Heinrich Gotthard von Treitschke (; 15 September 1834 – 28 April 1896) was a German historian, political writer and National Liberal member of the Reichstag during the time of the German Empire.
He was an extreme nationalist,The German Historians and England: A Study in Nineteenth-century Views By Charles E. McClelland page 189 who favored German colonialism and opposed the British Empire. He also opposed Catholics, Poles, Jews and socialists inside Germany. According to Hans Kohn, Treitschke's "prominent position as a national scholar and popular prophet gave to anti-Semitism in Germany a recognized standing."
Early life and teaching career Born in Dresden. Heinrich von Treitschke came from a Saxon civil service and officer family and was of Evangelical Lutheran faith. His ancestors originated from Bohemia and, because of their Protestant religion, emigrated during the Thirty Years' War to the Electorate of Saxony after the Battle of White Mountain. His father was the Saxon lieutenant general Eduard Heinrich von Treitschke of the Kingdom of Saxony's army, who was ennobled in 1821 and who became governor of Königstein and military governor of Dresden. His uncle was the jurist Georg Carl Treitschke, and his cousin was the general Heinrich Leo von Treitschke. Treitschke developed an increasing hearing problem at a young age, which prevented him from entering public service.
He attended the renowned Dresden KreuzschuleTheodor Urbach: The Kreuzschule 1866–1921. A commemorative booklet for the former Cruzian students, Braunschweig 1921, p. 17. (German for "School of the Cross") and studied history from 1851 to 1853 at the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn, where he joined the Frankonia fraternity in the winter semester of 1851/52. There he was influenced by the historian Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann. He then continued his studies at his father’s insistence, focusing on state sciences and Kameralwissenschaft (cameralism) at the University of Leipzig. There he attended lectures by, among others, Heinrich Wuttke, against whom he developed a lasting, mutual dislike. Even as a student, he suffered from increasing hearing loss, which also made it difficult for him to attend lectures.
After studying at the universities of Leipzig and Bonn, where he was a student of Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann, in 1859 he established himself as a Privatdozent at Leipzig, lecturing on history and politics. For a time, he was very popular with students and attracted more than 200 listeners in 1861, but his political opinions made it impossible for the Saxon government to appoint him to a professorship., Heinrich von Treitschke (Yale University Press, 1957)
At that time Treitschke was a strong Liberal; he hoped to see Germany united into a single state with a parliamentary government, and all the smaller states annexed. He praised colonialism, stating:
Treitschke also endorsed Social Darwinian theories of brutal competition among races. In an essay published in 1862, Treitschke praised the "pitiless racial struggle" of Germans against Lithuanians, Poles and Old Prussians; he claimed that "magic" emanated from "eastern German soil" which had been "fertilised" by "noble German blood". While his main objective was to give historical legitimisation to the Germanising of Poles in Prussia, he also praised the migration eastward performed by German ancestors that would eventually become a means of legitimising claims to further eastern territories.Heinrich von Treitschke, "Das deutsche Ordensland Preussen", Preussische Jahrbücher, 10 (1862), p. 96, cf. Michael Burleigh, Wolfgang Wippermann The Racial State: Germany, 1933–1945; Cambridge University Press, 1993; p. 27
He was appointed professor at the University of Freiburg in 1863. In 1866, at the beginning of the Austro-Prussian War, his sympathies with the Kingdom of Prussia were so strong that he went to Berlin, became a Prussian subject, and was appointed editor of the Preussischen Jahrbücher. His violent article, in which he demanded the annexation of the Kingdoms of Hanover and Saxony, and attacked with great invective the Saxon royal house, caused an estrangement from his father, a personal friend of the king. It was only equalled in its ill humour by his attacks on Bavaria during 1870. After getting appointments at the University of Kiel and the University of Heidelberg, he was made professor at Friedrich-Wilhelms-University (what is now named Humboldt-University) in Berlin in 1874.Dorpalen, Heinrich von Treitschke (1957)
Treitschke was influenced by Aristotle, Hegel, Wilhelm Roscher, Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann, and Rudolf von Gneist.
Political career
Since 1858 Treitschke was an editor of the journal Preußische Jahrbücher, of which he later became co-editor. Initially, he held a liberal position and came into conflict with the Preußische Jahrbücher because they sided with the Prussian Minister President Bismarck during the Prussian constitutional conflict of 1863. After the founding of the German Empire in 1871, however, he joined the National Liberals and supported the Prussian state idea and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, whom he had initially opposed as a liberal. In doing so, he saw above all Social Democrats and Jews, but also liberal supporters of parliamentarization and representatives of the free thought movement as political enemies.
From 1871 to 1884 Treitschke was also a member of the Reichstag, until 11 July 1879 as a member of the National Liberal Party, and later as an independent.Heinrich August Winkler: Geschichte des Westens. Band 1, Von den Anfängen in der Antike bis zum 20. Jahrhundert. 2nd edition. 2010, p. 850, C. H. Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-59235-5. He was largely deaf during this period and had an aide sit by his side to transcribe discussion into writing so that he could participate.A deaf legislator. (1871). American Annals of the Deaf, 16 (3), 208.
He rejected objectivity in historiography and was later regarded as the embodiment of the politicized historian (hence the term Treitschke redivivus coined by Thomas Nipperdey).Jens Flemming: Review of Thomas Gerhards Heinrich von Treitschke. In: Archiv für Sozialgeschichte. 54, 2014, (library.fes.de PDF); Nipperdey used the term for the social historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler. See Nipperdey: Wehlers Kaiserreich. Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung. in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft. Vol. 1, Issue 4, 1971, pp. 539–560. Treitschke placed his historical work in the service of political goals. His main work, the five-volume Deutsche Geschichte im Neunzehnten Jahrhundert (1879–1894), which breaks off rather than concludes with the depiction of the precursors of the Revolutions of 1848 in France, Italy, and Switzerland, legitimizes Prussian policy and its prominent position in Germany. At the same time, he attempted to delegitimize the independent existence of the southern German monarchies, especially Bavaria, by interpreting their sovereignty as the result solely of French policy.
Of the reforms of Maximilian von Montgelas, Treitschke took note only insofar as he could emphasise their deficiencies. In his historiography, the idea of a Franco-German hereditary enmity is constantly present, as he elaborated the contrast between German and French understandings of nationhood. According to Heinrich August Winkler: “The supposedly objective definition of the ethnic group stood above the subjective will of the individual; language and descent counted more than the decision for a political system.”Heinrich August Winkler: Geschichte des Westens. Band 1, Von den Anfängen in der Antike bis zum 20. Jahrhundert. 2nd edition. 2010, p. 809, C. H. Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-59235-5. Regarding the incorporation of Alsace into the German Empire founded in 1871, he wrote: “We wish to restore to them, against their will, their own true self --- The Alsatians learned to despise fragmented Germany; they will learn to love us when Prussia’s strong hand has educated them.”
To contemporary readers, his numerous biographical sketches—of statesmen, writers, and other figures—were especially influential. Treitschke’s person-centred historiography is reflected in one of his most famous statements from his German History: Men make history.Treitschke: The historian is not permitted, in the manner of natural scientists, to simply derive the later from the earlier. Men make history. The favour of circumstances becomes effective in the life of peoples only through conscious human will, which knows how to use it. In: Deutsche Geschichte im Neunzehnten Jahrhundert. Vol. 1, p. 28; Treitschke founded the personality cult of German historicism: “Men make history” (Vol. 1, p. 27); Imanuel Geiss: Von der Rechts- zur Linksorthodoxie. Das politisch-ideologische Element in der deutschen Geschichtsschreibung seit 1871, von Treitschke zu Wehler. In: Thomas Stamm-Kuhlmann, Jürgen Elvert, Birgit Aschmann, Jens Hohensee (eds.): Geschichtsbilder. Festschrift für Jürgen Salewski zum 65. Geburtstag (= HMRG. Supplements 47), Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2003, p. 417.
Treitschke’s German History went through many editions and was widely read among the educated bourgeoisie. The royalties made him financially independent. However, the work also provoked sharp criticism among fellow historians, especially from his former friend Hermann Baumgarten from 1883 onwards, who accused him of excessive bias towards Prussia and neglect of scholarly rigor,Among other things, one-sided archival research. According to Petersdorff (Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 1910), important archives such as those in Munich and Vienna remained closed to Treitschke despite his requests. leading to a major controversy (Treitschke–Baumgarten controversy). Baumgarten’s criticism was partly motivated by disappointment at the political shift of a former liberal ally. Treitschke was, however, defended by historians such as Bernhard Erdmannsdörffer, Gottlob Egelhaaf and Heinrich von Sybel, and Sybel’s expert opinion led to Treitschke receiving the Verdun Prize in 1884 for the first two volumes of his German History, the most important historical award of the German Empire. Although disappointed by the criticism, Treitschke was encouraged by his publishing success and expanded his work beyond its originally planned scope to five volumes of around 800 pages each.
Treitschke exerted great influence on the generation of students who shaped German government and administration in the late Imperial period and even into the Weimar Republic. The hard-of-hearing Treitschke, who delivered his lectures passionately and loudly (and, due to near-total deafness, did not conduct seminars or establish a school of thought),Gabriele Clemens: Review of Thomas Gerhards: Heinrich von Treitschke, in: Sehepunkte, 14, 2014, No. 1. was especially popular among Corps students. His vivid and rhetorically powerful lectures were often overcrowded, attracted listeners from outside the university, and became social events. His students included prominent figures and later representatives of imperialist tendencies such as Alfred von Tirpitz, Friedrich von Bernhardi, Carl Peters, and Heinrich Claß, as well as intellectuals like Friedrich Meinecke, Erich Marcks, Gustav Beckmann, Karl Liebknecht, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Georg Simmel. Women were not admitted to his lectures.Gabriele Clemens: Review of Gerhards, ibid. When the women’s rights activist Helene Stöcker asked to attend, he replied: “German universities have been reserved for men for half a millennium, and I do not wish to help destroy them.”Helene Stöcker: Memoirs, ed. Reinhold Lütgemeier, Davin & Kerstin Wolff. Böhlau, Cologne 2015, p. 54.