The British Imperialist Intelligentsia and the Kaiserreich

Abstract

In December 1850 in his English Sketches for the Cottasches Morgenblatt Wilhelm Liebknecht, the German socialist, presented Great Britain to his German readers in the following way:

It may be that the cold, reserved sons of Albion appear rather strange to the genial German or the lively, communicative Frenchman, but let us not forget that it is they who have created political institutions of an as yet unrivalled perfection and they who through their world trade and their competition—stifling industry have made the whole world, in particular our German fatherland, dependent upon them. Such a nation is no object of scorn. We can hate them—indeed we have special reason so to do — but we must also admire them and, even more than this, try to learn from them. And despite our so renowned thoroughness, we have until now learned very little indeed, as evidenced by the miserable state of our politics and our commerce.¹