Civilization #54: The German Will to Power

Konigsberg, Prussia’s cultural and intellectual capital, was deliberately destroyed by Allied forces and transformed into Soviet Kaliningrad after World War II, erasing centuries of German civilization. This Baltic port city was home to approximately 370,000 inhabitants.

Frederick the Great transformed Prussia from a militaristic state into an enlightened society by implementing revolutionary legal, religious, and educational reforms that protected individual rights and promoted tolerance. As King of Prussia from 1740-1786, he personally championed these reforms.

By 1925, Germany produced the majority of Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry, and medicine, establishing itself as the world’s leading center for scientific innovation and research. Germans won 33 of 78 Nobel Prizes in physics between 1901-1932.

Wilhelm von Humboldt revolutionized higher education by founding Berlin University and conceptualizing the modern research university, transforming students from passive listeners into active knowledge creators. As Prussian minister of education, he served as architect of modern academic freedom.

Frederick the Great established the world’s first comprehensive public school system in 1763, creating accessible education as a meritocratic pathway for middle-class advancement and national development. This revolutionary system provided free, mandatory education for children aged 5-13.

Carl von Clausewitz, the greatest military strategist in history, revolutionized warfare theory by analyzing why Napoleon’s France succeeded in mobilizing entire societies for total war. A Prussian general and military theorist, he served in the Napoleonic Wars and later became director of the Prussian War College.

Otto von Bismarck created the world’s first comprehensive social welfare system, including health insurance, accident insurance, disability benefits, and old-age pensions for German workers. As Prussian Prime Minister and later German Chancellor (1862-1890), he pioneered social insurance programs.

After Napoleon’s 1806 defeat of Prussia, Prussian reformers systematically copied French Revolutionary reforms, abolishing serfdom, destroying monopolies, and opening civil service to merit-based advancement. Led by reformers Karl vom Stein and Karl August von Hardenberg, they recognized that revolutionary social change was necessary for national survival.

Germany became the first industrialized nation to grant comprehensive worker rights, including regulated work hours, workplace safety standards, collective bargaining rights, and protection from arbitrary dismissal. German industrial workers gained these protections through both Bismarck’s top-down welfare programs and grassroots labor organizing movements.

Emanuel Kant, the most influential Enlightenment philosopher who fundamentally changed Western thought, was born and lived his entire life in Konigsberg, Prussia’s intellectual capital. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), considered among history’s most influential philosophers, spent his entire 80 years within 50 miles of Konigsberg.

In 1848, middle-class and working-class populations rebelled simultaneously in 17 different European locations against feudal structures, while Britain avoided revolution due to colonial pressure valves. Approximately 50,000 protesters mobilized across these 17 locations, representing diverse social classes united by demands for constitutional government.

Prussia uniquely responded to 1848 revolutionary pressures by granting constitutional reforms and civil liberties rather than violently suppressing protesters, distinguishing itself from other European monarchies. King Frederick William IV, influenced by reformist advisors and recognizing the revolution’s strength, chose accommodation over confrontation.

Bismarck’s attempt to suppress German Catholics through the Kulturkampf, imprisoning priests who maintained loyalty to the Pope, represented his greatest political failure and strategic mistake. This “culture struggle” campaign targeted the Catholic Center Party, which had become Germany’s second-largest political force after unification.

After WWI defeat, Germans analyzed their failure and concluded that internal political divisions—Catholics, liberals, socialists, Polish nationalists, anarchists—had undermined the unified will necessary for victory. German military leaders, historians, and political theorists across the political spectrum embraced this explanation.

Britain consistently intervened against any European hegemon—first Napoleon, then Germany—to prevent continental domination that could threaten British security and global position. British foreign policy consistently prioritized preventing any single continental power from achieving dominance, regardless of that power’s internal political system.

Three distinct political movements—liberalism (middle-class rights), socialism (worker protections), and communism (wealth redistribution)—competed for influence in industrial-era Germany, creating internal political tensions. These competing ideologies attracted different constituencies: liberalism appealed to merchants and professionals, socialism to skilled workers, communism to the urban poor.

When Germany became Europe’s dominant industrial and military power by the early 1900s, Britain was forced into action to prevent German hegemony, leading directly to WWI. By 1900, Germany produced more steel than Britain, led in chemical and electrical industries, and possessed Europe’s most powerful military.

Hannah Arendt, considered one of the 20th century’s greatest political philosophers, was born in Konigsberg, continuing the city’s tradition of producing transformative thinkers. Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) fled Nazi Germany in 1933, eventually settling in America where she became a distinguished political theorist.

Modern total war requires mobilizing entire societies—economically, emotionally, and materially—for military objectives, transforming warfare from professional armies into competitions between entire civilizations. This concept fundamentally transformed military thinking, requiring states to organize entire societies around war-fighting capability rather than maintaining separate military institutions.

Prussia, once the world’s most advanced civilization in education, science, military organization, and social welfare, was deliberately destroyed and made extinct after WWII by Allied powers. Prussia had existed as a distinct kingdom since 1701, reaching its peak influence when it unified Germany under Prussian leadership in 1871.