Iron Kingdom : The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 by Christopher Clark Page B

Sonderwegs” ’,
Geschichte und Gesellschaft
, 29(2003), pp. 262–93.
5. For examples of this literature, see Hans-Joachim Schoeps,
Preussen. Geschichte eines Staates
(Frankfurt/Berlin, 1966; repr. 1981); Sebastian Haffner,
Preussen ohne Legende
(Hamburg, 1978); Gerd Heinrich,
Geschichte Preussens. Staat und Dynastie
(Frankfurt, 1981). Commenting on this tendency: Ingrid Mittenzwei, ‘Die zwei Gesichter Preussens’ in
Forum 19
(1978); repr. in
Deutschland-Archiv
, 16(1983), pp. 214–18; Hans-Ulrich Wehler,
Preussen ist wieder chic. Politik und Polemik in zwanzig Essays
(Frankfurt/Main, 1983), esp. ch. 1; Otto Büsch (ed.),
Das Preussenbild in der Geschichte. Protokoll eines Symposions
(Berlin, 1981).
6. See especially (with literature) Manfred Schlenke, ‘Von der Schwierigkeit, Preussen auszustellen. Rückschau auf die Preussen-Ausstellung, Berlin 1981’, in id. (ed.),
Preussen. Politik, Kultur, Gesellschaft
(2 vols., Hamburg, 1986), vol. 1, pp. 12–34. On the debate triggered by the exhibition, see BarbaraVogel, ‘Bemerkungen zur Aktualität der preussischen Geschichte’,
Archiv für Sozialgeschichte
, 25 (1985), pp. 467–507; T. C. W. Blanning, ‘The Death and Transfiguration of Prussia’,
Historical Journal
, 29 (1986), pp. 433–59.
7. The organizational hub of the present-day conservative Prussophiles is the Preussische Gesellschaft. The society publishes a journal (
Preussische Nachrichten von Staats-undGelehrten-Sachen
), for which it claims a readership of 10,000; its website can be consulted at
http://www.preussen.org/page/frame.html
. The society’s following spans a wide range of right-of-centre positions, from authoritarian neo-liberals to Prussian federal autonomists, ultra-conservative monarchists and right-wing extremists.
8. The remains of Frederick the Great had been transferred to Hohenzollern-Hechingen towards the end of the Second World War to prevent their disinterment by the approaching Russians. They were repatriated in 1991 in conformity with the king’s testament, which had stipulated that he should be buried with his greyhounds on one of the terraces of Sans Souci. The presence of the then Chancellor Helmut Kohl at the re-interment ceremony was particularly controversial. On the city palace initiatives, see ‘Wir brauchen zentrale Akteure’,
Süddeutsche Zeitung
, 10 January 2002, p. 17; Peter Conradi, ‘Das Neue darf nicht verboten werden’,
Süddeutsche Zeitung
, 8 March 2002, p. 13; Joseph Paul Kleihues, ‘Respekt vor dem Kollegen Schlüter’,
Die Welt
, 30 January 2002, p. 20. For details of the campaign to restore the palace, see
http://www.berliner-stadtschloss.de/index1.htm
and
http://www.stadtschloss-berlin.del
.
9. Hans-Ulrich Wehler, ‘Preussen vergiftet uns. Ein Glück, dass es vorbei ist!’,
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
, 23 February 2002, p. 41; cf. Tilman Mayer, ‘Ja zur Renaissance’. Was Preussen aus sich machen kann’,
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
, 27 February 2002, p. 49; see also Florian Giese, ‘Preussens Sendung und Gysis Mission’ in
Die Zeit
, September 2002, accessed online at
http://www.zeit.de/archiv/2002/09/200209 preussen.xml
.
10. See, for example, Linda Colley,
Britons. Forging the Nation
(New Haven, CT, 1992) and, more generally, James C. Scott,
Seeing Like a State. How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
(New Haven, CT, 1998), esp. pp. 11, 76–83, 183. On the debate over the ‘constructed’ character of nationalism, see Oliver Zimmer and Len Scales (eds.),
Power and the Nation in European History
(Cambridge, 2005).
11. Voltaire to Nicolas Claude Theriot, au Chêne, 26 October [1757], in Theodor Bestermann (ed.),
Voltaire’s Correspondence
, trans. Julius R. Ruff (51 vols., Geneva, 1958), vol. 32, p. 135.
1 The Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg
     
1. ‘Regio est plana, nemorosa tamen, & ut plurimus paludosa…’, Nicolaus Leuthinger,
Topographia prior Marchiae regionumque vicinarum
… (Frankfurt/Oder, 1598),