Anglo- German attitudes

One of the most dangerous tastes any British politician can admit to is a tendresse for the Teutonic. During the first world war the Liberal cabinet minister Haldane was compelled to resign because of his pro-German sympathies. It was not that Haldane harboured any political affection for Wilhelmine militarism, or had exhibited any slackness in his war work. He had been one of the most pro-war of Asquith’s divided ministry and as war minister had vigorously prepared British forces for confrontation with Germany. But Haldane was also a sensitive and open-minded intellectual with a deep interest in German culture and philosophy. For that he earned the scorn of contemporary polemicists, with cartoonists depicting him in his library surrounded by volumes of ‘Cant’ and Rudyard Kipling denouncing him as ‘indubitably a Hunnomite’.

One of the many merits of John Ramsden’s superb book is the calm and thoughtful manner in which he charts how British attitudes to our most significant neighbour have changed over 100 years. The British, once inclined to think of themselves and the Germans as ‘fellow Saxons’, have moved from affection and mutual regard through suspicion and enmity, to all-out conflict, before settling, as we have currently, for a posture which combines elements of superiority, suspicion and envy. It is striking that, while there may well be significant pools of anti-French, and indeed a growing well of anti-American, feeling in British society it’s also clear there are still significant reservoirs of warmth and affection for both nations in Britain, whereas it is hard to detect any similar, open enthusiasm for Germany in our national conversation. The Germans are, it seems, a hard nation for any Briton to confess to liking.