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Father John's Nationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Hans Kohn
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Extract

Among the German nationalists of the Napoleonic period none had a stronger influence on the practical manifestations of Germannationalism than Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, Father Jahn as he was called. He was born in 1778, in the Mark Brandenburg; in the spirit of a new Prussian nationalism, he wrote in 1799 a book on the promotion of patriotism in the Prussian realm,1 which he opened with the characteristic quotation:

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , October 1949 , pp. 419 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1949

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References

1 Über die Beförderung des Patriotismus in Preussneuischen Reich. Höpffner, Allen Preussen gewidmet von O. C. C.. (Halle: J. C. Hendel, 1800)Google Scholar See the text in Friedrich Ludwig Jahn's Werke, ed. by Euler, Carl, vol. 1 (Hof: G. A. Grau, 1884) p. 1ff.Google Scholar

2 and 2a The lines are from the poem “Der Patriot” byUz, Johann Peter (1720–1796).Google Scholar They form the beginning and the end of the poem. See Sämmtliche Poetische Werke Uz, von J. P., ed. by Sauer, A., Deutsche Litteraturdenkmale des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts in Neudrucken, vol. 33 (Stuttgart: Goschen, 1890) pp. 173, 176: “The greatest state is weak which has innumerable armies but no patriots”. “Of all the heroes who shine upon die world as eternal stars, through all regions to the ends of the world, oh, patriot, you are my hero: you who often misunderstood by men, give yourself entirely to the fatherland, feel only its sorrows, think only of its greatness, live and die for the fatherland”.Google Scholar

3 Werke, vol. 1, p. 6f.Google Scholar

Ibid., p. 10. See on Viereck, Jahn Peter, Metapolitics. From the Romantics to Hitler (New York: Knopf, 1941) pp. 63–89,Google Scholar and Antonowytsch, Michael, Friedrich Lud-wig Jahn. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Anfänge des deutschen Nationalismus, Histor-ische Studien, no. 230 (Berlin: Ebering, 1933).Google Scholar

5 Lehmann, Max, Scharnhorst (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1886–87) vol. 1, p. 380.Google Scholar

6 “Das eigentümliche scharfe und schneidige Wesen der friedricianischen Standesehre unter den Offizieren”.von Treitschke, Heinrich, Deutsche Geschichte im Neunzehnten Jahrhundert, 8th ed. (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1909) vol. I, p. 437,Google Scholar

7 See on Rundnagel, Friesen Erwin, Friedrich Friesen, Ein Politisches Lebensbild (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1936). Friesen was killed in the war in 1813; thirty years later his body was buried in Berlin next to Scharnhorst's.Google Scholar

8 Die Briefe Friedrich Ludwig Jahns, ed. by Meyer, Wolfgang (Leipzig: Paul Eber-hardt, 1913) p. 64f.Google Scholar

9 “The old sentiments are still alive, we still seek the old goal, but no longer in humanity, but in Germandom. This seeming limitation is a true enhancement. All salvation of the people and every solution and renaissance has always started from a few enthusiasts. The chains of serfdom had first to be rattled by chosen fanatics before liberty with giant power brandished its victorious sword of vengeance”. Briefe, op. cit. p. 32.Google Scholar

10 Among them was Franz Lieber (1800–1872) the future American political scientist who like the other gymnasts volunteered for the war and was gravely wounded in 1815 before Namur.

11 Werke, vol. 1, p. 146f.Google Scholar

12 Deutsches Volkstum (Reclams Universal-Bibliothek, no. 2638–40) p. 34f.Google Scholar

13 Werke, vol. 1, p. 155f. See there also p. 162: “Welches Volkstum steht am höchsten, hat sich am meisten der Menschheit genähert? Kein anderes, als was den heiligen Begriff der Menschheit in sich aufgenommen hat, mit einer äusserlichen Allseit-igkeit sie sinnbildlich im Kleinen vorbildet, wie weiland volkstümlich die Griechen und noch bis jetzt weltbürgerlich die Deutschen, der Menschheit heilige Völker!”Google Scholar

14 Ibid., p. 163.

15 “Es versteht sich von selbst, dass jeder echte Mann seinen künftigen Kindern eine Mutter aus eigenem Volke zu geben bemüht ist. Jede andere Ehe ist tierische Paarung ohne Gatten. Wer mit einem uneingebürgerten Weibe Kinder zeugt, hat Vaterland und Vaterschaft verscherzt” Werke, vol. 2, pt. 2.Google Scholar

16 Werke, vol. I, p. 194.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., p. 225.

18 Deutsches Volkstum (Reclam edition) p. 128Google Scholar See also Werke, vol. 1, pp. 237, 249, 266.Google Scholar

19 Werke, vol. I, p. 309.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., pp. 281, 285, 299.

21 Ibid., pp. 206, 416, 418.

22 Ibid., p. 419.

23 Briefe, p. 335.Google Scholar

24 Werke, vol. 2, pt. 2, p. 1003.Google Scholar

25 Letter of December 16, 1834. Briefe, p. 317.Google Scholar