The Copenhagen Complex

Abstract

To Germans in the days of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the word 'Kopenhagen' meant more than the name of the Danish capital. It represented a past event and a present fear, the fear that some day, perhaps on a peaceful afternoon as in the autumn of I807, a British fleet would suddenly appear off Wilhelmshaven or Kiel and without warning attack the beautiful new ships of the Imperial Navy. Unsuspecting as they rode quietly at their moorings and unable to defend themselves, the great German capital ships would be pounded into smoking ruins and the world position and pretensions of the German Empire would at one blow be crushed beyond repair. The seizure of the Danish fleet and the bombardment of Copenhagen in I807 had for a fleeting moment uncovered the true features of British power, its utter ruthlessness behind a humanitarian mask. Who could say when that mask might fall again ? The development of the Imperial Navy and Germany's world position were dangling on a thread which at any moment might be cut by a swift, ruthless stroke. The englische Gefahr represented an everpresent menace to German aspirations. This fear of a 'Kopenhagen', hovering like an unquiet spirit in the background of AngloGerman relations, waxed and waned with the course of events during the years before I914. It seeped into men's perceptions and became part of the vocabulary of political life. By becoming a fixed point in the German picture of the outside world, the 'Copenhagen complex' in its turn helped to shape the events themselves and played a part often as crucial in the formulation of German policy