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The Politics of the Prussian Army 1640-1945
The Politics of the Prussian Army won the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize of the American Historical Society in 1956.
560 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1955
8 people are currently reading
212 people want to read
About the author
Gordon A. Craig
55 books18 followersBorn in Glasgow, Gordon Craig emigrated with his family in 1925, initially to Toronto, Canada, and then to Jersey City, New Jersey. Initially interested in studying the law, he switched to history after hearing the historian Walter "Buzzer" Hall lecture at Princeton University. In 1935, Craig visited and lived for several months in Germany, to research a thesis he was writing on the downfall of the Weimar Republic. This trip marked the beginning of lifelong interest with all things German. Craig did not enjoy the atmosphere of Nazi Germany, and throughout his life, he sought to find the answer to the question of how a people who, in his opinion, had made a disproportionately large contribution to Western civilization, allowed themselves to become entangled in what Craig saw as the corrupting embrace of Nazism.
Of Adolf Hitler, Craig once wrote,
"Adolf Hitler was sui generis, a force without a real historical past... dedicated to the acquisition of power for his own gratification and to the destruction of a people whose existence was an offense to him and whose annihilation would be his crowning triumph. Both the grandiose barbarism of his political vision and the moral emptiness of his character make it impossible to compare him in any meaningful way with any other German leader. He stands alone"
Craig graduated in history from Princeton University, was a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College, Oxford, from 1936 to 1938, and served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a captain and in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. In 1941, he co-edited with Edward Mead Earle and Felix Gilbert, on behalf of the American War Department, the book Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought From Machiavelli to Hitler, which was intended to serve as a guide to strategic thinking for military leaders during the war.
After 1945, Craig worked as a consultant to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the State Department, the U.S. Air Force Academy and the Historical Division of the U.S. Marine Corps. He was a professor at Princeton University from 1950–61 and at Stanford University from 1961-79. In 1956-1957, he taught at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. In addition, he often held visiting professorships at the Free University of Berlin; in 1967, Craig was the only professor there to sign a petition asking for an investigation into charges of police brutality towards protesting students. Craig was chair of the history department at Stanford in 1972-1975 and 1978-1979. Between 1975-1985, he served as the vice-president of the Comité International des Sciences Historiques. In 1979, he became an emeritus professor and was awarded the title J. E. Wallace Sterling Professor of Humanities.
During his time at Stanford, Craig was considered to be a popular and innovative teacher who improved both undergraduate and graduate teaching, while remaining well liked by the students. After his retirement, he worked as a book reviewer for the New York Review of Books. Some of his reviews attracted controversy, most notably in April 1996, when he praised Daniel Goldhagen's book Hitler's Willing Executioners and later in September of the same year when he argued that David Irving's work was valuable because of what Craig saw as Irving's devil's advocate role. Craig argued that Irving was usually wrong, but that by promoting what Craig saw as a twisted and wrongheaded view of history with a great deal of élan, Irving forced other historians to fruitfully examine their beliefs about what is known about the Third Reich.
Craig was formerly President of the American Historical Association. In 1953, together with his friend Felix Gilbert, he edited a prosopography of inter-war diplomats entitled The Diplomats, an important source for diplomatic history in the interwar period. He followed this book with studies on the Prussian Army, the Battle of Königgrätz and many aspects of European and Ger
Of Adolf Hitler, Craig once wrote,
"Adolf Hitler was sui generis, a force without a real historical past... dedicated to the acquisition of power for his own gratification and to the destruction of a people whose existence was an offense to him and whose annihilation would be his crowning triumph. Both the grandiose barbarism of his political vision and the moral emptiness of his character make it impossible to compare him in any meaningful way with any other German leader. He stands alone"
Craig graduated in history from Princeton University, was a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College, Oxford, from 1936 to 1938, and served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a captain and in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. In 1941, he co-edited with Edward Mead Earle and Felix Gilbert, on behalf of the American War Department, the book Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought From Machiavelli to Hitler, which was intended to serve as a guide to strategic thinking for military leaders during the war.
After 1945, Craig worked as a consultant to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the State Department, the U.S. Air Force Academy and the Historical Division of the U.S. Marine Corps. He was a professor at Princeton University from 1950–61 and at Stanford University from 1961-79. In 1956-1957, he taught at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. In addition, he often held visiting professorships at the Free University of Berlin; in 1967, Craig was the only professor there to sign a petition asking for an investigation into charges of police brutality towards protesting students. Craig was chair of the history department at Stanford in 1972-1975 and 1978-1979. Between 1975-1985, he served as the vice-president of the Comité International des Sciences Historiques. In 1979, he became an emeritus professor and was awarded the title J. E. Wallace Sterling Professor of Humanities.
During his time at Stanford, Craig was considered to be a popular and innovative teacher who improved both undergraduate and graduate teaching, while remaining well liked by the students. After his retirement, he worked as a book reviewer for the New York Review of Books. Some of his reviews attracted controversy, most notably in April 1996, when he praised Daniel Goldhagen's book Hitler's Willing Executioners and later in September of the same year when he argued that David Irving's work was valuable because of what Craig saw as Irving's devil's advocate role. Craig argued that Irving was usually wrong, but that by promoting what Craig saw as a twisted and wrongheaded view of history with a great deal of élan, Irving forced other historians to fruitfully examine their beliefs about what is known about the Third Reich.
Craig was formerly President of the American Historical Association. In 1953, together with his friend Felix Gilbert, he edited a prosopography of inter-war diplomats entitled The Diplomats, an important source for diplomatic history in the interwar period. He followed this book with studies on the Prussian Army, the Battle of Königgrätz and many aspects of European and Ger
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 11, 2023
Craig's work still stands as one of the most important studies extant on German militarism. Written during the first two decades after the end of World War II, The Politics of the Prussian Army, also gives burgeoning historians insight into the state of historiography dealing with Germany during this period. It is comprehensive, institutionally oriented, and far afield from the current generation's emphasis on class, sex, and race. Rather, Craig describes not only the Prussianization of the German army but the Prussianization of the German nation. At the same time, he also traces the rise of the Prussian/German military as an independent political force, subject to nobody--not even the kaiser during World War I. I don't know if this work is still taught in undergraduate studies or graduate seminars. It should be.
January 22, 2013
An indispensable work of history that goes a long way towards explaining the greatest calamities of the 20th century. Well-written, but written for the specialist rather than the layman. Parenthetically, it can (and should) also be read as a cautionary tale, viz. the increasingly central importance that military institutions have assumed within the modern United States.
December 2, 2012
Excellent book on the inner workings of the Prussian (and later, German) army. I would recommend this anyone interested in 19th and 20th century European military history.
Currently reading
March 16, 2008I am currently reading this book, and it is an extremely good book. The thing that stands out most in my mind already, is just how fortunate we are here in the U.S., that we have civilian control of the military. If you want to see what it looks like for a professional officer corps that is completely detached from the popular control of its citizenry to formulate military policy, read this book.
October 24, 2013
I feel like I should put out a warning. I read this on a kindle and it has to be one of the worst translations, I have ever read on a kindle. Who transcribed the book into a kindle format should be ashamed of themselves. I love count of the number of typos. Luckily, the typos are placed too close together that the meaning of the sentences are lost in most most cases. I also disliked the fact there was little to no formatting of the sections or the fact there was no hyperlink to the footnotes.
All that being said, this was recommended by a friend and was well worth the read. As a student of the Imperial and Wiemar Germany, I was engrossed in Craig's descriptions of the Prussian/German Army and the audacity and the arrogance that they had was able to completely take over almost any section of the German government they wished. I was also impressed how scathing and vicious Craig was on the German High Command from 1930 to 1945. He was able to show they had turned their backs on the tradition and the reason that the army wanted to be a state within the state and did everything but openly accuse the German Generals in World War II of moral cowardice and traitor to the fundamental idea of the Prussian Army which was that the Army existed to protect the nation against all real or perceived enemies both internal and external.
All that being said, this was recommended by a friend and was well worth the read. As a student of the Imperial and Wiemar Germany, I was engrossed in Craig's descriptions of the Prussian/German Army and the audacity and the arrogance that they had was able to completely take over almost any section of the German government they wished. I was also impressed how scathing and vicious Craig was on the German High Command from 1930 to 1945. He was able to show they had turned their backs on the tradition and the reason that the army wanted to be a state within the state and did everything but openly accuse the German Generals in World War II of moral cowardice and traitor to the fundamental idea of the Prussian Army which was that the Army existed to protect the nation against all real or perceived enemies both internal and external.
November 20, 2011
The title makes the book sound like some obscure, arcane text of interest only to historians. That couldn't be further from the truth. This is really a book about the rise and ultimate tragedy of the German Empire, and the central role that the Prussian (eventually German) Army had in those events. The book details how Prussia went from being a back-water German principality to the dominant land-based military on the European continent, and then how the hubris of that army contributed directly to the the dual debacles that were the two World Wars.
May 31, 2021
Excellent study of the baleful influence of the Prussian/German army on the nation’s politics and of their own arrogant belief that the military was the rightful keepers of Prussia/Germany’s social order. Their influence was broken with the election of Hitler and the generals became moral cowards obsessed with the technical side of their duties while he destroyed the army and the nation.
September 5, 2022
Appreciated how focused it was on the army and it’s politics. No side tracking. With that it’s really not a book on 1640-1945. The first 160 years are one chapter. Book really begins with the response to Napoleon.
April 11, 2013
An outstanding chronicle of an organization that grew so good at its job that it ultimately failed. I found this book to be utterly fascinating.
July 29, 2011
No - it's not a cookbook - its about 300 years of the politics of the Prussian army (although the older stuff is a little sketchy
Not for everyone - and not an easy read - but good solid history.
Not for everyone - and not an easy read - but good solid history.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews