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Wolfgang Hutter

May 31, 2021 • 36 tweets • 16 min read • Read on X

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This is the newest overview/synthesis on modern Germany from Helmut Smith (who has written at least one really good book, "The Butcher's Tale"). I am going to try and look it over and see if it is good or not and do a thread or write an actual long form review on it.

I have not read many overviews of modern Germany that I think are very good (other than more focused ones on imperial Germany or just the 19th cent. Hopefully this one might be worth reading for anyone who wants to find a good place to start on modern Germany .

So far, this book is pretty good. Will go into more detail in a few days. Its is not just an overview of modern Germany. Its pretty focused on this issue of how Germany understands itself as a nation. The entire first several chapters focus alot on early maps and attempts to

geographically define the "German nation". Of course the author is generally pretty skeptical about any historical coherence to German nationalism outside of linguistic grouping. And, at least so far, this is not a terrible argument.

For people, like myself, who find some of modern Germany's greatest virtues in a mixture between its elite high culture and its everyday "volk" culture, it seems that German nationalism in certain ways cheapens this transnational/regional linguistic culture of art, science,

philosophy, literature, etc. There is a great quote about this, that I could never find, Something like to the Russians go the land, and to the British go the seas, and then some allusion to Germany as a floating culture of dreams and ideas, etc.

If anyone knows what quote I am talking about I would be seriously indebted to you if you could find it for me. It actually might be Heinrich Heine, but I could never find it outside of the grad seminar I attended that it was quoted in.

Interesting map: The number of times the Emperor Maximillian I visited different parts of HRE.

"Celtes" seems to be an important Renaissance era artistic/poetic visionary for German cultural and linguistic unity and an expansive, but still amorphous, nationhood (a similar vision to what Heine was trying to get at in that quote about the "land of dreams").

Some more interesting maps/images: routes to Rome for pilgrimages, general map/depiction of "Germania" proper, and cities described as "German" in a text by Johannes Cochlaeus. Also, earliest woodcut depiction of Nuremberg.

The second section of Smith's book focuses on the development of "sacrificial patriotism" (and something that resembles modern nationalism) in 17th/18th century Germany, except this is entirely focused on a "nationalism" that was entirely loyal to regional states within old Reich

(i.e. Saxony, Prussia, Wurttemberg, Bavaria) Images posted above lay this out. Genuinely interested to dig into these chapters because I am almost completely unfamiliar with German nationalism expressed through loyalty to the regional states and, I assume in this context, any

regional monarchy, princes, nobility, etc (in 19th cent, you still see this in a place like Bavaria, but I am not familiar with how this developed in 17th/18th cent).

More from Smith on origins of German nationalism found in 18th cent territorial states. He seems to be lining up with Anderson in terms of underlying conditions leading to nationalism. However, because many of the technological aspects of modernity that Anderon sees as partially

(or mostly) responsible for nationalism don't exist or are still in infancy. Instead, he seems to emphasize socio-poli or econ dynamics that were consciously manipulated by monarchy/ruling class in specific territorial sates. Also, an extremely detailed map of 18th cent Germany

Logical transition from "patriotism" in context of monarchies to republicanism/democracy. Also, a simple, but illustrative graph for explaining the rise of Austria and Prussia as the most powerful states within the Reich (beating out any contenders like Hannover or Bavaria)

Interesting excerpt on Bavarian nationalism in the second half of 18th century. Never read about Bavarian nationalism in this early of a period. Not exactly what I thought it would be (thought it would have more a distinct monarchist tinge).

The growth of travel memoirs within Reich and growing awareness of Germany as a distinct geographic whole (even a single "volk"). This greater awareness of "Germany" through travel also gives birth to first generation of nationally conscious German writers.

Some info on two such early German "national" visionaries and their travel writing, Nicolai and Herder. This was by far the worst chapter in the book, a complete rehashing of something that's been written about a million times. Hopefully, next one is better.

Early debates on how to reorganize the flailing HRE during the French revolution and the military conflicts that came thereafter. Obviously, Prussia/Austria step up, but wasn't familiar with how central the "Palatinate" was to certain conceptions of a newly organized Reich.

I don't know how common this argument is,. German resistance to French army in 1790's was driven by the criminal behavior of French troops. In the "Ancien Regime" days, French troops were more disciplined, forced to stay in garrison towns.

New French army was more criminal (looting, robbing, raping). Author also asserts that there is no serious evidence that south German resistance to French was driven by new sense of "nationalism".

This is where it really all starts . Napoleon was a catalyst for German nationalism(s) in a number of ways. 1806 and the official destruction of Germany's ancient political structure - at least for Schiller and many like him - was actually liberating, a new beginning.

If anybody knows the title for the published journals of Ernst Arndt, I would appreciate some help. Seems to capture the mood of Germany in the Napoleon years - a sense of decay, loss, tragedy, but also birthed sentiments that would be utilized for future nationalist project.

New "nationalist" tone of Kleist. Early nationalist sentiment in art during Napoleonic wars/occupation. Also, was not familiar with the "German Table Society" small, elite, secretive group of creative German minds that met to discuss advancement of and prospects for German nation

Summary and some analysis of Heine's "A Winter's Tale". Btw, if you are a Germanophile or just a fan of German literature and overall creative expressions of "Germaness" (particularly in 19th cent), you sort of have to read Heine's "A Winter's Tale".

Some stats about literacy, reading, general education, and book publishing in the "Biedermeier period" of German history (roughly, 1820 to 1850). This is at the origin of many popular notions of Germans as a particularly educated, or even philosophical people.

This is something I wasn't super aware of. Declining importance of military in Prussia and Germany in general. Due to extended peacetime, possibly the culture of Biedermeier period in general had an effect on this?

Some background and analysis on the work of German "nationalist" economist Friedrich List. Internal economic reforms advocated by List were one of the more important factors in preparing the groundwork for the German nation-state and its rise to prominence on 19th cent Europe.

Smith brings up a German academic by the name of W.H. Riehl and explores his critiques of the modern, nationalist direction that Germany was heading in by mid-19th century (and why it was robbing Germany of certain deeply rooted social structures) If you haven't heard of him,

I would definitely read the above excerpts. I have never heard of him, but his primary work, "Civic Society", that Smith analyses, seems really interesting. The only other major historical text that analyzes Riehl and his work is Mosse's "The Crisis of German ideology".

Reminds me of some early German sociologists like Frederick Tonnies, but slightly, even unconsciously, more "volkisch" and more steeped in a mythology about the German lands and the nature of its social structure . Interesting, will have to look into him some more.

Some interesting details about German unification and the new Imperial constitution (1871). Was this new "Germany" truly a "nation-state" or an "empire"?

Excerpts on Heinrich Treitschke's travels through the new unified German empire. Germany as a unique bearer of civilization, particularly in the eastern border regions. We can begin to see the transition from German nationalism into German racialism in his comments on Jews, etc.

A map of the number of nationalist monuments in any given part of German empire. Also, apparently there was a monument commissioned and built for Heine, but had to be scrapped because of his Jewish background, was sent to NYC (apparently German Americans liked it).

Can anyone tell me which Kantorowicz book this is? Will look at footnotes later, but if you know, let me know (is it that "Kings Two Bodies" book?).This is a very interesting thesis that Smith opens with for his final chapters. I have yet to read Kantorowicz, but I will get to it

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Wolfgang Hutter

@WolfgangHutter2

May 15

🧵Article/thread on Helena Rosenblatt's analysis on the aristocratic origins and conceptual evolution of French "liberalism" (taken from her essay contained in "In Search of European Liberalisms", a collection on the conceptual evolution of "liberalism" in continental Europe)

Helena Rosenblatt challenges a long-standing assumption that France lacked a strong liberal tradition, arguing instead that France was one of liberalism’s primary birthplaces. “Strong evidence now suggests that ‘liberalism’ was invented not in England or in America, but in France, and in reaction to the French Revolution”. The term evolved over time, beginning as a moral or aristocratic virtue and only later taking on political significance. Rosenblatt traces its transition from the classical ideal of "liberality" - linked to generosity and nobility - into a politically charged doctrine that underpinned constitutionalism and civil rights.

Before the French Revolution, "liberal" connoted high-mindedness, nobility, and charitable Christian virtue. This “liberal” quality, Rosenblatt writes, “signified the high-minded, magnanimous and patriotic ideals of a ruling class”. The Revolution transformed these associations. The word became at that point politicized, tied to ideas of popular sovereignty, civil equality, and constitutional rule. Thinkers like Benjamin Constant began to identify themselves explicitly as "liberals", though Constant himself used the term strategically, evoking aristocratic and Christian connotations to legitimate a constitutional politics aimed against both Jacobinism and legitimism/monarchy. Being "liberal,” in Constant’s terms, meant defending the Revolution’s civil achievements while rejecting both the ancien régime and the Terror/democratic excess.

The term "liberalisme" itself was likely coined by ultraroyalists as a slur against their opponents. One critic wrote that “liberalism” supposedly stood for generosity, nobility, and love of freedom, but was in reality selfishness and ambition, sure to bring despotism if enacted. Detractors helped cement the term’s meaning: belief in civil equality, representative government, and protection of rights under a constitutional monarchy. Still, French liberalism was riddled with internal disagreement. Most Liberals supported the “principles of 1789” but disagreed on what they meant. An 1818 pamphlet, "Advice to Liberals from a Liberal", distinguished between “revolutionary,” “exaggerated,” and “royalist” liberals, running the gamut from moderate reformers to radical democrats and Jacobin sympathizers.

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Wolfgang Hutter

@WolfgangHutter2

May 6

🧵I want to highlight this book - particularly the first half of it - for two primary reasons. First, strong “begriffsgeschichte” (conceptual history) is something that - for whatever reason - is in extremely limited supply in contemporary academic history writing. Secondly, the first six chapters of this book (roughly the first 80 pages) provides one of the most seamless explanations for the evolution of the terminology and conception of “capitalism”, from one almost entirely limited to the “political” sphere to a term seen as primarily “economic".

Sonenscher argues that the term “capitalism” entered the vocabulary of political thought through 18th and 19th century debates about sovereignty, representation, and the nature of the state. The term was initially not an economic category, but “a concept used to describe a form of rule or political organization,” specifically one characterized by domination through the control of public finance. The term “capitalism” - although rarely used in late 18th century - more signified a regime in which “public debts and the management of state finances” placed sovereign authority into the hands of wealthy individuals or institutions.

Sonenscher initially makes this clear through his examination of the link between capitalism and public finance by focusing on the relationship between war, state debt, and political transformation. He emphasizes that in the 18th and early 19th centuries, the expansion of state borrowing to fund wars increasingly concentrated power in the hands of creditors, reinforcing the idea that capitalism denoted a political system controlled by the holders of public debt (a major part of this debate in the late 18th century was centered on Belgium/Netherlands in particular).

For thinkers like Sieyes, Mirabeau, and others, capitalism signified not markets or industry, but a corrupt and parasitic political order in which war-driven indebtedness ceded power to a narrow class. As Sonenscher puts it, “capitalism became a way of describing the power of a social class that profited from the state without serving it.” These arguments were not anti-commercial or anti-modern in themselves; rather, they distinguished between productive and unproductive forms of wealth.

Sonenscher also looks at the post-revolutionary period in France to show how the meaning of capitalism evolved in debates surrounding royalism and emerging concerns about social inequality. After the fall of the monarchy and the upheavals of the revolution, some thinkers began to reassess the “ancien regime”, associating it not only with authoritarian rule but also with a more stable social order. Within this reassessment, capitalism came to be linked with instability, atomization, and the weakening of traditional bonds. Royalist and conservative critics saw capitalism as a threat to social cohesion, authority, and moral values.

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Wolfgang Hutter

@WolfgangHutter2

Apr 24

🧵Article-Thread on six of the greatest political theorists of later modernity and their analysis of the role and function of dictatorship, 'Ceasarism", "Bonapartism", and "Totalitarianism" in their own time and historically (de Tocqueville, Marx, Weber, Gramsci, Schmitt, and Arendt). These are all somewhat brief summaries of their material based off what is cited in the essays that can be found in the text pictured above.

Tocqueville interpreted the rise of both Napoleon Bonaparte and Napoleon III as the emergence of a post-revolutionary and post-democratic type of dictatorship. Bonapartism did not merely signal a return to monarchy, but revealed a new political form: “the despotism of a single person raising himself upon a democratic base” which generated “the most unlimited despotism, the one best supported by the appearance of originating in right (droit) and sacred interest”. This form of government cloaked itself in the language of popular sovereignty, using plebiscites and the rhetoric of national unity, while bypassing representative institutions and abolishing liberty. This pattern, Tocqueville feared, created “an equal tyranny for all,” particularly in democratic societies that lacked internal constraints and civic virtues.

While Tocqueville often compared modern despotism to Caesarism, he ultimately rejected simplistic Roman analogies, especially when co-opted by defenders of the Second Empire. “Our nation is not decrepit, but fatigued and frightened by anarchy,” he insisted, arguing that France’s political culture retained the potential to resist permanent autocracy. He identified in the Bonapartist legacy a perilous mix of centralized administration, military power, and legal codification - all inherited from the Revolution, but now turned against the ideals of liberty and civic engagement. Napoleon “was as great as a man without virtue can be,” and his enduring legacy was the perfection of mechanisms of control used by all his successors. What made Bonapartism especially insidious, Tocqueville argued, was its capacity to make tyranny appear not only legitimate but necessary in the eyes of a fearful and demoralized populace.

Marx’s "Eighteenth Brumaire" presents dictatorship not as the work of a singular, heroic figure, but as a structural phenomenon arising from the contradictions of bourgeois democracy. For Marx, Louis Bonaparte’s coup of December, 2, 1851, was not merely a power grab, but the culmination of class struggle within the Second Republic, facilitated by the bourgeoisie’s own fear of mass democracy. “The bourgeoisie kept France in breathless terror at the prospective horrors of red anarchy,” Marx wrote, and by invoking this fear, Bonaparte “sold it this future cheaply” through violent repression and plebiscitary manipulation.

Democracy, Marx argued, was betrayed from within: “Dictatorship became a kind of revolutionary activity to expunge, or at least severely curtail, democratic practice”. Unlike de Tocqueville, Marx saw dictatorship as an outcome not of institutional decay but of class compromise: “The party of order wanted a strong executive to defend their ownership... Louis Bonaparte outmaneuvered them” by exploiting their internal contradictions and appealing to both elite and popular sentiment.

Crucially, Marx’s account refutes the romantic notion of dictatorship as the domain of a “great man.” His biting phrase, “the individual in history is not a hero... but rather an image, an empty signifier, a cypher who wins elections,” deconstructs the personalistic mythologies surrounding Caesarism and Bonapartism. Bonaparte was merely the grotesque expression of a deeper social pathology, as the state became “a parasitical excrescence upon civil society” that had seemingly “achieved independence... and brought society into submission”. Marx tracks this process as a farce, “a mock empire” arising from bourgeois self-deception, political cynicism, and the manipulation of democratic forms by "reactionary" interests.

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Wolfgang Hutter

@WolfgangHutter2

Jan 14

Long form article-thread on Christopher Clark's book on German missionary activity among Jews and Clark's theories for the transformation of that "eschatology" from the days of the Reformation up until the Third Reich or "How German Christians go from 'The Jews are our salvation' to the 'Jews are our misfortune"

One of the pre-occupations of ecclesiastical - but also merchant and even noble - elites in Germany in the 17th and 18th centuries was the conversion of the Jews. Christopher Clark has explored this subject in detail and – in his view - this was not a simple issue of practicality.

The conversion of the Jews was understood in “eschatological terms”, as this conversion was apart of the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. One primary and early example of this studied by Clark was the Institutum Judaicum founded by Johann Heinrich Callenberg in 1728 which sought to evangelize the Jews but also to transform their culture and social ethics. Missions like these were not particularly successful (leading to a small amount of conversions, and even the successful conversions were – in some cases - just Jews (and even some poor people impersonating Jews) using the mission as a way to find food or employment), but furthermore, this specific institute and these missionary efforts continued on because the eschatological mission was seen as essential for promoting a Christian worldview and a Christian mission for the state. This excerpt from Clark summarizes this well, citing another German theologian by the name of Phillip Jakob Spener

"If we look at Holy Scripture, we need not doubt that God has promised a better state of the Church on Earth. We have, above all, the heartfelt prophecy of St Paul and the mystery revealed to him (Romans, XI: 25, 26), of how Israel shall become blessed after the fullness of the heathens shall be gone in, so that a great part, if not all, of the hitherto stubborn Jews shall be converted to the Lord"

Spener was convinced that the stubbornness of the Jews was driven by Christian imperfection and the unwillingness of Christians to live up to the teachings or standards of Christ. Hence, the conversion of the Jews was not only related to a movement of history or even an “end of history” or ”end of days” but was related to spiritual and temporal, political and social reform. Spener writes:

"If the Jews could be brought as a whole to a different way of life from that of trading and peddling which feeds them nowadays [Spener wrote in the early 1680s], I would be in favour of such a step. For this way of life requires that the mind be preoccupied with constant worries, so that they can hardly afford the leisure of scrutinizing themselves"

Not all orthodox Lutherans agreed with reading of Paul’s letter which Spener and others cited for their mission to convert the Jews. Martin Luther was also famously dispirited in the lack of conversion among the Jews – driven by a vision quite similar to evangelical or “Pietist” Lutherans like Spener – and eventually objected to this reading of Paul that was then cited by those who objected to Spener. Luther wrote:

“This text [Luther wrote in his Lectures on Romans] is the basis of the common opinion that, at the end of the world, the Jews will return to the faith. However, it is so obscure that, unless one is willing to accept the judgement of the fathers who expound the apostle in this way, no one can, so it would seem, obtain a clear conviction from this text.”

In the immediate two centuries after Luther wrote those words, most Lutheran Protestants accepted the conversion of the Jews as a “mission” of Christianity or even the “Christian state”. But the Pietist missionary zeal that came out of the the Institutum Judaicum did not survive through the Enlightenment as the funding and ideology that supported shrunk away in the latter half of the 18th century.

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Wolfgang Hutter

@WolfgangHutter2

Jun 11, 2024

Walter White - head of NAACP from 1929-1955 - on relationship between lynching in the American south and evangelicalism, or at least culture and ritual around evangelicalism/Pentecostalism (from Wood's "Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940")

Of course, evangelical Christianity - especially in the 19th century - had extremely egalitarian social/political implications. But what White is pointing to here is more of its culture and rituals, how that seeped into the practices of the type of people who engaged in lynching

Walter White's writing on the subject of lynching is actually a pretty good window into how it functioned in smaller southern towns and cities. This document from "The American Mercury" publication in 1929 is a solid read
nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/segr…

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Wolfgang Hutter

@WolfgangHutter2

Aug 26, 2022

https://twitter.com/ObamaGarak/status/1562673497444196352

A good excerpt from the beginning of a lesser known Lassiter essay (that I didn't know existed) on Cobb county GA, focusing on this larger issue of the suburbanite base of GOP, but specifically how this applied to Gingrich's "contract with America" GOP insurgency in the mid 90's.

https://twitter.com/ObamaGarak/status/1562673497444196352

For those interested in this subject, but too young to remember this or not familiar with recent American history, while there is certainly continuity between current day Con Inc/GOP and the "new right" insurgencies of the 60's/70's,

real beginning of current GOP is 94/96 congressional races, Gingrich, "contract with America", etc. Irving Kristol once recalled meeting with the entirety of the GOP house (possibly senate to) and "converting them all to neo-conservatism in under an hour" (roughly paraphrased).

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