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Preussen ohne Legende (Stern Buch)
Preußenlegenden gibt es in exakt zwei Geschmacksrichtungen: für und wider. Der jüngst verstorbene Sebastian Haffner, Deutschlands bedeutendster historischer Essayist, konfrontiert Liebhaber und Verächter mit den historischen Tatsachen. Der Titel des Buches verspricht nicht zuviel. Wer es aus der Hand legt, dürfte im allgemeinen reicher an Einsichten über den Staat Preußen sein als zuvor. Als das Werk vor 20 Jahren zum ersten Mal erschien, war Deutschland geteilt und der östliche Staat, die DDR, begann gerade, sich sehr vorsichtig von antipreußischen Reflexen zu befreien, Preußen als Teil der eigenen Geschichte ins Recht zu setzen. Jetzt, 1999, zieht die Regierung des vereinten Deutschlands von Bonn in die einstige Hauptstadt Preußens. Eine gute Zeit für eine Neuauflage von Haffners behutsamer und nüchterner Würdigung.
Haffner räumt mit den Verteufelungslegenden auf: Weder war die Hybris des Kaiserreiches noch gar das Regime der Nazis genuin preußisch. Haffner zeigt: Der Ur-Preuße Bismarck hatte mit der Reichseinigung von 1871 Preußen den Todesstoß versetzt. Haffner räumt ebenso mit liebgewordenen Vorstellungen auf: Preußens Toleranz zum Beispiel beruht auf Indifferenz. Solange die Leute taten, was von ihnen verlangt wurde, war dem Staat egal, in welche Kirche sie gingen.
Dem Siedler-Verlag ist für die Illustrierung des Taschenbuchs zu danken: Rund 200 Abbildungen machen aus den 535 Seiten auch ein preußisches Bilderbuch. Dabei haben sich die Herausgeber besondere Mühe gegeben, eher unübliche, selten gezeigte Ansichten zu bieten. --Michael Winteroll
358 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1971
48 people are currently reading
447 people want to read
About the author
Sebastian Haffner
37 books173 followersSebastian Haffner (the pseudonym for Raimund Pretzel) was a German journalist and author whose focus was the history of the German Reich (1871-1945). His books dealt with the origins and course of the First World War, the failure of the Weimar Republic and the subsequent rise and fall of Nazi Germany under Hitler.
In 1938 he emigrated from Nazi Germany with his Jewish fiancée to London, hardly able to speak English but becoming rapidly proficient in the language. He adopted the pseudonym Sebastian Haffner so that his family back in Germany would not be endangered by his writing.
Haffner wrote for the London Sunday newspaper, The Observer, and then became its editor-in-chief. In 1954, he became its German correspondent in Berlin, a position which he kept until the building of the Berlin Wall.
He wrote for the German newspaper, Die Welt, until 1962, and then until 1975 was a columnist for the Stern magazine. Haffner was a frequent guest on the television show Internationaler Frühschoppen and had his own television program on the German channel, Sender Freies Berlin.
In 1938 he emigrated from Nazi Germany with his Jewish fiancée to London, hardly able to speak English but becoming rapidly proficient in the language. He adopted the pseudonym Sebastian Haffner so that his family back in Germany would not be endangered by his writing.
Haffner wrote for the London Sunday newspaper, The Observer, and then became its editor-in-chief. In 1954, he became its German correspondent in Berlin, a position which he kept until the building of the Berlin Wall.
He wrote for the German newspaper, Die Welt, until 1962, and then until 1975 was a columnist for the Stern magazine. Haffner was a frequent guest on the television show Internationaler Frühschoppen and had his own television program on the German channel, Sender Freies Berlin.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 8, 2025
1978 ein Bestseller. Die Legende, die Haffner meint, ist die vom preußischen Militarismus und seinen Traditionen, die im Nationalsozialismus ihre Fortsetzung fanden - und die von Bismarck als Retter Preußens. Die Legenden sind heute wohl weitgehend überholt. Haffners wenig distanzierter essayistischer Stil berührt mich als Leser 2025 daher emotional nicht mehr und das Buch wirkt ein wenig angestaubt. Dennoch, aus der Sicht seiner Zeit ein bedeutendes Buch über ein Thema das wohl lange ideologisch sehr aufgeladen war.
August 13, 2021
This is a really interesting and quite readable + short history of Prussia, focused mainly on the period from 1701 to the creation of the German empire in 1870. It does a great job of giving a sense of what distinguished Prussia from other German states, and argues that after the creation of Germany Prussia's distinctiveness began to erode much more dramatically than that of other historical regions within the country. I particularly appreciated Haffner's argument that Prussia was--until the French Revolution--the quintessential Enlightenment state: highly rationalized, fairly tolerant, also absolutist and defined by a universal duty to the state.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about how Prussia fits into German history or geopolitics in the 1700s.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about how Prussia fits into German history or geopolitics in the 1700s.
August 19, 2024
"Pruisen hoefde er niet te zijn. De wereld kon het missen. Het wilde er zijn. Niemand had dit kleine land in de groep van Europese grote mogendheden genood. Het drong zich op, en drong zich in. Maar hoe het dat een halve eeuw lang klaarspeelde, vol vernuft, sluwheid, onbeschaamdheid, arglist en heldenmoed, dat is een bezienswaardig schouwspel. "
Wat wist ik van Pruisen voor dit boek? Ijzervreters, militarisme, agressie, oorlog, jonckers, ijzeren discipline, Bismarck en de Duitse eenmaking . Maar na het lezen van dit boek lijkt de waarheid veel genuanceerder. Pruisen was veel meer dan dat. Pruisen ontstond uit een mengeling van volkeren en was multicultureel, was tolerant op godsdienstig vlak, schafte als één der eerste landen foltering af. In de achttiende en begin negentiende eeuw was het verrassend liberaal en vooruitstrevend. Ironisch dat Bismarck, dé Pruis bij uitstek, het doodvonnis van Pruisen schreef met de eenmaking van Duitsland. Pruisen werd zo slechts een deel van Duitsland. Of zoals Willem I, de Pruisische koning, de dag voor zijn kroning tot keizer van Duitsland zei : "Morgen is de ongelukkigste dag van mijn leven. Dan dragen we ket koningschap van Pruisen ten grave."
Wat wist ik van Pruisen voor dit boek? Ijzervreters, militarisme, agressie, oorlog, jonckers, ijzeren discipline, Bismarck en de Duitse eenmaking . Maar na het lezen van dit boek lijkt de waarheid veel genuanceerder. Pruisen was veel meer dan dat. Pruisen ontstond uit een mengeling van volkeren en was multicultureel, was tolerant op godsdienstig vlak, schafte als één der eerste landen foltering af. In de achttiende en begin negentiende eeuw was het verrassend liberaal en vooruitstrevend. Ironisch dat Bismarck, dé Pruis bij uitstek, het doodvonnis van Pruisen schreef met de eenmaking van Duitsland. Pruisen werd zo slechts een deel van Duitsland. Of zoals Willem I, de Pruisische koning, de dag voor zijn kroning tot keizer van Duitsland zei : "Morgen is de ongelukkigste dag van mijn leven. Dan dragen we ket koningschap van Pruisen ten grave."
June 10, 2013
Haffner was a newspaper man. I suspect a very good one. Evidently his commentary on German TV in the 60's and 70's is still fondly remembered as straight talking comment. There was too much dissembling by the centre right during the cold war in Europe and Haffner must have been like a breath of fresh air.
This book is straight talking and while not journalistic is certainly to the point. He covers 600 years of history in 192 pages. It is history by a non historian and I think the slow build up of evidence with proper footnotes might have served his cause better. The structure is also a bit wobbly here and there.
I was tempted to call his approach impressionistic or a word picture but I think that it is more like the difference between writing about history and writing about politics. He zeros in on the points he wants to make about Prussia and he makes them very well. He is critical of the teleological view of Prussian history. Prussia was not the father of Hitlers Germany. Prussia was the accidental father of modern Germany like Savoy was the accidental father of modern Italy.
While Prussia at various times was aggressive and opportunistic towards its neighbours it was also at various times a keeper of the peace. Haffner makes the point that Prussia was not terribly different to other European states during the 17th and 18th century in its mixture of diplomacy and war as an instrument of state policy.
Prussia had a strange birth as the unloved successor state to the Teutonic warrior kingdom. It's early history was a bloody mix of crusade and colonization. The pagan Prussians as an indigenous race could have been wiped out, no one is sure, but they were so drastically reduced that it matters little. They for all intents and purposes disappeared as a society and culture. There was so much unrelentless bloodshed in trying to convert the pagans that the land was depopulated and so colonizers were called for and they came from all over Europe. This process continued after the Hohenzollern took over. Germans, French, Dutch, Catholic, Protestant all came to take up the empty lands. German may have been the lingua franca of this state but it was no means a German State. Most of it was not even in the Holy Roman Empire. It was a mess of a entity spread out from what is now the east and north of Poland to the Rhine to the south of Germany in a hotch potch.
Prusssia went through various incarnations. Once as the most Enlightened state in Europe but it was as a rational state that asked its citizens to pay taxes and fight in its army but after that that state left its citizens alone.
'The eighteenth-century Prussian state was denominationally indifferent, nationally indifferent and socially indifferent.' ..."An extreme illustration is the true story of the cavalryman who had committed sodomy with his horse. Sodomy in eighteenth-century Europe was regarded as more or less the most hideous crime there was — punished everywhere by death in the most painful manner. Frederick the Great’s judgement was: ‘Have the swine transferred to the infantry.’ "
The next incarnation was as one of the reactionary states that included Russia, and Austria-Hungary. This was an alliance to squash any Liberal tendencies in each others countries or indeed other countries.
In the end though the nation state that Prussia ended up Creating namely the German Empire ended up subsuming Prussia and indeed destroying its constitutionally special place in the Reich by Hitlers regime.
This book is straight talking and while not journalistic is certainly to the point. He covers 600 years of history in 192 pages. It is history by a non historian and I think the slow build up of evidence with proper footnotes might have served his cause better. The structure is also a bit wobbly here and there.
I was tempted to call his approach impressionistic or a word picture but I think that it is more like the difference between writing about history and writing about politics. He zeros in on the points he wants to make about Prussia and he makes them very well. He is critical of the teleological view of Prussian history. Prussia was not the father of Hitlers Germany. Prussia was the accidental father of modern Germany like Savoy was the accidental father of modern Italy.
While Prussia at various times was aggressive and opportunistic towards its neighbours it was also at various times a keeper of the peace. Haffner makes the point that Prussia was not terribly different to other European states during the 17th and 18th century in its mixture of diplomacy and war as an instrument of state policy.
Prussia had a strange birth as the unloved successor state to the Teutonic warrior kingdom. It's early history was a bloody mix of crusade and colonization. The pagan Prussians as an indigenous race could have been wiped out, no one is sure, but they were so drastically reduced that it matters little. They for all intents and purposes disappeared as a society and culture. There was so much unrelentless bloodshed in trying to convert the pagans that the land was depopulated and so colonizers were called for and they came from all over Europe. This process continued after the Hohenzollern took over. Germans, French, Dutch, Catholic, Protestant all came to take up the empty lands. German may have been the lingua franca of this state but it was no means a German State. Most of it was not even in the Holy Roman Empire. It was a mess of a entity spread out from what is now the east and north of Poland to the Rhine to the south of Germany in a hotch potch.
Prusssia went through various incarnations. Once as the most Enlightened state in Europe but it was as a rational state that asked its citizens to pay taxes and fight in its army but after that that state left its citizens alone.
'The eighteenth-century Prussian state was denominationally indifferent, nationally indifferent and socially indifferent.' ..."An extreme illustration is the true story of the cavalryman who had committed sodomy with his horse. Sodomy in eighteenth-century Europe was regarded as more or less the most hideous crime there was — punished everywhere by death in the most painful manner. Frederick the Great’s judgement was: ‘Have the swine transferred to the infantry.’ "
The next incarnation was as one of the reactionary states that included Russia, and Austria-Hungary. This was an alliance to squash any Liberal tendencies in each others countries or indeed other countries.
In the end though the nation state that Prussia ended up Creating namely the German Empire ended up subsuming Prussia and indeed destroying its constitutionally special place in the Reich by Hitlers regime.
July 13, 2025
Książka bardzo ważna w Polsce, bo pokazuje, jak niekompletnie jest pokazywana u nas historia Prus. Prusy tak jak Rzeczpospolita nie posiadały naturalnych granic, zaczynały bardzo pozno budować swoją pozycję, ale potrafiły rozegrać Rzeczpospolitą jak sztubaka. Myślę, że do dzisiaj historycy nie do końca rozumieją, jak to sie stało, że Prusy z prowincjonalnego terytorium urosły do potęgi Europejskiej. Polecam bardzo serdecznie.
https://youtu.be/HuyJGi_oHJ0
https://youtu.be/HuyJGi_oHJ0
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March 24, 2021讀到後面忘了前面，中世紀歐洲史真的好無聊，但還是會繼續看完三部曲的！（我到底要在這網站上留下多少垃圾感想）
March 31, 2025
用简单明了的语句讲述了普鲁士光辉的历史，同时不乏优美的翻译与遣词造句。让人们对于普鲁士的历史脉络有了更直观的认识。
September 11, 2013
Told the History of Prussia in a grand wya
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews