From the enlightenment to National Socialism

Abstract

The paper criticizes a commonly held misconception of Prussia’s especially villainous role in the development and dissemination of nationalism — one of the most malign and destructive doctrines in modern history. With Prussia no longer in existence, having been annihilated by the Allies in 1947, this misconception has spread even more widely. Relying on analysis of German philosophical systems and literary trends of the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as on the historical concepts of nationalism, this paper reveals the origins of the myth of the Prussian nationalism and outlines the main features of the Prussian state. Prussian efficiency, which characterized Prussian governance, was one of these important features. This is why Prussia itself needed no additional nationalist props. This distinguished Prussia drastically from the most of the other European countries. The lack of ideology in Prussia was partly compensated by Pietism, a religious system, which fostered the feeling of loyalty in the subjects of the state. Moreover, as Prussia was definitely conservative, it strongly opposed romantic nationalism diffused from revolutionary France. The paper especially emphasizes the fact of the absence of ethnic conflicts in Prussia and the peaceful coexistence of the Prussian colonists and the local population in the other countries. In the end, as the paper demonstrates, nationalism did manage to infiltrate the German political culture. However, Prussia should not be held guilty for that, as German nationalism stemmed from the general trend typical for European mass society at the turn of the twentieth century. Refs 30.