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German Stereotypes in British Magazines Prior to World War I William F Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Master's Theses Graduate School 2004 German stereotypes in British magazines prior to World War I William F. Bertolette Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Bertolette, William F., "German stereotypes in British magazines prior to World War I" (2004). LSU Master's Theses. 2740. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/2740 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Master's Theses by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. GERMAN STEREOTYPES IN BRITISH MAGAZINES PRIOR TO WORLD WAR I A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in The Department of History by William F. Bertolette B.A. California State University at Hayward, 1975 August 2004 ©Copyright 2004 William F. Bertolette All rights reserved ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank the LSU History Department for supporting the completion of this work. I also wish to express my gratitude for the instructive guidance of my thesis committee: Drs. David F. Lindenfeld, Thomas C. Owen, Victor L. Stater and Meredith Veldman. Dr. Veldman deserves a special thanks for her editorial insights and recommendations concerning organization of the material. W. F. B. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 1 II. STEREOTYPES, NATIONAL CHARACTER AND VICTORIAN IMPERIAL MYTH ..................................................................................................... 43 Conscious Stereotyping in the Nineteenth Century .................................................... 43 The Illusion of National Character ............................................................................ 48 The Psychology of Stereotyping ............................................................................... 52 Victorian Mentalities, National Myth and Empire ..................................................... 59 National Myth ....................................................................................................... 66 The Lure of Antiquity ............................................................................................ 69 The Racial Argument ............................................................................................. 76 III. EARLY AND RECURRING THEMES ...................................................................... 89 The Moral Barbarian ................................................................................................ 90 The German Boor ..................................................................................................... 98 The Pious/Godless German ..................................................................................... 105 British Reactions to German Literature.................................................................... 116 Backward Germany................................................................................................. 127 IV. NEW GERMANY: STEREOTYPES AND CHANGING PERCEPTIONS OF GERMANY DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY .................................. 131 The Unpolitical German ......................................................................................... 134 Early Nationalism, German Students and Dueling ................................................ 136 Old German Passivity and Servility: 1830-1848 ................................................... 143 Unrevolutionary Germany: 1848 ......................................................................... 148 New Germany and the Old Stereotype ................................................................... 152 iv V. IMPERIAL RIVALRY AND DIPLOMATIC ANTAGONISM ................................ 164 Anglo-German Colonial Rivalry ............................................................................. 165 Economic Rivalry .................................................................................................. 170 The Diplomatic Antagonism .................................................................................. 171 VI. CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................ 179 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 181 VITA .............................................................................................................................. 204 v ABSTRACT The British image of Germany as England’s “poor relation,” a backward cluster of feudal states, gave way during the nineteenth century to the stereotype of England’s archenemy and imperial rival. This shift from innocuous Old Germany to menacing New Germany accelerated after German unification in 1871 as German economic growth and imperial ambitions became topics for commentary in British journals. But the stereotypical “German Michael,” or rustic simpleton, and other images of self-effacing servile, loyal, honest and passive Old Germany lingered on into the late nineteenth century as a “straw man” for alarmist Germanophobes to dispel with new counter-stereotypes. These included fanatical nationalists, Anglophobic militarists, overbearing officials, know-it-all professors, unscrupulous merchants and indefatigable clerks. Some Germanophobes, however, and many Germanophiles, clung to older stereotypes as a form of escapism or wishful thinking: the former believed that national character deficiencies would foil German ambitions, the latter hoped that German idealism and good sense would eventually triumph over Anglophobic nationalism. The British entente with France in 1904, and Russia in 1907, marked an end to more than a decade of Anglo-German alliance attempts. These supposed missed opportunities were thwarted by mutual distrust, opposing strategic aims, diplomatic maneuvering and, ultimately, naval rivalry. But the strength of public opinion and popular nationalism also limited official moves toward cooperation. Stereotypes contributed to what has become known as the Anglo- vi German antagonism through their power to encapsulate national differences. British journalists could draw upon a rich heritage of demeaning German stereotypes in order to bolster national self-image at the expense of the German nemesis. Stereotypes also gained unwarranted currency in the public media through pseudoscientific racial theories and ethnological hierarchies that constituted the nineteenth-century paradigm of innate national character differences. The record of stereotypes in print therefore reveals the psychological underpinnings of pre-World War I British attitudes toward Germany and provides a new perspective on the interface between public opinion and national rivalry. vii I. INTRODUCTION The destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989, symbolizing both an end to Cold War tensions and the impending reunification of divided Germany, brought cheers throughout the free world, but in the wake of initial celebrations dissenting voices could be heard in the press. In his mildly alarmist “Uneasy About the Germans,” playwright Arthur Miller sensed “something factitious about German society in the minds of Germans” and a less “transcendent” feeling among Germans toward the Federal Republic than that shown by French, British or American citizens toward their respective governments. For Miller, West Germany’s tolerant, democratic government lacked “consecration by blood,” and the knowledge that many Germans had sacrificed their lives actually fighting to prevent it, “keeps sucking the life out of German protestations of a democratic faith and casts suspicion on the country’s reassurances that its economic power is no menace to the world.”1 Miller’s warning sounds hauntingly reminiscent of German author Thomas Mann’s post-World War II diatribe on undemocratic, anti- Enlightenment, demonic Germans, ever willing to strike a Faustian bargain for world power at 1Arthur Miller, “Uneasy About the Germans,” New York Times Magazine (6 May 1990) : 77, 84. Otto Friedrich, in “Germany: Toward Unity,” Time (6 July 1990) : 68, questions what Miller would say if “any German were foolish enough to offer such a gory theory of ‘democratic faith’.” 1 the expense of liberty. Unlike Mann, however, Miller recognized the importance of discarding old stereotypes and suspicions in hopes of accentuating the positive.2 Such timeworn post-Holocaust worries about German anti-western sentiments and Machtpolitik failed to dissuade the appreciable majorities world-wide who favored reunification, but even optimistic articles noted apprehensions among Germany’ s European neighbors, not to mention Britain, Israel and the superpowers. In Time magazine’ s March twenty-eighth cover story, entitled “ The Germans: Should the world be worried?”
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