ABSTRACT
We are now nearing the point where our investigations begin to touch on the historical significance of the fate experienced by Germany in the Great War. It was suggested to us that we had indulged the cult of power and of raison d’état to an impermissible extent; and on this basis our conquerors assumed the right to treat us, not as a nation honourably defeated, but rather as a criminal. This reproach was quite clearly the mask of their own power-policy and raison d’état, but it appealed to certain facts which we ourselves have already begun to throw light on here in our analysis of Hegel, Fichte and Ranke. How did it really come about that the ideas of Machiavelli, which arose on Latin territory and developed within the realm of Latin States, were minted afresh after the beginning of the nineteenth century and this precisely on German soil? All that we have already said towards explaining this must now be assembled and supplemented, in order to reach a proper understanding of the man whom foreign countries consider to be almost the principal agent in seducing Germany to the cult of power—Heinrich v. Treitschke.
