Teaching Nationalism The Impact of Education on Nationalization in

Nineteenth-Century Prussia/Germany

J. Bradon Rothschild

University of Washington

History Thesis Capstone

Spring 2014

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(Cover image: Carl Hertel, Young Germany in School [Jungdeutschland in der Schule] (1874))

At the opening of the nineteenth-century Europe remained a fragmented mass of states

vying for power over land. Through the eighteenth-century a hand full of European states

managed to consolidate states of moderate size. Primary among the major states were Prussia,

France, England, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire. At the end of the eighteenth-century,

however, political instability in France, egged on by cultural revolutions of the “age of reason”,

spawned the French Revolution and eventually the Napoleonic regime. In the first decades of the

nineteenth-century Napoleon and his revolutionary armies swept through most of Europe,

reorganizing the continent from former power structures, and shocking the world by swiftly

squashing all ancien regime within their path.

In many ways, the Napoleonic Wars acted as a slate cleaner for much of Europe.

Through the Congress of Vienna those same states which Napoleon so threatened ushered in a

renewed devotion in Europe to Monarchies and resistance to change, and reinstated the Bourbon

royal family in France; this was the Metternich period and as much a reaction to the radicalism

of the French Revolution of 1789 as it was to Napoleon’s conquest.

This is not, however, a paper about the French revolution. Nor is it about Metternich and

European Conservatism. This paper is about the reconstruction of Central Europe, specifically

Prussia and later Germany, in the years following Napoleon. In the decades that followed the

Napoleonic Wars, many things changed in Central Europe. Governments reformed, economies

boomed, and national identities emerged; much of this in many ways was in direct reaction to

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Napoleon. But it is the case of Nationalism and National Identity in the German lands which is

at the heart of this paper.

Figure 1. Germany and Italy in 1803 after Principal Decree of the Imperial Deputation. This shows the lands of Central Europe, most importantly Germany, heavily divided administratively. Source: Mapping Solutions.

In the centuries preceding Napoleon’s conquests, the Germanic lands [Fig. 1] remained

administratively heavily divided. It was in the Germanic lands that Martin Luther posted his

Ninety-Five Theses, and was the battleground for the Thirty Years War, arguably the bloodiest

war of the Religious Reformation. In part due to that war, this large territory with a fairly

common culture remained fragmented even after the Congress of Vienna. The Thirty Years War

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and the Peace of Westphalia are key ingredients as to why the German lands failed to unite as

one nation at this time. The Peace of Westphalia deliberately separated the principalities by

religion, in essence making a North and South Germany wherein the religion of the dynastic

rulers dictated the religion, and therefore culture, of the population. At this time, the largest

conglomerated government in Germany was the Protestant Prussia in the north, while many

dozens of smaller regional powers maintained independence in the south and west, many of

which held predominately Catholic populations and had Catholic royal families.

By the end of the nineteenth-century, though, the political landscape of Central Europe,

and especially of the Germanic lands, changed. National identities emerged and governments

consolidated power over vast territories. In the Germanic states, Prussia came to dominate,

eventually forming what is, in essence, today the nation of Germany. What in the decades before

had been a scattering of small principalities with little military and economic power, by World

War I became the preeminent power of Europe with the highest industrial output and the highest

GDP, suddenly eclipsing both the United Kingdom and France. Though many institutions

operated by the Prussian government, including their military and railroads, which helped them

to build a consolidated nation-state through military victory in both the Austro-Prussian and

Franco-Prussian wars, it was the liberalized, and universalized, Wilhelm von Humboldt

education system, put in place largely as a reaction to Napoleon’s conquest of Europe, which

built the nation. If it were not for these liberalized schools, the spread of language may not have

been possible. Without a well-educated public, the economy may have remained stagnant and

much of the artistic expression which lauded the German nation would certainly never have

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existed. In truth, the Humboldt education system as it stands today is an intrinsic part of the

modern German national identity.

While this system was highly specialized, it was its effects, not its construction, which

were key to the German nationalization efforts. The first section of this paper will describe the

evolution of the Humboldt education system in Prussia. The second section will discuss cultural

heart of national identity building in the Germanic vein: theories of language and education

regarding their roles in spreading nationalist sentiment in general, including brief descriptions of

the same phenomenon in other nation states. The will depict how the newly educated German

middle-classes sparked the industrial revolution which carried the nation’s economy to the top of

the European market. As well, the educated populace and its thriving economy became a model

for the large state bureaucracies now common to all European nation states. The Fourth and fifth

sections of the paper will examine how these theories played out in nineteenth-century

Prussia/Germany, primarily regarding the spread of language and literature, deconstructed using

theories espoused by Benedict Anderson in his seminal book on national cultures Imagined

Communities, with special attention to Prussian held French and Polish regions and how the rise

of popular literature in the nineteenth-century sparked a renewed nationalist sentiment in

Germany. In these ways, German nationalization played a crucial and keystone role in the

shaping of modern Europe.

Section 1: Pre-Humboldt Education in Prussian Lands:

Through the Sixteenth to early nineteenth-centuries, Prussia maintained a variety of

education systems; though the system most contemporary to Humboldt himself consisted of

church organized schools and some state organized schools. The Garnisons and Armenshculen,

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which the state ran, educated children connected with the military. Ritterakademien and

Paedagogien, also largely state-run, were dedicated to the education of the aristocratic families1.

The primary purpose of these schools was to educate connected individuals – either

aristocrats or military personnel and their family – in language, arts, and sciences as well as

religion2. At this stage, schools focused primarily on educating and maintaining an aristocratic

class of leaders, both in government and military. Left out were the middle and lower class

subjects of the kingdom, which arguably held back economic growth, and clearly restrained the

literacy of the populace. In this regard, pre-Humboldt schools in Prussia were the antithesis of

the nationalized, liberalized schools common to Europe and most European colonies – or former

colonies – by the end of the nineteenth-century.

Furthermore according to Stubbs these schools, including what few schools taught middle

and lower class students (mostly church schools), as well as the state-run military schools

primarily taught French and Latin rather than German. This is unsurprising as French and Latin

had long been common court languages throughout Europe, especially as in the years dominated

by Napoleon. However it does betray the lack of nationalized mentality Benedict Anderson

discusses at length regarding language and literacy.

Section 2: The Humboldt Theory of Education and Reforms in the Prussian Education System:

In the early nineteenth-century several things changed about how Prussia ran public

education. On November 19, 1808 King Frederick William III issued the edict titled “Ordinance

for All Cities of the Prussian Monarchy,” one of the first of its kind, reordering economic and

educational systems in Prussia. In this edict, King William III and his council liberalized

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schooling, along with much of the economy, by breaking guild and merchant union, and social

class status, grip on trade within cities:

“14. A citizen or member of a city is he who has civil rights in a city.

15. Civil rights consist of the right to conduct in a city trade and possess property

in the area governed by the city [Polizeibezirk]…

19. Social status [Stand], birth, religion and personal relations of any kind make

no difference in acquiring civil rights…”3

Though the edict itself does not directly address education vis-à-vis schools, the blow it

dealt to the guild system was of vast importance. Guilds, for much of their history, acted as

regulators on various industries largely by placing entrance barriers around markets and

professions; for carpentry, for instance; requiring any individual wanting to participate in said

market or profession had to be part of the guild, which generally required an apprenticeship

within the guild4. The edict did directly oppose the guilds, even without naming them, stating

that any citizen wishing to engage in a market, having goods to sell, is free to do so without any

restrictions from the guilds. This meant that other institutions needed to carry on the duty of

teaching crafts and trades; this is, to a large extent, where many of the more progressive school

reforms came into play.

Arguments against the restrictive nature of guilds are not uncommon and play a

significant role in the liberalization of the German economy. Victor Böhmert’s “Critique of the

Traditional and Restrictive Nature of Guilds” (1858) is indicative of the liberal attitude towards

guilds. In it Böhmert says “’Work’ is everywhere recognized as the best remedy for poverty,”5

yet “the poor, who as victims of lowly circumstances were in no position to learn a guilded craft”

and are therefore excluded from many economic activities which may alleviate6. In this way, the

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aforementioned edict addressed economic and social concerns by extending the liberty for

citizens to engage in economic activity without the restrictions of guilds.

In 1812, King Wilhelm pronounced a second edict, this time reforming access to higher

education. “Edict Regarding the Examination of Students Entering University,” requires

students entering university take entrance exams, preparing them for higher education. This

edict, in conjunction with the 1808 edict, helped to establish universalized schooling in Prussia,

beginning the centralization of the education system and greatly increasing access to basic

education, breaking the monopoly had by the aristocratic classes on literacy, and expanding

economic and intellectual access to the other classes.

The primary systemic change this edict set forth was the Arbitur, the university entrance

exam, by stating:

“… those students who wish to enroll in a university must report three months

prior to leaving school to the headmaster or principal of their school, requesting

the leaving diploma necessary for university registration. It is then incumbent on

the headmaster or principal, if he does not deem the pupil mature enough for

enrollment in university, to raise objections about this both with the pupil himself

and his parents or guardians and relatives. If these are to no avail, the headmaster

or principal must nevertheless admit the pupil to the examination, in which the

objective is to determine the degree of his ability and the grade of the diploma to

be issued based on that ability. …” 7

By this edict, all university bound students, regardless of social class, were – and still are

- required to pass an entrance exam prior to enrolling and being admitted into university. The

goal of this section of the edict was to elevate the quality of students entering university, and

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remove some of the social bias towards the elite classes and offer a chance to underprivileged

and middle class students at entering university.

The edict set forth a second standard of education less talked about, which is an emphasis

on artistic and linguistic expression vis-à-vis the German language. It states that every student

embarking on a university education demonstrate “in German, the written mode of expression

must not only be free of grammatical errors but also of vagueness and confusion of the poetic

with the prosaic;” this shows that the artistic use of the German language was already becoming

an important point of cultural pride, and that the government wished to emphasize and encourage

its growth and flourishing. This is continued in the same section with the additional stipulation

that students demonstrate “… familiarity with the major epochs of the history of German

language and literature and the nation’s most pre-eminent authors”8.

Wilhelm von Humboldt himself late in his life oversaw the founding and subsequent

administration of the University of Berlin, beginning in 18109. In founding this university,

Humboldt, along with the university cofounders, enacted his philosophy on higher education

which emphasized the liberal arts; in this philosophy “liberal” could be taken in the classical

socio-political definition as part-in-parcel with “freedom”. In his own words, Humboldt

described the optimal course of education at a universities and “higher scientific institutions” as

“under one’s own guidance”10

, and that the state’s role with such institutions is to “1. Always

preserve the activity in its most lively and robust vitality; 2. Not allow it to decline, to maintain

pure and firm the separation of the higher institutions from the school (not only from the general

theoretical, but also, and especially, from the variety of practical ones)”11

. In this model,

students and researchers at universities and scientific institutes are encouraged to guide

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themselves without impediment from others, and the King – or any form of government – is to

remain as a patron rather than guide and administrator12

.

By the end of the 1820s, Prussia had developed a comprehensive education system from

the ground up which emphasized access, freedom of thought, and a high level of academic

scholarship while also offering competitive non-academic options for learning trades. Much of

this system was, and still is, based on the Humboldt model and philosophy. Through the

proceeding century as Prussia expanded and eventually unified what is commonly referred to as

“Germany,” this education system also expanded, bringing with it cultural and social norms as

well as academic and technical opportunities and the economic growth which would drive the

new nation into the twentieth-century.

The borders of Prussia expanded through the Austro-Prussian (1866) and Franco-Prussian

(1870-71) wars. As Prussia evolved into the German Empire, the education system formed in

the early nineteenth-century expanded into the newly acquired territories13

. More territory meant

more schools, more pupils, and more spread of the education format. This increase is revealed in

student attendance as well as increase in German population in the below charts provided by

Gerd Hohorst, Jürgen Kocka, and Gerhard A. Ritter in their Social History Workbook: Materials

on Kaiserreich Statistics 1870-1914.

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Figure 2. Public Schools in Prussia. Source: Hohorst, Gerd, Jürgen Kocka, and Gerhard A. Ritter.

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The figures primary school enrollment show [Fig. 2] the steady rise in students in the

schools. In 1864, two years before the Austro-Prussian war and before German Unification,

Prussia only had 2.8 million primary school students with a ratio of fifteen primary school

students to every onehundred residents. Just seven years later, after both the Austro-Prussian and

Franco-Prussian wars, the number of primary school students increased by over one million, and

the number of schools increased by over eight thousand, meanwhile the ratio of students per

onehundred inhabitants only rose by one. Each set of numbers show a general, though not

constant, trend in increasing student population and number of schools. Compounded with the

relatively stable ratio of students per onehundred inhabitants, it is likely that the population rose

in tandum with Prussia/Germany’s increasing territory and the eventual German Unification.

As to the quality of the education received, mostly we can only speculate. Konrad

Fischer, however, offers us an analysis of this liberalized system from the eyes of an primary

school teacher circa 1890 in his The History of German Elementary Schoolteachers as a Class.

He lauds the “progress that has been made in educating and preparing teachers” for their

impending professional employment and that the system has allowed a “thorough break with the

emphasis on pure [scholastic] memorization” in favor of academic liberty and humanist

education14

. This is the system today; in education emphasis is placed on understanding and

thinking rather than pure memorization. This system has done relatively well and has been cited

as a major reason as to why Japan, for instance, exceeds the progress of the United States in

matters of mathematical education 15

.

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Section 3: The Economics of a Literate Population: Nationalized Economy:

One of the primary effects of the liberalized education system, and similarly liberalized

economy, was the industrial revolution coming to Germany. The product of the education

system created by the edicts of 1808 and 1812 was a well-educated, and empowered, populace

with the capability of creating the economic revolution of the mid nineteenth-century. This

economic revolution, traced here through increased production and economic participation,

propelled the newly unified Germany to economic and industrial domination of Europe, and

nearly to victory in both World Wars. Such economic strength is a pre-requisite for the

nationalization displayed in early twentieth-century Germany, as well as the other European

nation-states. Without this universalized, liberalized, and highly effective education system, this

economic revolution may never have happened.

Through the Middle Ages on into the early industrial revolution, guild systems controlled

the regulation, education, and distribution of skills and labor. Early in the industrial revolution,

however, mechanization threatened their stronghold by allowing unskilled workers to complete

tasks with mechanical equipment far faster than craftsmen could; this is one of the most basic

paradigm shifts from the industrial revolution and gave rise to the industrial and merchant

classes, as well as such reactionary groups as the Luddites.

This is all very uncontroversial and hardly new; however it is prudent to point out the

purposefulness with which the German Empire, and Prussia before that, pushed to break the

guild system in Germany. Along with the edict issued by King William III (1808), which

relinquished the right for guilds to control the regulation of markets and who engaged in certain

economic activities, other articles and essays shook the foundation of guild controlled markets

and liberalized the economy.

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Victor Böhmert’s “Critique of the Restrictive Nature of Guilds” (1858) lauded market

freedom and the liberty of individuals in their ability to engage in market activities. Böhmert

argued that

“Occupational freedom is the best and only lasting means to dispose of the

proletariat… Outdated laws compel him to squander his best years of study and

youthful aspirations on the never-ending, spirit-killing monotony of the same

tasks, or be tormented by sweeping alleyways, cleaning rooms, watching the

children, with odd jobs, etc.”16

By this he means that the only way to ensure an even spread of wealth is to allow every person to

earn a living by their own means, rather than by means restricted by the guild system. The

apprenticeships of the guild system no longer served either the professional or working man in

the newly mechanized economy. Crafts and trades, such as cobblers, became less and less

economically important as their jobs were replaced by machines. Forcing individuals to take

apprenticeships in these trades and crafts rather than the education provided in the schools held

students and the entire economy back.

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Figure 3. Occupational Breakdown of Germany’s Population (1882-1907). Source: Hohorst, Gerd, Jürgen Kocka, and Gerhard A. Ritter.

In fact the economy of Germany did change dramatically over the latter half of the

nineteenth-century, as shown by occupational breakdown figures provided by Gerd Hohorst,

Jürgen Kocka, and Gerhard A. Ritter in their Social History Workbook: Materials on Kaiserreich

Statistics 1870-1914 [Fig. 3], the latter half of the nineteenth-century saw an overall increase in

working individuals in Germany, including surges in “industry” and “trade and commerce”

sectors, and mild, but relevant, increases in government administrative jobs; concurrently the

total percentage of the population engaging in agricultural work dropped very significantly. Also

of note is the increased role women took in the new, industrialized economy.

Largely as a result of a liberalized market and education system, through the latter half of

the nineteenth-century the German economy grew rapidly. Meat production and packaging [Fig.

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4] through the end of the nineteenth-and beginning of the twentieth-century, up to the beginning

of the First World War, gradually increased, as can be seen in the below chart. This was not a

localized phenomenon; throughout the German economy productivity rose as industrialization

and mechanization spread, reducing prices of goods, through cheaper mechanized manufacturing

processes, while increasing abundance.

Figure 4. Meat Production (1890-1913). Source: Hoffman, Walter G.

As is shown in the chart below, from 1856 to 1883 production of German Language

books in Europe, primarily in Germany, steadily increased. From 1865-1880 the number of

book publishers in Germany nearly doubled from 668 to 1,23817

. This trend in German language

book sales can tell us a few things, primarily an increase in literacy, both within the traditional

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borders of Prussia/Germany and in other Germanic countries. Thanks in large part to the

Volksshule and the Humboldt public schools spread throughout the Germany, a greater number

of people from all classes of society gained the invaluable skill of reading [see Fig. 5].

Figure 5. Book Types Published 1840-1883. Source: Bucher, Max, Werner Hal, Georg Jäger, and Reinhard Wittmann. Note the increase in both fiction and “popular” books, indicating literacy outside the cultured elite and among the middle and lower classes.

This claim is corroborated by other demographics showing an increase in clerical,

professional, and retail jobs within those borders as such jobs require literate employees [Fig. 3].

Secondarily it shows us that, at least potentially, the education campaigns in French and Polish

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lands held by Germany were effective at spreading the German language to territories outside the

traditional bounds of the Germanic language group. Finally it corroborates the story started with

the production of meat; that the economy grew in those years.

Part-in-parcel with the industrialization of all European nations in the nineteenth-century

was the rise in the managerial classes founded on the new wealth. This again was based on an

educated populace being ready to fill such positions.

A final effect of the public education system was an increase in bureaucratic

centralization, or at least increased opportunity for bureaucratic centralization. Part of

Bismarck’s course of Realpolitik included building large centralized bureaucracies to handle

national affairs and interests such as the large military and their engagements, the state pension

system, and the state welfare system18

. In order to efficiently run these bureaucracies, Germany

required a large number of fairly well educated professionals; as luck would have it, the

Humboldt education system provided as much19

. Here note again the increased percentage of the

population engaging in administrative, bureaucratic, or military duties as listed by the

“Occupational Breakdown” chart offered by Horhost et al.

Taken as a part of the whole phenomenon of the German industrial revolution, this

increase in military, administrative, and bureaucratic employment indicates a very important

feature of nationalist government: centralization of control and expansion of government. Many

governments under nationalist movements tend to expand in their scope, generally by adding

agencies and bureaucracies while expanding military power. In Germany this manifested largely

through the welfare state and the various insurance plans and pension systems enacted under

Bismarck20

. In this case, the government took on an expanded role, and it is important to note

that such a welfare system was intended for the entire German nation.

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Section 4: Language and Nationalism: Imagined Communities and Literature:

In his seminal book, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of

Nationalism, Anderson writes at length about the importance of written language to national

sentimentality. Anderson points to novels – “modern novels,” of the mid nineteenth to early

twentieth centuries, and in the case of European nations perhaps modern transcriptions of

folklore – as a common mode of nationalist imagination. Key to nationalist consumption of

literature is, of course, a literate and educated populace. Here the connection between this rise of

a comprehensive German education system and Anderson’s theories of the power of language

and literature to shape national identity. Although Anderson focuses on non-European examples,

in many cases European colonies such as the Philippines, his work has been widely recognized

as key to understanding global nationalist movements through literature and language. For

example, he argues that the use of fictitious characters could provide readers with real and

tangible connections to national identity through commiseration with the characters. For

example, he argues that Jose Joaquin Fernandez de Lizardi’s El Periquillo Sariento invites

readers to meet characters common to their physical community and explore a “sociological

landscape” familiar to their world, while reading a blatant “indictment of Spanish

administration” of their colonies21

. The placement of a hero character and the sympathetic

secondary characters recognizable to the colonial readers also acts to encourage nationalist

solidarity within the target colony, or more broadly within the target society; it gives a

protagonist and an antagonist which the readers can unite behind.

Modern German novels and texts easily fit within the same context; Adolf Hitler’s Mein

Kampf should jump to mind. Though it is an extreme example, it is especially prescient given its

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blatant nationalist message and obvious protagonist/antagonist “characters” within the dialogue

of German versus “Foreign”. German nationalist literature, which clearly define

domestic/national versus foreign, include anthologies of local folklore which help to define the

historical and geographic parameters of Germany itself. It is of little surprise writers such as The

Brothers Grimm and Goethe rose in popularity during the nationalist – in literature often called

the Romantic – period; Richard Wagner himself points to Goethe as quintessential “German”

writers in his definition of the German culture22

.

Anderson also points to newspaper circulation as a keystone to nationalist sentiment and

the spread of political ideas and culture. The newspaper itself represents, in Anderson’s words,

“an ‘extreme form’ of a book, a book sold on a colossal scale, but of ephemeral popularity”23

.

The high level of circulation; with newspapers and magazines sometimes receiving readership in

the millions; and the localized nature of some newspapers often means that nearly everybody

within a confined population share the same experience of reading said newspaper. Unlike

novels, however, newspapers are often political in nature and offer both insight into the political

inner-workings of local and national governments, as well as, in some cases, a mouthpiece and

forum for public debate on current issues. To that end, newspapers, magazines and other popular

forms of literature tend to have a democratizing and liberalizing force on society, arguably a pre-

requisite for most forms of nationality and the social ownership of government and national

identity.

All of the aforementioned mechanisms; novels, folklore anthologies, romantic

symphonies and operas, and newspapers; hinge on a well-educated and literate populace for both

production – you cannot have a proliferation of literature without literate writers – and

consumption – you cannot sell books, operas, and newspapers without literate consumers to read

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or otherwise enjoy them. In this case, the education system was imperative for the spread of

such nationalist devices. And language education was the single most important aspect of that

system.

Anderson uses two examples of using education to spread language and nationalism

elsewhere in the world: colonial French Vietnam and Dutch Indonesia. Though seemingly

remote and un-connected, these two national experiences provide a template with which to

understand the phenomenon which occurred in Prussia/German. In truth, they are simply two

separate examples of the same concept which can be applied to the German education system

and language education during the mid to late nineteenth-century. This technique of colonial

powers using education to linguistically reprogram subjects is fully applicable to the experience

of Germany if we view Prussian held France and Poland as colonial holdings of Prussia.

Section 5: Language Education in Germany and the Kulturkampf1830-1918: Reprograming the

French and Polish to Speak and be German:

One of the European borders most fraught with struggle and conflict during the

nationalist period; roughly from the mid nineteenth until the early twentieth century; was the

French-German. From the Franco-Prussian until the Second World War, Germany and France

squabbled endlessly over the regions of Alsace-Lorraine and the Ruhr especially24

,25

,26

One of the

primary arguments given in favor of German rule is that many of the inhabitants of Alsace-

Lorraine spoke Hochdeutsche (“high German”), or a German-related dialect; either Alsatain or

Franconian 27

.

The practical aspect of the transfer of power in Alsace-Lorraine began with the signing of

the Treaty of Frankfurt which ended the Franco-Prussian War28

. In order to secure and clarify

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where the new political border laid, the French and German governments sent cartographers to

Vosges tasked with mapping the region. Upon completion of these expeditions, the German and

French governments set the border of Germany to include much of the disputed territory.

Linguistic cartographers, meanwhile, confirmed that the region was divided between French – or

French dialect – speakers, and German and Germanic dialect speakers29

.

Over the next several decades, the German government continued the program of public

schooling, building schools in the new German territory of Alsace-Lorraine. These schools, like

those in the rest of Germany, primarily taught German as a subject, and used German in

instruction. In this manner Germany used its schools to solidify its pre-stated cultural claims to

the region.

Moreover, like most of France, most citizens of Alsace-Lorraine practiced Catholicism,

rather than the protestant Lutheranism of Prussia. As a major part of his push to consolidate

national unity, Otto von Bismarck used the education system to stress his Kulturkampf with

religious education and literature aimed largely against Catholic Germans in Bavaria and

Catholic Poles in Prussian held Poland and Western Prussia an effort to define Germany as

separate from Austria30

. For this task of spreading the German Lutheran religion as a favorite

over Catholicism, the Prussian education reform focused on removing religion from education,

handing all administrative and instructional tasks over to professional educators rather than

members of the clergy31

. This at once removed the power the Catholic Church held over

education, increased the professionalism and quality of the education received at primary

schools, and continued the transition over to a public school system rather than a private or

religious system. For the German French in Alsace-Lorraine and the Poles in Prussian Poland

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this transition marked one in many steps taken by the Prussian and later German governments to,

in essence, convert them into German citizens.

Prior to the massive expansionist programs of Bismarck and Wilhelm III, Prussia held

land extending far into modern-day Poland, and included the territory of Lithuania. While many

citizens in the region practiced protestant Lutheranism, the state religion of Prussia, the Catholic

and Eastern Orthodox churches both maintained a high number of adherents in the region 32

.

During his tenure in the office of Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck utilized the schools and social

programs vis-à-vis his Kulturkampf to convert the Polish Catholics to German Lutheranism,

thereby spreading and instilling German nationality into Polish territory.

Thus Bismarck’s Kulturkampf program extended beyond coercive rules and into the

classroom in an effort to Christianize, in the Lutheran sense, the masses. Even as late as 1925,

presidential candidate Willy Hellpatch described the German education system as “Practical

Christianity for the masses, classical humanism for the cultured classes” 33

. As of 1890,

elementary school teachers still used religious texts primarily for grammar and writing

instruction 34

. Though proselytization may not have been the primary goal of such tactics, the

use of religious texts, especially Christian texts in German, certainly affected school children in

identifying them as German in nationality. However, character development, in some instances,

was the avowed goal of the use of Lutheran religious texts and hymns35

. One cannot avoid

thinking of Max Weber’s concept of the Protestant Work Ethic in relation with German school

teaching in the nineteenth-century.

Thus, the German model echoes Anderson’s theories about language and literature as

tools of nationalization in a colonial setting. The schools used German language education to

socialize (and “Germanize”) youths from Francophone and polish populations in much the same

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way as colonial Dutch Indonesian French Vietnamese and era schools. Meanwhile educators

used religious texts to inculcate character traits valued by the dominant society, letting Catholic

(not to mention Jewish) values fall by the wayside. An amped up version of such indoctrination

would later be used in Nazi era Germany with the same blueprint, but a more fervently sung

nationalist hymn36

.

Section 6: Biedermeier Culture and the Prussian/German Middle Class: Early German

Nationalism:

The mid to late nineteenth-century likewise saw a cultural explosion in Germany in the

language, visual, and musical arts. Much of this fueled the ongoing nationalist expansion, most

notably the operas of Wagner such as The Flight of the Valkyries which in itself is a testament to

Prussian military prowess with its jingoistic fervor. The trend of popularizing German language

operas and musical pieces largely began with operas by Mozart such as Don Giovanni (1787)

and The Magic Flute (1791), and continued through Beethoven, most notably with the famous

final movement of his 9th

symphony Ode to Joy (1824)37

.

Opera in itself symbolizes a great spread of German culture. While it may be entirely

possible and easy for any individual to admire the artistry of any given opera it was clear that

German nationalists saw real value in German language opera as a cultural tradition. To that

end, the mid to late nineteenth century saw an explosion of musical and operatic artistic

expression using the German language rather than the traditional operatic language of Italian.

The importance of these operas and musical pieces on German culture and the pride they

inspired for Germanic people helped to bring a diverse set of German speaking people together

in common experience much the same way the novel did, much in the same way Anderson

P a g e | 24

argues the novel does, but also helped to spread the German language itself through another form

of artistry. As well, and quite obviously, operas spread the spoken word and were accessible not

only to the cultured elite, but to the illiterate, thereby spreading including people even the most

common novel could not reach.

By far the most preeminent German operatic composer of the nineteenth-century was

Richard Wagner. As mentioned, his Flight of the Valkyrie still receives a great deal of attention,

especially for its overt nationalistic overtones. However, his personal writings on the German

national identity betray a deeper meaning to his operas, and perhaps some deep-seeded biases

and sentiments against those who were “non-Germans” in his eyes.

Of key importance with regard to Wagner’s personal writings is his piece, What is

German?, which offers a direct guide for us to understand Wagner’s conception of the German

national identity. In this piece, Wagner uses nationalistic literary tropes:

“No people has taken arms against invasions of its inner freedom, its own true

essence, as the Germans: there is no comparison for doggedness with which the

German chose his total ruin … The Thirty Years’ War destroyed the German

nation; yet that a German Folk could rise again is due to nothing but that outcome.

The nation was annihilated, but the German spirit had passed through. It is the

essence of this spirit which we call ‘genius’ in the case of highly-gifted

individuals …” 38

In this passage, Wagner makes multiple calls to the “German spirit” or the “essence” of the

German. Also note the implication of a greater German nation present prior to the Thirty Years’

War, though such a consolidated nation had not existed.

P a g e | 25

Opera then reveals how use of the German language and a surge in patronage of the arts,

a largely bourgeois and upper class affectation, spread through to the middle class and grew in

popularity. The flowering of arts; music, literature, and visual; therefore shows us a rise in the

size of the German middle class, as such an economic undertaking as is required to support an

artistic class necessitates a large audience. With the populist nature of opera, as with any form of

populist artistic expression, the audience extended through all classes. While opera in itself has

not always been patronized by the middle and upper classes of economic society, the splendor of

the Berlin Opera House, built in 1745 and remodeled in the 1840’s, betrays its elite status

In the image [Fig. 6], bourgeois and aristocratic classes throw a ball in the Berlin Opera

House in 1875, a few short years after the Franco-Prussian war and German Unification. The

women’s gowns are ornate, displaying a high level of wealth. Two men in military dress

uniform, one in the lower left corner the other in the front center dancing, reveals and displays a

sense national pride. Such a display overtly ties nationalist symbolism to the opera house itself,

and vicariously to opera.

P a g e | 26

Figure 6. Ekwall, Ball in the Opera House, (1875). Previous page.

Section 7: Conclusion:

Much of the modernization of the economies of Europe was driven by education and

opportunity, none more so than in Germany. Industrialization and professionalization both

required an educated populace; professionalization especially required a literate workforce to fill

positions such as clerks, bankers, bureaucrats, and accountants. The successful adoption of such

a system is indicative of a well-organized and executed universal education system and a strong

system of higher education and scientific institutions. If it were not for Wilhelm von Humboldt’s

liberalized schools, the spread of language may not have been possible. Without a well-educated

public, the economy may have remained stagnant. Much of the artistic expression which lauded

the German nation would certainly never have existed were those minds never molded. In truth,

P a g e | 27

the Humboldt education system itself, as it stands today, can easily be considered a part of the

German national identity.

Furthermore, the spread of national culture was predicated on an educated populace as

well as the strong economy they facilitated. New forms of media, such as the novel, popular

fiction, and German opera, filled bookshelves, news racks, and theaters, spreading language and

a common experience held by all. With this common experience came social mores, norms, and

customs as well as a definition of what it meant to be “Deustche”.

P a g e | 28

Acknowledgments:

I would like to thank Dr. Elizabeth Sundermann, Dr. Johann Reusch, Dr. Katherine Baird

and David Frappier for their extraordinary help, support, and guidance through this project as

well as others. I would also like to thank Suzanne Klinger and Theresa Mudrock for their help in

the past and on this research with locating resources; their help was invaluable. And finally

thanks to Shaun Wallace for being incredibly supportive emotionally, psychologically, and

financially. This would never have happened without you all.

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und Dokumente zur deutschen Literatur 1848-1880 [Realism and the Founding Era: Public Statements and Documents on German Literature 1848-1880]. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1975, vol. 1.

Ekwall, Knut. Ball in the Opera House, 1875. http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-

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dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=1786 William III, King Frederick. Edict Regarding the Examination of Students Entering University. Berlin. 1812.

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between Modern France and Germany.” Imago Mundi.Vol 65, no 2 (2013): 253-267. Field, Geoffrey G. “Religion in the German Volksschule: 1890-1928.” Year Book, vol 25 (1980): 41-77. Fulbrook, Mary. A Concise History of Germany. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Jopp, Alexander. “Insurance, Size and Exposure to Actuarial Risk: Empirical Evidence from

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2004. Stubbs, Elsina. “Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Idea of ‘Bildung’ and Education.” Master’s Thesis,

University of London. 1977. 1 Stubbs, Elsina. “Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Idea of ‘Bildung’ and Education.” Master’s Thesis, University of London.

1977. p 14. 2 Ibid. 3 William, King Frederick. Ordinance for All Cities of the Prussian Monarchy. Berlin. 1808. pp 2-3. 4 Merriman, John. A History of Modern EuropeL From the Renaissance to the Present. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

1996. pp 28, 72. 5 Böhmert, Victor. Freiheit der Arbeit! Beiträge zur Reform der Gewerbegesetze [Freedomof Work! Contributions to the Reform of Trade

Laws]. Bremen: Verlag von Heinrich Strack. 1858. p 2. 6 Ibid. p 3. 7 William III, King Frederick. Edict Regarding the Examination of Students Entering University. Berlin. 1812. Section 4.

P a g e | 31

8 Ibid. Section 6, D. 9 Stubbs, p 21. 10 Humboldt, Wilhelm von. On the Internal and External Organization of the Higher Scientific Institutions in Berlin.

Berlin, 1810. p 1. 11 Ibid. p 2. 12 Stubbs. p 22. 13 Fulbrook, Mary. A Concise History of Germany. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. pp 126, 128. 14 Fischer, Konrad. Geschichte des deutschen Volksschullehrerstandes [The History of German Elementary Schoolteachers as a Class]. 2

vols. Hannover, 1892, vol. 2. p 1. 15 Baird, Ktherine. Trapped in Mediocrity: Why Our Schools aren’t World-Class and What We Can do About it. Lanham, Md.:

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2012. p 47. 16 Böhmert. p 4. 17 Bucher, Max, Werner Hal, Georg Jäger, and Reinhard Wittmann. Realismus und Gründerzeit: Manifeste und Dokumente zur

deutschen Literatur 1848-1880 [Realism and the Founding Era: Public Statements and Documents on German Literature 1848-1880]. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1975, vol. 1. p 2.

18 Jopp, Alexander. “Insurance, Size and Exposure to Actuarial Risk: Empirical Evidence from Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century German Knappschaften.” Financial History Review vol. 19 (2012): 75-116. pp 76, 79

19 Daum, Andreas, “Science, Politics, and Religion: Humboldtian Thinking and the Transformations of Civil Society in Germany, 1830-1870.” Osiris. 2nd series. Vol. 17 (2002): 107-140. p 107.

20 Jopp. p 79. 21 Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism [Kindle Edition]. London:

Verso. 2006. p 25. 22 Wagner, Richard. Was ist Deustche? [What is German?]. Berlin, 1878. p 7. 23 Anderson. p 35. 24 Dunlop, Catherine T. “Mapping a New Kind of European Boundary: The Language Border between Modern France and Germany.” Imago Mundi.Vol 65, no 2 (2013). pp 253-254. 25 Merriman. p 1081. 26 Ozment, Steven. A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People. New York: Harper Perennial. 2004. pp 262, 210. 27 Dunlop. p 255. 28 Ibid. p 253. 29 Ibid. p 260. 30 Blanke, Richard. “The Polish Role in the Origin of the Kulturkampf in Prussia.” Canadian Slavic Papers. Vol 25, no 2

(June, 1983). p 256. 31 Lamberti, Marjorie. “State, Church, and the Politics of School Reform during the Kulturkampf.” Central European

History (2001). p 63. 32 Blanke. p 255. 33 Field, Geoffrey G. “Religion in the German Volksschule: 1890-1928.” Year Book, vol 25 (1980): 41-77. p 41. 34 Fischer. p 1. 35 Field. p 42. 36 Kunzer, Edward J. “’Education’ Under Hitler.” Journal of Educational Sociology. Vol. 3, no. 13 (1939). p 141. 37 Fullbrook. p 93. 38 Wagner. p 5.