1. Germany more and more fragmented and the centre 
weakened end of 15th century, with France and England already 
more or less centralised and the nation in the process of 
formation. This impossible in Germany because 1. feudalism 
developed later than in the countries that had suffered conquest’; 
2. Germany had French and Slavonic constituents and saw Italy as 
belonging to it and Rome as its centre—thus no national complex; 
3. because, and this is the main thing, the individual provinces and 
groups of provinces were still utterly isolated from one another, 
no traffic, etc. (vid. Peasant War).? The Hansa, the Rhenish 
League of Cities and Swabian League of Cities** represented 
natural, but separate groups. 

Ad I, 1. Spain, France, England end 15th century grown 
together into constituted national states. This consolidation epoch- 
making for 15th century (Spain—unification of the Catalan and 
Castilian nationalities; Portugal, the Iberian Holland, had estab- 
lished its right to a separate existence through its navigation; 
France—through the dynasty-allodium, which gradually absorbed 
the nation.— England (England only reached this stage after being 
forced to renounce its Quixotic plans for conquest of France— 
similar to Germany’s Roman campaigns—which would have bled 
it white, as the Roman campaigns had bled white Germany)—by 
the Wars of the Roses,*” which destroyed the nobility —Germany 

would still have been centralised despite its economic desultori- 
ness, indeed earlier (e.g., under the Ottos), had it not been for the 
fact 1) that the Roman emperorship, with its claim to world 
domination, ruled out the establishment of a national state and 
dissipated its energies on the Italian campaigns of conquest 
(after-effects in Austria until 1866!), in which German interests 
were continually betrayed, and 2) that the system of elective 
monarchy never permitted a merging of the nation with the 
imperial allodium but always—and particularly in the 15th, 
decisive, century—changed dynasties as soon as their allodium 
grew too great for the princes.—In France and Spain, too, there 
was economic fragmentation, overcome by force. 

The “Kulturkampf”*° between the Emperor and the Pope in 
the Middle Ages split Germany and Italy (where the Pope was an 
obstacle to national unity and, at the same time, often apparently 
its champion, but in such a way that, e.g., Dante saw the saviour of 
Italy in the foreign Emperor“) and, by 1500, the Pope had 
positioned himself right across Italy as the prince possessing the 
middle of the country, and made unity physically impossible. 

2. Nevertheless, Germany would have grown into a single entity 
through the natural development of trade, the Germanisation of 
the Slavs and the loss of the French provinces*” and of Italy since 
the world trade route passed through Germany, had two decisive 
events not occurred to prevent this: 

—1) The German burghers made their revolution—which, in 
accordance with the spirit of the age, appeared in a religious 
form—the Reformation. But how lousy! Impossible without the 
imperial knights and the peasants; but all 3 estates prevented by 
conflicting interests: knights often the robbers of the towns (vid. 
Mangold von Eberstein) and oppressors of the peasants, and towns 
also peasant-bashers (Council of Ulm and peasants! *”*); imperial 
knights rise up first, are left in the lurch by the burghers, perish; 
peasants rise up, are directly opposed by the burghers. At the same 
time, the bourgeois religious revolution so castrated that it appeals 
to the princes, and the latter are given the leadership. Ad 2, 1: 
Specifically theological-theoretical character of the German revolu- 
tion of the 16th century. Predominant interest in things not of this 
world, abstraction from wretched reality—basis of subsequent 
theoretical superiority of the Germans from Leibniz to Hegel. 

—2) The world trade route removed from Germany, and 

Germany pushed into an isolated corner, whereby the power of 
the burghers broken, the Reformation ditto. 

—3) Result that cutus regio, eius religio,* and that Germany 
actually disintegrated into a predominantly Protestant North, 
predominantly Catholic but very mixed Southwest, and exclusively 
Catholic Southeast. This already predetermined developments of 
1740-1870 (Prussia, split between North and South, finally Little 
Germany*” and Austria). Opposite of France. Suppression of the 
Huguenots (vid. “Varia” p. 2°). 

3. Germany, once condemned industrially to passivity and 
setbacks, was bound to be more exposed to the influences of 
changing political factors than industrially active and progressive 
countries. (Develop this in general terms.) The split into 2 parties 
placed civil war on the agenda; enumeration of the wars up to 
1648—civil war. French exploitation of the opportunity and the 
alliance with and payment of the Protestant princes and German 
mercenaries. Culminates in the Thirty Years War. Thirty Years 
War—Irishmen in Germany, Germans in Ireland, 1693 and 
1806.4"! Description of the devastation. Result: economically, 
socially, politically—losses to France; setthkement by Sweden and 
Denmark in Germany; the guarantee-powers’ right of interven- 
tion; total collapse of the central power; right of rebellion against 
the Emperor, civil war and treason guaranteed by Europe to the 
German princes. 

4. 1648-1789 

a. Political condition. The German princes exploit the Peace of 
Westphalia by trying to outdo one another in selling themselves to 
foreign countries, and these—France, and also the princes— 
exploit Germany’s weakness in order gradually to appropriate all 
Germany’s French possessions and encircle Alsace. Historical right 
of France, and Teutons’ outcry about “robbery”.*!? Unchanging 
nature of linguistic boundaries (vid. Menke‘) since circa A.D. 
1000, except for the districts left of the Vosges. This the general 
situation. In particular: Rise of a rival power to Austria and the 
empire in the North: Prussia. Beginning of the realisation of the 
division into North and South. Critique of Prussian history. 

Frederick II.—Rise of Russia and Frederick II’s subjection to 
Russian policy.—Because of Prussia the civil wars now wars of 
rivalry between Austria and Prussia. 

b. Economic matters. For all that, slow recovery from the consequences 
of the Thirty Years War and renewed crawling up of the burghers. 
Only the possession of infamous virtues made this revival possible 
in such circumstances. For all that, economic progress only made 
possible through political intervention—by the infamy of the 
princes and the money paid to them from abroad. This proves 
how deeply humiliated Germany was economically. This period 
the source of the patriarchal régime. After 1648, the state really 
called on to perform social functions and forced to assume them 
by financial embarrassment; where it failed to exercise them— 
stagnation (the Westphalian bishoprics). What a state of humilia- 
tion! And how lousy the state aid! In relation to the world market, 
purely passive; only as neutrals in great world wars (American and 
Revolutionary Wars until 1801)*!° was anything to be earned. On 
the other hand, powerless against the robber states. (Thanks to the 
French Revolution this European disgrace eliminated.) 

c. Literature and language utterly degenerate; theology wooden 
dogmatism; in other sciences Germany also in a state of 
degradation, yet rays of hope: J. BOhme (again, a sign of the 
philosophers to come), Kepler, Leibniz—again abstraction from 
the existing, the real. Bach. 

d. State of Germany in 1789. a) Agriculture—peasant condi- 
tions. Serfdom, corporal punishment, dues. b) Industry—a sheer 
starvation affair, essentially manual labour, but in England already 
the beginnings of large-scale industry, and German industry, 
before it was even fully developed, doomed to die. c) Trade— 
passive. d) Social status of the burghers vis-a-vis nobility and 
government.—e) Political obstacle to development: fragmentation. 
Description as in Menke. Tolls, prevention of river traffic. Free 
TRADE along internal borders forced through by dismemberment. 
Tolls chiefly urban consumption dues. 

These princes, powerless to do good, even when enlightened — 
as Schubart’s patrons*'* and Karl August—all were happy to join 
the Confederation of the Rhine,*” rather than fight a war. 
Invasion of 1806? the test, when it was a matter of life or death 
for them. Moreover, all of these 1,000 princes absolute monarchs, 
coarse, uneducated scoundrels, from whom no cooperation could 

be expected, moods always en masse (Schlézer*). Trade in soldiers 
during American War.—Yet their worst atrocity was their mere 
existence. And alongside them, on the eastern frontier, Prussia in 
the North, Austria in the South, both greedily stretching out their 
hands for the territories—the only two that could have saved the 
situation, if only one of them was there, but whose inevitable 
rivalry made any such solution impossible. A sheer blind-alley, 
only from outside could help come—the French Revolution 
brought it. Only 2 signs of life: military skill, and also literature 
and philosophy and conscientious, objective scientific investigation, 
whereas in France, as early as 18th century, mainly partisan 
writings, albeit first-class ones—in Germany all this was a flight 
from reality into ideal regions. “Man” and the development of the 
language; 1700 barbarism, 1750 Lessing and Kant, soon Goethe, 
Schiller, Wieland, Herder; Gluck, Handel, Mozart. 

1789-1815 

1. The German enclaves in Alsace-Lorraine, etc.—already half 
under French sovereignty—joined the French Revolution; thus an 
excuse for war.’ Prussia and Austria now suddenly united. 
Valmy.*!” Defeat of linear tactics by massed artillery. Fleurus and 
Jemappes.*"* Defeat of the Austrian cordon tactics? Capture of 
the left bank of the Rhine. Rejoicing of the peasants and the 
liberal towns could not be dispelled even by odd cases of extortion, 
or Napoleon’s bloodtaxes.—Peace of Amiens and the most 
important act of the Imperial Deputation—the dissolution of the 
Empire.*’? Confederation of the Rhine. The abolition of small 
states by Napoleon unfortunately failed to go far enough. He, 
always revolutionary vis-a-vis the princes, would have gone further 
if the petty princes had not humbled themselves so abjectly before 
him. 1806, Napoleon’s error was not to have destroyed Prussia 
altogether.— Economic facts on Germany under the Continental 
Blockade.*”°—This period of the utmost humiliation from abroad 
coincides with the heyday of literature and philosophy and the 
culmination of music in Beethoven. 

VARIA ON GERMANY 1789-1873 

Prussia: und sint Weletabi so wir Wilzi heizzent etc.* 

Prussian Army: hungry of old. Hépfner 1788-1806.°—Scarcity 
of funds under Frederick William III. Embezzlement (lst 
and 9th Guard Artillery Comp. coats, 1842). Old harness in the 
armoury.— Frederick William III also peaceful, owing to need to 
summon the estates in the event of war.—lIst turning-point 
1848.—Waldersee and needle (gun). 2nd_ turning-point the 
mobilisation 1850 and finally the Italian War,**' army reorganisa- 
tion, rejection of the old ways. Since 1864 much self-criticism and 
purely businesslike procedure. Nevertheless, total misunderstand- 
ing of the character of Prussian army organisation.— Tragi-comic 
conflict: the state must wage political wars, for distant interests that 
never arouse national enthusiasm, and to this end requires an 
army that is only any good for national defence and the offensives 
resulting immediately therefrom (1814 and 1870).—This conflict 
will be the downfall of the Prussian state and the Prussian 
army—probably in a war with Russia, which might last 4 years 
and would yield nothing but disease and shattered bones. 

Jewish element absolutely vital to Germany; the Jews a class that 
stood even lower than the serfs, no homeland, no rights (cf. 
Gilich on Frederick William II‘), but free and because dependent 
on trade, an element of the future in themselves; therefore able to 
react while the mass unable to react to the pressure; also livelier 
and more active by nature than the Germans, rise under 
Napoleonic rule (Rothschild and the Elector of Hesse *”*); soon 
after 1815 strong enough in North and West Germany to break 
the ghetto law where it had been imposed (Frankfurt); Borne and 
Heine; penetration into literature, especially the daily press; 
character of the Jewish man of letters to aim at immediate 
practical gain; character of the Jewish merchant, Polish and 
German tradition of petty swindling, only disappearing in the 2nd 

or 3rd generation—finally merging more and more, the Germans 
become Jewish and the Jews German. 

German trading colonies abroad even before 1789, but only 
significant after 1814. Only since 1848 real lever for Germany’s 
entry into world trade, but then tremendously effective. Gradual 
growth. Character of the trading colonies until 1848—generally 
uneducated and ashamed of their country. (Mchr.* English in 10 
German dialects.) Inadequate protection (Weerth’s Mexican story 
and his experience with German diplomats in South America in 
general **’); German world trade language through the colonies 
and the Jews in Eastern Europe (details of these) and through 
Hamburg posts in Scandinavia. The fact that in trade, outside 
Romance Europe and at most the Levant, German goes further 
than French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, in short all languages 
except English. Now rapid expansion of German colonies—cf. the 
fear of the English in London itself. 

Epigonic literature—starting as early as Heine— its mission the 
polishing of the language, much needed. This achieved in poetry; 
prose worse than ever. 

General feeling 1859-63 on the left bank of the Rhine they were 
becoming French again—not wished for, not opposed, but they 
submitted and would also have voted for the inevitable. How 
much better, then, the Alsatians!— Utter lack of trust in Prussia on 
account of its attitude and powerlessness [18]59. In addition, 
reaction among German chauvinists against Bonapartist Rhenish 
cravings, Alsace and Lorraine German! 

Schleswig Holstein—England’s eastern Ireland on account of 
cattle and butter imports, ruin of agriculture at the expense of 
cattle-raising, emigration, now still in its beginnings, the rest of 
North German marshlands facing the same fate. 

Gold and silverware, jewellery considerable export from Hanau, 
Pforzheim, Gmiinden, Berlin, etc. (K.Z.°). 

Prussian Rules concerning servants**’—not to be forgotten! And 

one-year volunteers in France. 

During the Huguenot wars*” respect for the monarchy, as 
representing the nation, already so great that only the King was 
permitted, both legally and by public opinion, to make foreign 
alliances and engage foreign auxiliaries. The others always rebels 
and traitors. This never more evident than at the death of Hen- 
ry I1I—when Henry IV, merely by virtue of the royal name, is able 
to achieve final victory. 

The eventual suppression of Protestantism in France was no 
misfortune for France— teste Bayle, Voltaire and Diderot. Similar- 
ly, its suppression in Germany would not have been a disaster for 
Germany, but certainly for the world. It would have imposed the 
Catholic form of development of the Romance countries on 
Germany, and as the English form of development was also 
semi-Catholic and medieval (universities, etc., colleges, Pustic 
schools are all Protestant monasteries), the entire Protestant 
German form of education (education at home or in _ private 
houses, students living out and choosing [courses of lectures]) 
would have been swept away and European intellectual develop- 
ment would have become infinitely uniform. France and England 
exploded prejudices of fact, Germany those of form, pattern. 
Hence, also, partly, the amorphous nature of everything German, 
tll now s«rui bound up with great drawbacks, such as_ the 
fragmentation into small states, but a tremendous gain for the 
nation’s capacity for development, one that will bear its full fruits 
only in the future, when this one-sided stage has been passed. 

Then: German Protestantism the only modern form of Christianity 
worth criticising. Catholicism, even in the 18th century, beneath criti- 
cism, object of polemics (what asses, therefore, are the Old Catho- 
lics! ”°), The English having disintegrated into x sects, with no theo- 
logical development, or one every step of which became fixed as a 
sect. The German alone has a theology and thus an object of criti- 
cism—historical, philological and philosophical. This supplied by Ger- 
many, impossible without German Protestantism and yet absolutely 
necessary. A religion such as Christianity is not destroyed by ridi- 
cule and invective alone; it also needs to be overcome scientifically, 
i.e., explained historically, which is beyond even the natural sciences. 

Holland and Belgium, separated from Germany by the moors 
between the Rhine and North Sea, by the Ardennes and Venn in 
the South, play vis-a-vis Germany the role of Phoenicia vis-a-vis 
Palestine, and also the same lamentation as in the old prophets, 
customary in Germany. 

Flanders from the partition of Verdun *’ until after 1500 a part 

of France—hence the establishment of the French language— 
promoted by Flemish trade in the Middle Ages, when the 
merchants certainly spoke no Flemish with the Italian, etc., 
merchants. Now the Teutomaniacs are demanding the restoration 
of the Flemish language, which even the Dutch do not recognise 
as full-fledged; the Flemish movement of the priests! Ir 1s te the 
Flemish finally had one language instead of 2, and that can only 
be French. 

After the discovery of America, Germany’s agriculture, industry 
and trade a perpetual patient experimentation—agriculture vid. 
the many unsuccessful attempts in  Langethal*—industry 
everywhere and always things which, scarcely instituted, were 
forced off the world market—most striking example linen; on a 
small scale, e.g., the Wuppertal industry 1820-60—trade ditto. 
This only now placed on a normal footing. 

Even in 1848 Germany’s main export still—human_ beings. 
1) ordinary emigration. 2) prostitution: in East Prussia regular 
establishments of higher and lower status for training girls to be 
whores of every variety and Fit For anything—from the sailors’ 
brothel to the “educated” cavalier’s mistress and, on all sorts of 
false pretext, sent abroad where most of them first met their fate. 
Many of those in a better position accepted their lot, even sending 
their maquerelle tender letters of thanks, in which they always 
concealed their prostituted position, figuring as governesses, 
companions or as brilliantly married. Bergenroth was of the opinion 
that all this was impossible without the authorities— For A CONSIDERA- 
TION?—turning a blind eye; he says it was always very difficult to 
get hold of any tangible evidence in judicial inquiries. From Peters- 
burg and Stockholm to Antwerp the entire Baltic and North Sea 
coast was supplied with East Prussian women.—3) the vagabond 
girls from the Vogelsberg area of Hesse and Nassau, who travell- 
ed around the fairs in England as sroomciris** (the older ones 
also with barrel organs), but particularly those shipped to America 
aS HURDY-gurdies and making up the lowest stratum of prostitution 
there. 4) the young merchants of the Hansa and the Rhenish facto- 
ry towns, later from Saxony and Berlin, too, and 5) then just be- 
ginning, later developing strongly, the chemists (the Liebig school 
in Giessen), with whores the chief export of the Grand Duchy of 
Hesse.— Emigrants to Holland from Westphalia—now common 
for Dutch to seek work in the Westphalian industrial areas. 

The stinginess of the German governments, especially that of 
Prussia of 1815-70, apparent in everything: poor-quality dirty 
coinage; ditto banknotes; coarse office paper; writing-sand (all 
official documents a frightful sight); fat, clumsily carved stamps; 
everything coarse, not least the officials themselves. French, 
English, Belgian money, post-marks, banknotes, everything gave 
an impression of superiority from the outset. 

The awkwardness of German for everyday use, together with its 
enormous facility in dealing with the most difficult topics is partly 
the cause—or a symptom?—of the fact that, in most disciplines, 
the Germans have the greatest men, whereas their mass produc- 
tion is unusually awful rubbish. Literature: the numerous solid 
second-rate poets in England, the brilliant mediocrity that fills 
almost all French literature, are almost entirely absent in 
Germany. Our second-rate writers hardly bear reading a genera- 
tion later. Ditto philosophy: alongside Kant and Hegel—Herbart, 
Krug, Fries and finally Schopenhauer and Hartmann. The genius 
of the great ones finds its complement in the unthinking nature of 
the Educated Mass, thus no name is more spurious than that of 
the “nation of thinkers”. Ditto military literature. Only in things 
that are more or less independent of language is it any different, 
and second-rate people, too, important in Germany: natural 
sciences and particularly music. Our historical works unreadable. 

The present so-called German Empire: The setting of the 
Nibelungs is Germany’s 2 greatest rivers, the Rhine and the 
Danube. It would seem unnatural to us if Worms, the home of 
Kriemhild and scene of Siegfrid’s deeds, were French. But is it 
any less unnatural for the Danube region to lie outside the 
German Empire, for Rüdiger of Bechelaren once again to be, as it 
were, a vassal of the Magyar Etzel? And how did Walther von der 
Vogelweide describe Germany: “Von der Elbe unz an den Rin 
und hinwider unz an Ungerlant’”’*—the Old German Austria is 
outside Germany, and the then non-German East Elbe region is 
the centre and focal point! And that calls itself a German Empire!