ABSTRACT
Many works of German historical scholarship would be impelled by a more powerful spiritual drive, and therefore be both more arresting and more effective, if the author’s spiritual consciousness, in particular his sense of political ethics, were more strongly developed. Foreign experts in German history, like Benedetto Croce, and German historians such as Ludwig Dehio, in his new book Gleichgewicht oder Hegemonie, and Franz Schnabel, have gone far forward in the right direction. In Germany, too, the sentiment of nationality was quickly incorporated into glorification of the state. The nationalization of German history and the so-called Geisteswissenschaften has been a much discussed and debated theme. Only after the First World War did the isolation of German historical thinking reach a high point. Historians like Max Lehmann and Hans Delbriick were forced into the shade when they protested against the fabrication of patriotic legends.
