ABSTRACT
Napoleon Bonaparte’s power politics also stimulated Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s thinking. Germany’s position recalled that of sixteenth century Italy and Machiavelli’s yearning for liberation from the foreign yoke. Liberation had formidable obstacles in its path – Napoleon’s genius and massive resources for one thing and the deep hostility between Austria and Prussia. Many educated Germans admired Napoleon and considered the French soldier more efficient than his German counterpart. Prominent among the literary pioneers of the movement towards liberation and nationhood was Ernst Moritz Arndt. Arndt writings, which aided war propaganda, also contain outbursts of national hatred which are painful to read and scarcely in tune with his fundamental views. Arndt often described the national traits of the French, for the most part slightingly and quite often very unjustly, but in 1814, after the first War of Liberation, he wrote of the French Revolution. When the French Revolution broke out, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn was fired with enthusiasm, his special hero being Danton.
