“A comparison of the militarization of national commemorations in France and Prussia-Germany after 1871 reveals close parallels” in the fervency of the military support and the nationalistic rhetoric. In fact, it is worth noting that the “German peace movement developed on a scale unparalleled elsewhere.” The fact that Prussia had no system of universal conscription, nor a consistent method of peacetime training, also belies the notion that Prussian society was flagrantly militaristic.Īccording to one influential view, the militarization of Prussian society widened the gap between Germany and the western European states, “stifling the critical and liberal energies of civil society, perpetuating a hierarchical approach to social relations, and inculcating millions of Germans with political views that were reactionary, chauvinistic, and ultra-nationalistic.” But as Christopher Clark asks, “Was the Prussian experience really so unusually” in comparison to the other great powers? The answer is not necessarily. Toward the end of the 18th century, the proportion of native-born Prussians in the army was comparable to most western European states of the 20th century, while the rest of the army was composed of foreign-born soldiers. Clark argues that Prussia was a highly militarized state, in which the military “consumed the lion’s share of the resources”, but not necessarily a highly militarized society.
Was Prussian society uniquely militarized? Not necessarily.
There are three important questions that emerge from my reading of the book. According to Clark, the polarization that abounds in contemporary debate and the historical literature is problematic, not just because it impoverishes the complexity of the the Prussian experiences, but because it compress Prussia’s history into a “teleology of German guilt.” Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, which was published in 2006 and which I initially read in 2015, doesn’t attempt to rescue Prussia’s reputation, but it does offer a more clear-eyed account of the nation’s history. The revisionist scholarship, which emphasized Prussia’s positive achievements-including an incorruptible civil service, an efficient bureaucracy, an enlightened law code, and a “literacy rate unequaled in Europe” - sought to rehabilitate the reputation of the Prussian state. The traditional post-war view came to see Prussia as an embodiment of militarism, illiberalism, intolerance, and authoritarianism, which culminated with the twelve years of Nazi dictatorship.
By passing judgment upon it, the Allies were excising Prussia symbolically from the landscape of Europe. According to Christopher Clark, “Its history had become a nightmare that weighed upon the minds of the living.” Since 1945, two schools of thought have developed on Prussian history. On the 25th of February 1947, representatives of the Allied occupation authorities met in Berlin to sign a law abolishing the state of Prussia.
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