Prussian History Research Articles

WHAT ARE “TEMPORALITIES” IN HISTORY?

ABSTRACTThe question of which “temporalities” underpinned historical processes in the past has increasingly become the focus of historical interest in recent years. In his brilliantly written study of Prussian history, Time and Power: Visions of History in German Politics, from the Thirty Years’ War to the Third Reich, Christopher Clark attempts to answer this question by turning to four Prussian statesmen and politicians who each followed different temporalities in their private and public lives. The benefit of his study lies not least in a better understanding of the concept of “temporality” and its significance for historical processes.

Im Spiegel des Prinzen. Fanny Lewalds auto/biographische Selbstreflexionen als Jüdin in »Prinz Louis Ferdinand« (1849)

Abstract This paper focusses on Fanny Lewald’s historical novel »Prinz Louis Ferdinand« of 1849. I examine the biographical as well as cultural-historical circumstances of the work’s genesis. Lewald clearly intended it as a critique of Prussian history, but at the same time the work’s focal point turns out to be a quite personal, female perspective. This perspective is mirrored in the prince’s experiences of loss and powerlessness. This leads me to explore the poetological dimensions of a writing in which the figure of the Prussian prince becomes a prismatic center of Lewald’s self-reflection. Here, the figure of Rahel Levin, as prominently portrayed by Lewald in her novel, plays a special role. It is precisely in her that the author’s interest in the political position of the Jewess in her as well as in Rahel Levin’s time becomes apparent.

Репрезентація національних історій у ілюстрованій науково-популярній літературі (на прикладі ілюстрацій Артура Кампфа і Георга Белве до «Preußens Geschichte» («Історії Пруссії»,1913) Рудольфа Герцога)

This study looks at illustrated popular literature as a tool for shaping its readers–viewers’ perceptions of national histories. The author explores this issue through the example of Rudolf Herzog’s book for German school students «History of Prussia» ("Preußens Geschichte'', 1913) illustrated by Arthur Kampf and Georg Belwe. Despite the book’s popularity in the 1910s, this paper offers its first academic examination. The study combines terminology and methods coming from the fields of history of representations, political mythologies’ and visual cultures studies as well as art history. The author also adheres to methodological recommendations formulated by researchers in illustrated literature. The paper demonstrates that «Preussens Geschichte» exemplifies personality- and event-centred «official-nationalist» approach to history writing. The book’s contents reflect the current political situation and seek to promote the imperial government’s agendas as well as certain moral values. The author argues that the specific purpose of Kampf and Belwe’s illustrations consisted in stressing and simplifying the book’s key subject matter and facilitating its memorisation. The ballads performed the same function. The author maintains that the stylistic unity and repetition of similar subject-matter in Belwe and Kampf’s work contribute to the book’s overall representation of Prussia’s history as a coherent narrative. Belwe’s pictures encapsulate the book’s main ideas through the use of generalised images rather than directly translating Herzog’s prose and poetry into pictures. Kampf’s illustrations further stress the role of monarchy and army as the key actors of Prussian history through the artist’s selection of subject-matter and employment of artistic devices. Together with Herzog’s text, his pictures promote determination, courage, and self-sacrifice for the sake of the country. Two other themes that dominate Kampf’s illustrations are the bond between the monarchy, the nation, and the church (an element of The Second Reich’s official nationalism) as well as Prussia’s technological advancement as an epitome of its political power.

Whither Prussia? Berlin's Humboldt Forum and the Afterlife of a Vanished State

AbstractFrom its very conception some thirty years ago, Berlin's Humboldt Forum has been one of contemporary Germany's most controversial cultural initiatives. One aspect of this controversy has been the role of the Prussian past in reunified Germany. Housed in a reconstruction of the Prussian Royal Palace destroyed by the East German communist government in 1950, the visual symbolism of the project spurred a long struggle over the appropriate urban aesthetic for the country's capital city. In the view of many critics, the structure symbolizes the triumph of a particular conservative narrative of national memory that excludes the GDR, downplays National Socialism, and uncritically celebrates the Prussian past. This article traces how public debates about the structure of the Humboldt Forum have served as a vehicle for reflection on Prussian history and its relevance (or irrelevance) for reunified Germany.

“Farms and Forests in Prussian History: Evidence from the Monarchsʼ Domanial Economy, 16th-19th Centuries” by IIDA Takashi (Book Review)

“Farms and Forests in Prussian History: Evidence from the Monarchsʼ Domanial Economy, 16th-19th Centuries” by IIDA Takashi (Book Review)

Робкие попытки модернизации: период "предреформ" (1797-1806 гг.) в истории Пруссии

The article suggests considering the period of 1797-1806 in the Prussian history as epoch of “pre-reforms”. The term “pre-reforms” was coined by the German social historian Otto Hintze (1861-1940). Over the past 20 or 30 years, the historical research in the field of the Prussian history has been collecting empirical evidence confirming the fact that between 1797 and 1806 the Prussian government was attempting to carry out practical reforms with the purpose to modernize the political, social, economic and military structures of the Prussian kingdom. These reforms were attempted mostly on the provincial level rather than on the national one, which points to the regionalism as the major feature of the Prussian state system. The modernization process in Prussia affected first the provinces and then the center. The politics of “pre-reforms” was initiated by the King Frederick William III himself as well as by his advisors who sought to realize in Prussia the idea of a “revolution from above” in contrast to the French “revolution from below”. The actively propagated image of Frederick William III as “bourgeois king” also pursued this aim. Due to the lack of political will as well as time the modernization potential of the Prussian higher bureaucracy was not realized to the full extent, the “pre-reforms”, however, laid the grounds for the more radical reforms of Heinrich Friedrich vom und zum Stein and Karl August von Hardenberg (1807-1812). Applying the term “pre-reforms” to 1797-1806 allows us to consider this period not as the time of crisis and decline, but as a part of a long modernization process of the Prussian state from Frederick II's “enlightened absolutism” to the Stein-Hardenberg reforms (mid-1750s - early 19th century).

THE NEW PRUSSIAN RENAISSANCE: LITERARY COMMEMORATIONS OF QUEEN LUISE

ABSTRACTIn the wake of World War Two, Germany abandoned its onetime national idols, including Queen Luise of Prussia (1776–1810). Yet despite assertions that her legend has become obsolete (Förster, 2011), contemporary writers are rediscovering Queen Luise following the renaissance of interest in Prussia during the first ‘Prussian Wave’ (1977–82) and the ‘Prussian Year’ of 2001. This article argues that she is being repurposed by what I term a ‘third wave’ of Prussian nostalgia currently occurring in Germany. Drawing on memory studies and nostalgia studies, I argue that Queen Luise can be considered a ‘lieu de mémoire’ (Nora, 1984) whose changing commemorations reflect modulating perspectives on the Prussian era during the twentieth and twenty‐first centuries. The article provides an overview of the rediscovery of Prussian history before analysing three representative texts that reflect shifting attitudes towards Prussia and the Queen: Gertrud Mander's conventional biography Königin Luise (1981), Friedrich Christian Delius's novel, Der Königsmacher (2001), which features a cameo appearance from the Queen, and Thomas Hettche's fictional account of the early nineteenth‐century Pfaueninsel in Berlin‐Wannsee, Pfaueninsel (2014). I propose that these commemorations reflect both the twenty‐first century trend for nostalgia (Boym, 2001), as well as a tendency towards ‘perverse nostalgia’ (Kohlke, 2017).

Rebus and Realism: A Prolegomenon to the “Work” of Adolph Menzel

Adolph Menzel (1815–1905), the renowned realist and painter of Prussian history, had a surprising penchant for rebus puzzles. Relatively unknown and unstudied, Menzel’s rebuses open the door to a radical reevaluation of his realism. Analysis of these puzzles and their historical affiliation with the concepts of Phantasie (imagination) and Bildung (self-cultivation), establishes them as a valuable heuristic for understanding Menzel’s various processes of “work,” and their significance for the viewer. Aligning realism with the concept of Bildung, Menzel’s rebuses reveal his realism to be a program of aesthetic education with formidable cultural and political implications.

Singing Tradition of the Inhabitants of Lithuania Minor from the Second Half of the 20th Century to the Beginning of the 21st Century

Singing Tradition of the Inhabitants of Lithuania Minor from the Second Half of the 20th Century to the Beginning of the 21st Century

Das Bild von Herkus Monte in der deutschen und litauischen Literatur und Kultur

This article focuses on the historical figure of the leader of the second uprising of the colonized Prussians against the Teutonic Order, Herkus Monte, who is presented here primarily as a literary figure. The increasing interest in Prussian history changed the written media, so that the order chronicle of the 13th century later turned into literary works, primarily historical novels and historical dramas in Germany. Because of the geographical proximity and linguistic relationship, the Lithuanians feel a strong affinity for the Prussians and their heroes. In the following, we analyze literary works by Lithuanian authors on the basis of which a feature film and an opera were created.

Anna Ross. Beyond the Barricades: Government and State-Building in Post-Revolutionary Prussia, 1848–1858.

Histories of nineteenth-century Prussia have conventionally been structured by a series of well-established turning points: 1806 and the ensuing Reform Era; 1848 and the upheavals that followed; 1859 and the revival of political life with the so-called New Era; and the 1866–1871 unification of Germany, in which Prussia (and Bismarck) assumed the leading role. By contrast, in Beyond the Barricades: Government and State-Building in Post-Revolutionary Prussia, Anna Ross turns her attention to the understudied 1850s, a period of Prussian history that has traditionally been dismissed as a decade of “reaction”—a view perpetuated by the Prussian government’s liberal opponents that utterly fails to capture the complex range of administrative and social reforms the government embraced in a crucial moment of transition. For, as Ross argues persuasively in her elegant monograph, the 1850s were so essential to the formation of the modern Prussian state that they deserve to be seen as a second Reform Era, one that built on the unfulfilled promise of the first.

The Scholems: A Story of the German-Jewish Bourgeoisie from Emancipation to Destruction by Jay Howard Geller

Reviewed by: The Scholems: A Story of the German-Jewish Bourgeoisie from Emancipation to Destruction by Jay Howard Geller Christopher L. Schilling (bio) The Scholems: A Story of the German-Jewish Bourgeoisie from Emancipation to Destruction By Jay Howard Geller. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019. 348 pp. plus illus. The Scholems: A Story of the German-Jewish Bourgeoisie from Emancipation to Destruction has been described as a "compelling tale" in Kirkus Reviews, and a "richly textured portrait" by George Prochnik. Writing a book about Gershom Scholem and his family is a worthy project and follows other recent publications on Scholem, such as David Biale's interesting Gershom Scholem: Master of the Kabbalah (Yale University Press, 2018), and Amir Engel's compelling Gerschom Scholem: An Intellectual Biography (University of Chicago Press, 2017). The Scholems, however, does not provide sufficient insight into the family history of the Scholems, most notably Gershom and his brothers Werner, Reinhold, and Erich. The book is, I am afraid, too uninformed of German and European history, inaccurate in its use of historical terms (Reichspogromnacht, intelligentsia), and is in parts given to a melodramatic style. Geller often elides regional differences within the history of German-speaking countries, including their inherently diverse Jewish experiences and histories. He assumes, for example, that Prussian-Jewish history comprises the experiences of Jews in German-speaking countries such as Saxony, Hesse, Bavaria, and others. While all Jews in Germany had to face the Nazis in 1933, their experiences were not altogether the same prior to Hitler. This emerges as a major flaw of the book, as the notion of a common German history before 1871 is essentially a nationalist fabrication. The reader should, thus, keep in mind that whenever "German" history is invoked, the author actually means Prussian history. Moreover, as Jewish intellectual life does continue in Germany, even [End Page 295] after the Holocaust, the use of "Prussia" rather than Germany in the title would been more valid since Prussian history ended indeed with World War II and its dissolution by the Allied Control Council in 1947. The title should, thus, be "The Scholems: A Story of the Prussian-Jewish Bourgeoisie from Emancipation to Destruction." One should, in short, not forget the significant regional differences between German-speaking parts of Europe. Geller moreover seems not always to be sufficiently aware of the importance of precision of language. This becomes evident in statements like "despite their [the Jews] relatively small proportion of the total German population" (5). In fact, the Jewish population of Germany in 1933 was less than one percent; Jews were actually a tiny part of the German population. Describing this accurately is all the more urgent as it underlines the paranoid nature of Nazi fanaticism regarding this extremely small group of people. Certain controversial figures are presented in much too positive a light. The book mentions West Germany's president Theodor Heuss crediting a Jewish doctor for saving the lives of his wife and new-born son. But there is no word about Heuss voting as a parliamentarian in favour of the notorious Enabling Act [Ermächtigungsgesetz] in 1933, which handed Hitler dictatorial power. And there is no mention about his articles in favor of the Nazi book burnings, Ostjuden propaganda [Jews of the East propaganda], or the "uprooted Jewish literacy" which he meant to fight against. Furthermore, Geller describes nineteenth-century novelist Theodor Fontane as an admirer of the contribution of Jews to "liberty and higher culture" (28), without mentioning his evident antisemitism. There is in fact a vast amount of literature on the topic. The Scholems does mention Prussian king Frederick II, who "acquired" (14) Silesia from Austria and the resulting economic hardships Jews faced under Prussian rule. However, Frederick II was not only the enlightened monarch most people stereotypically associate him with, but also a militarist who, in 1740, surprisingly and without any reason other than his desire for glory, attacked Austria. Again, words matter: "conquered" Silesia [End Page 296] would be much more accurate than "acquired." All subsequent Prussian wars were the logical consequence of this attack on Silesia, culminating in the Seven Years War of 1756, which triggered a worldwide avalanche that reached as...

Potsdam, Kaleidoskop preussischer Baugeschichte und Laboratorium der Erinnerungsarchitektur

Potsdam, 30 km from Berlin, is the state capital of Brandenburg. This modern city presents itself as a Prussian baroque city with significant political history, as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site and as the state's knowledge city and administrative centre – certainly more than just an attractive residential suburb of Berlin. Every square metre of this city exudes German and, in particular, Prussian history. However, Potsdam poses a challenge for politicians and planners, for architects, historical monument conservationists and landscapers. Striking a balance between preserving the historical city and taking into account the socialist city whilst allowing for new development is a Herculean task – one that has been and continues to be the subject of controversial debate.

ThePreußenrenaissanceRevisited: German–German Entanglements, the Media and the Politics of History in the late German Democratic Republic

The ‘Renaissance of Prussianism’ ( Preusenrenaissance ), which began in the late 1970s and continued throughout the 1980s in the German Democratic Republic, has received considerable scholarly attention. Discussions have focused on the involvement of academic historians in the revision of the official conception of history of the socialist East German state. This article offers new perspectives on hitherto neglected aspects of the Preusenrenaissance . It explores the German–German entanglements of this phenomenon by linking it with almost simultaneous events in West Germany. By the mid-1980s each German state had embraced Prussia as a part of its redefined collective identity and had entered into a competition for representing its historical heritage. Yet, this piece also looks at the ways in which the new conception of German national history was transmitted and popularized in the GDR media. From 1978, state television promoted a positive view of Prussian history with opulent productions such as Sachsens Glanz and Preusens Gloria . An analysis of viewers’ letters offers some insight into the popular perception of the new course. Against this backdrop, this article also highlights that the ideological volte-face regarding Prussia’s history was not unanimously supported within the rank and file of the ruling Socialist Unity Party. In fact, the Preusenrenaissance in the late GDR proved to be a chequered and often contradictory process, shaped by the many self-willed actors. The article concludes with a brief consideration of the interplay between these various actors involved in the Preusenrenaissance and their specific motivations.

Prūsijos Lietuva Prūsijos istorijos kontrastų fone | Prussian Lithuania against the Background of the Contrasts of the Prussian History

The creative heritage of Kristijonas Donelaitis makes us focus our attention on Prussian Lithuania as an ethnocultural region that provided the poet with significant creative impetuses; simultaneously, Donelaitis is associated with the Kingdom of Prussia as the space that formed his personality, the contours of his worldview, and his national self-awareness. To deeper understand the works of Kristijonas Donelaitis as a significant layer of Lithuanian cultural heritage, it is important to study in-depth the modern approaches to Prussian history and, in that context, the stereotypical interpretation of some aspects of the history of Prussian Lithuania in Lithuanian historiography of the 20th c., relevant to the present. The article analyzes the essential characteristic of Prussian history emphasized by its contemporary researchers, i.e. the spirit of contrast: the interchanging periods of modernity and regress have allegedly predetermined “the special way” of German history, Sonderweg, which preconditioned the dominance of nationalsocialism in 1933. Moreover, the issue of the contrast as the predominating motiff in the master narrative (Meistererzählung) which makes a strong impact on the collective memory is highlighted, as well as the reflection on the issue in the field of the studies of the history of Prussian Lithuania.

Visualizing the Past: The Power of the Image in Franz Kugler and Adolph Menzel's Illustrated History Book Geschichte Friedrichs des Großen (1842)

Current scholars often neglect the formative role of popular visual media for the formation of nineteenth-century German academic historicism and exclusively focus on its textual and narrative design. This article aims to change this perspective by exploring the representational power of images in the genre of illustrated history books, specifically in the work on Prussian history by the art historian Franz Kugler and the painter Adolph Menzel, Geschichte Friedrichs des Großen (1842). Menzel's use of wood engraving created a revolutionary text and image relationship, because his illustrations could be printed directly into the text. Menzel and Kugler's medial hybrids reconfigure historical representation by referencing visual perception modes exhibited in panoramas, photography, and landscape paintings. Their work represents the era of Frederick II beyond a narrative paradigm and highlights visual-spatial conceptions of the past that are not commonly associated with German academic historicism.

An Intriguing Document: 583 Headwords in Search of a Lexicographer

My intent is to describe the legacy of Johannes Bobrowski, his manuscript, the relationship between Bobrowski's Old Prussian Vocabulary (PV) and his Lithuanian and Old Prussian themes, and the background of the Old Prussians (history, culture and social status) as well as their language and literary sources. Attention is drawn to the methodology and to the semantic classification for the analysis of Pruzzische Vokabeln as well as to some areas of uncertainty in Bobrowski's collection. The article includes two examples of typical entries out of a total of 583 headwords, which make up the glossary. Of central interest is the question of the possible reasons for compiling the Glossary and the writer's lifelong interest in Lithuanian and Old Prussian themes. The article concludes with the hypothesis that it is possible to link linguistic and literary themes in the writer's creative output, so that Bobrowski's collection of 583 words may be seen as being inspirational and enriching in both his lyrical and prose writings. Old Prussian history, mythology, fauna and flora and a large number of place names have left their profound mark in both his lyrical and prose works. A bibliography of related works is appended to the article.

A World of Enemies: New Perspectives on German Military Culture and the Origins of the First World War

In the introduction to his 1915 book Die Hohenzollern und ihr Werk, Otto Hintze ruefully quoted an Englishman's observation that, “Prussian history is endlessly boring because it speaks so much of war and so little of revolution.” As the “Great War” entered its second year, and with Germany's hopes for a quick and decisive victory fading, Hintze saw history repeating itself. Like Frederick the Great's Prussia, he wrote, “The German Reich, under a Hohenzollern Kaiser, [now] battles for its existence against a world of enemies.” Since the beginning of the war, Entente propaganda had mobilized the home front by depicting the war as an epochal struggle against the enemy of all civilized men: the savage “Hun,” the jack-booted, spike-helmeted despoiler of innocent Belgium. The crudity of this propaganda caricature aside, its power to persuade nevertheless drew on a widespread conviction that the story of war constituted the core of German history and that the disease of “militarism” was a peculiarly German deformation of the national psyche. In response to the censure of their nation's enemies, the German intellectuals rejected that diagnosis while defending the role war had played in their nation's history. Published in the Kölnische Zeitung on October 4, 1914, the hastily drafted manifesto “To the Civilized World!” was endorsed (if not read) by ninety-three of the Second Reich's most prominent scholars, scientists, philosophers, and theologians, including Peter Behrens, Lujo Brentano, Adolph von Harnack, Max Lenz, and Gustav von Schmoller. They vehemently repudiated the distortion of Germany's history: “Were it not for German militarism, German civilization would long since have been extirpated.” “The word militarism,” the liberal jurist Gerhard Anschütz defiantly declared in 1915, “which is being used throughout the world as a swear word against us, let it be for us a badge of honor.” As Hintze, Anschütz, and their contemporaries understood the course of German unification (and Germany's rise as a great power under Prussian leadership), the modern German nation-state owed its very existence to what Hintze called “the monarchical-military factor.” If we are to advance our understanding of how a nationalist discourse obsessed with foreign and domestic threats supported a foreign policy that ignited two world wars in the space of twenty-five years, we must be prepared, I believe, to re-think the “Sonderweg thesis,” not in its relation to the putative immaturity of German liberalism or an atavistic predilection for autocratic rule, but as it was rooted in German military culture. The books under discussion in this essay reframe the militarism/“Sonderweg” debate by examining the unique connection between modern German visions of the nation and the waging of war as revealed in the experience of the First World War. Representing the maturation of the new intellectual and cultural history of war, they pose two fundamental questions: What kind of war did the Second Reich's military, political, and intellectual leadership envision that would “complete” the German nation? And how did they define Germany's enemies?

"<I>Endlösung</I> on the 'Amber Shore": The Massacre in January 1945 on the Baltic Seashore—A Repressed Chapter of East Prussian History

"<I>Endlösung</I> on the 'Amber Shore": The Massacre in January 1945 on the Baltic Seashore—A Repressed Chapter of East Prussian History

'<I>Pomorze</I>' or '<I>Preussen</I>'? Polish Perspectives on Early Modern Prussian History

'<I>Pomorze</I>' or '<I>Preussen</I>'? Polish Perspectives on Early Modern Prussian History