Bismarck was no Alexander or Caesar but a simple Prussian squire whose spiritual integrity depended on his loyalty to the Prussian tradition and the Lutheran ethos. . . .The acceptance of these anti-Christian, anti-humanist, and anti-European ideas was in any case a retrograde step. . . .Now all this was to be cast aside, and the common heritage of baroque Austria and classical Vienna was torn to pieces between the rival fanaticisms of the Pan-Germans and Pan-Slavs. [The German poet] Grillparzer, who remained faithful to the last to the Austrian tradition, summed up the situation in 1848 in a prophetic sentence: “The path of modern culture leads from humanity through nationality to bestiality.”
Bismarck’s path to bestiality
Bismarck was no Alexander or Caesar but a simple Prussian squire whose spiritual integrity depended on his loyalty to the Prussian tradition and the Lutheran ethos. . . .The acceptance of these anti-Christian, anti-humanist, and anti-European ideas was in any case a retrograde step. . . .Now all this was to be cast aside, and the common heritage of baroque Austria and classical Vienna was torn to pieces between the rival fanaticisms of the Pan-Germans and Pan-Slavs. [The German poet] Grillparzer, who remained faithful to the last to the Austrian tradition, summed up the situation in 1848 in a prophetic sentence: “The path of modern culture leads from humanity through nationality to bestiality.”
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