IJzeren Koninkrijk: opkomst en ondergang van Pruisen 1600-1947

by Christopher Clark

Vlak na de gruwelijke Tweede Wereldoorlog oordeelden de geallieerden dat ze korte metten moesten maken met de staat Pruisen, die ze als de belichaming van het verfoeide militarisme zagen. Pruisen werd zonder pardon opgeheven en verdeeld. Daarmee kwam er een eind aan vierhonderd jaar geschiedenis. Christopher Clark toont in zijn glasheldere en prachtig geschreven geschiedenis dat Pruisen nog wel iets meer is geweest dan waar de geallieerden het voor aanzagen.

Pruisen begon eeuwen geleden als een onoverzichtelijke lappendeken van vorstenrijkjes, hertogdommen en graafschappen, zonder veel natuurlijke hulpbronnen en zelfs zonder een verbindende cultuur. Het voerde vele oorlogen, speelde een belangrijke rol bij de opheffing van het Heilige Roomse Rijk, bloeide op tijdens de glorieuze verlichtingsperiode onder Frederik de Grote en leed tijdens het rampzalige napoleontische tijdperk. Pruisen groeide in de loop der tijd uit tot een staat die de Europese humanistische traditie mede vormgaf, die uitmuntte door een efficiënt overheidsapparaat en een onkreukbare ambtenarij, die bij tijden een ongekende religieuze tolerantie aan de dag legde, en die onder leiding van Otto von Bismarck in 1871 zorgde voor de eenwording van het Duitse rijk. Clark concludeert dat Pruisen een onschatbare bijdrage heeft geleverd aan de westerse beschaving.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Germany, European History, Politics, War, Historical

847 pages, Hardcover

First published September 29, 2006

About the author

Sir Christopher Munro Clark FBA is an Australian historian living in the United Kingdom and Germany. He is the twenty-second Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge. In 2015, he was knighted for his services to Anglo-German relations.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

“In the beginning there was only Brandenburg, a territory encompassing some 40,000 square kilometers and centered on the city of Berlin. This was the heartland of the state that would later be known as Prussia. Situated in the midst of the dreary plain that stretches from the Netherlands to northern Poland, the Brandenburg countryside has rarely attracted visitors. It possesses no distinctive landmarks. The rivers that cross it are sluggish meandering streams that lack the grandeur of the Rhine or Danube. Monotonous forests of birch and fir covered much of its surface. The topographer Nicolaus Leuthinger, author of an early description of Brandenburg, wrote in 1598 of a ‘flat land, wooded and for the most part swamp.’ ‘Sand,’ flatness, ‘bogs’ and ‘uncultivated areas’ were recurring topoi in all the early accounts, even the most panegyric…”
- Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947

When I think of Prussia, certain impressions spring immediately to mind, some positive, others decidedly not: monocled generals planning their next conquest; well-trained soldiers marching in jack-booted lockstep; overfed Junkers on their vast feudal estates; and a centralized civil bureaucracy striving for coldblooded efficiency. Mostly, though, I am thinking of an army with a state, rather than a state with an army.

By the end of Iron Kingdom, Christopher Clark’s enormous history of Prussia, my original conception had not changed much. Though Clark adds context, texture, and nuance, there is no changing the fact that Prussia’s martial aptitude created her, allowed her to expand, and ultimately unmade her in the wake of World War II. Whatever Prussia’s contribution to education, thought, and culture, there is no denying its aggressive militarism.

Iron Kingdom is a massive book boldly striving for comprehensiveness without skimping on detail. It begins in the early 17th century, when Prussia was a relatively weak duchy enclosed within indefensible borders. During the Thirty Years’ War, various armies marched unhindered across Prussian lands, leaving desolation in their wake. Things began to change with the reign of Frederick William I. The so-called “Great Elector” started Prussia down the path to greatness – and ruin – by focusing on military prowess. He created a modern army with consistent uniforms, standardized weaponry, and an emphasis on drill.

The very early going of Iron Kingdom was a bit slow, especially since I haven’t spent a lot of time studying this time period. The story really starts to snap into place in 1701, when the Great Elector’s son, Frederick III (the non-diversity of names makes things confusing) crowned himself king. From that point forward, the Kingdom of Prussia became a major European power player, especially under the famed Frederick the Great (though as Clark points out, this particular Frederick’s wartime won-loss record was not exactly flawless).

For unavoidable reasons, much of Iron Kingdom is devoted to a seemingly-endless series of wars and revolutions. To be fair, much of this can be laid at the feet of Napoleon Bonaparte, who kept Europe in an uproar for over a decade. Prussian power reached its apotheosis under Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck, who helped guide the kingdom through three wars of “unification,” culminating in the defeat of France in 1871, and the creation of the German Empire. From there, Prussia was more or less subsumed into greater Germany, to well-known consequences.

Despite all the bloody clashes, Iron Kingdom is far more than a military history. Clark really does try to encompass every aspect, taking on a bit more than can be comfortably digested. His biographical sketches are illuminating and – as often happens when dealing with authoritarian kings – occasionally terrifying (Frederick William I’s behavior towards the young Frederick the Great springs to mind in this regard). Clark also spends a lot of time covering diplomacy, religion, philosophy, and the arts. Throughout, Clark tries to highlight the more liberal elements, pushing back against the standard Prussian image. For instance, he argues that the peasants toiling on the famed Junker estates were far better off than typically imagined. Having never thought deeply about such questions, I can’t say that Clark convinced me one way or the other. Nevertheless, I appreciate his willingness to share his opinions, as it demonstrates his own immersion into this material.

Trying to coherently structure such a sprawling tale is a bit of a challenge, one that Clark does not perfectly manage. Though it advances in rough chronological order, much of Iron Kingdom is centered around themes, so that there is a lot of skipping around in time. By way of example, near the end of the book, just after World War II has ended, Clark circles all the way back for another look at Bismarck. It can get a bit dizzying.

Iron Kingdom is a bit like a buffet in which you are compelled to eat everything, whether you want to or not. I found certain topics – such as Bismarck’s long-game – to be entirely absorbing. Other areas, such as the theological schisms within Protestantism, held less interest for me. That’s to be expected when you are served up such a smorgasbord.

Ultimately, I think Iron Kingdom might be too ambitious, trying to fit queen-sized sheets onto a king-sized bed. Clark might have been better served by concluding with the end of the Franco-Prussian War. Everything after that – World War I, the rise of Nazism, and World War II – feels rushed. Moreover, as I mentioned above, after 1871, Prussia and Germany become hard to separate, and the parsing of the two gets a bit tedious. It is also in these sections that Clark strains most visibly to defend Prussia, trying to find some daylight between it and Hitler, even as the Nazis embraced “Prussianism” in a death-grip.

Of course, being overambitious is much better than the alternative. At the risk of overusing food-related metaphors – I should probably stop writing and just get lunch – I prefer having too much on my plate rather than too little (though my doctor begs to disagree). The prodigious length of Iron Kingdom is greatly eased by Clark’s engaging, often witty prose, and by his self-evident passion for this subject matter. While the very nature of Iron Kingdom – with its constantly shifting focus – gives it an uneven pacing, it is otherwise everything that I can ask for in a nonfiction volume. It is deeply researched, broad in scope, and – not for nothing – quite entertaining to read.

[Szplug · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the review blurbs on the back cover of Iron Kingdom reminds the reader that Prussia remains Europe's only extinct power, which I found startling upon further reflection; it is a fate similarly dealt out to Piedmont after its political leaders and monarchical house led the drive to reunify Italy, though, of course, that Alpine kingdom never came close to the level of being a major European player. However, one can at least still find the Piedmont name upon modern maps as a constituted Region of the Italian state, whereas Prussia—forever more to be associated with a bellicosity and sternness that served as both engine and fuel of the Germanic war machine—has been dismembered and parceled out amongst the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany. Many young people, upon seeing its name in print these days, might consider it to be a misspelling of the great Slavic realm that dominates the northern Eurasian landmass. Yet it was once as well known for the honesty and efficiency of its civil service, its orderly and hard-working citizenry, its enlightenment values, and for being the dominant Protestant European state and a bulwark against the Catholic south. In many ways, as author Clark posits at the outset of his outstanding historic venture, Prussia was undone by its hegemonic role in the creation of the German Empire in 1871. It carried the unresolved contradictions from its monarchical existence into the dominant position it assumed within the new Imperial Reich, and these contradictions, inflamed and made perilous with the raw military power available to the forces of the Kaiser-King by the early twentieth century, were, in the main, what brought about its extinction within two short years of the cessation of the Second World War.

The point of embarcation is the purchase in 1415 of the Margraviate of Brandenburg by the cash-rich Hohenzollern family of southern Germany from the cash-strapped Emperor Sigismund. Brandenburg was an electoral princedom of the Holy Roman Empire, and that dignity (the Kurfürstenwürde) came with the newly bought fief. At that point in time Brandenburg was a rather unprepossessing, landlocked unit spread across the marginal and sandy lowlands, interspersed with swamps and forested pockets, that comprised the North European Plain between the Elbe and Oder rivers south of Baltic Pomerania and north of the Electorate of Saxony. Originally ranged by petty West Slavic tribes, its hardy denizens at the time of the Hohenzollern purchase were a colorful mixture of French, Flemish, Saxon, Franconian, English, and Danish settlers, invited in by previous Margraves, along with scattered clusterings of the Slavic Wends and Sorbs remaining from the German conquest, its capital the relatively small city of Berlin. Thus, Brandenburg, with open borders in every direction and peopled by a diverse stock of transplanted Europeans, was from the start a state with a terrible sense of vulnerability and contingency, one that was only heightened by the fortunes of Salic Law that brought to the Margrave the Duchy of Prussia in the east and the Rhenish fiefs of Cleves-Mark-Ravensburg in the west. The Duchy of Prussia, a Baltic fief slightly larger than Brandenburg and held from the King of Poland, at its nearest point was over one hundred miles east of Brandenburg, while the Rhenish dukedoms and countdoms were of a similar distance westwards and bordering upon France. Realizing the impossibility of holding these non-contiguous realms in the face of hostilities, the early Hohenzollern electors strove to serve as peace-makers and conciliators amongst their Imperial and Polish-Lithuanian neighbors, all of which served them naught during the brutal onslaught of the Thirty Years' War of 1618-1648, in which, notwithstanding the desperate efforts of the electors to remain neutral in the religious/dynastic conflict, Brandenburg was ravaged by marauding hordes of Swedish, Austrian, Saxon, French, and, rather ghoulishly, Brandenburgian soldiery. When the carnage had finally ceased, the lands of the Electorate had lost 35% of their population, and upwards of 60% in the hardest hit provinces of Prignitz and Uckermark.

The horrors visited upon the electorate by the Thirty Years' War left a lasting imprint, above all the vital necessity of having a large and disciplined army in place in order to avoid becoming the playground of aggressive nations. It also saw the curious trifurcation of a Lutheran Prussia and Brandenburg as against the Catholic provinces of the Rhine, jointly ruled by a Hohenzollern family that, for several generations, had been staunch Reform Calvinists. These two strains, military and religious, were developed in a most advantageous manner under the firm guidance of Frederick William I the Great Elector, who came to power in the waning years of the ruinous decadal destruction and held his throne until his death in 1488, a reign of forty-eight years, the longest of the Hohenzollern dynasts, which would see Brandenburg-Prussia completely transformed and set upon the road to becoming a serious rival to the European Big Boys. For a remarkable string of four father-to-son progressions of rule—the Great Elector followed by Frederick I, then Frederick William I the Soldier King, and capped off by Frederick II the Great—the combined state saw itself augmented via treaty, inheritance, and conquest until it emerged at the end as one of the powers (though the least amongst them) of Europe. Frederick I was elevated to the royal dignity in Prussia, and it was as King in Prussia (King of Prussia after Frederick the Great was done showing his military chops) that the monarch of Prussia-Brandenburg-Rhenish provinces became predominantly known. During this period the states of Eastern and Western Pomerania, Polish Royal Prussia, Silesia, the Magdeburg Bishoprics, and another pair of Rhenish petty dukedoms were added to the territorial kitty, key additions in that east Elbian Prussia was now a contiguous realm stretching over five hundred miles west to east along and around the Baltic coast.

Clark spends a considerable amount of time during this period discussing the reforms to the military, particularly the uses of conscription, regular training, auxiliary militias, and iron discipline in creating a mobile and well-ordered striking force. Against this is set the conciliatory Pietist religious movement, a blending of the Lutheran and Reform Calvinist faiths, that was the driving force behind the spread of educational institutes, charitable houses, burgeoning minor industry and, above all, the instillation of the protestant work ethic and spirit of achieving that saw so much of the populace ever striving to better themselves and the state. He also examines the treatment of the Jewish and ethnic (primarily Polish) minorities, with the former continually gaining further privileges, though graded by social rank and denied Prussian citizenship, whilst the latter, after a futile attempt to break-up the nobility, were allowed to continue as gentry lords of their localities and to have Polish admitted as the language of primary education. There is also a detailed look at the enduring Prussian conflict between a centralizing state bureaucracy, endowed with the emerged values of the enlightenment, and the reactionary noble corporatism of the provincial gentry—the Junkers of historical renown—with the usual struggles over taxation, judicial rights and administration, peasant emancipation, and the attempts to implement the steady stream of innovative changes cooked up in Berlin at local levels across the widely spread and disparate ruralities. While the ruling personalities, especially those of Frederick William I and his son Frederick the Great, whose mutual antagonism produced an astonishing drama played out in the Crown Prince's eighteenth year, are fleshed out with wonderful anecdotes and analysis, Clark avoids history through Big Men only and examines what took place, what changes were playing out, what historical trends evolving, with an intelligence and wittiness that actually renders such compulsively readable.

As thoroughly enlightening and enjoyable as the book was up to here, Clark truly excels when he enter into the Napoleonic Era and the Nineteenth Century. A Prussia made fat upon the three partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had allowed its vaunted soldiery to become a creaking edifice led by noble officers completely out of touch with the sudden advances brought into military tactics and organization by the French Revolution. Embarrassed in their repulsion by the Revolutionary Armies when, allied with Imperial Austria, Prussian arms attempted to invade France and restore Bourbon absolutism, the humiliation was thorough and enduring when the punishing eye of Napoleon Bonaparte was turned to the Prussian dominions, leading to the utter thrashing the North German kingdom received in the Battle of Jena. King Frederick William III, a peaceable man whose beautiful and tragically short-lived wife, Louise of Mecklinburg (spec out her youthful hotness on the left here), revolutionized the role of the Queen Consort and became established as a feminine ideal in Prussian mythology, saw his dominions shredded, his Rhenish fiefs confiscated and his eastern possessions distributed to a newly reconstituted Poland. Determined to revive the ossified structures of the kingdom that had so failed against the French conqueror, he promoted two liberalizing pro-enlightenment reformers, the Baron vom und zum Stein and Prince Karl August von Hardenberg, as the first Prussian Prime Ministers; these two figures instituted a sea change across the realms, most especially in cleansing the military of aristocratic time-servers and filling the ranks with soldier-innovators whose names—Scharnhorst, Clausewitz, Blücher, Gneisenau—burrowed themselves into the historical memory of the North German völk. Religious institutions were revamped, Kantian and Hegelian ideas of the state debated and incorporated, public goods undertaken in quantity, schools reformed, commercial development upgraded, while a serious effort was made to fully emancipate the Prussian Jews and integrate them as full citizens (which reform fell short of achieving the entirety of this final objective) and the Polish and Lithuanian minorities in the east were accommodated linguistically and culturally in both education and local governmental structures. Through it all the ministers had to tread a fine line against the entrenched opposition of the Junkers, intramural antagonisms of the central bureaucracy, and, most of all, the increasingly reactionary tendencies of the king in the face of an expanding current of revolutionary fervor, especially strong in the vast new West German provinces of Rhineland and Westphalia accquired in the Congress of Vienna in 1815, in the wake of the fall of Napoleon and the energizing July Revolution in France.

As a king, Frederick William IV, who came to the throne in 1840, has received much bad press as a romantic buffoon whose flimflammery on liberalization of the realm and weakness against his own ministers did much to promote the Prussian unrest in the 1848 Revolutions. Clark gives him a new look and finds a monarch more capable, especially in his actions during the 1848 uprisings when he restrained his aggressive brother, the future Emperor William I, then known as the Grape Shot Prince for his eagerness to put down dissent with bullets. The king actually maneuvered through this tumultuous period with some subtlety and skill: while his terrified wife was filled with visions of the guillotine, the king provided guarantees of granting the constitution the people were demanding, playing off splits amongst the different factions of the Prussian Diet to gain time to reoccupy Berlin with troops stationed outside, and then taking advantage of his new ascendency to present a royally-crafted constitution which, with its three-tiered voting system, ensured the dominance of the conservatives while conceding enough that the liberals were satisfied. The 1848 revolutions also saw a flowering German Nationalism, leading the Frankfurt Confederal Parliament to offer Frederick William IV an imperial German crown, an honour which he refused (holding that God apportioned crowns, not measly party politicians) but which meme would bubble in the Prussian background from that period forward until 1871, when unification was achieved.

With the incapacitation of Frederick William in 1857 his brother became regent, and then king four years later when the former passed away. William I had matured much since those heated moments of 1848, including acceptance that Prussia was now a constitutional monarchy with extensive male suffrage. After a terribly rocky start in which, with government after government falling against a recalcitrant parliament the king actually considered abdication, Otto von Bismarck was installed as Minister-President of Prussia, and he would hold those reins until his dismissal by William II in 1890. Bismarck brilliantly, ruthlessly, and dexterously guided the ship of state, playing off socialists against conservatives, conservatives against socialists, liberals against both and both against liberals as Prussia kick-started into top gear. Masterful diplomatic maneuvering allowed Bismarck to initiate carefully calculated wars-with-defined-ends against Denmark, Austria, and France—all undertaken only after Great Britain and Russia had been effectively brought on board or neutralized. The Danish War showed flaws in the Prussian military machine that were ironed out in time for the drubbing administered to Austria, an encompassing victory that removed Austrian influence (and interference) within the German princely realms—an influence that had dominated for over five hundred years—from that point forward. The war against France was a whirlwind affair, the conclusive victory at Sedan, where the French emperor Napoleon III was captured, achieved within a mere seven weeks. In the exuberance surrounding this astonishing feat the German realms agreed to the creation of a German Empire with William I, King of Prussia, to assume to coeval title of German Emperor, a coronation carried out in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles (and don't think the French forgot or forgave this slight one iota). With the additions of Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, Western Saxony and the Hessian princedoms tacked on to the Prussian state during the Bismarckian victories, Prussia comprised a full 65% of the German Empire in area and 62% in population. Yet this glorious moment, the pinnacle of Prussian success, soon left a bitter aftertaste and set in motion the events that would lead to its complete extinction in a mere seven-plus decades.

The greatest of the contradictions engendered within the Prussian state came from the unresolved issues of military control, for the powerful army remained under the personal direction of the King. Unlike in other German states such as Bavaria or Württemberg, where the military forces were directed by the governmental executive under the auspices of a minister of war, the Prussian ministerial cabinet could only make suggestions regarding the military to the king, whose consent was required before the General Staff would implement these political directives ; and this ominous bifurcation carried itself with the Prussian state as it was constituted within the German Empire. Powerful minister-presidents like Bismarck, who inevitably got his way from William I through the force of his personality (William once remarked mournfully to a counselor that it is hard being emperor under Bismarck), exerted a strong control over the headstrong and still aristocratically officered army, but even such as he faced various insubordinations throughout any particular campaign, including some that came perilously close to derailing the political objectives of the master of realpolitik. Indeed, the very authoritarian constraints upon the Prussian monarch were left nebulously undefined in the constitution, and when headstrong and imperious narcissists like William II came to the throne, this lack of firm checks provided ample space for the emperor to override the parliamentary decrees and desires of the duly elected politicians.

This was all revealed during the First World War, when the partnership of Hindenburg and Ludendorff, after a coup-by-ultimatum had given them supreme military command in the east against Russia, decided to relegate the civilian political leadership to the sidelines as, with the coerced assent of the Kaiser, they took control of the direction of the German Empire during the remaining years of the Great War. This subjugation of the civilian government would come back to haunt the Weimar Republic as the theme of a Jewish-dominated political betrayal of the German people and their army was played up by the opponents of the fledgeling democracy and severely undermined the faith of the beleaguered citizenry in their politicians while elevating the military to realm where their mistakes and hubris were collectively forgotten. Indeed, the lack of political control over the army continued on into the Weimar Republic, and the Ebert government's collusion with both what remained of the military and various freikorps units in violently suppressing the revolution of 1918-19—and especially the latter's brutality against KPD members and execution of its leaders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg—caused a rift on the left and ensured the Weimar Republic would face a combination of extremist attacks in the foreseeable future. Clark wraps things up with a look at Prussia in the waning years of the Weimar Republic and the ascent to power of the Nazis. An interesting angle was the usage of the position of minister of the interior of Prussia during the final coalition conservative governments under President Hindenburg—trying to find a way to use Hitler's appeal while defanging him—when it had become a federal ministerial appointment, one which, when assigned to Hermann Göring by a newly installed Chancellor Hitler, gave the vast apparatus of the Prussian police force into the hands of the Nazi party to use to harass and incapacitate the opposition. Once firmly in power, though the Nazis made great use of the mystique of an iron-willed, militarily puissant, völkish laden and heroic-figure-textured Prussian mythology in various propaganda efforts, they intended (but never saw through) the dissolution of Prussia into its constituent provinces. This dissolution was enacted by the Allies who, almost to a man, saw an aggressive Prussian militarism as the enduring threat to European peace; and, in 1947, the name was removed from the map.

Clark really penned a marvelous work of history here, one so well done that I eagerly anticipated the authorial perspective with each turn worked through the eventful history of this North German enigma arisen from the barren sands of the Spree litoral. In particular, he provides strong insights into the enduring vulnerabilities and fears of this protestant upstart state for its powerful neighbors and precarious position that carried forward into the twentieth century when it was a European Great Power. It's a terrible legacy of Prussia that its twin strengths—a powerful military machine and an honest, hard-working civil service—could never have been fully reconciled under a liberal governmental structure, for its enlightenment values and respect for the rule of law endowed it with a great potential for the German future.

[Karen· · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not history as the history of great men, not history as military history, not history from below but a magnificent, monumental, magisterial blend of all of those. A thoroughly modern history that takes into account areas such as education, attitudes to women and their role in society, collective memory, the symbolic portrayal of power through statuary and rituals, and constantly, throughout, the way that the idea of Prussiandom was shoehorned into service either as perfect role model or as bane of European and German history, according to individual political views and individual distortion of the very concept. As Christopher Clark puts it in his introduction, far better than I ever could: "the story of the Prussian state is also the story of the story of the Prussian state, for the Prussian state made up its history as it went along, developing an ever more elaborate account of its trajectory in the past and its purposes in the present."

History as man-made. History as the way we impose order on chaos. The huge problem with Prussian history is that the Prussian state has been both celebrated as the glorious apogee of rational administration and progress, and vilified as the embodiment of all that is reprehensible in German culture: militarism, conquest and arrogance. Those secondary Prussian virtues of discipline, obedience, a sense of duty, were they merely the obverse side of the same coin that gave rise to "a political culture marked by illiberalism and intolerance, an inclination to revere power over legally grounded right, and an unbroken tradition of militarism"? This is a debate that will not fade. It flickers back into life regularly, a legacy of the dispute amongst historians about whether the Nazi regime was an accident or an inevitable destination of the German "Sonderweg" (special path). Christopher Clark is an Australian historian writing in 21st century Cambridge, and as such is happy to be dispensed "from the obligation (or temptation) either to lament or to celebrate the Prussian record. Instead, this book aims to understand the forces that made and unmade Prussia." He aims to unsettle any kind of teleological narrative, to open up the record in such a way that both order and disorder have their place, to show how the march of history is often haphazard and improvised. And he has achieved this paradoxical aim: to show disorder, haphazardness and improvisation in a clear and orderly manner, in a supple and gripping narrative. Terrific.

[Szplug · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prussia bearing down on me
Pressing down on you no man ask for
Under Prussia - they burn a building down
Hack a family in two
Lay people on sheets
It's the terror of knowing
What this nation is about
Watching some good junkers
Screaming let me in
Pray today - you rise higher
Prussia is people - people in armies
She been around
Kicked my brains round the floor
These are the days it rains but it never pours
People in armies
People on sheets
It's the terror of knowing
What this country is about
Watching some good friends
Screaming leave us kraut!
Pray tomorrow - Heilige Reich!

Turned away from liberalism like a blind man
Sat on a fence but it don't work
Keep coming up with new armies and then the
Empire was born.
Why - Ooooh
Insanity laughs under Prussia we're cracking,
Can't we give ourselves one more war?
Why can't we give hate that one more war?
Why can't we give war give war give war give war
give war give war give war give war give war?
'Cause war's such an old fashioned word
And war dares you to care for
Killing people on the edge of the night
And war dares you to change our way of
Killing others than ourselves
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is unser krieg

Under Prussia
Under Prussia
Prussia

[E. G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Acknowledgements
Introduction
A History of Brandenburg-Prussia in Six Maps

--Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947

Notes
Index

[zed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. For those that may not as have been as knowledgeable of Prussian history, this would be as good a place to start as any. I would say that that incudes me. I was not particularly aware of German history prior to WW2 until recent times and after reading a few books on subjects such as the reformation and the 30 Year War there is some very interesting reading to be had. This history of Prussia adds to that.

The rise of a nation called Prussia, from a backwater called Brandenburg to the mighty monarchy it finally became has been written very well by author Christopher Clark. He kept a steady pace throughout and it was fascinating to follow the growth of Prussia, be that by the various machinations of the monarchy, the politician’s, the bureaucracy and last but not least the military. Chapters on Fredrick the Great made enthralling reading. The authors explanation of the four wars for me defined what became known as Prussian Militarism. Examinations of a social welfare system that was the envy of progressives in such places a Great Britain made fascinating reading. All this was 5 star presentation.

So why only 4 stars? Because I found the authors defence of Prussian militarism at times a little ham fisted and also far too lengthy. One example comes to mind when he wrote that the western allies did not understand the anti-Nazi feeling of the Prussian traditionalists. The Soviets did and their propaganda that was supportive of the perpetrators of the July plot of 44 was indicative of that understanding. In the next sentence he writes that this support was really in truth “all eyewash”.

In the end though a highly recommended book.

[Xander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great work on one of the most influential yet most underestimated European powers. Clark has the ability to sketch the political, cultural and social developments throughout the centuries while never bogging down in details. This makes for pleasant reading and an accessible work for non-academics. Spanning 700 pages, this book is too wide and diverse to allow for a summary. I can only recommend it to anyone interested in European and/or German history.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't say I was filled with excitement at the prospect of reading a thousand page history of Prussia. The state was famed for its bureaucrats rather than its brilliant or bloodthirsty leaders. I approached the book more out of a sense of duty than anything else, a slight feeling of shame for having lived in Germany for over five years and yet not having much more of an understanding of its history beyond World War 2.

But Clarke is a brilliant writer, fully able to express his fascination for the development of Prussian civilization, while capturing the poignant moments and surprising characters that helped and hindered it. More than that he successfully takes a modern stereotype, born of the later years of World War 2, that Nazism was the inevitable outcome of Prussianism, and destroys it. He does this not by painting a picture of ideal Prussian society, but by peeling back layer after layer of Prussian history and showing us exactly how and why events turned out the way they did.

In fact far from showing us a militaristic Prussian state that would inevitably lead us to World War 2, he instead shows us a weak, exposed Prussia, one that survived partly by luck, and partly by establishing a complex array of alliances. It shows us a Prussia that desperately wanted to avoid war, remaining neutral in many conflicts to the great annoyance of its allies. It shows us a Prussia that surged ahead with egalitarian Enlightenism, with advanced levels of religious tolerance and emancipation. It also shows us the missteps, the misplaced aggression, the growth of and failure to control the military, the flirtation with destruction both from without and within.

Although Clarke never actually argues this, it is clear from the evidence he presents that Prussia was fated not to manifest itself as Nazism, but to become entangled in World War 1 and fail in such a way as to never be able to recover. The mess of ever changing alliances that had allowed Prussia to succeed against the odds, when it started as nothing more than a patch of swamp surrounded by enemies, would inevitably lead to a system that would trigger its own apocalypse.

Probably the greatest scandal the book exposes, again without ever arguing this directly, is the way the myth of the warmongering, blindly obedient German obsessed with order has enabled the Allies to absolve themselves of all guilt regarding the rise of the Nazis. If we ignore the real nature of Prussian history we can convince ourselves that the way Germany was treated by the Versailles treaty, and the way that left the country exposed to the brutal ravages of a series of economic catastrophes, had nothing to do with the Nazis and the horrors they wrought upon the world.

Like Prussia's history the truth is a lot more complex than many of us would like to believe.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating or Frustrating?

Iron Kingdom: The Rise & Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 by Christopher Clark has been a nemesis of mine for near ten years. I picked this up when I worked in a bookshop in my university days and then read 397 pages where my bookmark remained until I restarted it last month. I had thought all of that time that the style of writing was difficult to follow, even if the content was engrossing. I was confused, I was disappointed, I was deflated. The history of Prussia and pre 1918 Germany is something I am really interested in, this book had won the Wolfson Prise for History and it is an acclaimed bestseller.

However, I recently pulled this from the bookshelf and placed it on the bedside table, a clear status of intent that this book was going to be tackled. I really wanted to. I’d recently finished Clark’s Kaiser Wilhelm II: A Political Life biography and enjoyed the analysis, here this was waiting to be consumed. I’m glad I went back and I’m glad I started again. Maybe in ten years, I’m older or wiser or maybe my mindset or understanding of history has changed, but I read this fairly quickly and I enjoyed it.

So why should you read it? Well, Clark’s knowledge is huge, he understands his topic and I found his arguments and examination balanced. Rather than presenting Prussia solely as a militaristic and authoritarian state that paved the way for Nazi Germany (a common narrative in earlier historiography) Clark offers a more nuanced view. He shows Prussia as a society full of contradictions: progressive in its bureaucracy and education, yet conservative in its politics; tolerant in religion at times, yet repressive in other ways. By doing so, he challenges simplistic moral judgments and encourages readers to see Prussia as a dynamic and multifaceted polity. His use of diverse sources, including cultural and social histories alongside political ones, allows him to paint a richly textured picture of Prussian life beyond kings and wars.

Furthermore, an English language book on the topic is invaluable especially when discussing pre-1871 German or Prussian history that doesn’t involve the Napoleonic Wars or Frederick the Great. Iron Kingdom is fast paced and covers, key figures, movements, events and ideologies which shaped the course of the history of Prussia for 350 years. Clark is able to explain why and how things happened and how the culture developed.

I accept that some have argued that Clark’s effort to rehabilitate Prussia’s image leads him to understate the darker aspects of its militarism and authoritarianism. His revisionist tone, while refreshing, can occasionally seem to soften the connections between Prussian traditions and later German nationalism. My biggest criticism is that for all Iron Kingdom’s vast chronological scope, makes certain periods, such as post Napoleonic or the late 19th century, feel compressed compared to others. In addition to this, parts of the narrative definitely are intense due to the sheer volume of names, events, and institutions covered.

In the end, this is a solid piece of work. Clark has successfully tackled myths around Prussia (such as it was the Prussian military elite which drove the Nazis to megalomania) which has almost drove them to be disregarded today. Clark’s combination of scholarly depth, narrative flair, and interpretive sophistication makes Iron Kingdom one of the most important modern reassessments of Prussia’s role in European history. From birth to kingdom, to empire and defeat and the fall of the monarchy created a state which limped onwards to its eventual death in 1947. My critique of Clark is still there that he is not a fantastic writer (in my opinion there are many others who’s prose flow more effortlessly and coherently), but is able to produce decent work because of the topic he is presenting and the impressive knowledge he has accumulated. I have huge respect for him because of this. However, as I am a better reader now, Iron Kingdom is great read. This is where one has to think, this is frustrating at times as this book is close to being a five star work. In the end, it just doesn’t quite make it.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 by Christopher Clark, is a magisterial history of the Kingdom of Prussia from its earliest beginnings as a union between Brandenburg and the former Polish Duchy of Prussia, to its dissolution as a political concept following Germany's defeat in WWII. Prussia as a state had a complex and fractious history of dizzying success and absolute failure. It played host to rampaging foreign armies during the Thirty Years War, losing a huge percentage of its population to disease, famine, war and migration. It was slowly able to wrench itself back together, and began to ascend as a more powerful regional player, and the eventual merger of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia into a Kingdom in 1701. Prussia expanded both into Germany in the West, and further east into former Polish territory. It inherited claims to far flung regions of Germany, including territories along the Rhine, and into southern Germany, making its borders complex, and creating numerous Prussian enclaves throughout Germany.

Diplomatically, Prussia was beset by greater powers on all sides. The Austrian Empire was still dominant in Germany, and a powerful military foe to the south looking to maintain hegemony in Germany while barring any state to compete with it for influence. The growth of Russia to the East also posed a growing threat to Prussia, and Russian diplomacy usually focused on maintaining the balance of power in Europe through a system of alliances and treaties. France was another major political actor, bringing Prussia to the brink of destruction again in the early 19th century as Napoleonic forces rampaged through Germany and redrew its borders. Couple this with competition from other regional German states, like the Kingdom of Saxony and the Kingdom of Bavaria, and threats from the north from expansionist Sweden and Denmark, and Prussia's existence as a state was tenuous. It therefore required a deft hand at diplomacy, and one that swung from power to power to ensure favourable negotiations. This allowed Prussia, over its history, to acquire territory in Pomerania in the north, Silesia, and in Poland, and to slowly expand its influence over other German states. It led to the partition of Poland with important territorial gains for Prussia in the East. It allowed Prussia to play France, Russia and Austria against each other for positive political and/or territorial gain. This was not always a winning strategy, however, as at some points, as in the Napoleonic Wars, Prussia remained relatively isolated diplomatically until the tide turned in 1806 and Napoleon's Empire crumbled.

From this point onward, Prussia sought to forge there own destiny. German nationalism was on the rise in the 19th century, and Prussia sought to exploit this through the creation of German customs unions and through military defense treaties with smaller German states. Prussia also exploited German nationalist crisis in the Danish controlled duchies of Schleswig and Holstein to gain more territory, and eventually to confront Austria-Hungary for control of Germany. Eventually, Prussia was able to bring much of Germany to heel through diplomacy and war. After Napoleon the III took power in France, Prussia under the auspices of Chancellor Bismark, began to maneuver into war footing both against Austria, and then France - defeating both in decisive wars that ensured the eventual unification of Germany under Prussian control. Prussia remained a powerful internal political entity within the German Reich after this point, right up until its dissolution as a political concept and its ceding as a region to Poland after WWII.

Clark examines this historical path in detail, chronicling both the historical points of note, and tying in important developments in religion, politics and culture within Prussia. The growth of absolutism and the eventual move toward the Prussian Diet was a long political road. The growth of Liberalism in Germany in general, and the revolutionary years of 1848 in Prussia led to massive concessions by the government, and the emergence of Liberal and Conservative factions within the Prussian Diet. Couple this with competing spheres of power from the King and his inner cabinet and what emerges is a political culture of competing spheres. Characters like Bismark emerge and are able to deftly swim the politics of both Germany and Europe, and make a fascinating read. The growth of Germany nationalism and the concept of being German is also interesting from Prussia's perspective. Much like Sardinia-Piedmont in Italy, Prussia sought to create a Germany dominated by Prussia, not one dominated by concepts of nationalism. This often put it both in support of, and at odds with, revolutionary or politically active nationalists throughout Germany. Nationalists were dangerous due to the speed in which they sought to unify Germany, something that would inevitably lead to diplomatic tensions with Prussia's powerful neighbours. Instead, Prussia often avoided radicalism in any form, and sought a slow and conservative growth in influence, marked by periods of rapid advantage seeking.

As Prussia grew, it took on increasing numbers of German's historically from other states, as well as people's from different cultures. Prussia struggled with its religious demographics, as the number of Catholics swelled. Lutherans, Calvinists and Protestants of all stripes could be found throughout the land, causing some strife within the country. The growth of Prussia east saw a swelling number of Jewish and Polish citizens, and Prussia struggled with concepts of acceptance, assimilation and indifference in terms of its cultural makeup.

Clark goes into more depth on each of these topics, and has written a wonderful history text on the growth and decline of Prussia as a State and as a political concept. This is certainly one of the better history books I have had the pleasure of reading, and I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to those interested in the topic.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Christopher Clark's Iron Kingdom offers a dense chronicle of Prussia, from its origins as a minor electorate in the Holy Roman Empire to the center of German unification and empire. Clark's narrative focuses on how Prussia, despite serving as a synecdoche for the less appealing aspects of German history (authoritarianism, unthinking obedience militarist expansion) was for centuries a driving force for European progress, boasting a proud culture of artistic and intellectual pursuits, progressive education systems and efficient government bureaucratic rule for centuries. Not to mention, for much of its history, religious tolerance towards Catholics, Jews and other minorities that often seemed centuries ahead of its time. One's assessment of German history cannot be exclusively defined by its Gotterdammerung in the Third Reich; but also one can hardly ignore its roots in past history and personalities. Thus Clark, in writing such an expansive history, needs to thread his needle very carefully. And he succeeds beautifully.

Clark's book is at its best when chronicling Prussia's various leaders of thought and government, with a focus (though not exclusive) on the Hohenzollerns: a "family on the make" who ruled Prussia for most of its history. Under a succession of rulers, some visionary (Frederick William, the "Great Elector" who wrested increased independence from the morass of the Thirty Years War), others mediocre or worse, the Hohenzollerns transformed the small principality (consisting of northeastern Germany, and much of modern Poland) from a backwater to a major player on the European stage. The early Hohenzollerns were not uniformly brilliant or enlightened, but even in their early stages showed interest in free trade, educational reform and military modernization. At first just another state within the loosely confederated Holy Roman Empire, Prussia began developing a distinct identity which marked it distinct from its peers.

The Prussian state reached its apotheosis under Frederick the Great, whose near-half-century rule (1740-1786) reshaped German, and European history. Fredericks combination of military genius, government reforms, artistic pursuits and grouchy temperament came to represent Germany's Enlightenment. Appropriately, arts and philosophy flourished under Frederick; an amateur musician and inveterate writer (usually in French, as he found the German language repulsive) who courted Voltaire, patronized Bach, reinstituted the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin, commissioned redistribution of farmland and formalized the bureaucratic and structural reforms of his predecessors. His intellectual pursuits were paired with epochal military achievements, particularly in the Seven Years War (1756-1763) where he won a series of improbable victories against an alliance of France, Austria and Russia.

Clark argues that to the extent the myth of "Prussian militarism" rings true, it's the result of the country's unique geography. Located in central Europe between the Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Russia and Sweden, it was scourged in the Thirty Years War, enlisted as a pawn in the various Continental wars of the 18th Century and, after Frederick's brilliant victories in the Seven Years War, defeated and partitioned within an inch of its life by Napoleon. Prussia thus developed its military to ensure some degree of security, and began winning wars rather than merely enduring them. But its pragmatic (one might say devious) approach to foreign policy, playing its powerful neighbors against one another, ensured it was dragged into continental wars, sometimes against its will, often to its detriment. It's wrong to draw a straight line from Frederick to Hitler, but it's easy to interpret this as the seed of later obsessions with "encirclement" and lebensraum that drove so many German leaders to distraction. As, indeed, the veneration of the strong leaders (Frederick most of all, who became the subject of a near-religious cult after the Seven Years War) provided a baleful template for less principled rulers.

Indeed, for all that he lauds the progressivism of Prussia, Clark shows that its system just as easily accommodated reaction. The aristocratic Junker class, for the obvious example, maintained a near-feudal system of control over their subjects, independence from government strictures and heavy influence on agriculture and industry. Clark argues, with some justice, that the Junker system of landownership was more tolerant than many of its contemporaries, at least when first established, in allowing autonomy and encouraging good treatment of tenant farmers. The problem is that it continued well into the 20th Century, when it came increasingly to appear as an archaic relic. Religious acceptance was extended, but only so far (Frederick, although encouraging toleration of Catholics and Jews, pursued oppressive policies against both in Silesia and other occupied territories). And although women (at least, aristocratic women) played a major role in the rise and development of Prussia, after the reign of bachelor Frederick a heavily chauvinist view of society as male-driven reduced them to marginal (though certainly not silent) figures within German culture.

Clark views the 1848 Revolutions in Germany not as a "turning point [which] failed to turn" (in A.J.P. Taylor's famous phrase) but a moment when Prussian history changed, for better and worse. The Frankfurt Parliament laid down a platform of liberal nationalist principles, calling for democratic rights and German unification, viewing the latter as a potential guarantor against the outmoded class systems of extant German states. To the surprise of many, Frederick William IV (r. 1840-1861) sided with the revolutionaries and granted many of their concessions, including the establishment of a constitutional monarch, with an elected Reichstag along with an upper, noble house of Parliament. Yet Frederick William refused to accept enthronement as Emperor of Germany, believing a united German state detrimental to Prussia's health. His successor, Wilhelm I (r. 1861-1888), had no such scruples, and gladly harnessed the ideals of the 1848 rebels to his own, reactionary agenda. Thus, under the aegis of him and Otto von Bismarck, unification was affected in 1871, after victory in the Franco-Prussian War and declaration of the German Empire at Versailles.

Bismarck, unsurprisingly, takes center stage for much of Iron Kingdom's narrative. Long a product both of veneration and scorn, Clark treats him as a complicated figure. Himself a Junker, Bismarck "could not" be a liberal and viewed any concessions to the Left as a means to defang radical opponents. Thus Bismarck liberalized elements of the German welfare state, extended male suffrage and to some degree expanded the power of the Reichstag. But the Iron Chancellor also introduced authoritarian measures: the Kulturkampf (a crackdown on the Catholic Church in Germany), the suppression of dissident and radical groups (outlawing the Social Democratic Party multiple times) and, though he initially opposed it, creation of an overseas colonial empire. Bismarck in turn was swept away by Wilhelm II (1888-1918), who succeeded the throne after his liberal father, Frederick III, died prematurely. In his aggressive weltpolitik, authoritarian delusions at home and erratic personality, the last Kaiser embodied a grotesque caricature of everything German, destroying the country's reputation as a land of artists and liberals prior to the First World War.

Prussia cannot be fairly blamed for the rise of Hitler, as Clark shows; the Nazis were viewed skeptically by Prussian conservatives and struggled to gain a political foothold in that part of the country, whose working and middle classes tended to support Social Democrats and other left parties. Still, Hindenburg and other Prussian elites (including Wilhelm's son the Crown Prince, who persuaded himself Hitler would restore his father to the throne) were complicit in Hitler's rise to power, helped cement his dictatorship and followed him loyally until the last days of World War II. And certainly, Hitler and his propagandists made heavy use of Prussian history to justify their reign: the images of Frederick and Bismarck were invoked as nationalist heroes, their enlightened policies and liberal actions ignored in favor of military achievements and the Fuhrerprinzip. Never mind that Hitler was Austrian, his party's powerbase was in Bavaria and that his Party struggled to gain support in "Red Berlin"; in the interest of propaganda, tying "the Bohemian Corporal" to Prussian heroes and traditions served a great purpose than truth.

This propaganda, of course, cut both ways. After World War II, the Allies wrote Prussia ("the core of Germany" an the "source of recurring pestilence," according to Winston Churchill) out of existence as a political entity by the Allies, more for emotional reasons than factual considerations. Any remnants of the Junker system were disbanded, with the Prussian elite (including the Hohenzollerns) losing their land and property, triggering lawsuits that linger to this day. Such are the wages of stereotypes, which echo into modern historiography and political debates. Today's Germans themselves debate whether Prussia's legacy should be embraced or scorned; English-speakers continue to invoke "Prussianism" as an insult; and Germany's heavy involvement supplying military equipment to Ukraine has raised trepidation about the resurgence of the "Prussian spirit." Clark's book, though a dense, sometimes exhausting read, especially for lay readers without background in the subject, provides a thorough, balanced corrective to that lasting stereotype. If nothing else, for avoiding the usual pitfalls of Anglosphere historians generalizing about the "German character," Clark is to be commended.

[Tristram Shandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prussia – Land of Myths

Prussia, the name alone already evokes a bunch of diverse, often contradictory associations. It makes you think of Frederick II, the philosopher-king, who is renowned for saying that everyone should seek heaven in his own fashion, of reformers like Stein and Hardenberg, who drew the necessary conclusions from shattering military defeats and created a more modern and efficient state, but also of the ludicrously pompous William II, of sabre-rattling, monocle-wearing, heel-clicking officers, military arrogance and cold lust for power, which finally led the whole of Germany into the abyss of National Socialism.

In his fascinating book Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600 – 1947, Christopher Clark shows that all of these associations have to be taken with a grain of salt, and what is more, he also demonstrates that most of these myths – if, like me, you dislike the new-fangled term “narrative” – were deliberately fostered and used by various groups within the Prussian state but also by its enemies. To give you one example, let’s take the Tauroggen Convention, which was brought about by the unauthorized decision of lieutenant general von Yorck to sign an armistice with Russia and to declare the neutrality of his troops. Both the Nazis and the conservative Prussian resisters made use of the example of Yorck, as Clark shows and goes on to conclude:

”For the Nazis, Yorck was the symbol of an oppressed Germany rising up against foreign ‘tyranny’ – for the resisters he represented a transcendant sense of duty that might even, under certain circumstances, articulate itself in an act of treason. We naturally look more kindly on one of these Prussia-myths than on the other. Yet both were selective, talismanic and instrumental. Precisely because it had become so abstract, so etiolated, ‘Prussiandom’ was up for grabs. It was not an identity, not even a memory. It had become a catalogue of disembodied mythical attributes whose historical and ethical significance was, and would, remain in contention.” (p.670)

This concept, of how a dynasty’s quest for political influence and power came to shape identities and myths that were finally bigger than their origins, and what ruptures and contentions occurred during this process, is at the core of Clark’s deftly-written history of Prussia. Reading this made me repeatedly think of whether what he says of “Prussia” might not also be true in its own way of the process that is presently unrolling with regard to “Europe” and the European identity. For, as one contemporary wit said that Prussia was a state that was kept by an army, might we not say that Europe is presently a continent that is kept by a bureaucracy? The one may be as true-untrue as the other, and the difficulties people have in agreeing what is part of “being European” and what isn’t are redolent of the contentions over the essence of “true Prussiandom”.

But let me add some more sentences about the book itself. Clark is really a brilliant writer, who chooses an overall chronological approach leading his readers from the humble beginnings of electorate of Brandenburg to the “merging of Prussia into Germany” and the formal dissolving of Prussia in 1930. Nevertheless, he does not simply concentrate on a history of individual rulers even though he gives fascinating vignettes of the individual rulers’ characters. Instead, he manages to portray structures as well, e.g. by concentrating on questions such as the role of women, religious and ethnic minorities, social and regional conflicts, changes in administration and the military, diplomatic entanglements, and developments in philosophy (especially with regard to the question of the role of the state) and arts. The result is a marvellously caleidoscopic expedition through roughly four hundred years of Prussian history with all its ups and downs. What is more, Clark is a fair chronicler who neither wishes to exculpate nor to demonize. He does not conceal the sometimes ruthless decisions of individual rulers – for example, Frederick II’s starting the Silesian Wars without a formal declaration of war – but he puts them into their historical context, thereby allowing his readers to draw their own conclusions.

This is a work of history that takes its readers seriously and both informs and fascinates. I am looking forward to more books from this outstanding historian.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very enjoyable and comprehensive history of the rise of Prussia and the Hohenzollern dynasty. A strong point is the final chapters on the afterlife of Prussia and its image in Weimar Germany and post-WWII politics of the major powers.

There is not a lot of coverage of WWI, which is fine with me as during the centenary I’ve read some elsewhere (although I may have missed some if my phone Overdrive player turned back on after I dropped it in my purse; it’s a very long book and you might not notice you’d dropped half a file). But there is thorough coverage of the earlier years (from 1600, roughly) and the accomplishments of Frederick the Great. Also clear descriptions, although the detail can sometimes be tough to absorb when you’re listening, of the Prussian strategy during the Napoleonic era and the politics of German unification.

[فهد الفهد · Rating 5 out of 5]

Iron Kingdom

حصلت على هذا الكتاب من متجر قصر شارلوتنبرج في ضواحي برلين، كنت قد حظيت هذا الصيف بفرصة زيارة ألمانيا والطواف بين مدنها لثلاثة أسابيع، من فرانكفورت إلى هامبورغ فبرلين وحتى دريسدن، هذا غير المدن الصغيرة التي كنت أتوقف فيها لزيارة قصر هنا أو معلم هناك.

كانت زيارة ألمانيا حلم من أحلام المراهقة، مع كل تلك القراءات عن الحربين العالميتين، والحرب الباردة، وجدار برلين، كانت ألمانيا والألمان حاضرة دائماً في تاريخ أوروبا الحديث، فلذا لم أقاوم رغبة الحصول على هذا الكتاب الضخم والذي يتناول تاريخ بروسيا وصعودها كقوة أوروبية حتى توحيد الإمارات الألمانية والوصول إلى ألمانيا بشكلها الحديث.

يركز كريستوفر كلارك في كتابه على التاريخ البروسي ويكتب بتعمق عن كل جوانبه، السياسية والاقتصادية والاجتماعية والدينية، متناولاً أهم القادة ورجال الدولة من فريديريك ويلهلم ناخب براندبورغ ودوق بروسيا مروراً بفريديريك العظيم وحتى بسمارك والنازيين، نراقب تحولات بروسيا وتوسعاتها، الصراع بين اللوثريين والكالفينيين، نفهم طموحات فريديريك وحروبه، ثم نتابع دمار بروسيا أمام الجيوش النابليونية، وكذلك الصراع مع إمبراطورية النمسا والمجر على من يكون رأس الأمة الجرمانية، الظروف التي أدت للتوحيد وتبعات الحرب العالمية الأولى والثانية حتى اللحظة التي تم فيها إلغاء بروسيا بعد هزيمة النازيين باعتبارها - من خلال عقيدتها العسكرية- السم الذي ينفث شروره في عروق الألمان، استولى الاتحاد السوفييتي على عاصمة البروسيين القديمة كونغزبيرغ ولازالت حتى اليوم تحت حكم الروس بعدما غير اسمها إلى كالينينغراد وهجر سكانها إلى ألمانيا – تم تهجير 12 مليون ألماني من شرق أوروبا بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية -.

الكتاب رائع ولكنه يحتاج إلى نفس قرائي طويل، من الكتب القليلة التي يمكنني أن أقول أنها أنهكتني.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

We hear the word "Prussian" today and think of a disciplined individual, someone with ramrod straight posture, a man abstemious with pleasure except for perhaps slapping his horse with a riding crop. Sort of like Corporal Himmelstoss from "All Quiet on the Western Front" on a bad day. Slightly deeper historical inquiries go so far as to say that Prussia was a military with a state as its rearguard, or a cult of the martial that led directly and inevitably to the rise of Adolf Hitler (which is a bit of a head-scratcher, since...well, since he wasn't Prussian, except in the way the vague adjective is applied today to mean "uptight.")

Christopher Clark's "Iron Kingdom" goes deeper into the details of Prussia, its military, politics, as well as its cultural developments, to reveal more about the last 350 years of Western European history than maybe any other contemporary secondary source. The book is nearly 700 pages in length, which seems long. Then you realize how much Herr Clark must describe, synthesize, and explain, and the work's size seems a bit miraculous.

Alas, while stating that this book will no doubt enrich and educate you, I should also add the caveat that mileage will vary based on your personal disposition. If you're wonkish and crave minutiae, passages describing the parceling of plots of lands and numbers regarding crop yields or excise taxes will put some spring in your step. If not, reading some section will require a cup of coffee. A large cup of coffee. Black.

On the other hand, if you are one of those readers who hears the words "Germany" and "History" together and expects as much carnage to be described as on a six-hour World War II marathon on the History Channel, you may find yourself disappointed. Battles, developments in military technology, and strategic innovations are all described, but they are integrated into a larger picture of Prussia's struggle to find her identity and define herself in a world where all of her neighbors were hostile and had a vested interest in not only keeping Prussia from developing an identity, but even existing. And considering the success of the empire, you can hardly blame some of these other lands for their paranoia or bellicosity toward Prussia when it looked small enough to crush.

My only personal quibble with the book is that the portions dealing with the 20th century were much too short. Clark rightfully weights his analysis to the years of Frederick the Great, and the various religious and confessional conflicts in Europe, and he does yeoman's work describing the reigns of Frederick the Great's successors, statesmen who (no matter how adept or inept) were bound to lives in the deep shadow of their quixotic forebear.

But it's almost as if, by the time the revolutions and upheavals of the 19th century were over, Clark found himself a bit exhausted. I know I was. Then again, perhaps he implicitly understood that while this epoch in German history was part of the Prussian narrative, it's also the moment where the modern reader starts to recognize some of the names and faces, with whom they're already probably at least somewhat familiar. In the end, Christopher Clark's decision to focus on the lesser known members of the Hohenzollern House, its intriguers, enemies, and heroes, may have been the right one. Recommended, in any case.

[Nemanja Sh · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was impressed by the book up until the moment I started reading the last chapter titled 'Endings.'

In it the author is no longer impartial, neutral but assumes an obvious anti-Prussian stance. This was especially evident in parts where criticism of the Left is ignored or merely mentioned in a short paragraph while entire pages were devoted to criticize conservatives who opposed the total dismantlement of their homeland. I also found some part preposterous like when Rosa Luxembourg and her army of Leftist extremists were presented as martyrs who gave their lives fighting Prussian conservatives - the embodiment of evil. Why was there no mention of their association with an oppressive, violent and intolerant ideology that eventually killed more people than the Nazi regime did? There was only one tiny mention of their affinity for violence and for the imposition of their views on the majority of Germans who never supported their cause or tactics. After all, during their most successful election they merely got 13% of the total vote. Regardless of all these facts, they are presented in a much better light than their ideological opponents.

Even when the author wrote about the rise of the Nazi or the rejuvenation of the Conservative forces in the inter-war period, he never took a closer look in order to understand why that happened. Why did people flock to the conservatives and the Nazis? An entire chapter should have been devoted to failed policies of the Socialists and to their utter incompetence at running the country and in introducing efficient and stable economic and social policies. Their failure to government was the catalyst that brought Hitler to power. At one moment there is mention of SPD's failed agricultural policies which caused prices and food imports to increase. However, the author stopped there and never expanded on what wider consequences on Germany and its people these had.

The worst part comes at a later stage when the author justifies US, French and British efforts at dismantling Prussia. I found it especially hypocritical how British or French did it in order to put an end to Prussian militarism which caused so much evil in the world. How can anyone stomach this when both London and Paris were epicenters of colonialism, an ideology that enslaved whole continents. Prussia was maybe a militarist regime that harassed its neighbors but they were never in the same league as France or the United Kingdom. After all, the UK was closely allied to Belgium, a kingdom which eradicated entire peoples in what is Congo today. Another fine example of hypocrisy in the British Empire's relationship with the Ottoman Empire. What role did London play in prolonging Istanbul's control over the enslaved Christians in the Balkans? How can they then claim that it was their moral duty to put an end to Prussia which caused so much evil? These nations have no moral ground upon which to stand in order to justify their attitude towards Prussia.

All in all, the ending was extremely disappointing. An unbiased approach to this era of Prussian history would have made this book an absolute masterpiece. This setup merely makes it another piece of Anglo-Saxon, anti-Prussian propaganda.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book years ago and enjoyed it and thought it brilliant. I tried to reread it during the COVID lock-down and found it hard going. So now I am divided on the book - and I am divided about Christopher Clark because I have been unimpressed by some of his other works - and non academic activities. But I think it is a book anyone interested in German history must read.

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Punto de partida para el interesado en Prusia; nada más pero nada menos.-

Género. Ensayo.

Lo que nos cuenta. En el libro El reino de hierro (publicación original: Iron Kingdom, 2006) se ofrece un acercamiento a Prusia, desde que era un pequeño territorio en Brandenburgo hasta que es eliminada por decreto tras la Segunda Guerra Mundial, pasando por su crecimiento, posicionamiento como una potencia europea y “agente aglutinante” (incluso algo más...) del Imperio Alemán.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Maitrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The history of Prussia has been written, and re-written many times, but this one probably nailed it. As an Australian, now working at Cambridge University, the author Christopher Clark has "no obligation (or temptation) either to lament or celebrate the Prussian record". Instead Clark "aims to understand all the forces that made, and unmade Prussia."

The caricature of Prussia is more popular unfortunately, than the real thing according to Clark. As one contemporary put it, Prussia was not a state with an army, but an army with a state, "where it was quartered, so to speak". Clark takes great efforts to dispel this myth, and many others beside in this massive book.

Starting of with a brief introduction to the Mark of Brandenburg, the geographical area which houses Berlin and the heart of what we would call Prussia, Clark swiftly moves to the creation of Prussia proper with fortuitous marriage alliances and trades by the House of Hohenzollern. The trauma of the Thirty Years War on the Prussian and German psyche is also explored. I learnt a lot about early modern European history as Clark deftly weaves a story with all the early Prussian kings, especially Frederick II ( "the Great") and their interactions with the other European Great Powers. Half-way through, we tackle Napoleon and his long-lasting effects on the Iron Kingdom (especially, its sudden doubling in size, thanks to the addition of the Rhineland to Prussia after the congress of Vienna).

Clark doesn't cover just military and political history. A large portion is devoted to cultural history, he also males a strong case for Prussia as a center of Enlightenment especially under Frederick William I and his son Frederick the Great (almost all of the 18th Century and beyond). Prussia was also one of the first European states to emancipate the Jews, and Jews, Poles and other minorities are much discussed throughout the book. Religious movements such as those of the Pietists (a Lutheran sub-sect roughly half way between the Hohenzollerns who were Calvinists, and the public who were Lutherans) is also explained, especially the long lasting effects of the Pietist way of thinking on Prussia. Even the education reforms carried out by the state would have long lasting changes leading to very efficient bureaucracy. In fact, the cornerstone of the Western education system such as the inculcation of thinking, and emphasis on research and critical analysis, even in early schooling was a Prussian invention.

The last few chapters are devoted to the tumultuous 19th Century revolutions, culminating in the creation of Germany, thanks to Bismarck and a host of others. The problem of a Prussia-in-Germany, and how it was never solved, and also the conflicting chains of military and civilian command are very well explained.

The only criticism I can lay at the book's feet are the decades leading up to WWI, the chapters are quite jumbled, jumping from one instance to the other. However Clark is back to his best with Nazism and Prussianism, and how equating the two of them is absurd. Unfortunately Germany lost, and was dismembered by the Allied leaders who very much believed in that fact. Now, most of historical Prussia is in Poland, while East Prussia's erstwhile capital of Konigsburg is an Russian exclave of Kalningrad.

Overall, I'd like to think that the narration of this book has imbibed much that is good in Prussia, it is straight forward, very clear and objective. A landmark not only on the historiography of Prussia but also on how modern history books should be written.

[Boudewijn · Rating 2 out of 5]

An extensive book about the rise of Prussia, maily focussing on cultural and religious aspects

This book turned out to be a little bit different than I first expected. The book mainly focusses on the period of the Frederickian Kings and is mainly focussed on cultural and religious aspects of Prussian society. The wars that shaped the Prussian state are mentioned, but not in detail.

The main problem that I had with this book was that it was to academic; therefore lacking in an overall readability that you might expect from such a topic. In the end I found myself skipping certain parts of the book, because I got a little bit fed up with reading about the religious changes again ...

[Czarny Pies · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the Wolfson Prize is a very reliable barometer, it came as no surprise to me that the Iron Kingdom was an extremely good book. I enjoyed reading it greatly and came away feeling that I had acquired a much better understanding of Germany history because of it.

North Americans have a great deal of trouble understanding European history because the European nations are amalgams of older nations and multiple ethnic groups. North American history was a roll-out that began on the Atlantic Ocean. The Anglo-Saxon settlers advance steadily towards the Pacific Ocean taking with them a common set of social customs and laws. Once a critical mass was achieved in a given geographical region, the area entered the union as a state. Thus America is what has always been. It has simply expanded and increased its population.


In contrast, the modern European nations are all very new having been created in the 19th century. Creating the European nations meant forcing multiple linguistic groups and multiple smaller states into a large unit. To do so usually required destroying old political elites and compelling populations with different languages and religious groups to live together. The North American reader gets lost reading a history of Germany or Italy that begins in the 18th Century because neither state existed before 1871 in anything resembling the modern form.

Clark solves the problem for the North American reader by taking Prussia and following its roll-out from the East to the West as it grew from a small state until it was able to unify all of the German speaking people north of the alps with the creation of the German Empire under the Prussian Kaiser in 1871. Clark's approach means that he is able to show how the Prussian King ruled, shared power with the nobility and allowed his kingdom to transform itself into a constitutional monarchy without being burdened by the need to describe the similar processes in the many German states, principalities, free cities and bishop's jurisdictions that also existed in the geographic region occupied by German Reich that initiated WWI. In other words instead of a great false parallels and superficial comparisons the reader gets a complete view of the events in what became the dominant state in the German empire.

In addition to this very solid political history, Clark does an outstanding job describing the interplay between the Jewish Reformed, Lutheran, and Catholic Churches as well as the factions within each of these larger religious groups.

Clark makes no effort on the other hand to write an economic history of Prussia. Similarly, he does not cover either labour history or the growth of socialist political parties. Thus the strikes and rebellions which brought down the Hohenzollern dynasty in 1919 come as unexplained bolts out of the blue. However, he would have needed to write two more 800 page books to adequately deal with these two aspects of Prussian history. Clarke, above all, should be praised for how brilliantly he examined the topics that he selected.

[Anisa Widyasari · Rating 5 out of 5]

"To equate Hitler with Frederick the Great, and Nazi Germany with Prussia, is a ludicrous perversion of history. The idea that one of Europe’s most enlightened and gifted Monarchs prefigured one of the most repellent dictators in modern history is simply absurd."

Those words of Prof. Clark on BBC 4's documentary "Frederick the Great and the Enigma of Prussia" was the trigger that led mo to this book. I was instantly captivated by the way Prof. Clark delivering his history lesson on said documentary, and after some searching I finally found this book.

I've been interested with European History since forever, and the dissolution of this once very powerful force in Europe has been poking on my curiosity. Was it really necessary for the Allies to erase Prussia from history? Was Prussia really, like Churchill once said to the British Parliament, the core of Germany, and the source of its recurring pestilence?

This book, just like how I expected, delivers the history of a nation in a very intimate way, as if telling you the biography of a person. It tells how this nation was born, struggling to live and finally die. Unlike other history references about Prussia that seem to emphasize on its militarism, this book gives a better insight into the nation as a country (from its culture, its efficient government, its education system and its religious tolerance). With such a diverse topics, it is magnificent how this book could maintain our interest from wavering. This book was done in a Prussian manner; it's straightforward, orderly, reliable, uniquely sincere and of course, fascinating.

To make a long review short, this book offers a refreshing and interesting view of Prussia. Without trying to celebrate or mourn over the fading memory of this forgotten kingdom, Prof. Clark successfully deliver a rare objective view of the often misjudged Prussia.

I recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in history, or just trying to find a good read.

[Igor Ljubuncic · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

This is a decent book if somewhat too prosaic and academic at times. The author uses a fairly convoluted language to explain concepts, which detract from the essence of the story, and make sense in a lecture for very narrow-field enthusiasts than in a book aimed at general populace (using the word liberally).

That said, Iron Kingdom is a very cool book, covering some 350 years of Prussia, from the early days of the Hohenzollern dynastry to the dissolution of Prussia after WW2. You get everything - the insight into the Junkers class, the personalities and feats of different Prussian kings - including Frederick the Great and Bismarck, the education, taxation and administration, the military discipline, the wars. Colorful and covers pretty much every angle of the Prussian society.

It also touches on the rise of liberalism and nationalism after the 1848 revolutions, and the deep impact these had on pretty much everything that has happened since. People nowadays would also get a wrong impression of what liberalism and nationalism meant back then, compared to how we classify that today. Then, there's the expansion of Prussia into the German Empire, and then, the final chapter, essentially a battle between Communism and Nationalism that erupted in WW1, simmered through the Weimar Republic, and eventually led to WW2.

The ending feels a bit rushed - there's little focus on what the Prussian "state" or elite did during WW2, and there's only a generic focus on how Prussia behaved in the scope of the wider German nation in those days, but mostly in the sense of state function and not how the topic was tackled in the earlier chapters. Perhaps by this time, Prusssia was actually meaningless? To me, it leaves a few open questions, but it does not seriously detract from the depth and quality of Iron Kingdom.

If you like history, you definitely want to read this. Can be a heavy ready here and there, but it's a good, immersive book, with lots of fascinating detail.

Igor

[Shoti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prussia’s emergence as a European superpower over the 17th-19th centuries reminded me of Amazon, Facebook or Google. These corporate giants are dominating their industries even though they were nonexistent just a few decades ago. Prussia also set off as a small ‘startup’ when a wealthy Hohenzollern merchant purchased the Brandenburg territory in 1417. Brandenburg was a backward and irrelevant region within the utterly fragmented ‘Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation’. By gradually expanding from this miniature enclave the Hohenzollern dynasty managed to build up a powerful European monarchy in the shadow of and stiff competition with the already well-established British, French, Habsburg or Russian empires. The carousel of history presented the Hohenzollern with plenty of opportunities as well as challenges, occasionally pushing them to the brink of elimination. Prussia reached its zenith under Bismarck when it emerged victorious in quick succession against the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1866) and France (1870). Ironically, the ensuing unification of Germany under Prussian auspices in 1871 implied the beginning of Prussia’s absorption within the more encompassing German national state. The Nazi selectively used those elements of Prussian history and tradition which conveniently served their political purposes. They simply airbrushed away ‘unpleasant’ facts about the Prussian past such as the era of Prussian enlightenment, the emancipation of Jews or the Frederick the Great’s admiration of French and disdain for German culture. This distorted and opportunistic reading of the Prussian past by the Nazi propaganda machine not only had a great effect on the Allies but also significantly influences our current superficial perception of Prussia.

[Florian Lorenzen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christopher Clarks Preußen-Porträt ist eines der besten Geschichtsbücher, welches ich bisher gelesen habe. Es bringt die Ambivalenz Preußens zwischen Millitarismus und Aufklärung, die so unterschiedliche Persönlichkeiten wie Moses Mendelsohn, Paul von Hindenburg, Immanuel Kant oder Carl von Clausewitz hervorgebracht hat, perfekt auf den Punkt.

Vollständige Review hier: https://www.instagram.com/p/CdpoQjEOHO1

[Rindis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prussia weighed heavily on the collective mind of Europe during the 19th and 20th Centuries. My history classes generally blamed the formation of Germany for throwing off the structure of international power in Europe and causing two World Wars. And at the end of WWII, the Western Allies also felt that 'Prussia' was behind Germany's warlike ways and redrew the map of Germany to get rid of the name. Nearly sixty years later, 'Prussia' still brings up stereotypes that lie at the root of current German stereotypes.

Christopher Munro Clark's Iron Kingdom traces the history of Prussia from about 1600 (or, of Brandenburg, just before it acquired Prussia, later known as 'East Prussia'), though its official dissolution in 1947. Along the way, he takes a good look at the institutions as well as the events and people that shaped the Prussian state. I found the last parts of the book very interesting as he traces some very familiar events from the point of view of Prussia instead of Germany. Since the German Empire did not fully absorb its member states, but Prussia was by far the dominant member, there were some odd administrative fits.

Despite this, much of the lead up and progress of WWI is barely glossed over. It is one of several places where having some idea of the regular history is needed as Clark does not hash it out for you. But one of the most fascinating sections is the interwar years, where he shows that the Prussian administration was a bit more willing to curb the rise of the Nazi party than the German administration. Otto Braun (Prussian Prime Minister) and Albert Grzesinski (Police Chief of Berlin) nearly had Hitler arrested and ejected from the country, but would have been blocked by Heinrich Brüning (Chancellor of Germany). This sort of tension is played up throughout the entire section, before moving on to how various people (including both Hitler and Churchill) played upon the idea of 'Prussianism' to try and promote their idea of the character of 'Germany'.

In all, it is a very good overview of a bit more than three centuries of history. I think it gets a little too dependent on the reader knowing some details of the Napoleonic Wars, and WWI, and so on, but the type of person interested in this book will probably already have the bare essentials needed already.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

The name of Prussia has come to stand for many things, very few of them good. Stiff automans stomping in perfect formation through various military parades. In particular the values and mores ascribed to Prussia were seen as being the germ that led or at least enabled The Nazi horrors. The British military command in common with the other Allies were adamant in banning the very name, with the following quote being symptomatic,"Prussia has been a menace to European society for the past 200 years. The survival of the Prussian state, even if only in name, would provide a base for any nationalist claims the German people may put forward in the future".

Chistopher Clark, painstakingly shows the evolution of Prussia from the chronically weak Brandenburg ravaged by the 30 years war as the most powerless of states leaving the Hohenzollerns so traumatized that they spent the years growing their territorial and military power generation by generation. Culminating in the successive victories over the Danes, Austrians and France setting the stage for Bismarck to ride a wave of nationalist fervor and create Germany. A Germany founded in the belief that Prussian arms would and should always carry the day.

Throughout the book the rise of militarism is explained and put into a wider context and time is takento show that their were other sides to Prussia, universal education, a generous welfare system and philosophers like Hegel and above it all a dedicated and reform driven government civil service.

The book itself is good in parts, I particularly enjoyed the description of the Schwelsig-Holstein controversy " ...it has always been taxing to follow, the more so as nearly everyone involved is called either Frederick or Christian". However it is in turn taxing as I found an awful lot about things I had little idea I wanted to know and little about some like Bismarck or the Weimar I did want to hear about.

[Lois · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was extremely thorough.
I honestly think I'll read this again once I get a better grasp on this period and place in history.
This is less about the individuals who held the throne and more about how the culture and country was formed.
Very interesting.

[Zouina Sid Ahmed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two words: incredibly informative.
would recommend to anyone who wants to get into the Prussian Empire and it's history.

[Jakob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive history of Prussia from its beginnings with the ascension of the Hohenzollern dynasty to the throne of the margraviate of Brandenburg in the 15th century to the abolishment of the entity called Prussia by the Allies in 1947. It touches on dynastic, economic, diplomatic, military, gender, political and social aspects of the history. Of course 700 pages are not enough space to cover all of these topics in depth for a period of half a millenium.

Especially for the time after the foundation of the German Reich in 1871 I think that social aspects fell a bit short. I feel that social developments have been rather important for Bismarck’s interior policy as well as for the development of Prussia as a stronghold of social democracy within the Reich throughout the Kaiserzeit and until the Nazi seizure of power, but Clark barely mentions social developments during this time span.