Treitschke, Heinrich von

Treitschke, Heinrich von

(hīn`rĭkh fən trīch`kə), 1834–96, German historian. A fervid partisan of Prussia, he left Baden at the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and became professor of history at Kiel (1866), Heidelberg (1867), and Berlin (1874). He edited (1866–89) the monthly Preussische Jahrbücher and became (1886) Prussian state historiographer. As a young man, he was strongly nationalistic and liberal; as he grew older his political views became more nationalistic and less liberal. Although a member of the Reichstag, he was not especially successful as a practical politician. His writings, however, reflected his political views, his deep hope for the unity and greatness of Germany under Prussian leadership, and his admiration of Bismarck and the Hohenzollerns. They also reflected his strong anti-Semitism. His theories had great impact on the new generation and in academic circles. Treitschke's histories, stirring and graphic and excellent in workmanship, are nevertheless distorted by his fanatic nationalism and his pernicious biases. His masterpiece is his History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century (tr., 7 vol., 1915–19). Among his other works are Politics (tr. 1916) and Origins of Prussianism (tr. 1942).

Bibliography

See biography by A. Dorpalen (1957); study by H. W. Davis (1915, repr. 1973).

Treitschke, Heinrich Von

 

Born Sept. 15,1834, in Dresden; died Apr. 28, 1896, in Berlin. German historian and public cist; one of the main representatives of the kleindeutsche school in bourgeois historiography. Member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Historiographer of the Prussian state (1886).

Treitschke edited the journal Preussische Jahrbücher from 1866 to 1889. From 1871 to 1884 he served as a deputy to the Reichstag; although at first he was a member of the right wing of the National Liberal Party, he joined the Moderate Conservatives in the late 1870’s.

Treitschke’s History of Germany in the 19th Century, which covers the years 1800 to 1848, is distorted and openly apologetic. An ideologist of reactionary Prussianism, chauvinism, and German expansion, Treitschke was in favor of the class alliance of the big bourgeoisie and the Junkers, and he supported the unification of Germany as advocated by the Junkers. His ideal was a strong monarchic state capable of fighting for world hegemony; he regarded the Hohenzollern monarchy as such a state.

Treitschke glorified brute force and war, and he played a significant role in the formation of the ideology of German imperialism. V. I. Lenin considered Treitschke to be one of a number of German “police-minded official historians” (V. I. Lenin, Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 16, p. 9).

WORKS

Deutsche Geschichte im 19 Jahrhundert, vols. 1–5. Leipzig, 1879–94.
Politik, vols. 1–2. Leipzig, 1897–98.
Historische und politische Aufsätze, lst–8th eds., vols. l–t. Leipzig, 1903–21.
Ausgewählte Schriften, 7th ed., vols. 1–2. Leipzig, 1918.

REFERENCES

Istoriografiia Novogo vremeni stran Evropy i Ameriki. [Moscow] 1967. (See Name Index.)
Schleier, H. Sybelund Treitschke. Berlin, 1965.

E. A. VOLINA