A MODERN GROWTH

Evening Star, Issue 22571, 12 February 1937, Page 1

A MODERN GROWTH

IN EUROPEAN HISTORY GERMAN NATIONALISM The fact that German nationalism is a modern growth makes it contrast in many features with the older nationalisms of England and France, and some reasons of historical geography help to account for that lateness of development as well as for some of its characteristics, writes Professor H. J. Pleure, in the ‘ Manchester Guardian.’ For the development of national sentiment the addition of a network of roads and cities to a rural basis is a prime necessity*, and the development of such a network beyond the Roman Empire’s frontier of Rhine and Danube began seriously only about one thousand years ago, though cities of Roman origin had already Tong existed on and near those rivers and had, as it were, pointed the way of civilisation to the peoples outside the frontier. This gave special prestige to the ecclesiastics, who were, in a sense, trustees of the Roman heritageinthecities like Koln, Coblenz, Mainz, Worms, Speyer, Strasbourg, and so on in the movement of revival after the Dark Ages. The idea of the city then spread across the Rhine as well as across the Danube from Uum, Augbburg, Regensburg, Passau, Linz, and Vienna. Sometimes it was a bishop who played a great part in the establishment of a city, as at Munster, Wurzburg, Bamberg, etc., and in such cases the cathedral was often a specially dominant feature of the cities planned. Sometimes military leaders were important, as at Nurnberg. This spread of cities accompanied a revival of trade and the now cities were concerned to attract traders, while also other cities grew largely through the efforts of traders. Amongst these last we count Frank-furt-am-Main and the Hanse cities of the north. ENTHUSIASTIC MOVEMENT. In tiiis way a large part of Germany eame to have a sprinkling of cities largely, as a result of movements of enthusiasm lifting tho country out of comparative barbarism. A part of that enthusiasm was the feeling for the Roman tradition, and the more power- ! fill rulers became occupied with the idea of attempting to revive the Roman Empire. Meanwhile in France the rulers near the Seine were extending their local influence and developing the kingdom of France. Paris, at the centre of a fertile basin, gave considerable impetus to the growth of a feeling of unity, which was enhanced also by the struggle against the English. MidGermany, on the other hand, is a tangled area of mountains and valleys separating the northern plain, the future Prussia, from the basins of the south—Bavaria, Wurtemberg, etc. Thus physical geography helped the early development of national feeling in Franco and hindered it in Germany. On the other hand, tho city focusing on its Rathaus became a characteristic German feature, more influential than the city in provincial France, where, save near the border, there is not often an important historic “ hotel de ville.” FAILURE OF TRADITION. When the Renaissance arrived the classical tradition was emphasised in France, where it was old and firmly fixed, but in Germany east of the Rhine there was a wholesale secession from the Roman Church, save in the areas where the early bishops and abbots had been largely in control. Though there were wars of religion in France, one side triumphed very definitely, albeit at a high cost. In Germany the Thirty Years’ War meant devastation and a further postponement of the development of the national idea. The tangled valleys of mid-Germany gave little domains to numerous princelings, and, if these could not continue to play a great direct part in politics, they often became notable patrons of the arts. Germany had thus become a land of many political subdivisions and much urban idealism. The development of canals on the northern plain, begun after the Thirty Yea re’ War, gave a network of communications, fostering the unity that was to become Prussia, much 'larger than any of the other German States. It was largely from tiie growth of Prussia as a unit ami the misfortunes which it went through during its growth that there ultimately arose the notion of German unity, pressed, forward under Bismarck and greatly promoted by the introduction of railways. NO RACIAL BASIS. Whereas, therefore, the idea of the nation is centuries old in France and has a clear basis in physical geography and language, and has had a considerable religious basis in the past, nationalism in Germany could not rest in the same way on a physical basis because of the divisions of mid-Germany, nor could it rest on language, for there are millions of Germans whose forefathers have never been citizens of the German nation, nor on religion, because of the division between Catholics and Protestants. The search for an ideological basis of nationalism in Germany has been a special feature of the last 80 years and helps to account for several features of modern Germany that are strange and unwelcome to us whose nationalism is as old as that of France. It may be stated very deliberately that the so-called racial basis is a delusion. It is true that the Germans are mainly of the Alpine or Central European race, with a sprinkling of tho tall, fair Nordic type, especially in the North-west, but that Nordic type is not by any means the determining factor that some dreamers would make it. The typo region of the Nordic race is undoubtedly Sweden. a country which contrasts most markedly with Germany in its ideas of nationalism and of toleration. The facts that national unity is a young thing in Germany, that representative institutions for the whole nation have not had any prolonged hold on the German people,_ and that an ideological basis for nationality is difficult to find are. points that need to be borne in mind in making any picture of German nationalism.