Rebecca SC French 602F2576 MA in German Studies - Rhodes ...

sense of unity. Also to be included in Renan‟s account of national identity, as related by Kattago
(2001: 22), is the importance of knowing how to forget – “Forgetting, I would even go as far as
to say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation.” The ambiguous nature of
the relationship between actively remembering and encouraging a „selective amnesia‟ reflects the
fact that nationhood, although embedded in the past, is a present-day choice in which one
consents to continuing a common or community-centred life.
When looking at the key elements which constitute the identity of the German people, we come
across the witty remark that “there is no German identity other than the very search for an
identity”. (Seeba 1989: 149) For the purposes of this research, however, the concepts and traits
stereotypically associated with being German – aesthetic sensitivity and a love for order and
beauty, idealism, precision and thoroughness, punctuality, Gemütlichkeit – will be explored from
the point of view of the first half of the 19 th century, often known as the Biedermeier years.
German nationalists of this time showed great appreciation for their mixed cultural and ethnic
heritage 19 and were not averse to assimilating foreign influences. (Vick 2003: 242) This is
interesting when one considers that in more recent popular memory, the Germans are associated
most strongly with an obsessive preoccupation with racial and cultural purity. Although the
origins of Germanic ethnic and cultural purity, as attributed to that people, can be traced as far
back as the 2 nd century AD 20 , Vick explores two important early 19 th century German figures in
nationalist and romantic culture to show that the autarkic and exclusionist image associated with
Germanic history is not, in fact, altogether accurate. These figures are shown as acknowledging
their mixed heritage and cautiously welcoming foreign influence, while at the same time not
altogether letting go of the Tacitean myth of the ideal Volk that was their origin. Johann
Gottfried Herder and Friedrich Schlegel, for example, struck a balance between revering the
“rude but innocent Nordic barbarians” (Vick 2003: 243), who had brought down the decadent
Roman Empire, and stressing the ethnic and even linguistic intermixing between the Germanic
people and other tribes during the Middle Ages. (Vick 2003: 243) Worth brief mention is the
Judeo-Christian legacy, which, together with the influence of antiquity, greatly shaped the
cultural destiny of the German people – one need only look at the ecclesial music of Bach and
19 Vick (2003: 243) specifically refers to the contact between the Germanic and other tribes during the Migration
Period as well as the significant Slavic presence in Germany during the Middle Ages.
20 In the Germania of Tacitus, 2 nd century Roman aristocrat and annalist, we find an almost mythical depiction of the
tall, fair-haired Teutonic warriors of the North as belonging to a people that had maintained its ancestral purity
(racial and cultural) in the lands it had always inhabited, this depiction serving as a contrast to the corrupt Rome of
that time. (Vick 2003: 242)
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