled the memory of our mutual teacher,
Häusser. Whether I liked it or not, I had to
picture myself as the weaker twin, who often had
been lifted by the stronger one, and had promised
to be obedient at all times. In spite of the peals
of laughter with which Friedreich's speech had
been received by the learned circle, the whole thing
struck me as very insipid. Treitschke, however,
was most highly amused, and for some time after,
when meeting him, his first words used to be, "Well,
Twin, how are we?" Later on he applied the unsavoury
comparison of the doctor to Delbrück and
Kamphausen, which did not please me either.
III.
In Heidelberg, Treitschke did not experience
with the students the difficulties he had complained
attitude of the Freiburg Student Corps was,
to a great extent, due to the Ultramontanes and
to politicians striving to reform the German
Confederation in union with Austria. It is true
some young students complained to me that on the
first few occasions they were quite unable to hear
what he said, that his delivery was much too rapid,
and that they were irritated by the gurgling noise
with which he from time to time unwittingly
drew in his breath. But when once used to his
mannerisms, they all admitted that his gift of
speech, his accuracy of expression, and elementary
force of enthusiasm appealed to them like a something
never before experienced. An enthusiastic
theologian, who died prematurely, applied to him
the following expression from the Gospel of St.
John: "Never before hath a man spoken as this
man did!" Treitschke brought with him to
lectures merely a scrap of paper with the catchwords
written on it, so that he should not stray
from the subject and forget to allude to certain
matters. On one occasion, having left his notes
at home, he told me he had finished, after all,
five minutes sooner, which proved that we all are
"creatures of habit." What was particularly
fascinating in him was the assurance of his manner.
He stood erect, with an expression of cheerfulness
on his face, the head thrown back, and emphasizing
the salient points by repeatedly nodding.
The contents of his lectures were invariably historical
lost himself in pictures of the past, Treitschke
never for a moment forgot the present. What he
said of Cromwell, Gustavus Adolphus, and Napoleon
always had its references to present-day
England, Germany, and France. His examples
proved that the taking to pieces of the sources
of information and the looking for originals of
reports, however indispensable this preparatory
work might be, did not complete the functions of
the historian. It was necessary to understand
the people whose fate one intends to relate, and as
Treitschke himself said, one understands only
what one loves. All great historians are at the
same time great patriots, and no one is a real
historian who has not exhausted the depth of
human nature, and knows how thoughts originate
and passions are at work. The historian must
display a certain ingenuity in guessing connections.
He must be able to reply to the great enigmas of
life, and must be a poet who understands how to
shape material vigorously. All this was to be
found in this wonderful man, and that is why he
combined for the young people politics with philosophy
and religion. "Whoever wishes to write
history must have the heart of a lion," says Martin
Luther; and so Treitschke writes: "Only a stout
heart, grasping the meaning of the past of a country
like personally experienced good and evil
fortune, can truly write history." It is not perfection
of form only, but depth of soul which
Who will deny that thereby he portrayed his own
picture? "The historian must be just, outspoken,
indifferent to the sensitiveness of the Courts
and fearless of the hatred, more powerful nowadays,
of the educated rabble": these were the
principles to which he adhered from his chair.
Already in the first weeks of his Heidelberg years,
when reading a good deal of Tacitus and Suetonius
for my New Testament Chronicle, I had a very
instructive conversation on this subject with him.
I told him that in view of the strong antagonistic
attitude taken up by the Roman aristocrats, I
attached no greater value to their descriptions of
the Cæsars than to the descriptions of Frederic
the Great, by Onno Klopp, or to the contributors
of the Frankfürter Zeitung. The pictures of
Julius II and Leo X by Raphael, of Erasmus by
Holbein, of Spinola by Rubens, of Lorenzo Medici
by Giorgio Vasari, of old Charles V and Paul III
by Titian, fully confirmed the descriptions of their
biographers; as illustrations they fitted the text;
on the other hand, the statues and busts of Augustus,
Tiberius, and Caligula gave the lie to
Tacitus and Suetonius. These marble heads
always appeared to me like a silent and noble,
yet convincing, protest against the calumny of
hostile authors, just as the Philistine bust of
Trajan taught me why Tacitus and Pliny valued
him so highly, simply because he did not prevent
others from calumniating the past. Treitschke
not betray his vice; Tacitus, however, was a patriot
completely absorbed in the interests of his people,
who knew no higher aim than the greatness of his
country, which could not be said of the Frankfürter
Zeitung. He admitted that Tacitus had not kept
the sine ira et studio which he promised; but this
is not at all the duty of the historian. The historian
should be capable of both anger and love—
true passion sees clearer than all the cold-blooded
sophists, and only the historian, writing from a
party standpoint, introduces us to the life of the
parties, and really guides us.
Treitschke's prestige amongst the students and
in Society was, at that time, even more firmly
established than among the professors. The circle
of scholars affected mostly a disparaging compassion
towards the feuilletonist, who perhaps could
write an essay but no book, and just as the doors
of the Berlin Academy opened to him, only shortly
before his death—as he had not been a scientist,
but merely a clever publicist—there sat in Heidelberg,
in judgment over him, not only students
of law and of the Talmud, but green, private
University teachers, so that even now one feels
reminded of Karl Hildebrand's words: "If to-day
Thucydides were to appear before the public, no
doubt a Waitz Seminarist would forthwith explain
to him his lack of method." He also realized that
a new volume of essays would not further his
scientific reputation; but, he writes to Freytag:
professor, and with the real league of scientists I
shall never be on good terms." As a matter of
fact, Treitschke's chief merit did not lie in the
knowledge he disseminated, but in the incomparable
effect which his personality and his spirited
words produced on susceptible young students.
His motto was; "German every fibre." In
reality, however, the fire of his speech was not due
to German but to the Czech blood which still
flowed in his veins. One felt reminded of what
other nations had related regarding the impression
a Bernard von Clairvaux, an Arnold von Brescia,
or a Johannes Hus had produced upon them. Also
the temperament of our German Chauvinist was
not German but Slav. With all his sunny cheerfulness,
he was at times for hours prone to deep
melancholy. Quick to flare up and as easily
appeased, bearing no malice, inconsiderate in his
expressions yet kind in actions, reserved in his
attitude but a good comrade, ready to assist—
there was nothing in him of the German heavy
and mistrustful temperament. He might just
as well have been an Italian or Frenchman, although
he had only bad words for the Latin race.
An unfavourable circumstance was that students
crowded to his lectures, but instead of subscribing
to them merely attended. "Taking measures
in this direction one spoils one's relations with
the young people," he said; "but Häusser should
not have brought them up this way." It even
he had relied upon he could not cover
his house expenses; but Jolly stepped in and procured
him a considerable additional salary. In
Heidelberg he quickly felt at home, thanks particularly
to his keen love of nature. After a short
stay in another part of the town he moved into a
pleasant flat on the Frïllig Stift, but although deaf
the noise of the main street affected his nerves.
With childish joy he looked at the blooming lilac-trees
in the court, behind which stood a pavilion
bearing an inscription in Greek: "Look for the
contents above," and which Treitschke interpreted
as meaning that liqueurs were kept in the
loft by the clergyman who had constructed it.
Later on we moved, almost at the same time, to
the other side of the Neckar River, and as the
inhabitants belonged to a party the nickname
"The Superfluous-ones" was originated for us.
Treitschke settled on a fairly steep slope of a hill,
which only permitted of an unimportant structure
being built. Furthermore, as the contractor had
erected the house by way of speculation, economy
was exercised everywhere, and on one occasion
the terrace had to be propped to prevent its dropping
into the valley. But there were beautiful
roses at both sides of the building, and, looking
over old chestnut-trees, which screened the highway,
one caught a glimpse of the river. It was
touching to see how happy the young husband
felt in his new, tiny home, in which he was most
be among human beings, although he did not hear
them.
Conversation with him was most peculiar, as,
afraid to unlearn reading the movements of lips,
he did not like people writing what they wished to
convey to him. He completely abstained from
using the hearing-trumpet, having suffered most
terrible pains when everybody pressed forward
to speak into it. Besides, an unsuccessful cure
in Heidelberg had brought about his complete
deafness. It was soon said that he understood
me best, and consequently I was everywhere
placed by his side. The secret consisted, however,
only in my taking the trouble to place in front the
catchword of what I intended to convey, repeating
it by lip-movements until he understood what the
conversation was about, whereupon he easily
guessed the rest, my nodding or shaking the head
assisting the suppositions. All the same, the
pencil had to come to the rescue from time to time.
If then, in the hurry, I wrote a word incorrectly
and tried to alter it, he good-naturedly consoled
me by saying that he burned all the bits of paper;
and upon somebody telling him he had been able
to study a complete conversation from the slips
of paper which Treitschke had left on the table,
he replied: "This was still more indecent than if
you had been eavesdropping." At times I complained
of his supplementing my notes a little too
freely, whereupon he answered: "Such stories can
acting as his secretary in the Senate was a fairly
unpleasant one. When a passionate explosion
followed observations which were not to his liking,
everybody looked furiously at me as if I had pushed
burning tinder into the nostrils of the noble steed,
and yet I had only written verbatim what had
been said. For a time, therefore, I allowed many
a bone of contention to drop underneath the table,
but soon he found it out, and after several unpleasant
discussions with both parties, I requested
one of the younger men of the opposition to relieve
me of my duties. Only when the gentlemen had
convinced themselves that the result remained
the same was I re-appointed. At that time his
finding fault annoyed me, as my sole object was
to avoid a quarrel; but later on I realized how justified
he was in closely watching his writers. When
for the last time he came to us, and when, drinking
his health, I thanked him from the bottom of my
heart for the happy moments his presence in my
house had given, his neighbour noted down nothing
of my speech beyond attacks against the capital
and the Berlin student, whereupon he most indignantly
reproved my South German prejudice.
Fortunately, his wife, sitting opposite, immediately
reported to him by finger signs, whereupon he at
once cordially raised his glass. To take undue
advantage of his affliction was, however, one of
the sins he could not condone, and one had
every reason to be careful in this respect. At
once in the summer the Princess Wied with her
daughter, subsequently Queen of Roumania,
passed through Heidelberg, Treitschke was commanded
to be present as guest at dinner. "Carmen
Sylva," who already at that time took an
active interest in literature, selected him as table-companion;
he, however, not having understood
the seneschal, and thinking his fair neighbour
a maid-of-honour, entertained her politely, but
persistently addressed her as "Mein gnädiges
Fräulein" ("My dear Miss"). His clever and
sacrificing wife never carried on conversation
without at the same time listening whether he
made himself understood with his neighbours, and,
if necessary, rapidly helped by finger-signs, which
she managed like an Italian, while continuing
conversation with her own neighbour in most
charming manner. Her friends knew only too well
how trying this was for her. Fortunately, however,
it usually happened that he remained the
centre of interest, and everybody eagerly listened
to his flow of conversation. When the neighbours
forgot their duties he, visibly depressed, would
look at the surrounding chattering crowd, whose
words he did not hear, and when, after a great
outburst of laughter, he asked the cause of the
hilarity, we often were at a loss to explain to him
the trivial motive. He himself has poetically
described how since the loss of his sense of hearing
nature, like a snow-clad country, had become
with aspiring temperament perceives a wall
between himself and his brothers which will
remain there for ever. To me the most touching
of all his poems is the one in which he relates how
he first became conscious of his deafness after a
neglected, but in itself by no means dangerous,
infantine disease (chicken-pox).
Without this ailment Treitschke would surely
have joined the Army. Some of his relatives
highly disapproved of his desire to become a
private University teacher, and when inquiring
what else there was for him to do in view of his
affliction, a gentleman from Court, related to him,
replied: "Well, why not the stable career"—a
conception regarding the value of teaching which
he never pardoned. Deafness remained the great
sorrow of his life, and through it every enjoyment
was driven away. In a touching moment he
complained on a certain occasion to my wife that
he would never hear the voice of his children.
"They must be so sweet these children's voices!"
And he loved children so! He played and romped
about with his grandchildren; both sides understood
each other capitally, and it sounded strangely
when he who heard no note sang to them whilst
they rode on his knee; but they liked it, applauded
with their little hands, and often they came running
and asking: "Grandpa, please sing to us."
His deafness, however, did not prevent him from
travelling. Since Rudolf Grimm, who had accompanied
duties were too arduous, the deaf man traversed
Europe quite alone. Whilst we were often afraid
that he, when walking of an evening in the highway
and disappearing in the dark, might be run
over by a carriage coming from behind, as had
happened to him in Berlin, from his inability to
hear it, he calmly travelled about in foreign parts
where all means of communication were exceedingly
difficult for him. With the inauguration of the
new shipping service he travelled to England, "in
order to look at this English crew a little closer."
When returning from Spain, which his friends had
considered particularly risky, he, loudly laughing,
entered their wine-bar, and before having taken
off his coat he started to relate: "Well, now, these
Spaniards!" In the same way he had traversed
Holland and France in order to impress historical
localities upon his memory. Considering the
dangers and embarrassments he was exposed to
through his lack of hearing, it will be admitted
that unusual courage was necessary for these
journeys, but he undertook them solely in order
to supplement what had escaped him, through
his deafness, in the tales of others.
The whole historical past of the country being
ever present before his eyes, he, although deaf,
derived more benefit from his travels than people
in full possession of all senses. Just as when passing
the Ehrenberg narrow pass he regretfully
reflected that "Our Maurice" had not caught
in Spanish attire coming round the corner; in
Geneva the oil paintings of Calvin and of his
fellow-artists relate to him old stories; and in
Holland the Mynheers and high and mighties
on every occasion entered into conversation with
him. His clear eyes were of such use to him that
they amply compensated his loss of hearing. But,
however strenuously he resisted, his affliction in
many ways reacted upon his general disposition.
There was something touching in the need for
help of this clever and handsome man, and it
cannot be denied that his amiability was partly
its cause. We also told him that the world benefited
by his retiring disposition, and that he was
spared listening to the many stupidities and
coarsenesses which so often spoilt our good humour.
I firmly believe that being deaf he was able
better to concentrate his thoughts, but the lack
of control in hearing himself and hearing others
speak and express themselves had a detrimental
effect upon him. Sound having become practically
a closed chapter to him whilst he was still a
student, he spoke during the whole of his life in
the manner of students and used the language of
his student days. When once suggesting he should
come an hour sooner to our daily meeting-place
he greatly shocked the wives of counsellors present
by replying: "Da ist ja kein Schwein da" (approximately
meaning, "There won't be a blooming
soul there"). When in the presence of several
the new Saxon Hussar uniform was the nearest
approach to a monkey's jacket, he came very near
to having to fight a duel. Quite good-naturedly,
without wishing to offend anybody, he compared
the looks of a lady-student to a squashed bug.
In Parliament likewise he was on a certain occasion
unexpectedly called to order because he found it
quite natural to speak of the haughtiness of Deputy
Richter as if it were impossible to offend him. It
had to be considered that not hearing himself he
did not hear others speak, and Messrs Caprivi,
Hahnke, Hinzpeter, and Güssfeld, who during the
last years were his favourite targets for criticism,
deserve great praise for putting up with his epigrams—his
bon-mots certainly did not remain
unknown in Berlin. His pulpit expressions also at
times savoured of student slang, so that the worthy
fathers of the University disapprovingly shook
their wise heads. His friends, however, thought he
was ex lege because of his deafness; and he was
unique in that on the one hand he was the best
educated, refined gentleman, with exquisite
manners, yet when aroused he discharged a volley
of invective hardly to be expected from such
aristocratic lips; on the other hand, his sociable
nature found the seclusion due to his deafness very
oppressive. At times as a student in Heidelberg
he had to endure periods of most abject melancholy,
which, however, his strong nature always
succeeded in conquering.
IV.
South Germany and Baden, even after the
campaign of 1866, were a difficult field for Treitschke.
Soon after the war he wrote to Gutschmid
he did not relish returning to Baden as conditions
there were "too awful." Even now this communicative
comrade, who quite impartially considered
the existence of the Small States a nuisance,
had on every occasion to come into conflict with
the Model State. He hated the system of Small
States just because it diverted patriotism, the
noblest human instinct, in favour of unworthy
trifles. Politics were for him a part of ethics and
the unity of Germany a moral claim. Particularists
were therefore to him beings of morally inferior
value. Only hesitatingly he admitted that the
Badenese since 1866 had begun to mend their
ways. "It is true," he wrote to Freytag, "that
the conversion has made considerable progress,
but it is noticeable more in the minds of the people
than in their hearts." Nobody in the whole of
Baden was, however, in favour of mediatization
of the Small States, which he, in his Freiburg Essay
entitled Confederation and Single State, had
plainly demanded. The aim of the Single State
to render conditions uniform is not our ideal to-day.
We are quite content that the University of Leipzig
should stand by the side of that of Berlin, that
the traditions of Potsdam and Sans Souci should
be preserved in the same way as those of Weimar
should be appreciated as much as that of Berlin.
How many professors are there who would desire
to see all German Universities under the same
inspectorate as the Prussian ones? Unity as far
as the outside world is concerned, variety internally,
is our ideal, to which Treitschke likewise
became reconciled after hearing that the Army and
external politics would not be affected by internal
polyarchy. Bismarck's temperate words to
Jolly, "If I include Bavaria in the Empire I must
make such arrangements as to make the people
feel happy in it," contain more political wisdom
than Treitschke's gay prescription: Der Bien muss.
Compared with the errors of our ingenious friend,
Bismarck's "political eye" and his infallible judgment
of values and realities can be appreciated in
its true light; under a weak Regent, Unitarian
Germany would have become a new Poland, under
a violent one a second Russia.
It, however, redounds to Treitschke's honour
that one by one he renounced his first ideals, such
as destruction of the Small States, Single State,
Parliamentarism, humiliation of Austria, and free
trade, subsequent to his having found in Bismarck
his political superior. When Bismarck's dismissal
taught him that in Prussia political impossibilities
do not exist either, his eyes were opened to a good
many other matters. Henceforth no complaint
could be lodged against him regarding adoration
of the Crown; rather the reverse was the case.
little country), but all the same he apparently did
not like to hear from us that our Grand Duchy
comprised more square miles than his Kingdom of
Saxony. He strictly adhered to his dogma of the
Rhine Convention, tendencies to Napoleonic
kingdoms—nay, he even attributed to them aims
of aggrandizement. "What people thought of
1866"—so he relates in his essay on the Constitutional
Kingdom—"becomes apparent from the
painful exclamation of a well-meaning Prince to the
effect: `What a pity we were at that time not on
Prussia's side, as we also should then have enlarged
our territory.' " But as formerly in Freiburg,
so here, he misunderstood the population.
The fact that the developments in the summer of
1870 appeared to him like outpourings of the Holy
Ghost only proves that the deaf man never understood
the ways of our Palatines. Favourable
disposition towards the Rhine Convention, which
he suspected everywhere, was only to be found in
the elegant Ultramontane circles in which he
moved, and in the democratic journals which he
for his own journalistic purposes read more than
other people. It proved perhaps more correct
when he wrote, "The South Germans quietly
aspire to the Main with the reservation, however,
to revile it in their journals."
Bismarck did not as yet enjoy general confidence,
but had he wanted Baden the Chamber would not
have refused. The factions in the town caused him
political journals: the Heidelberg Journal and the
Heidelberg Zeitung, which were both Liberal and
had accomplished all that in a small town could
be reasonably expected of them. On this subject
he sketched, in his essay entitled Parties and
Factions (1871), the following pleasant picture:
"Who is not aware of how in towns of Central
Germany two journals side by side eke out a bare
and miserable existence, both belonging to the
same party, yet, for the sake of their valued
clientèle, constantly fighting like cats? Who does
not know these journals of librarians outside whose
door the editor stands on duty, a polite host,
deferentially asking what the honourable public
desires to partake of? Tre fratelli tre castelli still
applies to our average press."
Filled by the desire to continue the worthy
labours of the year 1866 he enthusiastically adopted
Mathy's idea to include Baden in the North
German Convention, and thought it unkind that
Bismarck failed to honour Mathy's memorandum
on the subject with a reply. If Prussia should not
carry out her plans he was afraid the Pan-Germans
in Baden would again become masters of the situation,
and he added: "If Bavaria, Würtemberg,
and Baden should go with Austria, even the
European situation will assume a different physiognomy."
All the same, he was at that time too
closely in touch with Bismarck to advocate too
strongly the Mathy plan in the Annuals. Treitschke
Bill of February, 1871, Lasker acting
as attorney for the Badenese Government, which
he was not, and surprising Bismarck with his
proposal without having first consulted him.
Mathy's death on February 4, 1868, affected
Treitschke all the more as Mathy had influenced
him considerably in his decision to gain for a second
time a footing in Baden. Besides, Treitschke
warmly remembered Mathy's beautiful trait in
assisting younger men whom he considered promising.
"You belong to the few," Freytag admitted
to him, "who have fully grasped Mathy's love and
faith." It was, however, not only Mathy's sweetness
of character which he had detected beneath
the caustic ways of the old Ulysses, but also his
political reliability. "I still cannot get over it,"
he mournfully wrote to Freytag; "among all the
old gentlemen of my acquaintance he was to me
the dearest and the one deserving of greatest
respect." "The real Badenese," he said in
another letter, "never really cared for their first
politician, and your book again shows clearly the
sin for which Mathy never will be pardoned—
character." Another letter to the same friend
in August, 1868, runs as follows: "Here in the
South the disintegration of order continues. The
recent Constitutional Festival has vividly reminded
me of our never-to-be-forgotten Mathy.
How the world has changed in twenty-five years
since Mathy organized the last Badenese Constitutional
in this particularist magnificence has to-day completely
disappeared. The festival was an ostensible
failure, a forced and feigned demonstration.
The Ultramontanes kept aloof because they hated
Jolly and Beyer, and the Nationalists who participated
for that reason openly admitted that they
had longed for the happy end of the old man."
His depreciative opinion of the conditions in Baden
finally developed into slight when a few weeks
after the Constitutional Festival the ministerial
candidates Bluntschli, Lamey, and Keifer, who
had gone over on the formation of the new Ministry,
attempted to overthrow the Ministry favourably
disposed towards Prussia by convoking the
Liberal deputies at Offenburg. In the Prussian
Annuals he now called upon his North German
friends in disdainful terms to study the pamphlet
of these gentlemen against Jolly, in order to gain a
somewhat more correct idea of the political state
of affairs in Baden. In his opinion it was a sort of
"Züriputsch" arranged by the Swiss gentlemen,
Bluntschli, Schenkel, and Renaud. It might have
applied as far as Heidelberg was concerned, but
the country was really attached to Lamey, whose
name was tied up with the fall of the Concordat,
and whose canon laws of 1860, making a Catholic
country of Baden, were at that time praised by all
of us as the corner-stone of liberty and political
wisdom. Treitschke's only answer to Bluntschli's
agitation for energetic revision of the Constitution
until Prussia would absorb the whole. The attempt
to overthrow the Ministry failed as the
Regent had been left out of account. In Heidelberg,
Treitschke, at an assembly of citizens, took
up the cudgels for Jolly, and was principally
opposed by Schenkel, who declared that he would
not allow himself to be threatened by the sword of
Herr von Beyer. Surprised, Bluntschli, however,
wrote in his diary that the citizens applauded
Treitschke, who spoke for Jolly, no less than
Schenkel, who spoke against him. When the
whole question was brought before a second and
very largely-frequented assembly of the Liberal
Party in Offenburg, Bluntschli made Goldschmidt
and Treitschke's other friends promise that
Treitschke should abstain from speaking as he
would upset all peace proposals. The latter, however,
immediately declared he could not be forced to
maintain silence. At least a thousand men congregated
from all parts of the country, more than
the big hall "Zum Salmen" was capable of holding.
Eckard, subsequently Manheim bank manager,
sat in the chair; on the part of the Fronde, Kieper,
instructed by Jolly, spoke, and for Jolly, Kusel
from Karlsruhe addressed the meeting. Treitschke
as a Prussian allowed the Badenese to speak first,
and only towards the finish did he ascend the platform.
A contributor of the Taglische Rundschau
gave the following account: "The meeting had
lasted for a considerable time, and the audience,
heavy, hot air, was tired, when a person unknown
to us started speaking. His delivery was slow and
hesitating, with a peculiar guttural sound, and his
intonation was monotonous. Citizens and peasants
amongst whom I stood looked at each other
astonished and indignant. Who was this apparently
not very happy speaker who dared to claim
the patience of the assembly? We were told it
was Professor Treitschke of Heidelberg. At first
ill-humoured, but soon with growing interest, we
followed his speech, which gradually became more
animated. The power and depth of thoughts the
compelling logic proofs adduced, the clearness and
force of language, and above all the fire of patriotism,
all this captivated the listeners and carried
them irresistibly away. The outward deficiencies
of the lecturer were now unobserved; attentively
with breathless excitement, these simple people
listened to the orator, who spoke with the force of
the holiest conviction; and when finishing with
the exhortation to set aside all separating barriers
for the sake of the country, a real hurricane of
enthusiasm broke forth. The audience crowded
round the speaker and cheered him; he was lifted
by strong arms amid ceaseless enthusiasm. It was
the climax of the day. Never since have I witnessed
a similar triumph of eloquence."
He had appealed particularly to the peasants
present by his outspoken and simple words.
Schenkel likewise was disarmed. Heidelberg
had contested Treitschke's speech in favour of
Jolly, immediately afterwards advanced towards
the platform in order to speak, but Treitschke's
utterances had rendered unnecessary a rejoinder.
When, on the other hand, I asked Treitschke after
his return whether in his opinion peace would be a
lasting one, he replied: "Oh, Lord, no! the lack
of character is much too great." In a still more
disdainful manner and full of passionate exasperation
against Bluntschli he wrote to Freytag:
"Jolly understands very well how to assert himself
here; daily he cuts a piece off the big Liberal list
of wishes, but immediately a new one grows beneath.
Where is this to lead? Moreover, there
are blackguards like this miserable Bluntschli at
the head of the patriots! Nokk, my brother-in-law,
who is well able to judge the situation, has
long ago despaired of a peaceful solution."
In January, 1870, whilst staying at Heidelberg,
and shortly before the outbreak of war, the second
collection of historic political essays was published.
The editor's intention was to publish them before
Christmas, but Treitschke delayed matters. "I
hate everything suggestive of business," he told
me, "and I don't want to belong to the Christmas
authors." He was also averse to editions in parts.
The essay on Cavour, which shortly afterwards
appeared translated in Italian, brought him the
Italian Commander Cross—a necklace, as his wife
said. When one of his friends had fallen in disgrace
Zeitung attributed to him, Treitschke said: "If
the man wants to carry a chamberlain's key and
six decorations, he might as well have the muzzle
belonging to it"; and when asking him whether
this also applied to him, he replied: "No, but I
have not been asking for it." This volume of
historic essays contained the treatise on the Republic
of the Netherlands—full of sparkling descriptions
of Holland and her national life, which
proved that not in vain had he brought his Briefje
van de uuren van hat vertrekk, i. e. his railway booklet
for the land of the frogs and the ducats. Particularly
weighty, however, was his essay on
French Constitution and Bonapartism, in which
he proved that Bonapartism had revived, thanks
to the Napoleonic fundaments of State having
remained, a circumstance which even after the
fall of Napoleon III, and in spite of all their defeats,
made him believe in the return of the Bonapartes.
His essay On the Constitutional Kingdom,
forming part of this collection, and containing
views on the wretchedness of Small State Court
life; on the poverty of thought and the rudeness
of the South German Press; on the South German's
respectful awe of the deeds of Napoleon, the
national arch-enemy; and on the bustling vanity
of Church authorities, could not create a great
impression after his previous and much stronger
dissertations. He himself was dejected owing to
the scantiness of enthusiasm aroused by his persistent
power," to upset the Napoleonic crowns and to
continue the laudable efforts of 1866. Some friends
likened his situation to that of Börne, who is the
object of criticism in one of the essays, and who,
in his Paris letters, always predicted anew the
revolution which always failed to materialize. By
Napoleon's declaration of war "this sturdy century"
took the last stride towards its goal.
Being a border power, Baden naturally feared
the war which Treitschke was pining for. At that
time already his mind was clear as to the weakness
of the Empire, and the profligate stupidity of the
French people. Being constantly in touch with
Berlin he was better informed regarding certain
developments than we were. When speaking to
him for the first time after the declaration of war
he solemnly said: "I think of the humiliation we
escaped! If Bismarck had not drawn up so
cleverly the telegram on the Benedetti affair the
King would have yielded again." At the general
drinking bout improvised by the students prior
to going to the front or to barracks, Treitschke
was received as if he had been the commander-in-chief,
and he certainly was on that evening. The
speech of Pro-Rector Bluntschli, opening the ball,
had a decidedly sobering effect. He pointed out
how many a young life would come to an early end,
how many a handsome fortune would be lost, how
many a house and village would be burned to ashes,
etc. The speech was written down, and when
Schwizer" ("He is, after all, only a Swiss").
Capital words by Zeller followed: "We have
heard the crowing of the Gallic cock, and the
roaring of Mars; but there is only one to tame wild
Ares, and that is Pallas Athene, the Goddess of
Clever Strategy, and upon her we rely." When,
subsequently, Treitschke rose, applause and acclamations
prevented him for some time from
making himself heard. His speech expressed joy
at the events happening in our lifetime, and exhortations
to prove as worthy as the fighters of
1813. Ideas and colour of speech were as countless
as the bubbles in a glass of champagne, but
they intoxicated. His magnificent peroration
terminated approximately in the following manner:
"Fichte dismissed German youth to the Holy
War with the motto, `Win or die'; but we say,
`Win at any price!' " Already he had received a
more cordial reception than anyone, but now
hundreds rushed forward with raised glasses eager
to drink his health. The shouts of enthusiasm
threatened the safety of floor and ceiling. As one
crowd receded, so another surged round him, just
as waves beget waves. I have seen many teachers
honoured under similar circumstances, all with a
smile of flattered vanity on their lips, but never
had homage assumed such proportions. Treitschke's
face showed outspoken joy at these warmhearted
young people, who surely would not fail
to give a good account of themselves, and it was
winter he had to give lectures to those who had
not joined the ranks. He was, however, deeply
moved at the nation having risen as one man, and
he apologized for all the unkind words he had
uttered previously. Later on, he wrote: "During
those days in Germany it seemed as if humanity
had improved." The song on the Prussian eagle,
which from Hohenzollern flew towards the north
and now returns southwards—a subject inspired
by Baumgarten— is a beautiful memento of his
elated feelings at that time.
During the ensuing period he led a surprisingly
retired life, and we heard only that he was writing.
When meeting him shortly before the days of
Saarbruck, he looked pale and excited. "What a
long time it takes," he said, "for such great armies
to be brought together! The tension is almost unbearable."
He was visibly ill with excitement.
When the days of Wörth and Spichern had happily
passed, we met at the Museum to study the telegrams
which arrived hourly. He, however, failed
to turn up, and it was said he was writing. There
was a good deal of simulated activity about, but
for him there was nothing in particular to do. At
last his excellent essay, What We Demand of France,
saw the light of day, and at the same time it
appeared in the Prussian Annuals. Now it was
evident what he had been doing in seclusion.
Everybody was amazed at the mass of detail
collected during the short interval, in order to
character of Alsace. Of almost every little town
he knew a story by which it became intertwined
with the German past. There was Alsatian local
tradition galore in the book, as if he at all times had
lived with these people. To his mind the fact that
the Alsatians at the time would not hear of Germany
did not make them French. "The mind of
a nation is not formed by contemporary generations
only, but by those following." Erwin von
Steinbach and Sebastian Brandt, also, were of
some account, and, after reviewing the German
past of the country, he asks: "Is this millennium,
rich in German history, to be wiped out by two
centuries of French supremacy?" In regard to
the future of Alsace he was from the first convinced
it would have to become a Prussian province, as
Prussian administration alone possessed the power
to rapidly assimilate it. Only when convinced of
the realization of Unitarian ideas a Prussian, as he
now always called himself, could desire to see a
frontier of Prussia extending from Aachen to Mulhouse.
To make out of Alsace an independent
State, enjoying European guarantee of neutrality,
as proposed by Roggenbach in the Reichsrath,
would have meant creating a new Belgium on our
south-west coast, in which the Catholic Church
would have been the only reality, and Treitschke,
in his essay of 1870, replied thereto by referring to
the "disgusting aspect of the nation Luxemburgoise,"
although in the Annuals he ostensibly spared
us attach Alsace to the Rhine Province," he said;
"we shall then have a dozen more opposition votes
in Parliament, and what does that matter? The
rest you leave to Prussian administration."
Neither we nor he could foresee that in thirty
years it would not achieve more; but he did not
fail to point out that the only cause of the failure
was the creation of the "Reichsland," a hybrid
which was neither fish nor flesh. He, however,
shared Freytag's aversion for the title of Emperor,
which, in his opinion, bore too much of black, red,
gold, and Bonapartist reminiscences. Both wished
for a German King; but finally Bluntschli's common-sense
prevailed, he having suggested, "The
peasant knows that an Emperor is more than a
King, and for that reason the Chief of an Empire
must be called Emperor; besides, it will be better
for the three Kings; they will then know it, too,"
saying which the stout Swiss laughed heartily.
On the other hand, Treitschke never became
reconciled to Bavaria's reserved rights. He spoke
of a new treaty of Ried, similar to that which, in
1813, guaranteed sovereignty to Bavaria, and
expressed anger at the weakly Constitution which
reverted again to federalism. With malicious joy
he reported that the former Pan-Austrian fogy,
when examining students for the degree of Doctor
of Law, now always questioned on Bavarian reserved
rights. The whole arrangement with
Bavaria and Würtemberg appeared to him "like
with his magnanimous Prussia, which compelled
him to adjourn his Unitarian plans ad Grœcas
calendas."
It is also peculiar to what a small extent he
shared in the triumphant tone displayed everywhere
after the war. Sybel's essay, What We might
Learn of France, had his full approval. He was
disgusted with the way the journalists in the newspapers,
the teacher in the chair, and the clergyman
in the pulpit gave vent to their patriotic effusions.
In his letters he likewise spoke slightingly of
the modern customary orations regarding German
virtue and French vice. The more he disliked
the remnants of particularism in the new Constitution,
the less he was disposed to admire the
Germans, who, in his opinion, had forfeited the
greatest reward of great times by their own individualism.
This it was which distinguished him
from the ordinary Chauvinist, and only too well he
realized in how many things the nation, in spite of
all successes, had remained behind his ideals.
Nobody, however, has given more beautiful
expression to the deep and serious thoughts with
which we celebrated peace in 1871. Like a prayerbook
we read the essay in the Annuals, in which he
opened his heart. He himself had lost his only
brother at Gravelotte, my wife hers at La Chartre.
The Prussian nobility was in mourning; he, however,
consoled us: "May common grief still more
than great successes unite our people formerly at
shouts of victory, long remain the deep lines of
grief. Who will count the tears which have been
shed around the Christmas-tree? Who has seen
the hundred thousand grieved hearts from the
Alps to the sea, who, like a big, devout community,
have pinned their faith again to the splendour of
the Fatherland?" Actuated by the same sentiments,
I had preached, shortly before, in the
Church of the Holy Spirit, on "Blessed are ye who
have suffered," and therefore could doubly appreciate
his efforts to touch the people's innermost
feelings. His words have never been forgotten.
V.
The few years which Treitschke spent in Heidelberg
after the war were, as he himself admitted,
the happiest of his life. His tiny house, overlooking
the Neckar and Rhine Valley, was for him a
constant source of joy, and proudly he would take
his visitors to the top of the vineyard, from which
the Speyer Dom and Donner Mountain, near
Worms, were visible. Immediately adjacent to
his property excavations had been made in times
gone by, and even now bricks and fragments of
pottery, bearing the stamp of the Roman Legation
were to be found. Thus he had historical ground
even under his feet. When, occasionally, on my
return from a visit about midnight, I still saw
lights in his study, I could not refrain from thinking
of night most propitious for his creations. It
would be a mistaken idea to think that Treitschke,
vivaciously as he lectured, wrote his works without
exhaustive preparations. He just served as a
proof that genius and industry go hand-in-hand.
Thanks to his iron constitution, he could work
until two o'clock in the morning, yet be gay and
full of life the following day. Surrounded by his
small crowd of children—two girls and a boy—and
with his elegant and slim-looking wife by his side,
he felt truly happy. It was a thoroughly aristocratic
and harmonious home, which in every detail
betrayed the gentle and tasteful hand of his spouse.
There was something distinctly humorous in his
peculiar ways, which made the visitor feel at home.
Above all, he was completely unaware of the noise
he made. Baumgarten, who was nervous, and
worked with him in the Archives, declared that
not only was the throwing of books and constant
moving of his chair unbearable, but also his uncontrollable
temper. On one occasion, Treitschke
took up the register he had been studying, and
jumping about the room on one leg, shouted,
"Aegidi, Aegidi!" It appeared that in the Ambassador's
Report of the Prussian Diet of 1847
he had found a memorial of his friend Aegidi stud.
juris in Heidelberg, which the Ambassador had
communicated to Berlin with a view to showing
the present spirit of German students, and which
started with the following declaration: "Like the
I, a German youth, come before the noble Diet
in order to give proof of the patriotic wishes
agitating youth." Similar humorous outbursts
of his temperament occurred, of course, at home
as well. He at times experienced difficulties with
his toilette. The ladies, then, had to manipulate
him into a corner to adjust his tie or collar. In
Scheveningen, where he occupied a room next his
family, he once rushed out on the general balcony
when unable to manipulate a button, shouting,
"Help! help!" so that the phlegmatic Dutch
neighbours looked out of the windows, thinking a
great misfortune had happened. The importunity
with which some people asked for autographs, and
others for copies of his books, his photograph, or a
memento of some kind, provided his keen sense of
propriety with excellent material for displaying
originality. All this, however, was done in such a
humorous fashion that his company proved most
amusing. He behaved towards his students with
strictness, although he was gay enough when
addressing them from the chair. They idolized
him, but at all times he kept them at a distance.
When the University filled again for the winter
term, 1871-1872, Treitschke had gained among the
students a position second to none. His lectures
on modern history, politics, and the Reformation,
were crowded, and his descriptive powers always
thrilled his audience. Häusser's force had been
in his irony; with Treitschke, humour and pathos
listeners of more matured age admitted that they
had never heard anything that could be compared
with his natural elementary eloquence. Unable to
hear the clock strike, he had arranged with those
sitting in front to make a sign at a given hour;
but, as nobody wished him to discontinue, he often
unduly prolonged his lectures. Now and then
ladies turned up. At first he informed them by
letter that he could not permit their presence,
but when they persisted in coming he told the
porter to refuse them entrance, and angrily added
his intention of putting up a notice similar to
those in front of anatomical theatres: "For
gentlemen only!" When meeting his colleagues
he never even hinted at the striking success he
scored with his audience. His disposition was
anything but over-confident, and he associated
just as cordially with those whose academic
failures were notorious—provided he appreciated
them otherwise—as with the past-masters, whose
level was as high as his own. He never referred
at all to the demonstrations which students made
in his favour. In the choice of his friends, as well
as in the choice of his enemies, he was aristocratic,
but vain he was not. Enthusiastic patriotism was
the keynote of his life, and this explains its æsthetics.
A sensitive admirer of nature, appreciating as
keenly as anybody the lovely scenery of the ruins
of Heidelberg Castle, he nevertheless favoured
the re-building of the same, obsessed by the idea
King. His literary opinions could easily be gauged
as his compass always pointed towards Prussia.
When he invited us to an evening, we knew beforehand
we should read the Prince of Homburg, or
some similar work. This explains also his predilection
for Kleist, and for Uhland, the patriot.
Of Hebbel's works—he was about to prepare an
analysis of them in a new form for publication in
the essays—the Nibelungs were his favourite.
Did he not himself bear resemblance to Siegfried,
who plans to chain up the perfidious Danish Kings
outside the gate, where, as they had behaved like
dogs, they were to bark on his arrival and departure?
This was quite his style of thinking,
just as at the Théâtre Français my travelling
companion, when listening to the patriotic ravings
of Ernani, the highwayman, whispered to me:
"Exactly like Treitschke!" Not only The Trousers
of Herr von Bredow, of which he knew considerable
parts by heart, but Brandenburg poetry
in general, gave him great pleasure. He even
shielded Hesekiel and Scherenberg against attacks;
and the scruples of learned men respecting Freytag's
Ingo and Ingraban were suppressed by him.
Turbulent men were to his liking; the criticisms
of German Law History and of the Spruner Atlas
regarding these descriptions had, to his mind,
nothing to do with poetry. Whatever met with
the approval of his patriotism could be sure of his
appreciation. My first two novels met with a very
pseudonym, "George Taylor," quite different
authors had been suspected. No sooner, however,
had the wise men from the East discovered
that a theologian had been the author than, on
the appearance of the third novel, entitled Jetta,
they vented their rage at having been deceived.
Treitschke, however declared Jetta to be the best
of the three books. He liked the Alemans for the
thrashing they had given the Romans, and that
settled the matter as far as he was concerned.
The way the learned fraternity censured Hermann
Grimm appeared stupid to him, like school pedantry.
He realized as well as anybody else the defects
and mistakes, but he called it childish spite
to take to task such an ingenious author for all
sorts of blunders and amateurish trivialities when
he had original views, and had created a picture of
culture such as the life of Michelangelo. In the
same way he stood up for living and not for dead
writers, in spite of the opposition of the learned
fraternity; but he did not, however, defend their
superficiality or phrase-making.
The great literary post-bellum events were The
Old and the New Faith, by Strauss, and the revival
of Schopenhauer pessimism by Hartmann and
Nietzsche, books which—albeit different in form,
yet related in their fundamental views of the
world—appeared to Treitschke, in view of the
melancholy tone adopted, like an inexplicable
phenomenon. How could anybody be a pessimist
to be alive? Of Hartmann he said: "This is the
philosophy of the Berliner when suffering from
phthisis." With olympic roars of laughter he
derided, over a glass of beer, Hartmann's sentimentality
and his many discussions whether the
feelings of pleasure or displeasure predominate
in human nature. After all, Hartmann had left
us the consolation of Nirvana; but Nietzsche, by
his revival theory, deprived us of the consoling
thought of peacefulness after death. Nietzsche's
first essay on the origin of tragedy had met with
Treitschke's approval. Was he not himself to
adopt the Nietzschean phrase of "a dithyrambic
disposition"? and, to him, Socratic natures were
likewise unsympathetic. In his criticism on
Strauss he gave proof of his aversion to Socratic
dispositions, an aversion which he shared with
Nietzsche. He was the only one of our circle who
defended Nietzsche's essay and criticized Strauss's
Old and New Faith. He would not admit the
merits of a book which represents the materialistic
theory in transparent clearness, and thereby
brings defects to light which cannot be overlooked.
He simply went by results. A book, which as far
as we, the enlightened ones, were concerned,
sought a last consolation in music, had to be somewhat
disagreeable to him, deaf as he was. But he
would not even admit Strauss's beauty of style.
"Beautiful style by itself does not exist," he said.
"A style is beautiful when the writer is represented
and temperament of the author. With Lessing, I
admire the clear statements, because they are
natural to this clear dialectician; but with Strauss
they do not belong to the man, as with Lessing,
but to the essay." Strauss's style just lacked the
personal element. If Strauss, on the other hand,
found Treitschke's style indigestible, the contrast
is thereby quite correctly characteristic. While
patriotic pathos dominated the one, the other one
was, throughout, reflective and logical; that is
to say, the one was a dithyramb and the other
one a Socratic nature. I could not always share
Treitschke's clearly formed opinions, but we were
all grateful to him for the interest with which he
invested conversation, and for his ability to maintain
it. His own activity was that of an artist as
well as that of a scientist. Impressions of his
travels through all the valleys of Germany, poetry,
newspaper extracts, conversations and humorous
stories of friends, were always at his command, and
these, combined with accurate studies from the
Archives and information verbally received, enabled
him to shape his work. Considering his
system of gathering information, it was inevitable
that occasionally he was provided with unauthentic
news, for, as soon as conversation arose on a
subject useful to him, his pocket-book appeared,
and he asked to have the story put down. When
I once wrote for him that, at the outbreak of the
Army mutiny in Karlsruhe, a picture of Grand
with the verse:
Du Leopold kannst ruhig thronen.
Dein Volk verlasst Dich nicht
Thou, O Leopold, mayest safely reign.
Thy people will not forsake thee),
and said, "This will appear in the sixth volume";
but it never saw the light of day. I personally
could vouch for the correctness of my story, but
how easy it was to obtain wrong information under
these circumstances, and, as a matter of fact, all
sorts of protests against his anecdotes were raised
after each publication. It is notorious how circumstantially
he subsequently had to explain or
contradict the story of the silver spoon of Prince
Wrede, the Red Order of the Eagle of Privy Councillor
Schmalz, and many other things, and much
more frequently still he promised correction in the
subsequent edition to those who had lodged complaints.
We were very much annoyed at the injustice
with which he, in the fifth volume, characterized
the Grand Duke Leopold, who was exceedingly
conscientious and benevolent. When attacking
him for it in our domestic circle, he declared that
every petty State had its idol, and that we ought
to break ourselves of it as others had done.
Treitschke's tales from the Reichstag provided
a rich source of amusement. When entering
Parliament, in 1871, all friends were of opinion
the deaf man would not stand it long, and his
enemies mockingly remarked: "It is right he
should be there." But the canvassing tour in
itself proved a great recreation for him, and if he
had achieved nothing beyond the strengthening,
by his fiery speeches, of the German sentiment of
people on the Hunsrück and in the Nahe Valley,
this gain alone was worth the trouble. His efficiency
in Berlin exceeded all expectations. He
sat next to the shorthand writers, and after having
grasped their system of abbreviations, he followed
the speeches, and thus was often better informed
than those who sneered at the deaf deputy. It
was more difficult for him to attend at Committee
sittings, but his friend Wehrenpfennig kept him
informed as far as possible. As all parties decided
in committee how to vote, Treitschke's speeches
in plenum really were of value for the public only,
but the reputation of the Reichsrath certainly was
considerably enhanced by the fact that people who
liked reading the parliamentary proceedings were
able to find the speeches reproduced in the newspapers.
The orations of "the deaf man who had
no business in Parliament" are, with the exception
of Bismarck's, after all, the only ones which, after
his death, have been edited in book form from the
protocols, and even to-day they are a source of
political information and patriotic elevation. It
Heidelberg heard that Treitschke had delivered
his maiden speech in the Reichstag, and great was
our joy when we read that in this first speech he
had vehemently attacked the Ultramontanes.
Deputy Reichensperger moved that, with a
view to safeguarding the liberty of the Press,
Unions and the Church Articles III-V of the Frankfort
fundamental laws should be incorporated
in the Constitution of the Empire. Treitschke
started by declaring that the nation's hope of a
temporary continuance, at any rate in Parliament,
of the noble spirit of unanimity which, during the
war, had raised Germany above other nations,
had been defeated by the Ultramontanes. At the
beginning of the German Reichstag, we have
heard the Empire of the Papal King, the Republic
of Poland, and the Empire of the Guelfs discussed,
while I had hoped we should now have firmly established
progress in our territory, and would look
hopefully towards the future. It is impossible to
believe that the great question of State and Church
could be solved by a four-line sentence. In order
to bring about the Constitution every party was
obliged to make sacrifices. The disturbers of the
peace are now exactly those gentlemen who always
assert that they are the oppressed minority. Now,
gentlemen, if this were true, I must say that they
endured their oppression with a very small
measure of Christian patience. If fundamental
laws should become incorporated with the New
and his associates forgotten the principal
ones? The article is lacking; "science and its dogma
are free," a principle the adoption of which
would be highly beneficial to the Catholic Theologic
Faculties. Why is the definition lacking
respecting civil marriage law? In this way he
ruthlessly tore off the opponents' masks, as if they
had aimed at liberty. When Bishop Kettler had
uttered a warning to speak a little more modestly,
and with less confidence of the future of an Empire
which had as yet to be founded, Treitschke ironically
pointed to the great progress made considering
that Kettler no longer sat in Parliament as
Bishop of Mayence, but owed his seat to the
poll of an electoral district. If the movers of
the bill were to point out they demanded nothing
beyond what the Prussian Constitution had taken
over long before from the Frankfort Constitution,
they betrayed thereby their intention to give the
Bishops in this article the possibility of scoffing
at the laws of the country by appealing to the law
of the Empire. In Baden they had undergone too
many experiences in this respect to be deceived
any longer. But the German nation is sensible and
honest enough to understand that these poor
articles are not fundamental laws, but aim at
procuring, by a side-issue, an independent position
for the Catholic Church as regards the State. He
therefore thought he did no injustice to the
movers of the bill when he expressed the belief that
addition to their proposal, but that their real intention
was directed to the independence of the
Catholic Church. The defeat of the Ultramontanes
was as complete as possible, and there existed
no other more pressing matter for which
Treitschke could have acted as champion on behalf
of Baden. In parliamentary matters he was now,
likewise, recognized as the worthy successor of
Häusser. The general belief that Treitschke owed
his great success to mannerism was dispelled by
his speeches in the Reichstag. It was not rhetoric
or pathos which scored, but the force of conviction.
He spoke better than others because he had
grasped the thought of liberty, and of nationality,
with more ardour than they had. To him more
than to any other speaker the words of Cato
senior applied: "Keep firmly in mind the subject
and the words will follow."
In a further speech on the law on July 9, 1871,
he woefully surrendered his ideal to see Alsace
Lothing a province of Germany, but all the more
energetically he opposed the desire of a party,
supported by Roggenbach, to form Alsace into a
State. If it was not to become part of the Prussian
State it should, at least, be a province of the German
Empire, reigned over by the Emperor, and
not become a new Small State. The Alsatian
public servants should frequently be transferred,
even to Schwelm, and to Stallupönen, so that they
should get to know Germany. Neither was he in
"Such a prince makes the worst public servant,
because he is obliged to act as if his house were a
Court. The elements of Society which could be
attracted by these countless gewgaws are such
that I, at any rate, would with pleasure dispense
with their support." Neither in Strasburg nor
in Heidelberg or Berlin did this particular speech
meet with great approbation, but who will assert
to-day that he was wrong? All the more approved
was his speech of November 2, 1871, in
which he demanded the intervention of the Empire
to procure for Mecklenburg the privileges of the
Estates of the Realm. A great impression was
produced when he pointed out that, of half a
million inhabitants, no less than 60,000 people had
emigrated within the last fifteen years from this
little country richly blessed by nature. In his
indignation he ever adopted a tone which, hitherto,
one was wont to hear only at democratic meetings.
He pointed out that conditions in Mecklenburg
had become the butt of humour. "It is dangerous
when the patient German people begin to sneer.
That scornful laughter over the old German Diet
and the King of the Guelfs carried on for many
years has led to very serious consequences; it has
brought about the well-known end of all things.
The star of unity is in the ascendant. Woe betide
the State which wilfully secludes itself from this
mighty and irresistible impulse; sooner or later the
catastrophe will overtake it." In the same way as
in Parliament, so they found an enthusiastic
echo in our circle; and equally great was his
success when he supported the supplementing of
the Penal Code by the so-called Pulpit Paragraph,
by which he again told the bitter truth to the
Ultramontanes. For the last time before prorogation
of Parliament he spoke on November 29, 1871,
when the progressive party renewed the old
controversy on parliamentary co-operation regarding
Army Estimates. Treitschke was strongly in
favour of the War Minister's views; he availed
himself, however, of this occasion to attack
strongly von Mühler, the Minister of Public Instruction,
and when called to order by the Conservatives
he replied: "See that a capable man is
appointed at the head of the Ministry of Public
Instruction who bestows only the tenth part of
that energy which the Minister for War is in the
habit of bestowing upon his department; you will
then have practical experience that one thing can
be done, and that another cannot be left undone."
On the whole, the Baden Deputies returned from
Berlin in a very dejected mood. Of Bluntschli,
the Berlin newspapers had written that his delivery
gave the impression he was dictating his speeches.
He had remained obscure—that he knew; but
consoled himself with the thought that it took
time to find the tone for such a big assembly. Of
Roggenbach, who, with all his brilliant conversational
gifts, completely lacked oratorical powers,
member of the Reichstag, said: "If this is your
most brilliant statesman I should like to come
across your most stupid one." In the same way
the others returned like a beaten army, for not the
remotest comparison existed between the part
played by them in Berlin and the one played by
them in Karlsruhe at the Municipal Hall. Only
one appeared with laurels, and this one was
Treitschke, who had saved our reputation. He
was also welcomed home as heartily as possible;
although Baumgarten said at the time, in a morose
tone, that Treitschke never considered a law proposal
favourably unless he had delivered a speech
on it. The Ultramontanes, however, considered
the game unevenly matched. While he overwhelmed
them with the strongest expressions, they
could not hit back because he did not hear them.
In an identical fashion the second session, 18731874,
passed, which Treitschke still attended from
Heidelberg, and the "round table" applauded his
brilliant passages of arms. Many of his winged
words have survived to the present day, as, for
instance, his explanation of the request of German
issuing banks for paper (money) "based on a
deeply founded desire in human nature"; or
"making debts without getting interest on them";
or his sneering remarks about the predilection of
South Germans for Bavarian military helmets and
dirty florin notes. His patriotism again rose to its
full height when discussions on the septennate took
the Black Forest had falsely told the constituents
that "septennate" meant serving for seven
successive years, complained in Parliament that
they were called the enemies of the Empire, he
referred to their behaviour, and for simplicity's
sake began with the Pope.
"Who was it who expressed the devout Christian
wish that a little stone might fall from heaven
to shatter the feet of the German Colossus? Those
who consider the author of this ingenious pronouncement
infallible would only have confessed
publicly to this wish after Germany had lost a
battle, and which God forbid. Meanwhile, Prussia
was the little stone which had opened the doors
of the Eternal City to united and free Italy, and at
the same time had annihilated the most sinful
Small State of that part of the globe. In similar
strain he spoke on December 17, 1874, to Deputy
Winterer, who demanded the abolition of the
School Law granted the preceding year to Alsace
Lothing. In opposition to Winterer's hymns on
the achievements of the school brethren he read
extracts from their rules which prescribed in which
case the brother has to rise before the superior,
in which case to kneel down, and in which case he
only had to kiss the floor. "Gentlemen," he asked
the Ultramontanes, "I am indeed curious to know
whether there is anything worse than the naked
floor the devout school brother is to kiss." When
the gentlemen of the clerical party expressed the
of their public schools he replied in unmistakable
fashion: "We have the intention to Germanize
this newly acquired German province; we have the
intention and will carry it out." Strong applause,
and hissing in the centre, was the usual result of his
speeches during this session. The return took
place under conditions similar to those of last year,
only the depression at the modest part played by
the Baden Deputies in their Reichstag was still
greater, and Jolly, at any rate, did not refrain
from remarking that the quarrelsome disposition
of the Liberal leaders, which immediately made
itself felt at the opening debate of the Baden
Chamber in November, 1873, arose from the desire
of the gentlemen to gain in the Karlsruhe Rondel
Hall the laurels which had been denied to them in
the Reichstag. But Treitschke's appreciation of
the Reichstag likewise waned from session to
session. Already, in 1879, he wrote the following
words in the Reichstag album: "Let us not be
deceived, gentlemen; the pleasure our population
experienced by participating in parliamentary life
has considerably decreased in comparison with the
days when the mere existence of Parliament was
held to be the beginning of the era of liberty. But
how should it be otherwise? I believe we are
blessed with 4000 deputies in the German Empire.
It would be against the nature of things if such an
excessive number did not, in the end, become
boring and tedious to the population." When his
later: "Quousque tandem is on everybody's lips
when in good Society mention is made of those
parliamentary speech floods which now, for months
past, have rushed forth again in Berlin, Munich,
and Karlsruhe, as if from wide opened sluices;
3000 Members of Parliament, that is to say, one
representative of the people for every 3000 citizens.
Too much of a good thing even for German
patience. More and more frequently the question
is raised whether by such sinful waste of money
and time anything else can be effected beyond a
noise as useless as the clattering of a wheel whose
axle is broken."
On July 11, 1879, he announced his retirement
from the National Liberal faction on the rejection
of the well-known Frankenstein Clause, which
allotted part of the customs receipts to the Small
States. One would have supposed that he, a
staunch Unitarian, would be antagonistic to this
proposal, and in his innermost heart he really was;
but, owing to Bismarck's declaration that finance
reform was urgent, and that the consent of the
centre was unobtainable by any other means, he
voted for the Government. The consequences
apprehended by him, as the result of the attitude
of his friends, fully materialized. They consisted
in Bismarck's rupture with the National Liberals,
the resignation of ministers—Hobrecht, Falck,
and Friedenthal—the reconciliation of Bismarck
with the Roman Curia, and the passage of the
majority, which to the present day prevails in the
Reichstag. All this Bismarck sacrificed for the
benefit of a highly contestable finance reform.
Treitschke attributed the responsibility for it to
the Reichstag, and in 1883 he wrote: "Of all the
institutions of our young Empire, none has stood
the test as badly as the Reichstag." He was sick
of Parliament, and characterized the headache and
feeling of tiredness with which he usually returned
from sittings as "parliamentary seediness." His
participation in debates slackened, and after 1888
he refrained from seeking re-election, an additional
reason being the lines taken by Government, and
legislation which he could not follow without
coming too much into conflict with his old ideas.
Neither did he harmonize with public opinion in
regard to external politics. He had no faith in the
durability of the French Republic, but believed
in the return of Bonapartism. At the death of
Napoleon III, on January 9, 1873, consequent
upon an operation for stone, he remarked: "Right
to the last this man has remained unæsthetic."
I thought the game between Chambord and the
Orleans would now be continued, but he pooh-poohed
the idea, and adhered to his belief that the
Bonapartists alone are the people destined to
reign over that nation. With feelings of bitterness
he watched the great number of Germans who, in
spite of experiences in the past, returned to France
to again take up positions, and even obtain their
of honour which he could not understand. The
Pole who on all battlefields fought against Russia
was to his mind more respectable, in spite of his
vodka smell.
VI.
From 1871 to 1874 the Reichstag was by no
means the only arena in which the warrior, prepared
at all times, practised his strength, and his
academic opponents occasionally reproached him
with dragging the bad tone of the Reichstag into
the University debates. As a matter of fact, in
those days there was little difference, thanks to the
urbanity of Richter and Liebnecht. Peculiarly
enough, the chief interest of Academicians since
March, 1871—during the time, therefore, when the
most important questions agitated the German
Fatherland—hinged upon a quarrel which must be
styled almost childish. Knies and Schenkel were
at daggers drawn, because the former, as Pro-Rector,
occupied the chair in the Economic Commission
conducted by Schenkel. The University
statutes clearly conceded this right to the Pro-Rector,
but Schenkel declared that Knies, in that
case, might also undertake the agenda of the
Commission. The reason for Treitschke's passionate
participation in this question was partly
aversion for Schenkel, and partly gratitude for
Knies, who, in Freiburg, as well as in Heidelberg,
appreciated Knies as a scientist, and managed to
intersperse his Reichstag speeches with exhaustive
extracts from Knies's latest book, Money. In the
terms of the statute Knies was absolutely in his
right. When the quarrel came to no end, Jolly
suspended the Commission and entrusted the
Senate with its duties, but the Senate protested.
As negotiations assumed a very unparliamentary
character, the philologist Köchly declared it
beneath his dignity to participate further in the
meetings. A motion was now brought in compelling
every "Ordinarius" to take part in the
meetings, and in this way the stupid discussion
continued. The principal seat of terror was the
Philosophic Faculty, and by his drastic speeches
Treitschke more than once drove the Dean to
despair. "He is a firebrand," said Ribbeck. "I
am always trembling when he asks to speak."
It was, of course, picturesque when the tall, handsome
man with thundering voice shouted at the
tiny, bespectacled gentlemen in the Senate, "Whoever
is of a different opinion will have me to deal
with." But as he had no conception as to how
loudly he spoke, even when intending to whisper a
confidential information into his neighbour's ear,
he often placed his friends in a most awkward
position. One of his confidential cannon-shots
particularly caused lasting damage. When the
natural history scientists, on a certain occasion,
interfered, he shouted to his neighbour, meaning
these chemists and dung-drivers?"—and the fat
was naturally in the fire. Nobody was more
annoyed at these sallies than his own party, and,
after a similar occurrence, Knies, taking advantage
of his deafness, called after him, "Good-night, old
baby!" He, however, gaily departed, totally
unaware of the feelings which he had aroused even
amongst his friends. It was impossible to exercise
a restraining influence over him. With his temperament,
he could not understand why he should
say something different from what he thought. A
friend who, in his opinion, although right, was
unjustly ill-treated and ill-used, would be helped
out by him, whatever the cost.
When, however, in an article in the Prussian
Annuals, he declared that Court Theatres and
University Senates would remain for ever the
classic field for jealous intrigues and childish
quarrels, the contest reverberated in the Chambers
and the Press. The so-called majority broke off
all relations with him, and, in consequence, we
became more intimate than ever. "The outlaws"
was the name he preferably applied to us, and the
round table at König's Weinbeer, in Leipzig, was
christened by him as "The Conspirators." In
reply to my remark that we cared by no means to
be considered outlaws, he said: "I have my
students." Anyhow, the close relations thus
established among a number of influential colleagues
was also a gain. We met every evening,
we drank cheap beer. "It merely costs a little
effort," he said. The circle consisted of historian
Weber, the three theologians, Gass, Holtzmann,
and myself; further, the botanist, Hofmeister,
with whom Treitschke was on friendly terms while
in Leipzig; Herrmann, the teacher of Canon Law,
where Treitschke was received when still a student
in Göttingen, and who, for his benefit, had learned
the deaf-and-dumb language; and Knies, who, after
occupying the position of Director of the High
School Board and University Inspector, was
degraded to that of Professor at Heidelberg, so that
Hitzig greeted him with the following toast:
"Behold Adam, who now has become one of us!"
The spokesmen were Knies and Bluntschli, who
both defended their one political point of view,
Treitschke keeping as much as possible apart from
the latter. His opinion of Bluntschli, as now confirmed
in print through his letters to Freytag, was
unjust. Bluntschli's intentions were for the common
weal, but in his opinion it could best be done
through him. The Otez vous que je mif mette (real
Swiss-German) applied to him in his Faculty as
well as in the Chamber. In vain I tried to prove
to Treitschke that Bluntschli's propensity to
mediation proposals, and his desire to vote always
with the majority, were founded on his peaceable
disposition and his benevolent concern for the
public good. When, however, on a certain occasion,
prior to leaving for Edingen by rail, I spoke
that the attention of the people in the waitingroom
was aroused, and I preferred to discontinue
the argument. On such occasions, the misfortune
of his deafness became very marked, for how was
it possible to make complicated circumstances
clear to him by lip-movements and scribbling on
block slips? For good reasons he disliked letters
by post. Although he belonged at that time,
academically, to the Bluntschli party, he attacked,
in his essay of 1871, on Parties and Factions, the
Bluntschli-Rohmer State Law, establishing a
parallel between the State functions and the human
organism. "State science demands thought, not
comparisons," he wrote. "What is the use of
speaking figuratively, which is just as arbitrary
as the old bad habit so favoured by natural philosophers
of comparing the State with the human
body? Argument ceases with such fantastic
parables. Analogies are easily found, and with
beautiful words one might describe the King as
the head or the heart, or also as the index, of a
State." This was not polite language, and must
have annoyed Bluntschli, all the more as Treitschke,
in the language of Goethe, "only tugged at
the discarded serpent's skin," Bluntschli himself
having left that part of the Rohmer philosophy
behind him; and that is why, as far as I know,
he never replied to the attack. Treitschke also
reproached Bluntschli with attempting to count
Luther amongst the Liberals: "He, whose eminent
revolutionary stormer of heaven with those of the
devout monk, he who was anything but a Liberal!
Or will our opponents think more of us if we are so
bold as to declare that the true spirit of Christianity
is liberal? The greatness of Christian faith
lies in its inconceivable and manifold plasticity;
after thousands of years it will, in eternally new,
yet ever identical, forms, elevate humanity when
not even scientists will have anything to say of
Liberalism." Although sitting at the same round
table there was, speaking philosophically, a century
between Bluntschli and Treitschke. Treitschke
was a true representative of the historical
school, and not Dahlmann; but Ranke was his
real master. Bluntschli liked to refer to Savigny;
but, in reality, his views of the world, in spite of
Rohmer's symbolism, were culled from the age of
enlightenment.
When, in 1873, Wehrenpfennig remodelled the
Spenersche Zeitung into the semi-official Preussische
Zeitung, Treitschke was offered the salary of ten
thousand thalers for undertaking the editorship of
the journal. This salary was unheard of at that
time. Some friends of his advised him to accept,
saying that his deafness would, in years to come,
impair his functions as teacher, but he told me: "I
am not a journalist; I like to see things developed
so that I can form an opinion. To write a leading
article on the latest telegram, on the spur of the
moment, and to have to contradict it eight days
tried to make the proposal more acceptable by
informing him that the minister would appoint
him as professor at a fixed salary, consequently
there would be no need to sacrifice his function as
teacher, whilst others would look after the ordinary
journalistic work; only the handling of political
matters and the daily leading article would be his
department. A big salary as professor, and a big
income as editor, would have tempted a good
many; there even were people who declared that it
was Treitschke's duty, impecunious as he was, to
provide thus for his family; but he maintained
that it was contrary to his honour to change his
profession for monetary gain, and we were, naturally,
glad that he remained in our midst.
In spite of his refusal to take part in journalism
he played a prominent part in contemporary
politics, and the journals repaid him with interest
for his bold observations in the Prussian Annuals.
Ludwig Ekkard, an Austrian, resident since 1866
at Mannheim, and editor there of a weekly publication—a
man of whom the Karlsruhe people
whispered he had, in 1848, in Vienna, hung Latour,
the Minister of War—wrote a leading article on
"Treitschke von Cassagnac." After he had
fallen out with the Jews, a Berlin paper reported
that Treitschke was the descendant of a certain
Isaac Treitschel, who, at the beginning of the
century, had come as a youth from Bohemia to
Saxony selling trousers. A social democratic
proof of the injustice of present-day Society institutions,
as he was only appointed professor
because his father had been a general. "If we
lived in a State which practises justice, such a
weak-headed creature would never have been
allowed to be a student." Similar flattering
expressions were showered upon him by the Ultramontane
journals, which, on account of his monomania,
would have liked to have him bundled off
to a lunatic asylum. When shown such a masterpiece,
he laughed heartily saying: "One has to put
up with that sort of thing when one is in the public
eye." He was only angered at the small-mindedness
of some of his colleagues, who threw stones
at him behind his back merely because he had
stolen a march on them.
It is notorious that Treitschke, after lacking
sympathy with Badenese Liberalism, became its
supporter whilst in Heidelberg; but in Berlin he
again reverted to feelings of contempt for it.
During the years 1867 to 1874, which he spent
amongst us, I could not discern an appreciable
difference in his views. As his parliamentary
speeches and essays in the Annuals amply testify,
he greeted with joy Bismarck's first steps towards
the re-establishment of the Authority of the State
versus the Catholic Church; the abolition of the
Catholic department in the Ministry of Public
Instruction; the penal code against abuse of the
pulpit, and Bismarck's refusal to give way to the
regard to the Mühler administration of ecclesiastical
affairs. He wrote: "The Universities in
Prussia are going backwards, since fashionable
orthodoxy, with its mistrust, is supreme at Court
against liberty of thought. Here, if anywhere, our
State is in need of a radical reform, i. e., the conversion
of the conversion of science." In the last
essay written in Heidelberg he said: "Since the
unhappy days of Friederick Wilhelm IV the school
system in Prussia has been fundamentally miscultivated
by a spirit of confessional narrow-mindedness
which exasperates the most patient."
Consequently nothing astonished us more than
the attitude which he adopted subsequently in
Berlin, towards Stöcker and his town mission, even
going so far as to lament Stöcker's dismissal from
his position as preacher at the Royal Chapel.
Those who contend that the misunderstanding had
been on our side, are invited to read Treitschke's
publications up to the last week of his stay at
Heidelberg. The views with which he came to us,
and which he defended in Heidelberg in the circle
of friends as well as in the chair, find expression in
the beautiful essay on Liberty, the opening sentence
of which runs as follows: "Everything new created
by the nineteenth century is the work of liberalism.
Particularly in the clerical sphere, this is destined
to continue its labours in order to create at last
true conditions. Does it redound to the honour of
the land of Lessing," he asks, "that there is no
courage to admit a David Strauss to its halls?
Those who have any conception of the enormous
extent to which faith in the dogmas of Christian
revelations has disappeared among the younger
generation, must observe with great anxiety how
thoughtlessly, how lazily, nay, how lyingly,
thousands do homage to a lip service which has
become strange to their heart. The lack of veracity
in the field of religion grows in an alarming
fashion. The philosophers of the eighteenth
century thought that real virtue does not exist
without belief in God and immortality. The
present generation contests this, and declares
point-blank, `Morality is independent of dogma.' "
He recognizes the immortality in the never-ending
effect of our good as well as of our bad deeds.
"For weak or low characters, the belief in an after
life can equally be a source of immortality, like the
denial of same, for in their anxiety for the hereafter
they often neglect their duties on earth. The
Church has taken no interest whatever in the
great work of the last centuries, and in the deliverance
of humanity from one thousand terrors of
unchristian arbitrariness. The defenders of the
Church claim the prerogative to spoil even the
best measure by the incomparable meanness of
their methods. And, according to human estimate,
this symptom will continue. More and more the
moral value of Christianity will be investigated
and developed by laymen, and more and more it
for the spiritual demands of matured people."
That this last sentence coincides with the speculations
of Richard Rothe, the æsthetic scientist, and
the teaching of the Tübingen School is apparent
from a letter to his Catholic fiancée, written in
1866, in which he says, "Christianity loses nothing
of its greatness if the stupid priest tales of Paganism
are dropped."
"The New Testament embodies more ideas of
Plato than our clergy is ready to admit." Under
these circumstances we could count him merely
from a theological point of view amongst the
Liberals, and only in the attitude adopted by
Treitschke towards the contested reforms of
Evangelical and Catholic Church matters we
regained our own convictions. He likewise greeted
Mühler's fall in February, 1872, with joy, although
he disapproved of the American Press
tactics, now gaining more and more the upper
hand in the German Press, which heaped with
opprobrium the fallen opponent—"he hardly
deserved the title of lion." Treitschke likewise
demanded the abolition of the Stiehl regulations,
as they acted as a deterrent to many an intelligent
person embracing the career of teacher. Where
Herr von Mühler had ordered that certain colleges
should assume a strictly evangelical character, he
urged Falk to appoint Catholic or Jewish teachers
for those schools, in order to put an end to the
fictitious story that Prussia possessed colleges for
Heidelberg he, in a short and decisive fashion, on
December 10, 1873, still approved of the Falk
legislation enacted in May, respecting the restrictions
of the Catholic Church. "Not a word is
to be found in these laws which is not beneficial
to the Church." He declares it the most unpardonable
error of the Conservative party in
Prussia to have entered into an alliance with the
Ultramontanes. The suppression of the Jesuit
Order, which he formerly opposed, now had his
approval. The struggle for civilization was likewise,
for him, a struggle of liberty against fanaticism,
and he was convinced that a firm attitude
maintained by the State would lead to victory.
"For two years the Ultramontanes have wasted
their powder; they have so often conjured up the
names of Nero and Diocletianus that one fails to
see what can still be done after this fanatical clamour,
beyond a street battle, and this they cannot
risk." Treitschke's practical demands were likewise
those of the Liberals. "A law for compulsory
civil marriage has become a necessity; after years
of deliberation, it must at last be evident that
facultative civil marriage is based on a misconception,
and does not mitigate, but rather accentuates,
the conflict between State and Church.
Furthermore, a special law will have to be enacted
by the State enabling the communities themselves
to look after the Church Funds, should no legally
recognized parson be available; the State will have
their share of the Church property when quitting
the church. After all that has happened, there is
no need to shun the reproach of animosity; we
require a law empowering the arrest of persistently
refractory priests. It will not do to leave religious
orders in their present condition, so uncertain from
a legal point of view, and to allow processions and
pilgrimages to be exposed to molestation and insult
on the part of citizens of different creeds. The
May laws are only the beginning of an energetic
Church policy." The Baden Liberalism has
never transgressed these demands, and it may
safely be said that Treitschke, while in Heidelberg,
shared in this respect fully the views of his Liberal
friends.
Slowly the change came about while living in
Berlin. Owing to his affliction, social intercourse
was restricted to a few people, and amongst those
it was the new President of the Supreme Ecclesiastic
Council, Herrmann by name, with whom he
formed a close friendship—Herrmann having been
able, better than anybody, to make himself understood
by deaf-and-dumb language, and also corresponding
with Treitschke. In Heidelberg, before,
Herrmann had raised all sorts of objections to the
Falk Laws, and heated discussions took place
between him and the Minister of Ecclesiastical
Affairs on the endowment of evangelical clergymen,
the abolition of incidental fees, and similar questions.
His opinions on the Falk Church Laws were
that he considered himself destined to replace
Falk. In unctuous fashion he invariably reverted
to the statement that as long as the population
fail to realize that ecclesiastical decrees speak the
language of profound respect for religion, every
reform will prove abortive on account of the
people's want of confidence. The aristocratic and
military circles, with whom Treitschke now associated
more frequently, too, had only one watchword:
The struggle for civilization must cease.
He expected nothing of the Old Catholic agitation,
and disapproved of the loud applause of the Jewish
Press, which would have better served the cause
by greater reticence. It so came about that we
had gradually to rely less upon his co-operation
in the struggle. But we gathered this opinion
more from his verbal scruples than from his written
expressions, which in principle were in agreement
with ours, although he now considered the legislation
as laws of necessity, i. e., as a temporary evil.
Then took place the great defection of Lasker and
the Progressive Party, which the Catholic faction
attempted to engineer for the elections, and which
willingly left the odium of civilization—a name
invented by Virchow for the glory of Falk—to the
National Liberals. After one wing of the Army
had gone over to the enemy, the great Bismarck
retreat commenced, which Treitschke had to
cover with heavy artillery. Even in course of
these rear-guard actions, he had both written and
as in the Reichstag, but it oppressed his mind that
henceforth he would have to recommend the
abolition of the "ineffective or mistaken May
Laws," after having greeted their formation with
words of joy. To retract words, suited him, who
was used to employing such strong language
particularly badly. Times out of number he had
proclaimed that the old feud could not be adjusted
by concessions, but by perseverance. If, in a
country whose population to the extent of two-thirds
are Protestants, the Bishops reign to-day,
and an Ultramontane President is President of the
Reichstag, the old saying characterizing this state
of affairs, viz., "Every nation has the government
it deserves," is decidedly appropriate. For the
rest, it must be recognized that Treitschke never
expressed his pleasure at this result as did the
Kreuz Zeitung, but always contemplated it with
deep regret as a proof that, contrary to the opinion
of Aristotle, the German being is by no means a
political animal.
While still in Heidelberg, Treitschke's rupture
with the University Socialists became imminent,
among whom he counted his intimate friends
Knies and Schmoller. Contrary to Knies, he
asserted that Socialism could not be convinced by
reason, but had to be suppressed by forcible laws.
He also defended the view that it is in the interest
of the public to compel labour to work cheaply,
and that the State should possess authority to
Berlin article, of July, 1874, he took this sharp
attitude against the Social Democrats, whom he
called Socialists, and whom he did not wish to
distinguish from the Radical Socialist politicians.
The article had been begun in Heidelberg, and we
were diverted to see how here again he gave expression
to his most recent experience, when he wrote:
"After packing books for two or three days, and
filling up freight forms—finally looking stupidly
at the completed work—the question will suddenly
occur what the brave packers might think, who,
during these removal performances only, were my
servants? The calling of the furniture shifter is,
after all, a very respectable one, because it is
cleaner, and more refined, than many equally
necessary occupations." The essay itself, Socialism,
and its Supporters, met at the round table
of the Museum with no more approval than the
speeches which were its prelude prior to his
departure. Knies thought that the inability to
distribute wealth in accordance with actual deeds
—it not being a creation of the present—and the
fact that virtue is not fully rewarded in this world,
would not produce a greater feeling of contentment
amongst the working classes, who demand their
share of the realized profit, and in the terms of their
favourite author, Heine, leave Heaven to the
angels and sparrows.
Colleagues otherwise friendly disposed towards
him found the point of view that the working
religion, and his cruel reference to that true friend
of the people, Fritz Reuter, particularly hardhearted
when a question of hungry people who
have no time to read novels was being discussed.
Treitschke's assertion that the introduction of
slavery had been a redeeming achievement of
culture, which, during thousands of years had
exercised at least as powerful a moral influence as
Christianity during a later epoch, appeared to us
a comparison of things which could not be tolerated;
and if nature formed all its higher beings unequally
there can be no question of the introduction of
slavery as a redeeming historical achievement.
From a prehistoric point of view, it can be compared
with the relationship existing between
master and dog, or the shepherd and his flock.
An innovation of his was the stronger touch of
religious chords which, with this essay, begins to
obliterate the formerly habitual attacks upon the
wicked class of theologians. The full meaning of
Social Democracy became clear to him with the
classic expression of the Volk Staat: "Either there
is a God, and then we admit we are in a mess, or
there is none, in which case we can alter the existing
state of affairs as much as we like." It was only
right that against such speeches he should have
emphasized more strongly his positively religious
sentiments, but now and then his old habit of
chaffing the theologians came to the fore. Whilst
Schmoller traces the economic formation of classes
stronger, which as a tragic fault is hereditary,
Treitschke sneers at the doctrine of "social apple
tasting," and the sin which is no more ingenious
than the theological doctrine of hereditary sin.
But the doctrine of hereditary sin is the preamble
to Christianity, and to be one of its champions in
Berlin was his aim.
It was quite natural that Schmoller, in his reply,
complained at having had his standpoint quite
wrongly represented. Both Ribbeck and I asked,
after perusal, what now really was Schmoller's
view, as Treitschke's controversy had been conducted
in such a general way as to make it impossible
to know what referred to Schmoller and what
to the school in general. All the same, nobody
who knew his warm and philanthropic disposition
harboured the suspicion that Treitschke intended
to become a champion of class interests. He only
protested against such erroneous expressions as
"The Disinherited," or "the excess measure of
economic injustice, which needs must bring about
a crevasse," phrases which were to the liking of
National Socialists, but which necessarily played
into the hands of the demagogues, exciting the
working classes as they did, and arousing hopes in
them, the realization of which was, in the nature of
things, out of the question. Although he expressly
pointed out that only false prophets and instigators
could lead the labouring classes to believe that
any social regulation could neutralize the inequality
Sybel expressed the hope: "We also will get our
ten hours' bill, our factory inspectors, and many
other things, which are in opposition to the Manchester
doctrine," and in this sense the warmhearted
friend of the people acted in the Reichstag.
Equal rights for all, and due care for the economically
weaker and those incapable of working, was
his motto; the contest between him and Schmoller
was, therefore, by no means as great as the strong
words exchanged at that time might have led one
to believe. Like so many big cannonades, this
one finally proved merely to be noisy reconnoitring
and not a decisive battle. Anyhow, the discussions
on social questions between him and Knies
were the most interesting experienced by the
round table, and we regretted that they were
the last.
VII.
Immediately after the war the Prussian House of
Commons had granted considerable sums to raise
the University of Berlin to its destined height again,
and Helmholtz was the first to receive such an offer
in 1871, Zeller following in 1872, and Treitschke in
1874. No efforts were spared on the part of the
Baden Government to retain Treitschke. His
friends entreated him to remain. If only he had
listened to our supplications the German History
would have been completed long ago, he himself
and all the hardships which the trying city atmosphere
caused him and his family would never have
found their way to the small house hidden behind
trees at the other side of the Neckar. We urged
him not to abandon so light-heartedly a sphere of
activity such as he had found.
On a slip, I wrote to him that in Berlin nobody
believed Prussia to be such a great country as he
preached. "I would not say such a thing," he
replied, in angry fashion, but then he explained
that, owing to his having to spend six months in
the Berlin Archives for writing his History it was
preferable that he should permanently remain in
Berlin. But just because empty-headed Liberalism
was gradually gaining ground in Berlin, he
wished to go there to take up the battle. He also
wrote to Jolly in this sense: "Our capital is not
to become a second New York; those who can do
something to prevent this misfortune must not
abstain without good reason. Anyone as firmly
attached to Prussia as I am must not refuse, without
good cause, if my services are thought to be of
use." In similar fashion he expressed himself to
Ranke, who, by sending Treitschke his Genesis
of the Prussian State, at once greeted him as his
colleague—a matter for great pride. He wrote to
the old master as follows: "Here in Heidelberg
my object was simply to teach youth, on the whole
ignorant but naïve; over there my task will be to
uphold the positive powers of the historical world
realise the difficult position in which I shall find
myself in consequence of the predominant Radical
opinions in the capital. He admitted that he
could not expect to exercise such lasting influence
upon the students in Berlin as in Heidelberg, for
theatres, concerts, and life in the capital generally
prejudiced the interest in lectures; but he thought
he would surmount the difficulty in Berlin, as well
as he had done in Leipzig. Only one question
oppressed him, soft-hearted as he was: "Children
are deprived of the best part of their youth when
they are dragged to a capital to be brought up
there as Berlin Wall-Rats." "It is true," he
subsequently wrote to Freytag, "my son prefers
the Zoölogical Garden to the Black Forest; a forest
is all very fine and large, but the Emperor and the
old `Wrangel' are only to be seen in Berlin." At
first, negotiations were carried on regarding limiting
his activity, and that of Droysen, he, as he told
me, not wishing "to raise shabby competition" with
the old gentleman. By the death of Droysen this
question settled itself. I felt Treitschke's impending
departure very much, and when the matter
had become an accomplished fact the following
verses occurred to me during a sleepless night:
Du gehst weil Du gehen musst
Wir lassen Deine Sterne walten
Und bieten Schweigen unserer Brust."
The other part I have forgotten, and perhaps it is
better so. Not wishing to be counted amongst the
poets of the Tageblatt, I merely signed the poem
"N. N.," but at our final meeting at the Museum
he looked at me frankly, and amiably said: "I go,
because go I must," and then I knew that my
anonymity had been unavailing. In spite of the
academic encounters in the past the colleagues
assembled in great, although by no means full,
numbers. All the same, everybody recognized
his honesty and unselfishness, just because he had
been open and very rough. Windscheid, as Pro-Rector,
also referred to the fact that Treitschke
liked to be where sharp thrusts were exchanged,
and likened him to a noble steed on the battleground,
which cannot be kept back when it hears
the flourish of trumpets. No doubt we would hear
in future of his deeds. The great student of law
was much too refined and clever a personality to
undervalue Treitschke as the "majority" did,
but for the mature and calm scientist the young
colleague was still like new wine, and jokingly he
compared him to Percy Heissporn, who regularly
was asked by his wife, when washing the ink from
off his fingers before dinner: "Well, Heinrich,
darling, and how many have you killed to-day?"
At our last meeting Treitschke told me in his
usual kind-hearted manner that there were too
many important men in this small town, and
collisions were therefore unavoidable. In Weimar
the same conditions existed as is proved by the
When he gaily described in the German History
subsequently the battles of Voss, with Creuzer
on the hot field of Heidelberg, we gratefully
recognized that the memory of the Economic
Commission, and Majority and Minority, still
continued to cling faithfully to his heart. There
might have been at that time too many academic
stars, but he was never too much for us, and we
felt that the importance of such men was fully
recognized only by the void they left. It was as
if a spell had been broken, the parlour seemed
empty, the round table at the Museum only half
occupied, and as Gustav Freytag said at his parting
speech in the Kitzing, so we could say: "A good
deal of poetry has disappeared from our circle,
which had warmed and elated us." Our circle
undeservedly now resembled the defiant prince of
olden times, who was deserted by his generals one
by one. The one who now goes from us is Max
Piccolomini. Fortunately, although missed, he
was not completely lost to us. He annually
accompanied his family to the house of his parents-in-law
in Freiburg, and we generally had him in the
autumn for days or hours with us either at the
usual round table or at our house. Subsequently
we saw him more frequently, as, on account of his
eyes, which were being treated by the Heidelberg
ophthalmologist, Dr. Leber, he came to us also in
the spring, and was easily to be found close to my
house at the "Prinz Karl" or the "Weinberg,"
sorrows for an hour or so. We therefore continued
to keep in touch with him. Merely to read his
writings was insufficient; one had to hear him to
understand his meaning thoroughly. When in
the autumn of 1874 he turned up for the first time,
he was full of praise for the systematic and quick
way with which University matters were settled in
Berlin. As it was not customary to visit the wives
of colleagues in Berlin, the education of such fortified
Society camps, as used to be the case in
Heidelberg, was conspicuous by its absence.
With his former Heidelberg opponents, Zeller and
Wattenbach, he was on best terms there; besides
it was, as he said, very healthy to be reminded daily
in this town of millions that the few people whose
company one cultivated did not constitute the
world. Every one of them might fall from a bridge
across the River Spree, and onwards would rush
the stream of life as if nothing had happened.
When daily hurrying past thousands of people to
one's occupation, one only begins to realize the
true proportion of one's dispensability. Somewhat
less politely he had expressed similar views
in an essay on Socialism, in which, willy-nilly,
we had to apply to ourselves the remark that a
strong man always felt steeled and elated when
fleeing from the restraint, tittle-tattle, and the
persistent interference of a small town. He also
wrote to Freytag: "The liberty in the capital
pleases me, and I should not care about returning
he spoke of us as "of his beautiful Heidelberg,"
whereas Leipzig remained for him "the empty-headed
University," meaning thereby, of course,
not the professors, but the disparity between the
great University and the small country. Thus
he had grown a proud Berlin citizen; but later on
he felt how life in a big city affected his nerves.
He complained of the "everlasting haste which was
called life in Berlin," and which, above all, undermined
his wife's health. Even the correspondence
with Freytag stopped, as Berlin made it impossible
to maintain relations as he wished and as they
should have been maintained. This complaint
is intelligible, as lectures, parliamentary sittings,
and the editorship of the Prussian Annuals completely
occupied his time. Now and then the
Berlin papers, and especially the Tageblatt, brought
out "details respecting the lectures of Herr v.
Treitschke," which proved a totally new experience
to him and to us. Treitschke finally saw
himself compelled to declare that this information
by no means originated in student circles. As
the big banking firms closed at 6 p.m. he had the
doubtful pleasure of seeing at his evening lectures
all sorts of young business men, of Christian and
Hebraic confession, who, in their spare time,
apparently, were newspaper reporters. He declared
he was responsible to the hearers and to
the authorities for his lectures; he would continue
to maintain strict silence in regard to the attempts
this does not imply that he recognized the correctness
of the published information. But details
showing him in a favourable light likewise made
their appearance, and, particularly after his death,
many of his former hearers gave invaluable information
in regard to Treitschke's lectures. Felix
Krüger, for instance, informed the Allgemeine
Zeitung how greatly Treitschke laid stress on the
point that men make history in opposition to
Lamprecht's view, who held that the history of a
nation is not the history of great men, but that
circumstances are developed by circumstances.
According to Krüger, the principal thing in the
reformation was, for Treitschke, the peculiarity
of the reformers: Ulrich von Hutten, the people's
favourite Junker, whose Muse was Wrath, or the
Rationalist Republican Zwingli, or the aristocratically-inclined
Calvin with his hard and cheerless
fanaticism; and on the other hand Emperor
Charles, the reserved Spaniard of indomitable
ambition, pitiless, and in his innermost heart irreligious;
next to him his pedantic brother, Ferdinand
or Maurice of Saxony, this quick Mussen
cat, yet the only one amongst the German Princes
of that time who had political talent. Naturally
these vividly drawn sketches made an impression
upon youth. When causing thereby an amusing
effect which gave rise to loud and lasting hilarity
in true student's fashion, the dark eye of the
speaker would unwillingly glance over the audience
when dealing out satirical lashes. In his lectures
on politics he also surprised the hearers with
views which none of them had heard from him at
the College. He pointed out that not logical facts
make history, but passions; feelings are more
powerful than reason. He safeguarded the right
of the development of personalities. "Only a
shallow mind can always say the same." He
sneered at the moralizing contemplation of history,
"the Sunday afternoon preachers on Politics."
Life is too hard for philanthropic phrases, but
those are not genuine realists who misjudge the
reality of moral forces. All his hearers realized that
these lectures acted like iron baths. We owe to
another hearer the description of the impression
which the first attempt on the life of the Kaiser
made upon Treitschke. It confirms what was
generally known, that Treitschke never posed,
and on the contrary hated everything theatrical.
The information of the deed of miserable Hödel
had come to hand immediately before the commencement
of Treitschke's lecture. The audience
was silent as in a church; depressed, they gazed in
front of them as if a load oppressed their souls.
At last Treitschke entered, but the usual cheering
which greeted his arrival was absent to-day. A
long time he stood there; motionless he looked at
us as if he meant to say: "I realize you feel the
mortification, the disgrace, the horrible disgrace,
inflicted upon us." Then he tried to speak; we
the impressions seemed to burst forth so vehemently
that he bit his lips, and deeply sighed as if
trying to suppress his feelings. Then he hastily
grasped his handkerchief, and overwhelmed by
emotion he pressed it to his eyes. I believe there
was not a single one amongst the hearers whose
heart was not thrilled to its innermost depth at
this silent process. Subsequently he found words,
and said he was unable to discuss the wicked deed;
it choked him to do so, and he would continue the
history of the Wars of Liberation. nce more he
reviewed the previous history, and said that there
is nothing to purify and strengthen the souls of
young, idealistically inclined human beings than
the fire test of deep patriotic sorrow. He spoke of
the Battle of Leipzig, and described the tremendous
fight with such vividness, richness of colour,
and fire that everybody, carried away, hung on his
lips. And when in his enthusiastic manner he
described the episode of how the East Prussian
Militia, at the head of all others, stormed the
Grimma Gate at Leipzig and drove the French
from the old German town, all anguish had suddenly
departed. A feeling of relief and exaltation
again seized all our hearts, and the audience gave
vent to a loud ovation for the man who, in spite of
his last bitter disappointment, did not tire of
keeping alive in us enthusiasm for our people and
our history. The Berlin papers occupied themselves
so extensively with Treitschke that we,
regarding his activity. Especially so long as he
frequently spoke in the Reichstag, and regularly
discussed pending questions in the Prussian Annuals,
our mental intercourse did not slacken.
But by reason of the distance we sometimes viewed
his standpoint wrongly. Judging by his writings
in the Annuals, I thought he would be very pleased
with our African acquisitions, but when verbally
discussing it with him he said: "Cameroons?
What are we to do with this sand-box? Let us
take Holland; then we shall have colonies."
Fortunately he failed to promulgate this view in
the Press.
Amongst the most unpleasant duties which the
editorship of the Annuals entailed, perhaps the
most disagreeable one was to review those questions
of the day on which to maintain silence
would have been much more agreeable. Above
all, it was the Jewish question which had become
of such pressing nature that, however painful, in
view of the esteem he entertained for his colleagues,
Goldschmidt, Bresslau, and Frenzdorf, and the
recollections of his early friend, Oppenheim, he was
obliged to touch on it. Considering the enormous
agitation organized against him after publication
of his first article in November, 1879, and which
only poured fat into the fire, it must be remembered
that he deliberately placed the following
sentence in front: "There can be, among sensible
people, no question of a withdrawal, or even of only
of the Jews; this would be an apparent injustice."
His final appeal to the Jews not to relinquish their
religion, but their ambition to occupy a particular
national position, and to become unreservedly
Germans, might be called futile and vague; but
it does not imply a mortification. The complaints
which Treitschke brought before the general notice
might have been discussed more calmly if the
Press had not raised such an outcry against him.
Even those who consider that Treitschke's attitude
in this matter did more harm than good had to
admit extenuating circumstances quite apart from
the fact that, after the many frictions with the
Jewish reporters, a final electric discharge had
become inevitable in view of his temperament.
His publicist activity brought him less in contact
with the good qualities of the Israelites than with
the Jews of the Press, amongst whom those of
Berlin are not exactly the most modest, and who,
with their system of Press activity, were in direct
opposition to his ideals of life. He observed,
what could escape no attentive reader of our
Press, that all literary publications were praised or
torn to pieces according to whether the author was
reputed to be Philo-Semite or Anti-Semite. "And,"
he says, "how closely this crowd of writers keeps
together, how reliably works this Immortality
Assurance Society, based on the approved commercial
principle of reciprocity, so that each Jewish
poetical star receives on the spot, and without
administered by the newspapers." In the presence
of the objectionable agitation of these years,
George Eliot, in her last novel, Daniel Deronda,
reproached Germany with Jewish persecution, as
it was Jewish brains which for the last thirty
years had procured for Germany her position in the
literary world. Treitschke, however, reproached
the Jewish Press for having tried to introduce "the
charlatanry of the commercial world into literature
and the jargon of the stock exchange into the
sanctuary of our language." He put the question:
What had the Jewish brain made of the German
language in the sphere of journalism and literature,
in which it reigns supreme? Of the poets, who at
the time contributed to Germany's literary position
and whose names live, George Eliot suitably
recollected Gutzkow, Freiligrath, Freytag, Geibel,
Mönke, Bodenstedt, Claus Groot, Fritz Reuter,
Storm, Fontane, Roguette, Scheffel, Baumbach,
Rosegger, Anzengruber, Ganghoffer, Jenssen,
Lingg, Raabe, Putlitz, Strachwitz, Steiler, Wolff,
and many others. There is not one Jewish brain
among them, and most of the names which the
Jewish Press noisily proclaimed upon their appearance
are to-day submerged in the flood of journalism
and completely forgotten. Another consideration
of Treitschke referred to the development of
our school system under the completely changed
denominational conditions of colleges. Nothing
had given him so much food for reflection as the
there pours year by year from the inexhaustible
Polish cradle a huge number of ambitious
trouser-selling youths, whose children and children's
children, in time to come, will dominate
Germany's stock exchanges and newspapers; the
immigration grows visibly, and more and more
seriously the question imposes itself how we are
to amalgamate this strange population with ours.
`What a crime,' a Jewess said to me, `that these
Jews give their children a good education.' " The
exaggerations of Treitschke also, in this matter,
are to be regretted; but the difficulty still remains
that, as the moiety of pupils in the higher classes
of colleges in Berlin were of Jewish persuasion, the
Christian view of the world must disappear.
Furthermore, the fact must not be lost sight of that
the newspaper reader, in view of Jewish hegemony
in the journalistic world, is apprised of the events
of the world only in the form in which they show
to advantage from the Jewish point of view. We
had ample means to convince ourselves of this on
the occasion of colonial policy, financial reform,
and the discussions on the tobacco monopoly.
He also spoke bitingly in regard to the influence
of a commercial world which amasses colossal fortunes,
not by productive labour, but by the exchange
of securities and speculative transactions;
and here, at least, the movement initiated by him
has been productive of good results, as it caused
legislation to be enacted. I, personally, was by
controversy with such an influential literary power,
and I told him candidly that for me the question
does not exist whether it is an advantage our
having the Jews—Mommsen and Stöcker might
settle that. The question to be solved, as far as
I was concerned, is: What is our duty since we
have them? He himself, had no wish to adopt the
practical method employed by Russia; what,
therefore, was to be done? He was amused at the
opinion of one of his acquaintances, saying the
Middle Ages had missed their vocation as, according
to the principles of that period, the question
might have been settled without subsequent
conscience-pricks. According to him, his teacher,
Dahlmann, at the College, likewise had regretted
that the policy of that Egyptian Pharaoh had not
been pursued more effectively. But when seriously
asked his opinion what to do, he was just
as helpless as other people. His only prescription
was gentle restraint, and there even he admitted
that in the present state of affairs this had become
impracticable, as even he himself made exceptions
in favour of his friends. But, as he had no
prescription for the solution of this eminently
practical question, not even a tangible proposal,
it was ostensibly an error for a practical politician
to make an enemy for all times of this great power
in Berlin. He lost in life valuable and even Christian
fellow-workers for his own object, and by the
sneering tone of his articles he particularly puzzled
Mommsen's friends, reproaching him with having
sacrificed tolerance, the great heritage of Lessing,
and inciting youth against the Jews, caused him
deep and lasting pain. The latter reproach was
due to untrue statements having been disseminated
by Christian-Germanic youths.
A Leipzig student called on him to seek his
advice as to whether he and his friends should sign
the Förster anti-Semitic petition. Treitschke declared
he disagreed with the contents of this petition,
and also considered it wrong for students to
be mixed up in legislative questions. If they were
determined to make a manifesto they should do so
in a more suitable form and remember to leave
undisturbed the academic peace. "After this
conversation," Treitschke himself relates, "I for
weeks heard nothing of the matter, until suddenly,
to my greatest astonishment, through a newspaper
notice, I ascertained the existence of a Leipzig
Students' Petition" (in which a sentence asserted
Treitschke had given his assent to the intended
action of anti-Semitic students). "I at once
wrote to that student, reminded him of the real
meaning of our conversation, and demanded the
immediate expurgation of that passage. He
replied very repentantly, asked my pardon, assured
me that he had been greatly excited during the
conversation, and consequently had quite misunderstood
me; he also promised to have that
passage eliminated, which actually was done.
caused so much discussion that Treitschke sent
to a member of the Senate a written declaration
for transmission to the Rector, and when Mommsen,
in a pamphlet, repeated the reproach, calling
Treitschke the moral instigator of the Leipzig
Students' Petition against the Jews, Treitschke
was obliged to give a public declaration to demonstrate
the history of the incident. Thus the
question had produced academic factions of still
greater animosity than the previous ones, as in
this case Jews were in question. In consequence
of this conflict, Treitschke fell out with his nearest
friends, and again he had the impression he was
shunned and tabooed. Nevertheless, he recognized
with great respect that Mommsen had
abruptly turned a deaf ear to the attempts of
several younger Jewish colleagues in their endeavour
to take advantage of his philo-Semitic
disposition for their own benefit. "There the great
scientist came again to the fore." Mommsen,
however, was not conciliatory. He reproached
Treitschke with animosity against Jews, in consequence
of which a true appreciation of Heine in
his literary report was lacking. "Where genius
faces us, we must kneel down and worship," he
said, "and it is Treitschke's doom that he cannot
do that." It was doubtful to me whether falling
down and worshipping was exactly Mommsen's
force. On the contrary, it seemed to me worthy
of note that Treitschke, in spite of his personal
romance, contrary to Victor Hehn, who simply
explained the ring of Goethe's lyrics in Heine's
songs, by the talent of imitation akin to the Jew.
In these questions, likewise, Treitschke's judgment,
after the long and bitter struggle, was of
lamentable mildness, which I was the last to
expect after the sharp attacks in the Annuals.
Although convinced he had merely done his duty,
he was deeply hurt that the great number of
friends now had shrunk to a few anti-Semites,
whose adoration he had to share with Rector
Ahlwardt. His was a love-thirsty disposition.
Dein Zauber ist das mutig freie Herz
War's moglich dass sie dir verschlossen bliebe?"
in upon him. Similar feelings overcame him now
with the estrangement of so many who gave his
words the cold shoulder. The feeling against him
did not last, but the consequences of this conflict
went further than was visible at first. The articles
on the Jews form a turning-point in Treitschke's
political position, and in his occupation as publicist,
and they were not even without influence upon his
personal comfort.
When these consequences promptly arose, Erdmansdoerffer
reminded me of a saying of Berthold
Auerbach, who had predicted of another antiSemite:
end." As the result of the so-called Mommsen
Declaration, bitter dissension arose, not only
between Treitschke and the Jews, but also between
the Liberals of both camps. All the more enthusiastically
the Conservative party gathered
round him, and soon enough we saw him in the
ranks of the party which he had contested during
the whole of his life. Formerly his opinion was:
"Christian love is more frequently to be found
amongst the much-abused Incredulous than
amongst the Clergy. . . . More and more it
will become apparent that churches do not suffice
for the spiritual needs of mature people." Now
his position demanded that he should view his
struggle against Judaism simultaneously with a
struggle for his Church. "Mommsen," he writes,
"passes over the religious contrast with some indifferent
words. I maintain a different standpoint
towards positive Christianity. I believe that
through maturing culture our deeply religious
people will be led back to a purer and more vigorous
spiritual life, and therefore cannot silently
pass over the invectives of the Jewish Press against
Christianity, but consider them as attacks on the
fundaments of our morals, as disturbances of the
peace of the country." The next consequence of
this attitude was that, contrary to his former utterances
on undenominational schools, he now declared
denominational schools as normal, whereas,
as late as 1872, he had appealed to the new Minister
to those colleges which Herr von Mühler had
declared as being denominational according to
observance. Soon we were as much amazed at
the literary manifestoes of our friend as the veterans
of Napoleon, who, after the Concordat,
wondered how the "Little Corporal" had learned
to preach so beautifully. Trietschke's relations
with the orthodox parsons date from this struggle
and they soon found ways and means to bring it
about that the "great patriot" appeared as
speaker at the meetings arranged by them. It is
well known what struggles Treitschke, in his youth,
had with his father on account of his free-thinking
ideals. Nor did he show at Heidelberg very great
predilection for the clergy; nay, it required
patience to endure his everlasting attacks upon
the theologians. At the christening of his second
daughter, he drank the health of Grandmama in
charming fashion: "People always said a good
deal about mothers-in-law, but he could only say
the best of his." In consequence of my having
been blessed at the same time with a son he had to
propose another toast, which was well meant, but
which ended with, "Do not let the boy become a
parson." Embarrassed as I was, I could only
reply that up till now my baby boy had shown no
other talent than for preaching and the touching
of feminine hearts. I must, therefore, reserve his
calling for him. These "parsons"—he never used
to call the clergy differently—were in his eyes a
was, this disdain seemed more natural than the
subsequent alliance. He used to display equal
aversion to the Catholic and the Evangelic Church.
To his Catholic wife he said, mockingly, "Thy
parsons," and to me, "Your parsons," considering
it at the same time a very lucky thing that Germany
had not become completely Lutheran.
"We should have turned out a nice lot if you alone
had brought us up." After such antecedents it
was a considerable matter for surprise to find
him in Berlin sitting on the same bench with the
parsons of the Municipal Mission. The struggle
against the Jews characterizes the turning-point
in his life, nay—it prepared the end of his publicist
activity. The man who, from the very beginning,
turned to advantage Treitschke's Conservative
tendencies in Berlin was the President of the
Evangelic Superior Church Council, his Göttingen
master and Heidelberg colleague, Herrmann. He
induced him to take side in the Prussian Annuals
against the Berlin Liberal clergy, who had spoiled
Herrmann's game by their attacks upon the
apostolicity. As Treitschke continued calling
himself a free-thinker, his suitability for defending
apostolicity and reprimanding the Rationalist
clergy was, to say the least, very doubtful. I
took their part in the Allgemeine Zeitung, but at the
same time wrote to him that I was the author of
the article against him, hoping he would not take
it ill. His reply was: "Please do not write for a
deposit their spawn." But soon enough he himself
had to be glad to be able to deposit his declarations
there, as they were just as unsuitable for the
Liberal Press as for the Kreuz Zeitung. At our
next meeting he told me that since his struggle
with the Jews he was considered much more
reactionary. Minister von Puttkamer expressed
great surprise when Treitschke, on being placed
next to Stöcker, had asked for an introduction; in
Berlin it was considered a matter of course that all
anti-Semites should be on friendly, nay, brotherly,
terms.
When asked by me what he thought of Stöcker,
he replied evasively, "Well, quite a different
school; something like the Kreuz Zeitung." Later
on he shielded the Court Preacher against the
Berlin Press. The witness affair could have
happened to anybody. When holding on one and
the same day two or three meetings it was impossible
to recognize everybody with whom he had
spoken, and if one were to search the editorial
tables of Liberal newspapers, many reprehensible
letters would be found. It happened to have been
a carelessly written washing list. To suspect
morally political opponents was contrary to his
chivalrous nature. I had, on that day, a long and
exhaustive conversation with him on the religious
question; but I could not gain the impression that
his relationship to religious questions had become
a different one from what it used to be. He always
should impair the impression of something great
by criticism. That is why he had no sympathies
for Strauss. He praised the Bible for placing
before us a number of the most magnificent wars
and warriors, and in this way teaching youth
manliness. It was clear to him that the principal
item of instruction in elementary schools was to be
religion. He thought that firmly inculcated scriptural
passages, which come to the memory of the
young man in the hour of temptation, form a moral
backbone. Elementary education should also
impart to the people a theory of life; this, however,
could only be Church doctrine. The choice lies
solely between Christianity and Materialism, all
intermediary systems having proved ineffective
from a pedagogical point of view. For these
reasons, as an author, he took the part of the
Positive party, for nothing could be achieved by
Liberalism amongst the people; but no more now
than previously did he affect to be in accordance
with the Church. I do not doubt that the struggle
against the powers of destruction filled him with
growing respect for the forces we are dependent
upon, but his philosophical convictions had remained
the same; his judgment of Radicals alone
had accentuated. Almost comical was his indignation
against the Berlin Press. He wondered
whether the future would realize the stupidity of
a legislation which permitted every Jew to drag
into publicity whatever pains and grieves other
"Oh wie gu dass niemand weiss dass ich Rumpelstilchen
heiss!" ("I take good care to let none
know that my name is Ikey Mo"). In addition,
the privilege of deputies to slander with impunity
all absentees! His aversion for the Berliners was
very much in the ascendant. He thought that the
most unbearable form of stupidity, which affects
to understand everything, was the one most frequently
encountered in Berlin. There was still a
humorous ring in all he said, and yet I missed
the former cheerfulness with which he smiled at
the turns of his own speeches. He was no more
Liberal, and as time wore on his periodical sank
to the level of a small local publication of the few
Independent Conservatives. In the end he had to
experience that the Prussian Annuals, which
owed him everything, got rid of him in 1889, the
publisher not wishing to see that Liberal periodical
steer into reactionary channels. The two editors
did not agree, and he never used to decipher the
initials H. D. of his fellow-writer otherwise but
"Hans Daps" ("Hans, the Duffer"). But soon
Hans Daps threw him overboard, and although
Treitschke was glad to be freed from duties which
delayed his life-work, he never imagined he would
have to part from his Annuals under such conditions.
He experienced, partially, how they now
developed into the Polish Danish Annuals, which
did not increase his pleasure at their latest era.
Treitschke's attitude against the Puttkamer orthography,
especially that of Herrmann, who, meanwhile, had
returned to us. Treitschke was assured that Puttkamer
himself realized subsequently his mistaken
procedure. We were less in sympathy with his
declaration against Gossler's proscription of foreign
words, Treitschke himself having formerly complained
about the jargon of Vienna stock exchange
and cafés which spoil our language.
Particularly in Treitschke's fourth volume of
German History, published in 1889, his position,
altered since the Jewish question in regard to
ecclesiastical policy, made itself felt. But in
the whole work, full of unbounded enthusiasm, the
parts which adulate the pioneers of pietism, the
mission, and Lutheranism, are those which give us
a forced impression. Most strikingly was it demonstrated
in the History of Literature, where he
discussed D. Fr. Strauss in such a slighting manner.
At the time he had read Strauss's books as he had
read all important novelties. When giving a
characteristic account of this most influential
critic of the present day, in his German History, he
had nothing in front of him, except my biography
of Strauss, in two volumes, from which, almost
verbally, is culled the final passage of his paragraph;
but, as a rule, he simply used to turn my
conclusions upside down. Whereas I had laid
stress upon the deep tragedy of his life, which
makes the whole of his future dependent upon
the first epoch-making work, and whereas I
Strauss's creative power, his version was that
Strauss was one of those unhappy geniuses who
developed in retrograde manner, as if Hutten, the
old and new faith, and the poetical memorandum
book, did not represent the goal of this retrogression—works
which are more read to-day than the
Life of Jesus. He exaggerated the parable of the
founder, and the Suabian Master of Arts, to such
an extent, as to describe Strauss's Theology as the
outpourings of a bookworm, and repeating Dubois
Reumont's well-known reference to a ward of
women suffering from cancer, who could not be
comforted by Strauss's Theology. He maintained
that it is the duty of the Spiritual Guide to comfort
the weary and the oppressed—as if Strauss had
ever denied it, and had had the intention to write
for women suffering from cancer. He would have
done better to leave such arguments to his new
clerical friends.
After such experiences I was very pleased that,
in regard to the Zedlitz School Law Proposal, he
defended no other standpoint than the one expressed
by me in the Kolnische Zeitung, in which,
at the request of the editor, I compared Baden
School legislation with that of Zedlitz. At a loss
to find admission elsewhere, Treitschke was now
obliged to descend into the arena of the Allgemeine
Zeitung, which formerly used to be so unsympathetic
to him. To fight side by side with the old
companion afforded me particular pleasure, for he
assistance of the Conservatives and Ultramontanes
which was repugnant to the majority of the Protestants,
and which abandoned the principle that the
School belongs to the State. He also admitted so
many exceptions to the recently promulgated rule
that schools are to be denominational, that hardly
any difference remained between his views and
those of the Liberals. His coming forward had to
be appreciated all the more since, during the last
three years, he had completely turned his back on
the writing of political articles and, personally, had
great sympathies for Count Zedlitz; whereas it
visibly afforded him pleasure to attack Caprivi.
He declared Zedlitz to be one of the most amiable
and capable men of the Prussian aristocracy, but
it was the curse of the present day to employ
clever people in the wrong place. Zedlitz would
have been the right man for the Agricultural
Portfolio, but for a hundred and one reasons he
was least fitted to be Minister of Public Instruction.
Treitschke's contest with Baumgarten, although
forced upon him, was less pleasing to me.
Like all strong, subjective dispositions, Baumgarten
demanded absolute objectiveness from
everybody else, and while he himself bubbled over
with bright paradoxes, exaggerations and risky
assertions on the part of his friends were totally
unbearable to him. Already, in Karlsruhe, he
used to say of many a symptom of Prussomania of
Treitschke, "Every kind of idolatry is bad."
himself more and more with the views of
Prussian Conservatives, Baumgarten, in Strassburg,
had conceived a passionate aversion for
Prussian bureaucracy. Thanks to his friend,
Roggenbach, entrusted with the Chair for Modern
History, at the time of the foundation of the
Strassburg University, he had closely attached
himself to the Protestant Alsatians, particularly to
those of the Theologian Faculty, and had defended
their cause first for Roggenbach, and later, in the
Senate. In opposition to the Prussian violence of
some ambitious men, who strove to take possession
of the funds of the Thomas Home for the benefit of
the University, he pointed out that, thanks to
these foundations, Protestantism, in Alsace, had
been preserved and, as Rector, he brought about
the abandonment of this proposal which would for
ever have alienated the Protestants from Prussia.
He endorsed the complaints of Alsatian parents
regarding Prussian School Administration, having
himself become involved in a heated discussion
with the Director of the School on account of his
son. He stigmatized as political insanity, Manteuffel's
patronage of Notables, who were the
hated opponents of his Pro-German Alsatian
friends, and referred to the testimony of Count
Türckheim and others, who had had the intention
of becoming Prussian, but now met their Alsatian
sworn enemies in the drawing-room of the Governor
as family friends. All these experiences had
he did not wish it to be called Prussophobia,
nevertheless resembled it as one egg resembles
another. Anyhow, the Alsatians were his friends,
and the Prussian officials were the continuous object
of his criticism, whereby he rose, of course, in
the favour of the Administration. But when every
new volume of Treitschke's historical work took
a more one-sided Prussian view than the previous
one, and Treitschke excused in Prussia what he
considered a crime in Austria, and, moreover,
regarded with particular contempt the Small
States and their Liberalism, Baumgarten lost
patience, which never had been his strong point.
This was the cause of the polemical pamphlet,
published in 1885 against Treitschke, of which
Sybel rightly said that Baumgarten's system of
tracing every difference of opinion to a wrong
moral condition, could only be explained pathologically.
It was, perhaps, expressed too strongly
when Treitschke spoke of a mass of abuse and
suspicions in the "libellous pamphlet"; but nobody
will agree with Baumgarten, who discovers
in one of the most beautiful works of our historic
literature nothing but exaggerations and wrong
conclusions, and contends that this history might
truly be read as truth and fiction. Phrases such as
the following: "Notice how his own achievement
corresponds with his arrogance," were neither in
harmony with the old friendship for Treitschke
nor with the importance of the assailant himself,
Treitschke.
Treitschke was deeply hurt at the hostile attack
upon the work which he had written with his life
blood. "When I started this work," so he wrote
to Egelhaaf, "I harboured the harmless idea it
must yet be possible to please for once the Germans.
I am now cured of this delusion. We are
still lacking a natural history tradition; by representing
modern history as it has happened, one
encounters at every step struggles with party
legends; and must put up with abuse from all sides.
I hope, however, my book will live, and when I
shall have occasion to speak of Prussian misdeeds
under Friedrich Wilhelm IV the Press will perhaps
also adopt a different attitude. In the long run,
I am not afraid of the judgment of the South Germans.
The real seat of acrimonious captiousness,
which to-day poisons our public life, is the North.
The Upper Germans have understood better at all
times how to live, and let live. I am confident,
that with the adjustment of the struggle for civilization
there will be formed in the political world
an element, conservative in the true sense. Continue
to be of good courage for your patriotic
struggles, my dear Sir; time will come when Germans
again will enjoy life and their country, and
will overcome the political children's complaint of
aimless dissatisfaction."
The partial justice of Baumgarten's polemics,
which we also recognize, did not lie in isolated
against which both Sybel and Erdmansdoerffer,
both certainly competent judges, objected to. It
was against the general distribution of light and
shade, that objection could be raised. In a work
judging so severely nearly all monarchs of Europe,
the idealization of Friedrich Wilhelm III was
most surprising. The King who had behaved
feebly during the war, and in peace times persecuted
patriots such as Arndt, and John, and destroyed
the life of hundreds of brave young men
because in every member of a Students' Corps he
suspected a Jacobin and with narrow-minded
obstinacy clung to this prejudice, who in the desire
to obtain qualification for liturgics bestowed upon
Prussia the disorganizing ritual quarrel, and refused
the clergy who demurred an increase of
salary, who drove the Lutherans into separation,
who with his stupid adoration of Metternich and
the Czar had to be styled the strongest supporter
of the reaction in Germany, he remains for us a
bad monarch, and the personal good qualities and
domestic virtues, which nobody contests, Treitschke
would never have so strongly emphasized
in the case of a Habsburg or a Wittelsbach.
Treitschke by no means disguised these events, but
his final judgment is reminiscent of Spittler's
characterization of the author of the Formula of
Concord of which the caustic Suabian Spittler
said that counting up all his bad qualities, and
questionable actions, one wonders that, on the
of it. It was natural that the South German
Democracy approved of Baumgarten's attack
upon their most dangerous opponent; the Jewish
Press in Berlin made propaganda for his pamphlet,
and when visiting us in the autumn Treitschke
complained that at every bookseller's window
Baumgarten's booklet glared at him, and that
certain students in order to annoy him placed it
during lectures before them. But not one bitter
word he uttered against Baumgarten, and it was
only sad that an old friendship came to an end in
this way. In a letter to Heigel he replied to the
reproach that in his Prussian arrogance he considered
the South Germans only as Second Class
Germans in the following manner: "I am only
politically a Prussian; as a man I feel more at
home in South and Central Germany than in the
North; nearly all my fondest recollections date
from Upper Germany, my wife is from Bodensee,
and my daughters born in the Palatine are considered
South Germans here. I hope you will not
be one of those who will be biased by Baumgarten's
acrimony. In my opinion historic objectiveness
consists in treating big things in a big way, and
small things in a small way. It was my duty to
show that the old Prussian absolutism has done
great and good deeds after 1815, and that South
German constitutional life had to go through
difficult years of apprenticeship before it was
clarified. If these incontestable facts are uncomfortable
therefore pass them in silence, or screen them.
Whatever you may think about them, you will not,
I hope, find North German prejudices in my book.
To my mind Baumgarten was always the embodiment
of the ugliest fault of North Germans, i. e.,
acrimonious fault-finding, and it almost amuses me
that he sets himself up as South Germany's
attorney, when from the South I am constantly receiving
reports concurring with my views." Baumgarten
himself denied the offensive nature of his
expressions, and only when Erdmansdoerffer, in a
discussion in the Grenzbote anent Baumgarten's
own writings, rendered certain parts verbatim in
parenthesis, he could have realized how such words
would appeal to the attacked party.
All this unpleasantness, however, seemed insignificant
in the presence of a fate which, since
1892, threatened the hero already tried sufficiently.
Working night after night he had kept awake by
incessant smoking until he contracted nicotine
poisoning, which affected his eyes. As he underwent
the Heidelberg ophthalmologist's treatment
he spent a longer period during the holidays in
Heidelberg than hitherto. It was impossible to
imagine anything more pathetic than the perspective
which he, without lamentation, yet with
deadly earnest was taking into consideration:
"Life is not worth living when I am both deaf and
blind" he said, but how could we console him?
Reading from lip movements was most difficult
eyes; writing was not to be thought of, so that any
connected conversation was impossible: "Why all
this to me?" he asked bitterly. His excellent wife
was ill in a neurotic establishment, his only son
had died at the age of fourteen, the eldest daughter,
formerly his principal interpreter, married abroad.
"I do not wish for anything else in life," he said,
"but to be able to work. Is that an unreasonable
wish?" Who would have thought that this strong
nature might ever have needed consolation. The
leave-taking in April, 1893, was intensely sad. In
the autumn I was again called from the garden;
Herr Treitschke was waiting on the balcony.
When entering he joyfully stretched forth both
hands. "How glad I am I came to you! When I
was here last time I could not see the Castle, it was
as if a fog were in front of my eyes, and now I see
the outlines clearly. I am getting better!" The
doctor also had expressed himself as being satisfied.
Joyfully he related that more than ever his lectures
had afforded him consolation. As he was not
allowed either to read or write he had devoted the
whole of his time to their preparation, and with his
admirable memory he, but rarely referring to a
book, with such assistance as happened to be
available, had delivered his lectures, and caused
enthusiasm amongst the students as in his best
days. In the happy mood in which he was on that
day he consented to my inviting for the evening,
all the old friends from his Heidelberg times, and
that nobody would have suspected him to be a man
fated to hear henceforth of the outer world only
by letters pressed into his hands. The improvement
was a lasting one. The fifth volume appeared
in the autumn of 1894, and in force of style
and clearness of matter fully equalled the former
books. It was an enigma how, in view of the care
he had to exercise in regard to his eyes, he could
have mastered this literature. But the enemy had
not cleared the field; it simply attacked from
another quarter. In the winter of 1896, the sad
news arrived that Treitschke had been struck
down by an incurable kidney disease. He fought
like a hero, but hope there was none. Soon dropsy
set in, and the heart in its oppressed state caused
the strong man indescribable feelings of anguish.
"Who is to finish my book?" he asked.
Bailleu, in his beautiful necrologue, relates of
these last days: "I found him turning over with
difficulty his excerpts, and reading with visible
effort. He began to speak of his sixth volume,
whose progress I had discussed with him in the
Archives, bringing him one part after another.
His suffering features became animated when,
speaking of the unassuming greatness of the Prince
of Prussia, whose campaign in Baden he had
studied, and by which he, with the Prussian Army,
in the general dissolution of 1848 wished to represent
the healthy basis for the future of Germany.
`Our dear old gentleman! Since his death every
console him by referring to the growing success of
his German History. `Oh, I have had but little
luck in life, and if now—but it can't be. God
cannot take me away before I have finished my
sixth volume, and then—' as if soliloquizing, he
added, `I have yet the other work to write.' " I
believe few of Treitschke's friends could have read
these details without being moved to tears. For
some days there seemed to be an improvement.
The day before his death, he had joked with his
daughters in his old style. On the morning of 28
April, 1896, he was gently, and quickly, relieved
of his sufferings. At his funeral, admirers and
friends from near and far assembled. Soon after,
his children sent me a dear memento from their
father. There had been three pictures in his
room. The first, Kamphausen's Battle of Freiberg:
in the foreground a Saxon colonel is to be seen as
prisoner, and also conquered flags, and drums
emblazoned with the Saxon arms. "When will
these blessed days come back?" he once wrote to
his friend, Gutschmid. The second picture was
Mentzel's Great Elector, whom Erdmansdoerffer
kept in good memory. The third picture, by
Schrader, sent to me by the daughters, I liked
best. It represented Cromwell listening to his
blind friend, Milton, when he played the organ.
I knew that this picture of the poet, who was also
lacking a sense, and who, nevertheless, had thrown
his weight into the scale of human culture, had
the widow sent me the photo of my friend lying
on his death-bed. Asleep, he seems on it, rocked
in happy dreams. The dearest recollections are,
however, to me, the many volumes of his works,
which he had sent me regularly. I can never read
even one of these pages without a re-awakening of
the sound with which he would have spoken that
passage, and without my seeing the spirited smile
which accompanied his words; this sheet-lightning
of his mind had something irresistible in his big
features, and even those had to smile who were not
at all in sympathy with his utterances. Much he
has had to suffer, and more he escaped through
timely death, and yet he has been one of the happiest
mortals, a favourite of the gods; as the poet
justly says:
Alle Freuden die unendlichen alle Schmerzen die unendlichen ganz."
But one question was at that time on everybody's
lips, with which he, himself, departed from
the world: "Who will now finish the German
History as he would have done?" And the answer
is: No one.
| Treitschke: A Study of His
Life and Work. Treitschke, his doctrine of German destiny and of international relations : | |