How could two nations so apparently entwined in affection come to see each other as mortal enemies? The pat answer is, of course, the chauvinistic and rivalrous nationalism of the late 19th century which culminated in war. But that answer evaded the question of why we found ourselves at war with Germany rather than other imperial competitors such as, say, France. There are geopolitical reasons why Germany became our principal antagonist ,but there are also deeper cultural and ideological factors. The Germany which entranced our Victorian ancestors was an advanced and liberal civilisation; the Prussia which was our principal ally defended civil rights and freedom of speech with the same vigour we sought to. But the Germany which came into being after 1870 was a nation which progressively abandoned liberalism in pursuit of its own Sonderweg, or special way. Wilhelmine Germany, and for that matter the Germany of the later Weimar, preserved the form of liberal democracy, but its elites felt little but distaste for messy parliamentary controversy and classical liberal freedoms. An anti-Enlightenment spirit prevailed, with unhappy consequences not just for Anglo-German relations but for European civilisation itself.
John Ramsden is not, primarily, a student of German thought and political development but he is deft and expert at telling the story of how Britain reacted to Germany’s decline, fall and renaissance. He shows sensitivity in recording how contemporary Britain defuses past tensions through humour (Basil Fawlty’s rants, Harry Enfield’s creepily insinuating, then randomly authoritarian German student, the Carling Black Label ads) and how leading Germans react with a rather leaden touch to what are, after all, subversions rather than manifestations of prejudice.
Ramsden is particularly good at analysing how Anglo-German relations have been influenced by football. His work was completed just before this year’s World Cup and may have been written in anticipation of a much tenser tournament than we had. In the end, the World Cup showed Britain a Germany more at ease with itself, and hinted at a future relationship between our two nations less nervous than at any time for a century. In that sense it would be nice to think that John Ramsden’s analysis of Anglo-German tension was, in every sense, pure history.
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