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Most of the contributions to the present volume, produced in the
sumptuous style for which the publisher frommann-holzboog is
rightly famous, take up one central aspect of the process Birtsch
described. Apart from a few essays on the Jewish Enlightenment, the
court of �rederick II, and regional identities within the Prussian territorial
conglomerate, they all explore the world of the Enlightened
Prussian bureaucracy. The reader, for instance, becomes acquainted
with élite civil servants like Carl Gottlieb Suarez and Ernst �erdinand
Klein, both heavily involved in the drafting of the Prussian General
Code and in the scheming of Enlightened circles in Berlin. Suarez
drew up proposals for a reform of the conduct of criminal litigation,
which failed, however, because they were too progressive and liberal,
as Peter Krause makes clear. Klein, a close friend of Nicolai,
became the prototype of the Enlightened bureaucrat, as Klaus Berndl
points out in his biographical sketch. Klein regularly frequented
clubs and societies, and taught for a while at Prussia’s main university
at Halle, but devoted most of his life to indefatigable work in the
public service. Even his last thoughts before his death were reportedly
dedicated to the Prussian state. This allegiance to the state
which, in the case of Klein and many other Prussian bureaucrats,
stemmed from a sense of duty towards the common good of society
typical of the utilitarian Enlightenment, was increasingly cast in legal
terms during the rise of a body of professional officials in the decades
around 1800, a process which is analysed in an essay by Diethelm
Klippel. If a legal obligation of loyalty to the state for officials was, in
a sense, the endpoint of this development, its origins might be found
in the influence which Calvinism exerted on the Prussian lands from
the late seventeenth century onwards, as can be learned from Thomas
Ertman’s essay. This is primarily concerned with Otto Hintze’s explanation
of Prussia’s rise from an insignificant small state to one of
Europe’s great powers. Hintze, himself an exemplary representative
of ‘asceticism and professional commitment’ (p. 40) within the
Prussian civil service, in his later writings after the �irst World War
explained the strength of the Prussian state as lying in the legacy of
Calvinism, which fostered virtues like self-denial, an austere lifestyle,
and dedication to Prussia’s cause, not only in monarchs but also in
the state apparatus. According to Ertman, however, the validity of
this theory still has to be demonstrated by further, preferably comparative,
research. None the less, it becomes clear from these examples
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A War of Words?