The German Genius

their neighbours.” 24 The institution primarily responsible for these reforms was to be the clergy, which Francke now reconceived as the “teaching estate.” Networks of Halle graduates found their way to most north German cities. 25
    I NTELLECTUAL C ENTRALIZATION AND A N EW C OLLECTIVE M ENTALITY
     
    This was the state of educational/pedagogical affairs when Friedrich Wilhelm I became king in 1713. He had undergone his own conversion in 1708, producing in him a vision not unlike Francke’s. On his accession, he lost no time in becoming the chief patron of theology graduates from Halle, as he aligned the forces of Halle Pietism with his own priorities. 26
    In order to ensure this the king needed to mobilize not just the churches and the schools but the entire state apparatus, every socializing institution in Prussia. In this way was conceived “State Pietism.” 27 To help encourage it, in 1729 Friedrich Wilhelm decreed that all Lutheran pastors in his realm must have studied at the University of Halle for at least two years, a remarkable act of intellectual centralization. In 1725 Abraham Wolff and Georg Friedrich Rogall, important Halle Pietists, were made professors of theology at the University of Königsberg. The resulting influx of Pietists changed forever the character of the church in northeastern Germany. 28
    But it was in the military and in the bureaucracy that Pietist influence was most far-reaching. The military church was reorganized in 1718 and eventually more than 100 Pietist pastors were employed among the regiments. 29 Encountering ignorance on a massive scale, the pastors taught reading and writing to soldiers and their wives, at the same time introducing them to the Bible and through that to Pietist beliefs and values. The military church also educated the soldiers’ children—hundreds of regimental schools were built in the 1720s. (To facilitate matters, Friedrich Wilhelm ordered chaplains not to confirm anyone who could not read.) 30 The very concept of honor ( Ehre ) was itself transformed. Honor was no longer only a reflection of distinction in purely military matters: it now became necessary for an officer to fulfill his duty to others more widely—as a quartermaster, say, as a drillmaster, even as an accountant. What mattered was how much an officer had helped his neighbors, albeit subordinates.
    The same culture permeated the bureaucracy. Following the Thirty Years’ War, the local princes, newly independent, required more money to maintain their courtly life on the French model, and this meant there was a demand for a relatively efficient bureaucracy to administer princely affairs efficiently. 31 The Beamtenstand , the “estate of bureaucrats,” became established in the German lands, and in 1693 examinations were introduced for admission to the upper reaches of the judicial system. Then in 1727, the king created two professorships in cameralist studies, one at the University of Halle and the other at Frankfurt an der Oder. They were the first such professors in the history of German universities, and the lectures offered covered the technical and legal side of the Prussian state’s economic, finance, and police systems. As Hans Rosenberg put it in his 1958 book The Prussian Experience , the three dominant elements were bureaucracy, aristocracy, and autocracy. At the same time, the king was a strong promoter of meritocracy, continually underlining the opportunities for lowly clerks to attain the highest level of tax commissar or departmental head. 32 In this milieu, the bureaucrat became an advocate of a militant ideology dedicated to raising the level of civilian society through education. By 1742, a royal commission reported that no fewer than 1,660 schools had been built or repaired. (This shouldn’t be exaggerated, however. Schooling for everyone was not established until the mid-nineteenth century.)
    No less important, over time the educational improvements brought about by Friedrich Wilhelm I and the Pietists created an entirely new collective mentality: in the words of Walter Dorn, the Prussians became “the most highly disciplined people of modern Europe.” 33 Friedrich the Great had the good sense to keep this military-bureaucratic-educational-economic structure intact. By his death in 1786, State Pietism was the core of the culture. It would prove stable enough to survive the depredations of Napoleon—Stefan Zweig wrote approvingly of it a hundred years