At the death of
Napoleon III, on January 9, 1873, consequent
upon an operation for stone, he remarked: "Right
to the last this man has remained unassthetic.
Napoleon III, on January 9, 1873, consequent
upon an operation for stone, he remarked: "Right
to the last this man has remained unassthetic.
Treitschke - 1914 - His Doctrine of German Destiny
With Lessing, I
admire the clear statements, because they are
natural to this clear dialectician ; but with Strauss
they do not belong to the man, as with Lessing,
but to the essay. " Strauss's style just lacked the
personal element. If Strauss, on the other hand,
found Treitschke's style indigestible, the contrast
is thereby quite correctly characteristic. While
patriotic pathos dominated the one, the other one
was, throughout, reflective and logical; that is
to say, the one was a dithyramb and the other
one a Socratic nature. I could not always share
Treitschke's clearly formed opinions, but we were
all grateful to him for the interest with which he
invested conversation, and for his ability to main-
tain it. His own activity was that of an artist as
well as that of a scientist. Impressions of his
travels through all the valleys of Germany, poetry,
newspaper extracts, conversations and humorous
stories of friends, were always at his command, and
these, combined with accurate studies from the
Archives and information verbally received, en-
abled him to shape his work. Considering his
system of gathering information, it was inevitable
that occasionally he was provided with unauthen-
tic news, for, as soon as conversation arose on a
subject useful to him, his pocket-book appeared,
and he asked to have the story put down. When
I once wrote for him that, at the outbreak of the
Army mutiny in Karlsruhe, a picture of Grand
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? 70 Treitschke
Duke Leopold was exhibited in all the libraries,
with the verse:
Zittert ein Tyrann von Revolutionen,
Du Leopold kannst ruhig thronen.
Dein Volk verlasst Dich nicht
(Though a tyrant may dread revolution,
Thou, O Leopold, mayest safely reign.
Thy people will not forsake thee),
he immediately placed the piece of paper separately
and said, "This will appear in the sixth volume";
but it never saw the light of day. I personally
could vouch for the correctness of my story, but
how easy it was to obtain wrong information under
these circumstances, and, as a matter of fact, all
sorts of protests against his anecdotes were raised
after each publication. It is notorious how cir-
cumstantially he subsequently had to explain or
contradict the story of the silver spoon of Prince
Wrede, the Red Order of the Eagle of Privy Coun-
cillor Schmalz, and many other things, and much
more frequently still he promised correction in the
subsequent edition to those who had lodged com-
plaints. We were very much annoyed at the injus-
tice with which he, in the fifth volume, character-
ized the Grand Duke Leopold, who was exceedingly
conscientious and benevolent. When attacking
him for it in our domestic circle, he declared that
every petty State had its idol, and that we ought
to break ourselves of it as others had done.
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? His Life and Work 71
Treitschke's tales from the Reichstag provided
a rich source of amusement. When entering
Parliament, in 1871, all friends were of opinion
the deaf man would not stand it long, and his
enemies mockingly remarked: "It is right he
should be there. " But the canvassing tour in
itself proved a great recreation for him, and if he
had achieved nothing beyond the strengthening,
by his fiery speeches, of the German sentiment of
people on the Hunsruck and in the Nahe Valley,
this gain alone was worth the trouble. His effi-
ciency in Berlin exceeded all expectations. He
sat next to the shorthand writers, and after having
grasped their system of abbreviations, he followed
the speeches, and thus was often better informed
than those who sneered at the deaf deputy. It
was more difficult for him to attend at Committee
sittings, but his friend Wehrenpfennig kept him
informed as far as possible. As all parties decided
in committee how to vote, Treitschke's speeches
in plenum really were of value for the public only,
but the reputation of the Reichsrath certainly was
considerably enhanced by the fact that people who
liked reading the parliamentary proceedings were
able to find the speeches reproduced in the news-
papers. The orations of "the deaf man who had
no business in Parliament" are, with the exception
of Bismarck's, after all, the only ones which, after
his death, have been edited in book form from the
protocols, and even to-day they are a source of
political information and patriotic elevation. It
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? 72 Treitschke
was a great event when the circle of friends in
Heidelberg heard that Treitschke had delivered
his maiden speech in the Reichstag, and great was
our joy when we read that in this first speech he
had vehemently attacked the Ultramontanes.
Deputy Reichensperger moved that, with a
view to safeguarding the liberty of the Press,
Unions and the Church Articles III-V of the Frank-
fort fundamental laws should be incorporated
in the Constitution of the Empire. Treitschke
started by declaring that the nation's hope of a
temporary continuance, at any rate in Parliament,
of the noble spirit of unanimity which, during the
war, had raised Germany above other nations,
had been defeated by the Ultramontanes. At the
beginning of the German Reichstag, we have
heard the Empire of the Papal King, the Republic
of Poland, and the Empire of the Guelfs discussed,
while I had hoped we should now have firmly es-
tablished progress in our territory, and would look
hopefully towards the future. It is impossible to
believe that the great question of State and Church
could be solved by a four-line sentence. In order
to bring about the Constitution every party was
obliged to make sacrifices. The disturbers of the
peace are now exactly those gentlemen who always
assert that they are the oppressed minority. Now,
gentlemen, if this were true, I must say that they
endured their oppression with a very small
measure of Christian patience. If fundamental
laws should become incorporated with the New
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? His Life and Work 73
Constitution, he continued, why have Mr. Reichen-
sperger and his associates forgotten the principal
ones? The article is lacking ; "science and its dog-
ma are free," a principle the adoption of which
would be highly beneficial to the Catholic Theo-
logic Faculties. Why is the definition lacking
respecting civil marriage law? In this way he
ruthlessly tore off the opponents' masks, as if they
had aimed at liberty. When Bishop Kettler had
uttered a warning to speak a little more modestly,
and with less confidence of the future of an Empire
which had as yet to be founded, Treitschke ironi-
cally pointed to the great progress made consider-
ing that Kettler no longer sat in Parliament as
Bishop of Mayence, but owed his seat to the
poll of an electoral district. If the movers of
the bill were to point out they demanded nothing
beyond what the Prussian Constitution had taken
over long before from the Frankfort Constitution,
they betrayed thereby their intention to give the
Bishops in this article the possibility of scoffing
at the laws of the country by appealing to the law
of the Empire. In Baden they had undergone too
many experiences in this respect to be deceived
any longer. But the German nation is sensible and
honest enough to understand that these poor
articles are not fundamental laws, but aim at
procuring, by a side-issue, an independent position
for the Catholic Church as regards the State. He
therefore thought he did no injustice to the
movers of the bill when he expressed the belief that
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? 74 Treitschke
the Press and Unions were only a momentary
addition to their proposal, but that their real in-
tention was directed to the independence of the
Catholic Church. The defeat of the Ultramon-
tanes was as complete as possible, and there ex-
isted no other more pressing matter for which
Treitschke could have acted as champion on behalf
of Baden. In parliamentary matters he was now,
likewise, recognized as the worthy successor of
Hausser. The general belief that Treitschke owed
his great success to mannerism was dispelled by
his speeches in the Reichstag. It was not rhetoric
or pathos which scored, but the force of conviction.
He spoke better than others because he had
grasped the thought of liberty, and of nationality,
with more ardour than they had. To him more
than to any other speaker the words of Cato
senior applied: "Keep firmly in mind the subject
and the words will follow. "
In a further speech on the law on July 9, 1871,
he woefully surrendered his ideal to see Alsace
Lothing a province of Germany, but all the more
energetically he opposed the desire of a party,
supported by Roggenbach, to form Alsace into a
State. If it was not to become part of the Prussian
State it should, at least, be a province of the Ger-
man Empire, reigned over by the Emperor, and
not become a new Small State. The Alsatian
public servants should frequently be transferred,
even to Schwelm, and to Stalluponen, so that they
should get to know Germany. Neither was he in
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? His Life and Work 75
favour of having a Lord Lieutenant appointed.
"Such a prince makes the worst public servant,
because he is obliged to act as if his house '/were a
Court. The elements of Society which could be
attracted by these countless gewgaws are such
that I, at any rate, would with pleasure dispense
with their support. " Neither in Strasburg nor
in Heidelberg or Berlin did this particular speech
meet with great approbation, but who will assert
to-day that he was wrong? All the more ap-
proved was his speech of November 2, 1871, in
which he demanded the intervention of the Empire
to procure for Mecklenburg the privileges of the
Estates of the Realm. A great impression was
produced when he pointed out that, of half a
million inhabitants, no less than 60,000 people had
emigrated within the last fifteen years from this
little country richly blessed by nature. In his
indignation he ever adopted a tone which, hitherto,
one was wont to hear only at democratic meetings.
He pointed out that conditions in Mecklenburg
had become the butt of humour. " It is dangerous
when the patient German people begin to sneer.
That scornful laughter over the old German Diet
and the King of the Guelfs carried on for many
years has led to very serious consequences; it has
brought about the well-known end of all things.
The star of unity is in the ascendant. Woe betide
the State which wilfully secludes itself from this
mighty and irresistible impulse ; sooner or later the
catastrophe will overtake it. " In the same way as
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? 76 Treitschke
these threatening words had created a great im-
pression in Parliament, so they found an enthusi-
astic echo in our circle; and equally great was his
success when he supported the supplementing of
the Penal Code by the so-called Pulpit Paragraph,
by which he again told the bitter truth to the
Ultramontanes. For the last time before proroga-
tion of Parliament he spoke on November 29, 1871,
when the progressive party renewed the old
controversy on parliamentary co-operation regard-
ing Army Estimates. Treitschke was strongly in
favour of the War Minister's views; he availed
himself, however, of this occasion to attack
strongly von Muhler, the Minister of Public In-
struction, and when called to order by the Con-
servatives he replied: "See that a capable man is
appointed at the head of the Ministry of Public
Instruction who bestows only the tenth part of
that energy which the Minister for War is in the
habit of bestowing upon his department; you will
then have practical experience that one thing can
be done, and that another cannot be left undone. "
On the whole, the Baden Deputies returned from
Berlin in a very dejected mood. Of Bluntschli,
the Berlin newspapers had written that his delivery
gave the impression he was dictating his speeches.
He had remained obscure that he knew; but
consoled himself with the thought that it took
time to find the tone for such a big assembly. Of
Roggenbach, who, with all his brilliant conver-
sational gifts, completely lacked oratorical powers,
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? His Life and Work 77
a gay Palatine country judge, who was also a
member of the Reichstag, said: "If this is your
most brilliant statesman I should like to come
across your most stupid one. " In the same way
the others returned like a beaten army, for not the
remotest comparison existed between the part
played by them in Berlin and the one played by
them in Karlsruhe at the Municipal Hall. Only
one appeared with laurels, and this one was
Treitschke, who had saved our reputation. He
was also welcomed home as heartily as possible;
although Baumgarten said at the time, in a morose
tone, that Treitschke never considered a law pro-
posal favourably unless he had delivered a speech
on it. The Ul tramontanes, however, considered
the game unevenly matched. While he over-
whelmed them with the strongest expressions, they
could not hit back because he did not hear them.
In an identical fashion the second session, 1873-
1874, passed, which Treitschke still attended from
Heidelberg, and the "round table" applauded his
brilliant passages of arms. Many of his winged
words have survived to the present day, as, for
instance, his explanation of the request of German
issuing banks for paper (money) "based on a
deeply founded desire in human nature"; or
"making debts without getting interest on them";
or his sneering remarks about the predilection of
South Germans for Bavarian military helmets and
dirty florin notes. His patriotism again rose to its
full height when discussions on the septennate took
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? 78 Treitschke
place, when the same party, whose chaplains in
the Black Forest had falsely told the constituents
that "septennate" meant serving for seven
successive years, complained in Parliament that
they were called the enemies of the Empire, he
referred to their behaviour, and for simplicity's
sake began with the Pope.
"Who was it who expressed the devout Chris-
tian wish that a little stone might fall from heaven
to shatter the feet of the German Colossus? Those
who consider the author of this ingenious pro-
nouncement infallible would only have confessed
publicly to this wish after Germany had lost a
battle, and which God forbid. Meanwhile, Prussia
was the little stone which had opened the doors
of the Eternal City to united and free Italy, and at
the same time had annihilated the most sinful
Small State of that part of the globe. In similar
strain he spoke on December 17, 1874, to Deputy
Winterer, who demanded the abolition of the
School Law granted the preceding year to Alsace
Lothing. In opposition to Winterer's hymns on
the achievements of the school brethren he read
extracts from their rules which prescribed in which
case the brother has to rise before the superior,
in which case to kneel down, and in which case he
only had to kiss the floor. " Gentlemen, " he asked
the Ultramontanes, "I am indeed curious to know
whether there is anything worse than the naked
floor the devout school brother is to kiss. " When
the gentlemen of the clerical party expressed the
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? His Life and Work 79
wish to save the ecclesiastical and French spirit
of their public schools he replied in unmistakable
fashion: "We have the intention to Germanize
this newly acquired German province ; we have the
intention and will carry it out. " Strong applause,
and hissing in the centre, was the usual result of his
speeches during this session. The return took
place under conditions similar to those of last year,
only the depression at the modest part played by
the Baden Deputies in their Reichstag was still
greater, and Jolly, at any rate, did not refrain
from remarking that the quarrelsome disposition
of the Liberal leaders, which immediately made
itself felt at the opening debate of the Baden
Chamber in November, 1873, arose from the desire
of the gentlemen to gain in the Karlsruhe Rondel
Hall the laurels which had been denied to them in
the Reichstag. But Treitschke's appreciation of
the Reichstag likewise waned from session to
session. Already, in 1879, he wrote the following
words in the Reichstag album: "Let us not be
deceived, gentlemen; the pleasure our population
experienced by participating in parliamentary life
has considerably decreased in comparison with the
days when the mere existence of Parliament was
held to be the beginning of the era of liberty. But
how should it be otherwise? I believe we are
blessed with 4000 deputies in the German Empire.
It would be against the nature of things if such an
excessive number did not, in the end, become
boring and tedious to the population. " When his
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? 8o Treitschke
calculation was contested, he wrote a few years
later: "Quousque tandem is on everybody's lips
when in good Society mention is made of those
parliamentary speech floods which now, for months
past, have rushed forth again in Berlin, Munich,
and Karlsruhe, as if from wide opened sluices;
3000 Members of Parliament, that is to say, one
representative of the people for every 3000 citizens.
Too much of a good thing even for German
patience. More and more frequently the question
is raised whether by such sinful waste of money
and time anything else can be effected beyond a
noise as useless as the clattering of a wheel whose
axle is broken. "
On July n, 1879, he announced his retirement
from the National Liberal faction on the rejection
of the well-known Frankenstein Clause, which
allotted part of the customs receipts to the Small
States. One would have supposed that he, a
staunch Unitarian, would be antagonistic to this
proposal, and in his innermost heart he really was;
but, owing to Bismarck's declaration that finance
reform was urgent, and that the consent of the
centre was unobtainable by any other means, he
voted for the Government. The consequences
apprehended by him, as the result of the attitude
of his friends, fully materialized. They consisted
in Bismarck's rupture with the National Liberals,
the resignation of ministers Hobrecht, Falck,
and Friedenthal the reconciliation of Bismarck
with the Roman Curia, and the passage of the
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? His Life and Work 81
customs reform with a Conservative clerical
majority, which to the present day prevails in the
Reichstag. All this Bismarck sacrificed for the
benefit of a highly contest able finance reform.
Treitschke attributed the responsibility for it to
the Reichstag, and in 1883 he wrote: " Of all the
institutions of our young Empire, none has stood
the test as badly as the Reichstag. " He was sick
of Parliament, and characterized the headache and
feeling of tiredness with which he usually returned
from sittings as "parliamentary seediness. " His
participation in debates slackened, and after 1888
he refrained from seeking re-election, an additional
reason being the lines taken by Government, and
legislation which he could not follow without
coming too much into conflict with his old ideas.
Neither did he harmonize with public opinion in
regard to external politics. He had no faith in the
durability of the French Republic, but believed
in the return of Bonapartism.
At the death of
Napoleon III, on January 9, 1873, consequent
upon an operation for stone, he remarked: "Right
to the last this man has remained unassthetic. "
I thought the game between Chambord and the
Orleans would now be continued, but he pooh-
poohed the idea, and adhered to his belief that the
Bonapartists alone are the people destined to
reign over that nation. With feelings of bitterness
he watched the great number of Germans who, in
spite of experiences in the past, returned to France
to again take up positions, and even obtain their
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? 82 Treitschke
naturalization. He considered this a lack of sense
of honour which he could not understand. The
Pole who on all battlefields fought against Russia
was to his mind more respectable, in spite of his
vodka smell.
VI.
From 1871 to 1874 tne Reichstag was by no
means the only arena in which the warrior, pre-
pared at all times, practised his strength, and his
academic opponents occasionally reproached him
with dragging the bad tone of the Reichstag into
the University debates. As a matter of fact, in
those days there was little difference, thanks to the
urbanity of Richter and Liebnecht. Peculiarly
enough, the chief interest of Academicians since
March, 1871 during the time, therefore, when the
most important questions agitated the German
Fatherland hinged upon a quarrel which must be
styled almost childish. Knies and Schenkel were
at daggers drawn, because the former, as Pro-
Rector, occupied the chair in the Economic Com-
mission conducted by Schenkel. The University
statutes clearly conceded this right to the Pro-
Rector, but Schenkel declared that Knies, in that
case, might also undertake the agenda of the
Commission. The reason for Treitschke's pas-
sionate participation in this question was partly
aversion for Schenkel, and partly gratitude for
Knies, who, in Freiburg, as well as in Heidelberg,
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? His Life and Work 83
had urged his appointment. Besides, he highly
appreciated Knies as a scientist, and managed to
intersperse his Reichstag speeches with exhaustive
extracts from Knies's latest book, Money. In the
terms of the statute Knies was absolutely in his
right. When the quarrel came to no end, Jolly
suspended the Commission and entrusted the
Senate with its duties, but the Senate protested.
As negotiations assumed a very unparliamentary
character, the philologist Kochly declared it
beneath his dignity to participate further in the
meetings. A motion was now brought in com-
pelling every "Ordinarius" to take part in the
meetings, and in this way the stupid discussion
continued. The principal seat of terror was the
Philosophic Faculty, and by his drastic speeches
Treitschke more than once drove the Dean to
despair. "He is a firebrand," said Ribbeck. "I
am always trembling when he asks to speak. "
It was, of course, picturesque when the tall, hand-
some man with thundering voice shouted at the
tiny, bespectacled gentlemen in the Senate, "Who-
ever is of a different opinion will have me to deal
with. " But as he had no conception as to how
loudly he spoke, even when intending to whisper a
confidential information into his neighbour's ear,
he often placed his friends in a most awkward
position. One of his confidential cannon-shots
particularly caused lasting damage. When the
natural history scientists, on a certain occasion,
interfered, he shouted to his neighbour, meaning
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? 84 Treitschke
of course to whisper, "What has this to do with
these chemists and dung-drivers? " and the fat
was naturally in the fire. Nobody was more
annoyed at these sallies than his own party, and,
after a similar occurrence, Knies, taking advantage
of his deafness, called after him, " Good-night, old
baby! " He, however, gaily departed, totally
unaware of the feelings which he had aroused even
amongst his friends. It was impossible to exercise
a restraining influence over him. With his tem-
perament, he could not understand why he should
say something different from what he thought. A
friend who, in his opinion, although right, was
unjustly ill-treated and ill-used, would be helped
out by him, whatever the cost.
When, however, in an article in the Prussian
Annuals, he declared that Court Theatres and
University Senates would remain for ever the
classic field for jealous intrigues and childish
quarrels, the contest reverberated in the Chambers
and the Press. The so-called majority broke off
all relations with him, and, in consequence, we
became more intimate than ever. "The outlaws"
was the name he preferably applied to us, and the
round table at Konig's Weinbeer, in Leipzig, was
christened by him as "The Conspirators. " In
reply to my remark that we cared by no means to
be considered outlaws, he said: "I have my
students. " Anyhow, the close relations thus
established among a number of influential col-
leagues was also a gain. We met every evening,
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? His Life and Work 85
one hour after his lectures, at the Museum, where
we drank cheap beer. "It merely costs a little
effort, " he said. The circle consisted of historian
Weber, the three theologians, Gass, Holtzmann,
and myself; further, the botanist, Hofmeister,
with whom Treitschke was on friendly terms while
in Leipzig; Herrmann, the teacher of Canon Law,
where Treitschke was received when still a student
in Gottingen, and who, for his benefit, had learned
the deaf-and-dumb language; and Knies, who, after
occupying the position of Director of the High
School Board and University Inspector, was
degraded to that of Professor at Heidelberg, so that
Hitzig greeted him with the following toast:
"Behold Adam, who now has become one of us! "
The spokesmen were Knies and Bluntschli, who
both defended their one political point of view,
Treitschke keeping as much as possible apart from
the latter. His opinion of Bluntschli, as now con-
firmed in print through his letters to Freytag, was
unjust. Bluntschli's intentions were for the com-
mon weal, but in his opinion it could best be done
through him. The Otez vous gue je mif mette (real
Swiss-German) applied to him in his Faculty as
well as in the Chamber. In vain I tried to prove
to Treitschke that Bluntschli's propensity to
mediation proposals, and his desire to vote always
with the majority, were founded on his peaceable
disposition and his benevolent concern for the
public good. When, however, on a certain occa-
sion, prior to leaving for Edingen by rail, I spoke
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? 86 Treitschke
to him in this strain, he raved to such an extent
that the attention of the people in the waiting-
room was aroused, and I preferred to discontinue
the argument. On such occasions, the misfortune
of his deafness became very marked, for how was
it possible to make complicated circumstances
clear to him by lip-movements and scribbling on
block slips? For good reasons he disliked letters
by post. Although he belonged at that time,
academically, to the Bluntschli party, he attacked,
in his essay of 1871, on Parties and Factions, the
Bluntschli-Rohmer State Law, establishing a
parallel between the State functions and the human
organism. "State science demands thought, not
comparisons," he wrote. "What is the use of
speaking figuratively, which is just as arbitrary
as the old bad habit so favoured by natural philo-
sophers of comparing the State with the human
body? Argument ceases with such fantastic
parables. Analogies are easily found, and with
beautiful words one might describe the King as
the head or the heart, or also as the index, of a
State. " This was not polite language, and must
have annoyed Bluntschli, all the more as Treitsch-
ke, in the language of Goethe, "only tugged at
the discarded serpent's skin," Bluntschli himself
having left that part of the Rohmer philosophy
behind him; and that is why, as far as I know,
he never replied to the attack. Treitschke also
reproached Bluntschli with attempting to count
Luther amongst the Liberals: "He, whose emi-
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? His Life and Work 87
nent mind admirably combines the traits of the
revolutionary stormer of heaven with those of the
devout monk, he who was anything but a Liberal !
Or will our opponents think more of us if we are so
bold as to declare that the true spirit of Chris-
tianity is liberal ? The greatness of Christian faith
lies in its inconceivable and manifold plasticity;
after thousands of years it will, in eternally new,
yet ever identical, forms, elevate humanity when
not even scientists will have anything to say of
Liberalism. " Although sitting at the same round
table there was, speaking philosophically, a cen-
tury between Bluntschli and Treitschke. Treitsch-
ke was a true representative of the historical
school, and not Dahlmann; but Ranke was his
real master. Bluntschli liked to refer to Savigny;
but, in reality, his views of the world, in spite of
Rohmer's symbolism, were culled from the age of
enlightenment .
When, in 1873, Wehrenpfennig remodelled the
Spenersche Zeitung into the semi-official Preussische
Zeitung, Treitschke was offered the salary of ten
thousand thalers for undertaking the editorship of
the journal. This salary was unheard of at that
time. Some friends of his advised him to accept,
saying that his deafness would, in years to come,
impair his functions as teacher, but he told me : "I
am not a journalist; I like to see things developed
so that I can form an opinion. To write a leading
article on the latest telegram, on the spur of the
moment, and to have to contradict it eight days
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? 88 Treitschke
later, I leave to other people. " Wehrenpfennig
tried to make the proposal more acceptable by
informing him that the minister would appoint
him as professor at a fixed salary, consequently
there would be no need to sacrifice his function as
teacher, whilst others would look after the ordin-
ary journalistic work ; only the handling of political
matters and the daily leading article would be his
department. A big salary as professor, and a big
income as editor, would have tempted a good
many; there even were people who declared that it
was Treitschke's duty, impecunious as he was, to
provide thus for his family; but he maintained
that it was contrary to his honour to change his
profession for monetary gain, and we were, natur-
ally, glad that he remained in our midst.
In spite of his refusal to take part in journalism
he played a prominent part in contemporary
politics, and the journals repaid him with interest
for his bold observations in the Prussian Annuals.
Ludwig Ekkard, an Austrian, resident since 1866
at Mannheim, and editor there of a weekly publica-
tion a man of whom the Karlsruhe people
whispered he had, in 1848, in Vienna, hung Latour,
the Minister of War wrote a leading article on
"Treitschke von Cassagnac. " After he had
fallen out with the Jews, a Berlin paper reported
that Treitschke was the descendant of a certain
Isaac Treitschel, who, at the beginning of the
century, had come as a youth from Bohemia to
Saxony selling trousers. A social democratic
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? His Life and Work 89
journal thought Herr von Treitschke was a living
proof of the injustice of present-day Society in-
stitutions, as he was only appointed professor
because his father had been a general. "If we
lived in a State which practises justice, such a
weak-headed creature would never have been
allowed to be a student. " Similar flattering
expressions were showered upon him by the Ultra-
montane journals, which, on account of his mono-
mania, would have liked to have him bundled off
to a lunatic asylum. When shown such a master-
piece, he laughed heartily saying: "One has to put
up with that sort of thing when one is in the public
eye. " He was only angered at the small-minded-
ness of some of his colleagues, who threw stones
at him behind his back merely because he had
stolen a march on them.
It is notorious that Treitschke, after lacking
sympathy with Badenese Liberalism, became its
supporter whilst in Heidelberg; but in Berlin he
again reverted to feelings of contempt for it.
During the years 1867 to 1874, which he spent
amongst us, I could not discern an appreciable
difference in his views. As his parliamentary
speeches and essays in the Annuals amply testify,
he greeted with joy Bismarck's first steps towards
the re-establishment of the Authority of the State
versus the Catholic Church; the abolition of the
Catholic department in the Ministry of Public
Instruction; the penal code against abuse of the
pulpit, and Bismarck's refusal to give way to the
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? 90 Treitschke
new-founded centre. We also thoroughly agreed in
regard to the Muhler administration of ecclesi-
astical affairs. He wrote: "The Universities in
Prussia are going backwards, since fashionable
orthodoxy, with its mistrust, is supreme at Court
against liberty of thought. Here, if anywhere, our
State is in need of a radical reform, i. e. , the con-
version of the conversion of science. " In the last
essay written in Heidelberg he said: "Since the
unhappy days of Friederick Wilhelm IV the school
system in Prussia has been fundamentally mis-
cultivated by a spirit of confessional narrow-
mindedness which exasperates the most patient. "
Consequently nothing astonished us more than
the attitude which he adopted subsequently in
Berlin, towards Stocker and his town mission, even
going so far as to lament Stocker's dismissal from
his position as preacher at the Royal Chapel.
Those who contend that the misunderstanding had
been on our side, are invited to read Treitschke's
publications up to the last week of his stay at
Heidelberg. The views with which he came to us,
and which he defended in Heidelberg in the circle
of friends as well as in the chair, find expression in
the beautiful essay on Liberty, the opening sentence
of which runs as follows : "Everything new created
by the nineteenth century is the work of liberalism.
Particularly in the clerical sphere, this is destined
to continue its labours in order to create at last
true conditions. Does it redound to the honour of
the land of Lessing, " he asks, "that there is no
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? His Life and Work 91
German University which possesses sufficient
courage to admit a David Strauss to its halls?
Those who have any conception of the enormous
extent to which faith in the dogmas of Christian
revelations has disappeared among the younger
generation, must observe with great anxiety how
thoughtlessly, how lazily, nay, how lyingly,
thousands do homage to a lip service which has
become strange to their heart. The lack of vera-
city in the field of religion grows in an alarming
fashion. The philosophers of the eighteenth
century thought that real virtue does not exist
without belief in God and immortality. The
present generation contests this, and declares
point-blank, 'Morality is independent of dogma. * "
He recognizes the immortality in the never-ending
effect of our good as well as of our bad deeds.
"For weak or low characters, the belief in an after
life can equally be a source of immortality, like the
denial of same, for in their anxiety for the hereafter
they often neglect their duties on earth. The
Church has taken no interest whatever in the
great work of the last centuries, and in the deliver-
ance of humanity from one thousand terrors of
unchristian arbitrariness. The defenders of the
Church claim the prerogative to spoil even the
best measure by the incomparable meanness of
their methods. And, according to human estimate,
this symptom will continue. More and more the
moral value of Christianity will be investigated
and developed by laymen, and more and more it
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? 92 Treitschke
will become apparent that churches do not suffice
for the spiritual demands of matured people. "
That this last sentence coincides with the specula-
tions of Richard Rothe, the aesthetic scientist, and
the teaching of the Tubingen School is apparent
from a letter to his Catholic fiancee, written in
1866, in which he says, "Christianity loses nothing
of its greatness if the stupid priest tales of Pagan-
ism are dropped. "
"The New Testament embodies more ideas of
Plato than our clergy is ready to admit. " Under
these circumstances we could count him merely
from a theological point of view amongst the
Liberals, and only in the attitude adopted by
Treitschke towards the contested reforms of
Evangelical and Catholic Church matters we
regained our own convictions. He likewise greeted
Miihler's fall in February, 1872, with joy, al-
though he disapproved of the American Press
tactics, now gaining more and more the upper
hand in the German Press, which heaped with
opprobrium the fallen opponent "he hardly
deserved the title of lion. " Treitschke likewise
demanded the abolition of the Stiehl regulations,
as they acted as a deterrent to many an intelligent
person embracing the career of teacher. Where
Herr von Muhler had ordered that certain colleges
should assume a strictly evangelical character, he
urged Falk to appoint Catholic or Jewish teachers
for those schools, in order to put an end to the
fictitious story that Prussia possessed colleges for
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? His Life and Work 93
specific confessions. During his last term at
Heidelberg he, in a short and decisive fashion, on
December 10, 1873, still approved of the Falk
legislation enacted in May, respecting the re-
strictions of the Catholic Church. " Not a word is
to be found in these laws which is not beneficial
to the Church. " He declares it the most un-
pardonable error of the Conservative party in
Prussia to have entered into an alliance with the
Ultramontanes.
admire the clear statements, because they are
natural to this clear dialectician ; but with Strauss
they do not belong to the man, as with Lessing,
but to the essay. " Strauss's style just lacked the
personal element. If Strauss, on the other hand,
found Treitschke's style indigestible, the contrast
is thereby quite correctly characteristic. While
patriotic pathos dominated the one, the other one
was, throughout, reflective and logical; that is
to say, the one was a dithyramb and the other
one a Socratic nature. I could not always share
Treitschke's clearly formed opinions, but we were
all grateful to him for the interest with which he
invested conversation, and for his ability to main-
tain it. His own activity was that of an artist as
well as that of a scientist. Impressions of his
travels through all the valleys of Germany, poetry,
newspaper extracts, conversations and humorous
stories of friends, were always at his command, and
these, combined with accurate studies from the
Archives and information verbally received, en-
abled him to shape his work. Considering his
system of gathering information, it was inevitable
that occasionally he was provided with unauthen-
tic news, for, as soon as conversation arose on a
subject useful to him, his pocket-book appeared,
and he asked to have the story put down. When
I once wrote for him that, at the outbreak of the
Army mutiny in Karlsruhe, a picture of Grand
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? 70 Treitschke
Duke Leopold was exhibited in all the libraries,
with the verse:
Zittert ein Tyrann von Revolutionen,
Du Leopold kannst ruhig thronen.
Dein Volk verlasst Dich nicht
(Though a tyrant may dread revolution,
Thou, O Leopold, mayest safely reign.
Thy people will not forsake thee),
he immediately placed the piece of paper separately
and said, "This will appear in the sixth volume";
but it never saw the light of day. I personally
could vouch for the correctness of my story, but
how easy it was to obtain wrong information under
these circumstances, and, as a matter of fact, all
sorts of protests against his anecdotes were raised
after each publication. It is notorious how cir-
cumstantially he subsequently had to explain or
contradict the story of the silver spoon of Prince
Wrede, the Red Order of the Eagle of Privy Coun-
cillor Schmalz, and many other things, and much
more frequently still he promised correction in the
subsequent edition to those who had lodged com-
plaints. We were very much annoyed at the injus-
tice with which he, in the fifth volume, character-
ized the Grand Duke Leopold, who was exceedingly
conscientious and benevolent. When attacking
him for it in our domestic circle, he declared that
every petty State had its idol, and that we ought
to break ourselves of it as others had done.
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? His Life and Work 71
Treitschke's tales from the Reichstag provided
a rich source of amusement. When entering
Parliament, in 1871, all friends were of opinion
the deaf man would not stand it long, and his
enemies mockingly remarked: "It is right he
should be there. " But the canvassing tour in
itself proved a great recreation for him, and if he
had achieved nothing beyond the strengthening,
by his fiery speeches, of the German sentiment of
people on the Hunsruck and in the Nahe Valley,
this gain alone was worth the trouble. His effi-
ciency in Berlin exceeded all expectations. He
sat next to the shorthand writers, and after having
grasped their system of abbreviations, he followed
the speeches, and thus was often better informed
than those who sneered at the deaf deputy. It
was more difficult for him to attend at Committee
sittings, but his friend Wehrenpfennig kept him
informed as far as possible. As all parties decided
in committee how to vote, Treitschke's speeches
in plenum really were of value for the public only,
but the reputation of the Reichsrath certainly was
considerably enhanced by the fact that people who
liked reading the parliamentary proceedings were
able to find the speeches reproduced in the news-
papers. The orations of "the deaf man who had
no business in Parliament" are, with the exception
of Bismarck's, after all, the only ones which, after
his death, have been edited in book form from the
protocols, and even to-day they are a source of
political information and patriotic elevation. It
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? 72 Treitschke
was a great event when the circle of friends in
Heidelberg heard that Treitschke had delivered
his maiden speech in the Reichstag, and great was
our joy when we read that in this first speech he
had vehemently attacked the Ultramontanes.
Deputy Reichensperger moved that, with a
view to safeguarding the liberty of the Press,
Unions and the Church Articles III-V of the Frank-
fort fundamental laws should be incorporated
in the Constitution of the Empire. Treitschke
started by declaring that the nation's hope of a
temporary continuance, at any rate in Parliament,
of the noble spirit of unanimity which, during the
war, had raised Germany above other nations,
had been defeated by the Ultramontanes. At the
beginning of the German Reichstag, we have
heard the Empire of the Papal King, the Republic
of Poland, and the Empire of the Guelfs discussed,
while I had hoped we should now have firmly es-
tablished progress in our territory, and would look
hopefully towards the future. It is impossible to
believe that the great question of State and Church
could be solved by a four-line sentence. In order
to bring about the Constitution every party was
obliged to make sacrifices. The disturbers of the
peace are now exactly those gentlemen who always
assert that they are the oppressed minority. Now,
gentlemen, if this were true, I must say that they
endured their oppression with a very small
measure of Christian patience. If fundamental
laws should become incorporated with the New
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? His Life and Work 73
Constitution, he continued, why have Mr. Reichen-
sperger and his associates forgotten the principal
ones? The article is lacking ; "science and its dog-
ma are free," a principle the adoption of which
would be highly beneficial to the Catholic Theo-
logic Faculties. Why is the definition lacking
respecting civil marriage law? In this way he
ruthlessly tore off the opponents' masks, as if they
had aimed at liberty. When Bishop Kettler had
uttered a warning to speak a little more modestly,
and with less confidence of the future of an Empire
which had as yet to be founded, Treitschke ironi-
cally pointed to the great progress made consider-
ing that Kettler no longer sat in Parliament as
Bishop of Mayence, but owed his seat to the
poll of an electoral district. If the movers of
the bill were to point out they demanded nothing
beyond what the Prussian Constitution had taken
over long before from the Frankfort Constitution,
they betrayed thereby their intention to give the
Bishops in this article the possibility of scoffing
at the laws of the country by appealing to the law
of the Empire. In Baden they had undergone too
many experiences in this respect to be deceived
any longer. But the German nation is sensible and
honest enough to understand that these poor
articles are not fundamental laws, but aim at
procuring, by a side-issue, an independent position
for the Catholic Church as regards the State. He
therefore thought he did no injustice to the
movers of the bill when he expressed the belief that
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? 74 Treitschke
the Press and Unions were only a momentary
addition to their proposal, but that their real in-
tention was directed to the independence of the
Catholic Church. The defeat of the Ultramon-
tanes was as complete as possible, and there ex-
isted no other more pressing matter for which
Treitschke could have acted as champion on behalf
of Baden. In parliamentary matters he was now,
likewise, recognized as the worthy successor of
Hausser. The general belief that Treitschke owed
his great success to mannerism was dispelled by
his speeches in the Reichstag. It was not rhetoric
or pathos which scored, but the force of conviction.
He spoke better than others because he had
grasped the thought of liberty, and of nationality,
with more ardour than they had. To him more
than to any other speaker the words of Cato
senior applied: "Keep firmly in mind the subject
and the words will follow. "
In a further speech on the law on July 9, 1871,
he woefully surrendered his ideal to see Alsace
Lothing a province of Germany, but all the more
energetically he opposed the desire of a party,
supported by Roggenbach, to form Alsace into a
State. If it was not to become part of the Prussian
State it should, at least, be a province of the Ger-
man Empire, reigned over by the Emperor, and
not become a new Small State. The Alsatian
public servants should frequently be transferred,
even to Schwelm, and to Stalluponen, so that they
should get to know Germany. Neither was he in
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? His Life and Work 75
favour of having a Lord Lieutenant appointed.
"Such a prince makes the worst public servant,
because he is obliged to act as if his house '/were a
Court. The elements of Society which could be
attracted by these countless gewgaws are such
that I, at any rate, would with pleasure dispense
with their support. " Neither in Strasburg nor
in Heidelberg or Berlin did this particular speech
meet with great approbation, but who will assert
to-day that he was wrong? All the more ap-
proved was his speech of November 2, 1871, in
which he demanded the intervention of the Empire
to procure for Mecklenburg the privileges of the
Estates of the Realm. A great impression was
produced when he pointed out that, of half a
million inhabitants, no less than 60,000 people had
emigrated within the last fifteen years from this
little country richly blessed by nature. In his
indignation he ever adopted a tone which, hitherto,
one was wont to hear only at democratic meetings.
He pointed out that conditions in Mecklenburg
had become the butt of humour. " It is dangerous
when the patient German people begin to sneer.
That scornful laughter over the old German Diet
and the King of the Guelfs carried on for many
years has led to very serious consequences; it has
brought about the well-known end of all things.
The star of unity is in the ascendant. Woe betide
the State which wilfully secludes itself from this
mighty and irresistible impulse ; sooner or later the
catastrophe will overtake it. " In the same way as
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? 76 Treitschke
these threatening words had created a great im-
pression in Parliament, so they found an enthusi-
astic echo in our circle; and equally great was his
success when he supported the supplementing of
the Penal Code by the so-called Pulpit Paragraph,
by which he again told the bitter truth to the
Ultramontanes. For the last time before proroga-
tion of Parliament he spoke on November 29, 1871,
when the progressive party renewed the old
controversy on parliamentary co-operation regard-
ing Army Estimates. Treitschke was strongly in
favour of the War Minister's views; he availed
himself, however, of this occasion to attack
strongly von Muhler, the Minister of Public In-
struction, and when called to order by the Con-
servatives he replied: "See that a capable man is
appointed at the head of the Ministry of Public
Instruction who bestows only the tenth part of
that energy which the Minister for War is in the
habit of bestowing upon his department; you will
then have practical experience that one thing can
be done, and that another cannot be left undone. "
On the whole, the Baden Deputies returned from
Berlin in a very dejected mood. Of Bluntschli,
the Berlin newspapers had written that his delivery
gave the impression he was dictating his speeches.
He had remained obscure that he knew; but
consoled himself with the thought that it took
time to find the tone for such a big assembly. Of
Roggenbach, who, with all his brilliant conver-
sational gifts, completely lacked oratorical powers,
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? His Life and Work 77
a gay Palatine country judge, who was also a
member of the Reichstag, said: "If this is your
most brilliant statesman I should like to come
across your most stupid one. " In the same way
the others returned like a beaten army, for not the
remotest comparison existed between the part
played by them in Berlin and the one played by
them in Karlsruhe at the Municipal Hall. Only
one appeared with laurels, and this one was
Treitschke, who had saved our reputation. He
was also welcomed home as heartily as possible;
although Baumgarten said at the time, in a morose
tone, that Treitschke never considered a law pro-
posal favourably unless he had delivered a speech
on it. The Ul tramontanes, however, considered
the game unevenly matched. While he over-
whelmed them with the strongest expressions, they
could not hit back because he did not hear them.
In an identical fashion the second session, 1873-
1874, passed, which Treitschke still attended from
Heidelberg, and the "round table" applauded his
brilliant passages of arms. Many of his winged
words have survived to the present day, as, for
instance, his explanation of the request of German
issuing banks for paper (money) "based on a
deeply founded desire in human nature"; or
"making debts without getting interest on them";
or his sneering remarks about the predilection of
South Germans for Bavarian military helmets and
dirty florin notes. His patriotism again rose to its
full height when discussions on the septennate took
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? 78 Treitschke
place, when the same party, whose chaplains in
the Black Forest had falsely told the constituents
that "septennate" meant serving for seven
successive years, complained in Parliament that
they were called the enemies of the Empire, he
referred to their behaviour, and for simplicity's
sake began with the Pope.
"Who was it who expressed the devout Chris-
tian wish that a little stone might fall from heaven
to shatter the feet of the German Colossus? Those
who consider the author of this ingenious pro-
nouncement infallible would only have confessed
publicly to this wish after Germany had lost a
battle, and which God forbid. Meanwhile, Prussia
was the little stone which had opened the doors
of the Eternal City to united and free Italy, and at
the same time had annihilated the most sinful
Small State of that part of the globe. In similar
strain he spoke on December 17, 1874, to Deputy
Winterer, who demanded the abolition of the
School Law granted the preceding year to Alsace
Lothing. In opposition to Winterer's hymns on
the achievements of the school brethren he read
extracts from their rules which prescribed in which
case the brother has to rise before the superior,
in which case to kneel down, and in which case he
only had to kiss the floor. " Gentlemen, " he asked
the Ultramontanes, "I am indeed curious to know
whether there is anything worse than the naked
floor the devout school brother is to kiss. " When
the gentlemen of the clerical party expressed the
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? His Life and Work 79
wish to save the ecclesiastical and French spirit
of their public schools he replied in unmistakable
fashion: "We have the intention to Germanize
this newly acquired German province ; we have the
intention and will carry it out. " Strong applause,
and hissing in the centre, was the usual result of his
speeches during this session. The return took
place under conditions similar to those of last year,
only the depression at the modest part played by
the Baden Deputies in their Reichstag was still
greater, and Jolly, at any rate, did not refrain
from remarking that the quarrelsome disposition
of the Liberal leaders, which immediately made
itself felt at the opening debate of the Baden
Chamber in November, 1873, arose from the desire
of the gentlemen to gain in the Karlsruhe Rondel
Hall the laurels which had been denied to them in
the Reichstag. But Treitschke's appreciation of
the Reichstag likewise waned from session to
session. Already, in 1879, he wrote the following
words in the Reichstag album: "Let us not be
deceived, gentlemen; the pleasure our population
experienced by participating in parliamentary life
has considerably decreased in comparison with the
days when the mere existence of Parliament was
held to be the beginning of the era of liberty. But
how should it be otherwise? I believe we are
blessed with 4000 deputies in the German Empire.
It would be against the nature of things if such an
excessive number did not, in the end, become
boring and tedious to the population. " When his
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? 8o Treitschke
calculation was contested, he wrote a few years
later: "Quousque tandem is on everybody's lips
when in good Society mention is made of those
parliamentary speech floods which now, for months
past, have rushed forth again in Berlin, Munich,
and Karlsruhe, as if from wide opened sluices;
3000 Members of Parliament, that is to say, one
representative of the people for every 3000 citizens.
Too much of a good thing even for German
patience. More and more frequently the question
is raised whether by such sinful waste of money
and time anything else can be effected beyond a
noise as useless as the clattering of a wheel whose
axle is broken. "
On July n, 1879, he announced his retirement
from the National Liberal faction on the rejection
of the well-known Frankenstein Clause, which
allotted part of the customs receipts to the Small
States. One would have supposed that he, a
staunch Unitarian, would be antagonistic to this
proposal, and in his innermost heart he really was;
but, owing to Bismarck's declaration that finance
reform was urgent, and that the consent of the
centre was unobtainable by any other means, he
voted for the Government. The consequences
apprehended by him, as the result of the attitude
of his friends, fully materialized. They consisted
in Bismarck's rupture with the National Liberals,
the resignation of ministers Hobrecht, Falck,
and Friedenthal the reconciliation of Bismarck
with the Roman Curia, and the passage of the
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? His Life and Work 81
customs reform with a Conservative clerical
majority, which to the present day prevails in the
Reichstag. All this Bismarck sacrificed for the
benefit of a highly contest able finance reform.
Treitschke attributed the responsibility for it to
the Reichstag, and in 1883 he wrote: " Of all the
institutions of our young Empire, none has stood
the test as badly as the Reichstag. " He was sick
of Parliament, and characterized the headache and
feeling of tiredness with which he usually returned
from sittings as "parliamentary seediness. " His
participation in debates slackened, and after 1888
he refrained from seeking re-election, an additional
reason being the lines taken by Government, and
legislation which he could not follow without
coming too much into conflict with his old ideas.
Neither did he harmonize with public opinion in
regard to external politics. He had no faith in the
durability of the French Republic, but believed
in the return of Bonapartism.
At the death of
Napoleon III, on January 9, 1873, consequent
upon an operation for stone, he remarked: "Right
to the last this man has remained unassthetic. "
I thought the game between Chambord and the
Orleans would now be continued, but he pooh-
poohed the idea, and adhered to his belief that the
Bonapartists alone are the people destined to
reign over that nation. With feelings of bitterness
he watched the great number of Germans who, in
spite of experiences in the past, returned to France
to again take up positions, and even obtain their
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? 82 Treitschke
naturalization. He considered this a lack of sense
of honour which he could not understand. The
Pole who on all battlefields fought against Russia
was to his mind more respectable, in spite of his
vodka smell.
VI.
From 1871 to 1874 tne Reichstag was by no
means the only arena in which the warrior, pre-
pared at all times, practised his strength, and his
academic opponents occasionally reproached him
with dragging the bad tone of the Reichstag into
the University debates. As a matter of fact, in
those days there was little difference, thanks to the
urbanity of Richter and Liebnecht. Peculiarly
enough, the chief interest of Academicians since
March, 1871 during the time, therefore, when the
most important questions agitated the German
Fatherland hinged upon a quarrel which must be
styled almost childish. Knies and Schenkel were
at daggers drawn, because the former, as Pro-
Rector, occupied the chair in the Economic Com-
mission conducted by Schenkel. The University
statutes clearly conceded this right to the Pro-
Rector, but Schenkel declared that Knies, in that
case, might also undertake the agenda of the
Commission. The reason for Treitschke's pas-
sionate participation in this question was partly
aversion for Schenkel, and partly gratitude for
Knies, who, in Freiburg, as well as in Heidelberg,
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? His Life and Work 83
had urged his appointment. Besides, he highly
appreciated Knies as a scientist, and managed to
intersperse his Reichstag speeches with exhaustive
extracts from Knies's latest book, Money. In the
terms of the statute Knies was absolutely in his
right. When the quarrel came to no end, Jolly
suspended the Commission and entrusted the
Senate with its duties, but the Senate protested.
As negotiations assumed a very unparliamentary
character, the philologist Kochly declared it
beneath his dignity to participate further in the
meetings. A motion was now brought in com-
pelling every "Ordinarius" to take part in the
meetings, and in this way the stupid discussion
continued. The principal seat of terror was the
Philosophic Faculty, and by his drastic speeches
Treitschke more than once drove the Dean to
despair. "He is a firebrand," said Ribbeck. "I
am always trembling when he asks to speak. "
It was, of course, picturesque when the tall, hand-
some man with thundering voice shouted at the
tiny, bespectacled gentlemen in the Senate, "Who-
ever is of a different opinion will have me to deal
with. " But as he had no conception as to how
loudly he spoke, even when intending to whisper a
confidential information into his neighbour's ear,
he often placed his friends in a most awkward
position. One of his confidential cannon-shots
particularly caused lasting damage. When the
natural history scientists, on a certain occasion,
interfered, he shouted to his neighbour, meaning
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? 84 Treitschke
of course to whisper, "What has this to do with
these chemists and dung-drivers? " and the fat
was naturally in the fire. Nobody was more
annoyed at these sallies than his own party, and,
after a similar occurrence, Knies, taking advantage
of his deafness, called after him, " Good-night, old
baby! " He, however, gaily departed, totally
unaware of the feelings which he had aroused even
amongst his friends. It was impossible to exercise
a restraining influence over him. With his tem-
perament, he could not understand why he should
say something different from what he thought. A
friend who, in his opinion, although right, was
unjustly ill-treated and ill-used, would be helped
out by him, whatever the cost.
When, however, in an article in the Prussian
Annuals, he declared that Court Theatres and
University Senates would remain for ever the
classic field for jealous intrigues and childish
quarrels, the contest reverberated in the Chambers
and the Press. The so-called majority broke off
all relations with him, and, in consequence, we
became more intimate than ever. "The outlaws"
was the name he preferably applied to us, and the
round table at Konig's Weinbeer, in Leipzig, was
christened by him as "The Conspirators. " In
reply to my remark that we cared by no means to
be considered outlaws, he said: "I have my
students. " Anyhow, the close relations thus
established among a number of influential col-
leagues was also a gain. We met every evening,
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? His Life and Work 85
one hour after his lectures, at the Museum, where
we drank cheap beer. "It merely costs a little
effort, " he said. The circle consisted of historian
Weber, the three theologians, Gass, Holtzmann,
and myself; further, the botanist, Hofmeister,
with whom Treitschke was on friendly terms while
in Leipzig; Herrmann, the teacher of Canon Law,
where Treitschke was received when still a student
in Gottingen, and who, for his benefit, had learned
the deaf-and-dumb language; and Knies, who, after
occupying the position of Director of the High
School Board and University Inspector, was
degraded to that of Professor at Heidelberg, so that
Hitzig greeted him with the following toast:
"Behold Adam, who now has become one of us! "
The spokesmen were Knies and Bluntschli, who
both defended their one political point of view,
Treitschke keeping as much as possible apart from
the latter. His opinion of Bluntschli, as now con-
firmed in print through his letters to Freytag, was
unjust. Bluntschli's intentions were for the com-
mon weal, but in his opinion it could best be done
through him. The Otez vous gue je mif mette (real
Swiss-German) applied to him in his Faculty as
well as in the Chamber. In vain I tried to prove
to Treitschke that Bluntschli's propensity to
mediation proposals, and his desire to vote always
with the majority, were founded on his peaceable
disposition and his benevolent concern for the
public good. When, however, on a certain occa-
sion, prior to leaving for Edingen by rail, I spoke
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? 86 Treitschke
to him in this strain, he raved to such an extent
that the attention of the people in the waiting-
room was aroused, and I preferred to discontinue
the argument. On such occasions, the misfortune
of his deafness became very marked, for how was
it possible to make complicated circumstances
clear to him by lip-movements and scribbling on
block slips? For good reasons he disliked letters
by post. Although he belonged at that time,
academically, to the Bluntschli party, he attacked,
in his essay of 1871, on Parties and Factions, the
Bluntschli-Rohmer State Law, establishing a
parallel between the State functions and the human
organism. "State science demands thought, not
comparisons," he wrote. "What is the use of
speaking figuratively, which is just as arbitrary
as the old bad habit so favoured by natural philo-
sophers of comparing the State with the human
body? Argument ceases with such fantastic
parables. Analogies are easily found, and with
beautiful words one might describe the King as
the head or the heart, or also as the index, of a
State. " This was not polite language, and must
have annoyed Bluntschli, all the more as Treitsch-
ke, in the language of Goethe, "only tugged at
the discarded serpent's skin," Bluntschli himself
having left that part of the Rohmer philosophy
behind him; and that is why, as far as I know,
he never replied to the attack. Treitschke also
reproached Bluntschli with attempting to count
Luther amongst the Liberals: "He, whose emi-
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? His Life and Work 87
nent mind admirably combines the traits of the
revolutionary stormer of heaven with those of the
devout monk, he who was anything but a Liberal !
Or will our opponents think more of us if we are so
bold as to declare that the true spirit of Chris-
tianity is liberal ? The greatness of Christian faith
lies in its inconceivable and manifold plasticity;
after thousands of years it will, in eternally new,
yet ever identical, forms, elevate humanity when
not even scientists will have anything to say of
Liberalism. " Although sitting at the same round
table there was, speaking philosophically, a cen-
tury between Bluntschli and Treitschke. Treitsch-
ke was a true representative of the historical
school, and not Dahlmann; but Ranke was his
real master. Bluntschli liked to refer to Savigny;
but, in reality, his views of the world, in spite of
Rohmer's symbolism, were culled from the age of
enlightenment .
When, in 1873, Wehrenpfennig remodelled the
Spenersche Zeitung into the semi-official Preussische
Zeitung, Treitschke was offered the salary of ten
thousand thalers for undertaking the editorship of
the journal. This salary was unheard of at that
time. Some friends of his advised him to accept,
saying that his deafness would, in years to come,
impair his functions as teacher, but he told me : "I
am not a journalist; I like to see things developed
so that I can form an opinion. To write a leading
article on the latest telegram, on the spur of the
moment, and to have to contradict it eight days
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? 88 Treitschke
later, I leave to other people. " Wehrenpfennig
tried to make the proposal more acceptable by
informing him that the minister would appoint
him as professor at a fixed salary, consequently
there would be no need to sacrifice his function as
teacher, whilst others would look after the ordin-
ary journalistic work ; only the handling of political
matters and the daily leading article would be his
department. A big salary as professor, and a big
income as editor, would have tempted a good
many; there even were people who declared that it
was Treitschke's duty, impecunious as he was, to
provide thus for his family; but he maintained
that it was contrary to his honour to change his
profession for monetary gain, and we were, natur-
ally, glad that he remained in our midst.
In spite of his refusal to take part in journalism
he played a prominent part in contemporary
politics, and the journals repaid him with interest
for his bold observations in the Prussian Annuals.
Ludwig Ekkard, an Austrian, resident since 1866
at Mannheim, and editor there of a weekly publica-
tion a man of whom the Karlsruhe people
whispered he had, in 1848, in Vienna, hung Latour,
the Minister of War wrote a leading article on
"Treitschke von Cassagnac. " After he had
fallen out with the Jews, a Berlin paper reported
that Treitschke was the descendant of a certain
Isaac Treitschel, who, at the beginning of the
century, had come as a youth from Bohemia to
Saxony selling trousers. A social democratic
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? His Life and Work 89
journal thought Herr von Treitschke was a living
proof of the injustice of present-day Society in-
stitutions, as he was only appointed professor
because his father had been a general. "If we
lived in a State which practises justice, such a
weak-headed creature would never have been
allowed to be a student. " Similar flattering
expressions were showered upon him by the Ultra-
montane journals, which, on account of his mono-
mania, would have liked to have him bundled off
to a lunatic asylum. When shown such a master-
piece, he laughed heartily saying: "One has to put
up with that sort of thing when one is in the public
eye. " He was only angered at the small-minded-
ness of some of his colleagues, who threw stones
at him behind his back merely because he had
stolen a march on them.
It is notorious that Treitschke, after lacking
sympathy with Badenese Liberalism, became its
supporter whilst in Heidelberg; but in Berlin he
again reverted to feelings of contempt for it.
During the years 1867 to 1874, which he spent
amongst us, I could not discern an appreciable
difference in his views. As his parliamentary
speeches and essays in the Annuals amply testify,
he greeted with joy Bismarck's first steps towards
the re-establishment of the Authority of the State
versus the Catholic Church; the abolition of the
Catholic department in the Ministry of Public
Instruction; the penal code against abuse of the
pulpit, and Bismarck's refusal to give way to the
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? 90 Treitschke
new-founded centre. We also thoroughly agreed in
regard to the Muhler administration of ecclesi-
astical affairs. He wrote: "The Universities in
Prussia are going backwards, since fashionable
orthodoxy, with its mistrust, is supreme at Court
against liberty of thought. Here, if anywhere, our
State is in need of a radical reform, i. e. , the con-
version of the conversion of science. " In the last
essay written in Heidelberg he said: "Since the
unhappy days of Friederick Wilhelm IV the school
system in Prussia has been fundamentally mis-
cultivated by a spirit of confessional narrow-
mindedness which exasperates the most patient. "
Consequently nothing astonished us more than
the attitude which he adopted subsequently in
Berlin, towards Stocker and his town mission, even
going so far as to lament Stocker's dismissal from
his position as preacher at the Royal Chapel.
Those who contend that the misunderstanding had
been on our side, are invited to read Treitschke's
publications up to the last week of his stay at
Heidelberg. The views with which he came to us,
and which he defended in Heidelberg in the circle
of friends as well as in the chair, find expression in
the beautiful essay on Liberty, the opening sentence
of which runs as follows : "Everything new created
by the nineteenth century is the work of liberalism.
Particularly in the clerical sphere, this is destined
to continue its labours in order to create at last
true conditions. Does it redound to the honour of
the land of Lessing, " he asks, "that there is no
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? His Life and Work 91
German University which possesses sufficient
courage to admit a David Strauss to its halls?
Those who have any conception of the enormous
extent to which faith in the dogmas of Christian
revelations has disappeared among the younger
generation, must observe with great anxiety how
thoughtlessly, how lazily, nay, how lyingly,
thousands do homage to a lip service which has
become strange to their heart. The lack of vera-
city in the field of religion grows in an alarming
fashion. The philosophers of the eighteenth
century thought that real virtue does not exist
without belief in God and immortality. The
present generation contests this, and declares
point-blank, 'Morality is independent of dogma. * "
He recognizes the immortality in the never-ending
effect of our good as well as of our bad deeds.
"For weak or low characters, the belief in an after
life can equally be a source of immortality, like the
denial of same, for in their anxiety for the hereafter
they often neglect their duties on earth. The
Church has taken no interest whatever in the
great work of the last centuries, and in the deliver-
ance of humanity from one thousand terrors of
unchristian arbitrariness. The defenders of the
Church claim the prerogative to spoil even the
best measure by the incomparable meanness of
their methods. And, according to human estimate,
this symptom will continue. More and more the
moral value of Christianity will be investigated
and developed by laymen, and more and more it
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? 92 Treitschke
will become apparent that churches do not suffice
for the spiritual demands of matured people. "
That this last sentence coincides with the specula-
tions of Richard Rothe, the aesthetic scientist, and
the teaching of the Tubingen School is apparent
from a letter to his Catholic fiancee, written in
1866, in which he says, "Christianity loses nothing
of its greatness if the stupid priest tales of Pagan-
ism are dropped. "
"The New Testament embodies more ideas of
Plato than our clergy is ready to admit. " Under
these circumstances we could count him merely
from a theological point of view amongst the
Liberals, and only in the attitude adopted by
Treitschke towards the contested reforms of
Evangelical and Catholic Church matters we
regained our own convictions. He likewise greeted
Miihler's fall in February, 1872, with joy, al-
though he disapproved of the American Press
tactics, now gaining more and more the upper
hand in the German Press, which heaped with
opprobrium the fallen opponent "he hardly
deserved the title of lion. " Treitschke likewise
demanded the abolition of the Stiehl regulations,
as they acted as a deterrent to many an intelligent
person embracing the career of teacher. Where
Herr von Muhler had ordered that certain colleges
should assume a strictly evangelical character, he
urged Falk to appoint Catholic or Jewish teachers
for those schools, in order to put an end to the
fictitious story that Prussia possessed colleges for
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? His Life and Work 93
specific confessions. During his last term at
Heidelberg he, in a short and decisive fashion, on
December 10, 1873, still approved of the Falk
legislation enacted in May, respecting the re-
strictions of the Catholic Church. " Not a word is
to be found in these laws which is not beneficial
to the Church. " He declares it the most un-
pardonable error of the Conservative party in
Prussia to have entered into an alliance with the
Ultramontanes.
