The German Genius

1881 to 1884, at first for the Deutsche Fortschrittspartei (German Progress Party), then for the Nationalliberale Partei (National Liberal Party). He had violent disagreements with Bismarck and with his fellow historian Heinrich von Treitschke, but was at the same time a fervent nationalist. Mommsen was a paradoxical figure—at least to us, today—because he embodied that world where nationalism was not yet the right-wing cause it became.
    His most famous work was his Römische Geschichte ( History of Rome ). 5 Appearing in three volumes between 1854 and 1856, it was in fact unfinished, though it still made him what many regard as the greatest classicist of the 1800s. In the middle of the century Mommsen’s History of Rome was ranked with Goethe’s Faust and Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Idea as the most influential of works. His theme had a contemporary relevance because he argued that Julius Caesar was a genius and that rule by him was—and would have been, had he not been assassinated—far more just and fair and “democratic” than rule by the corrupt and self-serving senate. 6 As a fervent nationalist, Mommsen argued that “Caesarism,” rule by a strong but fair-minded genius, was a less corrupt, more just guarantee of democracy than any other system. 7
    The book also contains an early sighting of what would come to be called Völkerpsychologie , a new science in which the “psychology of races” is used for the glorification of the country. 8 In particular, Mommsen haughtily argues in his book that the Germans are more talented than the Greeks or Romans. “The Greeks and the Germans alone possess a fountain of song that wells up spontaneously: from the golden vase of the Muses only a few drops have fallen on the green soil of Italy.” 9 Mommsen’s political position is difficult for us to understand today—a liberal who was a monarchist, a rigorous scholar whose nationalism bordered on racism. He was, for instance, rabidly anti-French. He welcomed the war of 1870 “as a war of deliverance which at last would extricate his people from that stupid imitation of the French.” 10
    Heinrich von Sybel was born two days later than Mommsen, on December 2, 1817. He grew up in Düsseldorf, where his father, a lawyer, was a senior civil servant and was raised to the nobility in 1831. Their home was the site of many artistic gatherings, with Felix Mendelssohn among the regular guests. 11 At the University of Berlin, Heinrich was taught by Ranke and Savigny, in many people’s eyes becoming their most distinguished pupil. As a Privatdozent at the University of Bonn, he soon made an impact, notably with the Geschichte des ersten Kreuzzuges ( History of the First Crusade ) and Die Entstehung des deutschen Königtums ( The Origin of Kingship in Germany ), the first of which made his name by acting as a corrective to the idealized picture the Romantics had of the Middle Ages. This brought him a professorship in 1844, when he was twenty-seven, and at the same time he became a prominent opponent of the Ultramontane Party. This came about when the Holy Shroud of Turin was exhibited at Trier and attracted thousands of pilgrims. Sybel considered the shroud a fake and helped publish an inquiry into its authenticity. From then on, he was as interested in politics as in history and in 1846, when he was appointed professor at the small University of Marburg, he found time to take a seat in the Hessian Landstag. Then, in 1850 he sat in the Erfurt parliament as a member of the so-called Gotha Party, whose aim was the regeneration of Germany through the leadership of Prussia. He thought the House of Hapsburg was moved by “the Jesuit spirit” and that Austria “had nothing German in her.” 12
    Sybel was, therefore, just as politically active as Mommsen and, like Mommsen, in addition to his political activities, he produced three great works, for which he is still remembered. The first was his Geschichte der Revolutionszeit 1789–95 ( History of the French Revolution ). Sybel was much influenced by Edmund Burke and his Reflections on the War in France , but Sybel’s contribution was to bring to bear the German brand of higher criticism on the records of the revolution. In the process, he showed, for instance, that many of the letters attributed to Marie Antoinette could not have been written by her—which aroused great interest in France itself and contributed to a new, and less romantic, vision of the