Traditions of hate among the intellectual elite: The case of treitschke and bainville

Abstract

The historical profession has made the international rivalry between France and Germany in the modern period into a locus classicus of scholarship. Recently it is cultural historians who have contributed the most to new thinking on Franco-German enmity. Their best work illustrates how crossnational hatreds were a prominent part of everyday life in both of the states.1 Demography, industry, cuisine, and children’s literature were all vectors for the public expression of Francophobia and Germanophobia. Among the elite, geographers, anthropologists, and historians provided detailed studies that "proved" the ownership of the disputed territory of Alsace-Lorraine for their nation-state.2 Some historians, like Jules Michelet and Ernest Renan, were themselves popular national heroes. To illustrate and to analyze the apogee of Franco-German enmity via the means of a short case study we will compare and contrast the writings of the historians: Heinrich von Treitschke (1834-86) and Jacques Bainville (1879-1936).