Treitschke's attitude against the
Puttkamer
ortho-
?
?
Treitschke - 1914 - His Doctrine of German Destiny
" In the pres-
ence 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,
Monke, 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 appear-
ance are to-day submerged in the flood of journal-
ism and completely forgotten. Another considera-
tion 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
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? His Life and Work 113
sentence of his first essay: "From the East fron-
tier there pours year by year from the inexhaust-
ible Polish cradle a huge number of ambitious
trouser-selling youths, whose children and child-
ren'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 for-
tunes, not by productive labour, but by the ex-
change 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
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? 1 14 Treitschke
no means pleased at his having become involved in
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 Stocker 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, accord-
ing 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 seri-
ously 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 Chris-
tian fellow- workers for his own object, and by the
sneering tone of his articles he particularly puzzled
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? His Life and Work 115
the ladies' world. The public declaration of
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 Forster anti-Semitic petition. Treitschke de-
clared he disagreed with the contents of this peti-
tion, 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 mis-
understood me; he also promised to have that
passage eliminated, which actually was done.
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? n6 Treitschke
The mendacious reference to Treitschke, however,
caused so much discussion that Treitschke sent
to a member of the Senate a written declaration
for transmission to the Rector, and when Momm-
sen, 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 demon-
strate 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 recog-
nized with great respect that Mommsen had
abruptly turned a deaf ear to the attempts of
several younger Jewish colleagues in their en-
deavour 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 con-
sequence 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
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? His Life and Work 117
aversion, recognized in Heine the true voice of
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 judg-
ment, 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.
"Du nahst der Welt mit einer Welt voll Liebe
Dein Zauber ist das mutig freie Herz
War's moglich dass sie dir verschlossen bliebe? "
he had written in his youth when deafness broke
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, Erd-
mansdoerffer reminded me of a saying of Berthold
Auerbach, who had predicted of another anti-
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? n8 Treitschke
Semite: "Like all Hamans, he will have a bad
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 en-
thusiastically 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 in-
different 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 vigor-
ous 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 utter-
ances on undenominational schools, he now de-
clared denominational schools as normal, whereas,
as late as 1872, he had appealed to the new Minis-
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? His Life and Work 119
ter of Public Instruction to send Jewish teachers
to those colleges which Herr von Miihler had
declared as being denominational according to
observance. Soon we were as much amazed at
the literary manifestoes of our friend as the veter-
ans 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
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? 120 Treitschke
very subordinate class of men, and being what he
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 Ger-
many 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 Gottingen
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
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? His Life and Work 121
paper in which only the scum of German professors
deposit their spawn. " But soon enough he him-
self had to be glad to be able to deposit his declara-
tions 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 Stocker, 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 Stocker,
he replied evasively r "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 im-
possible 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
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? 122 Treitschke
had been of a positive nature, and hated that one
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 scrip-
tural 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 re-
mained the same; his judgment of Radicals alone
had accentuated. Almost comical was his indigna-
tion 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
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? His Life and Work 123
human beings, and yet remain in the dark, singing :
"Oh wie gu dass niemand weiss dass ich Rumpel-
stilchen 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 fre-
quently 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 condi-
tions. 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 ortho-
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? 124 Treitschke
graphy, had the approval of his Heidelberg friends,
especially that of Herrmann, who, meanwhile, had
returned to us. Treitschke was assured that Putt-
kamer 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 com-
plained about the jargon of Vienna stock exchange
and cafes 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 de-
monstrated 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 para-
graph; 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
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? His Life and Work 125
showed how embitterment, likewise, had impaired
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 retrogres-
sion 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 ex-
pressed 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 unsympa-
thetic to him. To fight side by side with the old
companion afforded me particular pleasure, for he
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? 126 Treitschke
warned the Government to pass a bill, with the
assistance of the Conservatives and Ultramontanes
which was repugnant to the majority of the Protes-
tants, 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, al-
though forced upon him, was less pleasing to me.
Like all strong, subjective dispositions, Baum-
garten 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. "
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? His Life and Work 127
While Treitschke, in Berlin, had gradually identi-
fied himself more and more with the views of
Prussian Conservatives, Baumgarten, in Strass-
burg, 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, Man-
teuffel's patronage of Notables, who were the
hated opponents of his Pro-German Alsatian
friends, and referred to the testimony of Count
Tiirckheim and others, who had had the intention
of becoming Prussian, but now met their Alsatian
sworn enemies in the drawing-room of the Govern-
or as family friends. All these experiences had
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? 128 Treitschke
produced in Baumgarten a feeling which, although
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 ob-
ject 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 patho-
logically. It was, perhaps, expressed too strongly
when Treitschke spoke of a mass of abuse and
suspicions in the "libellous pamphlet"; but no-
body 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,
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? His Life and Work 129
whom nobody placed in the same rank with
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 Ger-
mans. I am now cured of this delusion. We are
still lacking a natural history tradition; by repre-
senting 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 Ger-
mans. 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 civili-
zation there will be formed in the political world
an element, conservative in the true sense. Con-
tinue to be of good courage for your patriotic
struggles, my dear Sir; time will come when Ger-
mans again will enjoy life and their country, and
will overcome the political children's complaint of
aimless dissatisfaction . ' f
The partial justice of Baumgarten's polemics,
which we also recognize, did not lie in isolated
9
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? 130 Treitschke
blame which Treitschke successfully refuted, and
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 perse-
cuted patriots such as Arndt, and John, and de-
stroyed 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 liturgies bestowed upon
Prussia the disorganizing ritual quarrel, and re-
fused 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, Treitsch-
ke 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
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? His Life and Work 131
whole, such an honourable figure was the outcome
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 con-
sidered 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 con-
sidered 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 uncom-
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? 132 Treitschke
fortable for present-day party politics, I must not
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 embodi-
ment 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 re-
ceiving reports concurring with my views/ ' Baum-
garten 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 in-
significant 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 under-
went 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 perspec-
tive 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
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? His Life and Work 133
for him considering the increasing weakness of his
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 lec-
tures 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
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? 134 Treitschke
some other admirers ; and he was so gay and lively,
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 improve-
ment was a lasting one. The fifth volume ap-
peared in the autumn of 1894, an d 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 repre-
sent the healthy basis for the future of Germany.
'Our dear old gentleman! Since his death every
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? His Life and Work 135
possible misfortune has befallen me. * I tried to
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. " 1 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.
ence 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,
Monke, 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 appear-
ance are to-day submerged in the flood of journal-
ism and completely forgotten. Another considera-
tion 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
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? His Life and Work 113
sentence of his first essay: "From the East fron-
tier there pours year by year from the inexhaust-
ible Polish cradle a huge number of ambitious
trouser-selling youths, whose children and child-
ren'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 for-
tunes, not by productive labour, but by the ex-
change 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
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? 1 14 Treitschke
no means pleased at his having become involved in
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 Stocker 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, accord-
ing 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 seri-
ously 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 Chris-
tian fellow- workers for his own object, and by the
sneering tone of his articles he particularly puzzled
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? His Life and Work 115
the ladies' world. The public declaration of
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 Forster anti-Semitic petition. Treitschke de-
clared he disagreed with the contents of this peti-
tion, 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 mis-
understood me; he also promised to have that
passage eliminated, which actually was done.
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? n6 Treitschke
The mendacious reference to Treitschke, however,
caused so much discussion that Treitschke sent
to a member of the Senate a written declaration
for transmission to the Rector, and when Momm-
sen, 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 demon-
strate 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 recog-
nized with great respect that Mommsen had
abruptly turned a deaf ear to the attempts of
several younger Jewish colleagues in their en-
deavour 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 con-
sequence 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
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? His Life and Work 117
aversion, recognized in Heine the true voice of
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 judg-
ment, 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.
"Du nahst der Welt mit einer Welt voll Liebe
Dein Zauber ist das mutig freie Herz
War's moglich dass sie dir verschlossen bliebe? "
he had written in his youth when deafness broke
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, Erd-
mansdoerffer reminded me of a saying of Berthold
Auerbach, who had predicted of another anti-
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? n8 Treitschke
Semite: "Like all Hamans, he will have a bad
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 en-
thusiastically 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 in-
different 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 vigor-
ous 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 utter-
ances on undenominational schools, he now de-
clared denominational schools as normal, whereas,
as late as 1872, he had appealed to the new Minis-
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? His Life and Work 119
ter of Public Instruction to send Jewish teachers
to those colleges which Herr von Miihler had
declared as being denominational according to
observance. Soon we were as much amazed at
the literary manifestoes of our friend as the veter-
ans 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
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? 120 Treitschke
very subordinate class of men, and being what he
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 Ger-
many 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 Gottingen
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
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? His Life and Work 121
paper in which only the scum of German professors
deposit their spawn. " But soon enough he him-
self had to be glad to be able to deposit his declara-
tions 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 Stocker, 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 Stocker,
he replied evasively r "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 im-
possible 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
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? 122 Treitschke
had been of a positive nature, and hated that one
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 scrip-
tural 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 re-
mained the same; his judgment of Radicals alone
had accentuated. Almost comical was his indigna-
tion 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
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? His Life and Work 123
human beings, and yet remain in the dark, singing :
"Oh wie gu dass niemand weiss dass ich Rumpel-
stilchen 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 fre-
quently 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 condi-
tions. 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 ortho-
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? 124 Treitschke
graphy, had the approval of his Heidelberg friends,
especially that of Herrmann, who, meanwhile, had
returned to us. Treitschke was assured that Putt-
kamer 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 com-
plained about the jargon of Vienna stock exchange
and cafes 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 de-
monstrated 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 para-
graph; 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
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? His Life and Work 125
showed how embitterment, likewise, had impaired
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 retrogres-
sion 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 ex-
pressed 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 unsympa-
thetic to him. To fight side by side with the old
companion afforded me particular pleasure, for he
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? 126 Treitschke
warned the Government to pass a bill, with the
assistance of the Conservatives and Ultramontanes
which was repugnant to the majority of the Protes-
tants, 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, al-
though forced upon him, was less pleasing to me.
Like all strong, subjective dispositions, Baum-
garten 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. "
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? His Life and Work 127
While Treitschke, in Berlin, had gradually identi-
fied himself more and more with the views of
Prussian Conservatives, Baumgarten, in Strass-
burg, 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, Man-
teuffel's patronage of Notables, who were the
hated opponents of his Pro-German Alsatian
friends, and referred to the testimony of Count
Tiirckheim and others, who had had the intention
of becoming Prussian, but now met their Alsatian
sworn enemies in the drawing-room of the Govern-
or as family friends. All these experiences had
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? 128 Treitschke
produced in Baumgarten a feeling which, although
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 ob-
ject 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 patho-
logically. It was, perhaps, expressed too strongly
when Treitschke spoke of a mass of abuse and
suspicions in the "libellous pamphlet"; but no-
body 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,
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? His Life and Work 129
whom nobody placed in the same rank with
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 Ger-
mans. I am now cured of this delusion. We are
still lacking a natural history tradition; by repre-
senting 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 Ger-
mans. 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 civili-
zation there will be formed in the political world
an element, conservative in the true sense. Con-
tinue to be of good courage for your patriotic
struggles, my dear Sir; time will come when Ger-
mans again will enjoy life and their country, and
will overcome the political children's complaint of
aimless dissatisfaction . ' f
The partial justice of Baumgarten's polemics,
which we also recognize, did not lie in isolated
9
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? 130 Treitschke
blame which Treitschke successfully refuted, and
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 perse-
cuted patriots such as Arndt, and John, and de-
stroyed 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 liturgies bestowed upon
Prussia the disorganizing ritual quarrel, and re-
fused 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, Treitsch-
ke 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
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? His Life and Work 131
whole, such an honourable figure was the outcome
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 con-
sidered 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 con-
sidered 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 uncom-
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? 132 Treitschke
fortable for present-day party politics, I must not
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 embodi-
ment 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 re-
ceiving reports concurring with my views/ ' Baum-
garten 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 in-
significant 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 under-
went 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 perspec-
tive 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
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? His Life and Work 133
for him considering the increasing weakness of his
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 lec-
tures 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
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? 134 Treitschke
some other admirers ; and he was so gay and lively,
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 improve-
ment was a lasting one. The fifth volume ap-
peared in the autumn of 1894, an d 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 repre-
sent the healthy basis for the future of Germany.
'Our dear old gentleman! Since his death every
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? His Life and Work 135
possible misfortune has befallen me. * I tried to
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. " 1 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.
