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The author, R. J. Gluck, was the Rabbi in Oldenberg from 1875-1890. He also published Predigt (Oldenburg, 1876). In the present volume he wrote against the anti-Semitism of Heinrich von Treitschke (September 15, 1834 - April 28, 1896), a German historian and political writer, who was born at Dresden. Treitschke was the son of an officer in the Saxon army who rose to be governor of Königstein and military governor of Dresden. Young Treitschke was prevented by deafness from entering the public service. After studying at Leipzig and Bonn, where he was a pupil of Dahlmann, he established himself as a Privatdozent at Leipzig, lecturing on history and politics.
He was at that time a strong Liberal; he hoped to see Germany united into a single state with a parliamentary government, and all the smaller states swept away. In 1863 he was appointed professor at Freiburg; in 1866, at the outbreak of war, his sympathies with Prussia were so strong that he went to Berlin, became a Prussian subject, and was appointed editor of the Preussische Jahrbücher. A violent article, in which he demanded the annexation of Hanover and Saxony, and attacked with great bitterness the Saxon royal house, led to an estrangement from his father, who enjoyed the warm friendship of the king. It was only equalled in its ill humour by his attacks on Bavaria in 1870. After holding appointments at Kiel and Heidelberg, he was in 1874 made professor at Berlin; he had already in 1871 become a member of the Reichstag, and from that time till his death he was one of the most prominent figures in the city.
He made violent and influential attacks on all opinions and all parties which appeared in any way to be injurious to the rising power of Germany. He supported the government in its attempts to subdue by legislation the Socialists, Poles and Catholics. He was one of the few important public figures who supported anti-Semitic attacks which became prevalent from 1878 onwards.
Treitschke approached history as a politician, and confined himself to those periods and characters in which great political problems were being worked out: above all, he was a patriotic historian, and he never wandered far from Prussia. His great achievement was the History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century. The first volume was published in 1879, and during the next sixteen years four more volumes appeared, but at his death he had only advanced to the year 1847. The work shows extreme diligence, and scrupulous care in the use of authorities. It is discursive and badly arranged, and partisan, but stylish and vigorous. He also wrote biographical and historical essays, and essays on contemporary politics. |
