THE LITERATURE OF PANGERMANISM
professor, and his writings are less sensational. His ideas are conveyed by means of a systematic interpretation of German history and politics, and they may be described as the codex of Prussianism. His "German History" includes within its scope a criticism of literature and philosophy, art and science, and while treating the whole field of public life from the strictly Prussian point of view, emphasises the arguments for the complete Prussianisation of Germany.[1]
Treitschke's interpretation of German history is not to be summarily dismissed as a mere piece of special pleading. The whole course of German history does indeed reveal a marked Pangerman trend, as is well illustrated in Mr. Joseph McCabe's concise study, "The Evolution of Imperialism in German Literature," which appeared in "The Nineteenth Century" for June 1915. It would be no less true to say that the whole conception of geography in Germany is based upon the question of Germany's relationship to the world. A typical school devoted to the study of this Pangerman type of geography is that of C. Ritter, whose propaganda also embraces the study of ethnology, anthropology, and the kindred sciences.
In the same category with Lagarde and Treitschke must be mentioned the name of Constantin Frantz, although the latter was opposed to Bismarck, and, indeed, denounced Bismarckisrn as Machiavellianism. Frantz belonged to the philosophical school of Schelling. Although his Pangerman doctrines failed to exercise a very far-reaching influence, they found ready devotees in the younger literary circles, and especially among the Wagnerians. The Pangerman policy which he advocated consisted in establishing a federation of three equal groups—Austria, Prussia, and the smaller States welded together into a Central European Empire. It is noteworthy that the latest phase of the war has induced the
- ↑ Among English books on Treitschke may be mentioned: (1) Treitschke; His Life and Work (1914), which contains his biography by Hausrath, and some of his essays; (2) Germany, France, Russia, and Islam (1915); (3) History of Germany during the Nineteenth Century, translated by E. and C. Paul (1916); (4) Politics, translated by Blanche Dugdale and Torben de Bille, with an introduction by the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour (1916); and (5) The Political Thoughts of H. v. Treitschke, by H. W. C. Davis (1914). But it is highly significant that Treitschke was hardly "discovered" in England till the war had actually broken out.
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