ABSTRACT
Germany was technically a unified country at the turn of the century, but the cultural divisions between its ancient states ran deep and wide. The broadest gulf traditionally separated North and South. The orderly Prussian proudly viewed himself as infinitely more pragmatic than his beerchugging Bavarian compatriot; the Bavarian was thankful to escape the excessive regimentation that rendered Prussians so unbearably stiff and obstinate. Tuchman (1966, p. 302) succinctly portrayed these long standing differences:
Berlin meant Prussia, the natural enemy of Munich and Bavaria. The North German regarded the South German as easy-going and self-indulgent, a sentimentalist who tended to be deplorably democratic, even liberal. In his turn, the South German regarded the North German as an arrogant bully with bad manners and an insolent stare who was politically reactionary and aggressively preoccupied with business.
