The English and American Image of Germany in the Past

Adapted and translated from the journal
Die Neueren Sprachen
Issue 2, new series volume 19, 1970
Moritz Diesterweg. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bonn, Munich

The English and American Image of Germany in the Past

Franz Kröger

Preliminary Note 2025

The following text was originally intended to provide further information and explanation for the schoolbook Germany Seen Through British and American Eyes (1969), in which numerous more complete quotations and further sources can be found. After half a century, even statements referring to the time of the essay’s composition are no longer appropriate. The most striking difference is the strong alignment of modern Germany with England and the United States in terms of attitudes towards life, leisure activities, popular music and clothing (jeans have long since replaced lederhosen in Germany), and so on, while the political relationship, despite occasional minor tensions, is based on friendship and cooperation.

A nation can only understand the peculiarities of another nation as something special and distinct from its own national character when it has passed at least the first stage of self-awareness. The beginnings of an [p. 92] English national identity must have developed in the Middle Ages, even if this identity has undergone some changes in the 19th and 20th centuries. The interest that existed in France and the French before the so-called Hundred Years’ War diminished following England’s major territorial losses there, leaving space for the English to consider their own country; England, ravaged by internal wars, desired peace and the unity that its French neighbours had enjoyed for some time. Even in the circles of the aristocracy and the educated, the French language gave way to English, which also increasingly came to replace Latin in poetry and prose.

English national feeling in the early modern period first found its expression in the period following the defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588). It was able to develop strongly in the confrontation with the Spanish, who differed from the English in terms of confession and language (to name two examples) and were their rivals in Europe and further afield.

After the French and Spanish, the early modern Italians attracted the interest of the English. In this case, most English observers felt great admiration for the foreigners and wished to emulate them. English national consciousness in the early modern period thus did not lead to intellectual and nation-based constriction and isolation but was, from the outset, associated with a keen receptiveness to the great cultural achievements of other peoples and a strong interest in everything foreign and distant in time or place. Indeed, the majority of Shakespeare’s plays are set not in England but in southern countries, chiefly Italy.

At the time of the Renaissance, Germany was not so clearly within the English line of vision. The customary educational tour took young Englishmen via France (Paris, Lyon) to Italy. Even in the 17th and early 18th centuries, Germany, which was struggling to recover from the effects of the Thirty Years’ War, so far had little to offer the Englishman in the way of culture. Although Addison (1672–1719) emphasises in the following quotation that there exist educated and witty individuals even among Germans, the lines nonetheless reveal what was generally thought of the Germans, insofar as a fixed opinion had been formed at all:

One ought not to judge well or ill of a nation from a particular person, nor of a particular person from his nation. There are Germans, as there are French, who have no wit; and Germans who are better skilled in Greek and Hebrew than either Scaliger or the Cardinal du Perron [endnote 1].

In the late 18th century or, more definitively, with the English Romantic Movement, interest in German culture, particularly German philosophy and literature, grew. This was also associated with an increased interest in the German language and Germany itself, which persisted throughout the 19th century until the two world wars in the 20th century saw its violent intensification.

[p. 93] From the outset, American connections to Germany and the Germans have been quite close, as they are based partly on familial relationships. The Americans’ longing extends above all to what their own country lacks: medieval, dreamlike small towns, the old castles of the Rhine region, folk customs and festivals (the Oberammergau Passion Play, Oktoberfest, Carnival), traditional universities and student romance (Heidelberg).

The German adjective gemütlich, ‘cosy’, is often associated specifically with Germany and German institutions. Alongside this appeal, American students have happily attended German universities (not only Heidelberg but also Göttingen and Berlin) because German literature, philosophy and classical studies were highly valued by many 19th-century Americans. Here, too, politics has proven to be a disruptive factor in the positive cultural and human relations between the two nations. While most Americans took the German side during the war of 1870/71 [endnote 2], as, according to the American view at the time, the Germans had to achieve the unity of their country by fighting the French despot and aggressor, in the following years, particularly under Wilhelm II, the relationship between the two countries deteriorated steadily as German and American interests clashed in the Pacific and other parts of the world. After the two world wars, the image of gemütlich Germany seems to have been definitively suppressed, but it was soon rediscovered by the first subsequent tourists and even by some of the occupying troops.

After the Second World War, neither the English nor the Americans developed a lasting cliché to replace that of the militaristic German. This ‘deficiency’ is perhaps best illustrated by the difficulties of caricaturists in depicting the archetypical German in political cartoons. Should they continue to represent him in uniform, with a spiked or steel helmet? In the conservative costume of a ‘Gretchen’ or in lederhosen, as is more in keeping with the image of gemütlich Germany? In his caricature ‘Düsseldorf’ (1964), illustrator Ronald Searle portrays a prosperous and well-fed German in an executive armchair. On the cluttered desk are a number of telephones, cigars, and a statue of a naked woman with braided hair but also, at the edges, a fly agaric and a statue of a deer – remnants of gemütlich Germany that have been pushed aside but have not completely disappeared. As opinion polls in the 1960s showed, this image corresponds to the perceptions of many English people of our time. At the same time, Germans are seen in a thoroughly positive light, especially among the younger generation. According to one EMNID survey the English consider us to be their best friends, just after the Dutch.

The question of how the typical German differs from the typical English or American individual, however, is becoming increasingly difficult to answer. Just a glance at [p. 94] past testimonies still clearly shows us the characteristics formerly associated with the archetypical German.

1. Militarism, Obedience to Authority and Discipline

The 20th century was not the first in which Germans, especially Prussians, had to listen to the accusation that they were born militarists who glorified war and military training and that their exaggerated obedience to authority prevented any individual initiative or free formation of opinion. The form of criticism and the personal opinions of Anglo-Saxon authors have, however, changed over the centuries. Honest admiration, pity for the simple soldier, good-natured mockery and decisive rejection alternate and intermingle in the various sources.

It is interesting that in the 20th century, the judgments of ancient writers regarding the Germanic tribes have been used as early evidence of German belligerence, and the Latin word Germani is sometimes translated without hesitation as ‘the Germans’, just as the word ‘Teutonic’ is often equated with ‘German’ elsewhere.

The first real starting point for the criticism of German militarism was offered by 18th-century Germany, with which Dr John Moore became familiar during his travels on the continent (1773–1778). In Moore’s book Mordaunt, the traveller John Mordaunt wrote to Colonel Sommers that he has just escaped the clutches of a Spanish woman in Italy and has decided never to marry. His escape route takes him to Germany:

Germany was a new scene – the German armies a fresh object of contemplation, I was eager to be a witness of the wonderful precision to which military manɶuvres have been brought in that country [endnote 3].

Mordaunt’s judgment does not remain so positive, however, when he considers the fate of the soldiers themselves. Lack of freedom, corporal punishment and other hardships, in his view, make the lot of the simple recruit seem harder than that of enslaved Black Americans. An army of volunteers or an army without such hardships would be much more appropriate to respond to the French threat. Militarism and discipline are not seen by Mordaunt as an exception peculiar to a defined area of the German people’s lives but as something attributable to the general national character:

What struck me most while I was in Germany, and what perhaps is the most distinguishing feature in the national character, is the military discipline [endnote 4].

When the British saw the new Prussian people’s army in action in 1870/71, they were impressed by the organisation, strategy and discipline of the Prussian ‘military caste’, and the press, too, initially expressed views that ranged from cautious to admiring. On 16 December 1870, The Times wrote:

The secret of Prussian success is traceable, in a great measure, to the modesty and readiness to learn which distinguish the Prussian military caste.

[p. 95] While in England before and during the First World War, the Germans as a whole were often attacked and labelled barbaric Huns, American criticism tended to be directed more at the Kaiser, with whom the Americans were not connected by family ties, unlike the English royal family. At the same time, the condemnation of the entire German nation could have provoked protests from German-Americans. Furthermore, the authoritarian behaviour of Wilhelm II must have offended the democratic feelings of Americans. Indeed, with his love of splendour and dramatic mode of expression, he offered satirists a rich source of material [endnote 5].

For many English observers, too, the image of the German soldier, German officer and militaristic ordinary German was probably not conveyed by scientific studies or serious attempts at evaluation but by humorous representations, jokes and newspaper caricatures. In humorous or even satirical depictions, characteristics recognised as typical are necessarily exaggerated to make people smile or laugh. Although the purpose and form of the depictions involved may differ, the observations of English and American humorist of the early 20th century often correspond to the statements of serious critics, provided that they are reduced to the right level. The quotations from Jerome K. Jerome reproduced in this text show that, despite exaggeration and ridicule, comedic representations are not necessarily offensive. In the following lines, for example, he makes German soldiers and officers in the restaurant of Cologne Central Station the subject of his good-natured mockery:

All classes of citizens were there, but especially soldiers. There were all sorts of soldiers – soldiers of rank, and soldiers of rank and file; attached soldiers (very much attached, apparently) and soldiers unattached; stout soldiers, thin soldiers; old soldiers, young soldiers… There seemed to be a deal of saluting to be gone through. Officers kept entering and passing through the room in an almost continual stream, and every time one came insight all the military drinkers and eaters rose and saluted, and remained at the salute until the officer had passed [endnote 6].

Nor were the characteristics of the Prussian soldier and officer, such as obedience, orderliness, discipline, sense of duty, masculinity, harshness and belief in authority, limited to the purely military sphere. According to Bertram Schaffner, these qualities were laid down in the German child’s upbringing. The father enjoyed unconditional authority in the family. After early childhood, German children rarely experienced joy, their freedom was restricted (freedom being identified with disobedience and lawlessness) and they were encouraged from an early age to perform work out of a sense of duty. A sense of order and discipline arose from the [p. 96] principle of obedience, and the resulting precepts were regulated for children down to the smallest detail:

Children learn how important it is to keep one’s hand on the table during meals (below the table is indecent), not to talk at table in the presence of adults, to go to sleep lying on one’s back, with the hands outside the covers [endnote 7].

In public life, the uniformed policeman became a symbol of state order and civil discipline, combining the authority of a father figure and a Prussian officer. Jerome K. Jerome combines these roles of the German policeman with others in a strongly pointed way:

In Germany… he [the policeman] is worshipped as a little god and loved as a guardian angel. To the German child he is a combination of Santa Claus and the Bogie Man…

To be smiled at by a policeman makes it [the child] conceited. A German child that has been patted on the head by a policeman is not fit to live with; its self-importance is unbearable [endnote 8].

Of course, adults also submitted to the orders of the policeman and the many signs stating prohibitions; this simply corresponded to their notions of discipline and order. These statements may sound a little strange to the modern German, since there have probably been changes in the relationship between Germans and the police. Even in 1955, J. A. Cole could no longer agree with the traditional image of the disciplined German:

For me the greatest surprise in getting to know Germans was the discovery that they are not a disciplined people and that as individuals they are not so submissive as they are popularly supposed to be… You see no signs of German orderliness on trams in the rush hours, or of their submissiveness in the way they disregard printed notices. Put up a sign ‘Exit Only’ and it is by that door that every visitor will insist on entering… Anywhere in Germany you see horrifying examples of the disregard of traffic rules [endnote 9].

In earlier times, however, English observers saw the supposed German ideas of order and discipline realised in still more areas than the military and public life. If we are to give full credence to Jerome’s humorous descriptions, the German also wants to reshape animate and inanimate nature according to those ideas. Birds should nest in birdhouses because only the uncivilised and the outcast [p. 97] nest in trees and hedges [endnote 10]. It is also inappropriate for birds to twitter together in a disorderly manner. Here, too, in the future, there will be order:

In the course of time every German bird, one is confident, will have his proper place in a full chorus… The music-loving German will organise him. Some stout bird with a specially well-developed crop will be trained to conduct him [endnote 11].

Jerome’s German loves nature, but only nature that is orderly. Hence the German preference for the poplar, which is particularly good at growing in rank and file and always grows straight and upright. The principle of order also prevails in German allotments:

He [the German] plants seven rose trees on the north side and seven on the south, and if they do not grow up all the same size and shape it worries him so that he cannot sleep of nights [endnote 12].

Rupert Brooke had similar experiences, as he noted when, in May 1912, he longed to return to his English homeland from the Café des Westens in Berlin:

Here tulips bloom as they are told;
Unkempt about those hedges blows
An English unofficial rose;
And there the unregulated sun
Slopes down to rest when day is done,
And wakes a vague unpunctual star,
A slippered Hesper; and there are
Meads towards Haslingfield and Coton
Where das Betreten’s not verboten [trespassing is not forbidden; endnote 13].

2. The German Woman

It is striking that the German word Vaterland (the English loanword/translation, ‘fatherland’, is used almost exclusively for Germany) forms a contrast with the English term ‘mother country’. While Vaterland refers to the origin of the individual (land of one’s fathers, land of one’s ancestors), the English ‘fatherland’ sometimes bears the connotation of ‘land that belongs to the fathers, in which the fathers (i.e. the men) have a say’, as in the book title Father Land by Bertram Schaffner. In any case, it was generally believed that in Germany, men have greater significance than in ‘more petticoat-ridden nations’.

Men are responsible for German militarism, drills, state obedience, discipline in daily life, politics, economics, and so on. It may thus be the case that [p. 98] German women are not to a great extent included in the criticism of German conditions.

Addison reports thus on educated women in Germany in 1716:

There is not in all France a person of more wit than the present Duchess of Hanover; nor more thoroughly knowing in philosophy than was the late Princess of Bohemia, her sister… There are other Princesses in Germany, who also have an infinite deal of wit [endnote 14].

Thackeray, however, does not ascribe a particularly high level of education to German ladies of rank when he describes them in his novel Vanity Fair as ‘very sentimental and simple in their tastes’ [endnote 15].

Byron’s judgment of German women is rather personally coloured, with his claim that ‘I like, however, their women’ immediately followed by the parenthetical statement that ‘I was so desperately in love with a German woman, Constance’ [endnote 16].

After a lovingly drawn beer garden scene, Jerome K. Jerome summarises his assessment of German women, which can be considered typical of many others:

I think one would learn to love these German women if one lived among them for long. There is something so sweet, so womanly, so genuine about them…

Looking into their quiet, steadfast eyes, one dreams of white household linen… of savoury, appetising things being cooked for supper… of little high-pitched voices, asking silly questions… They are not the sort of women to turn a man’s head, but they are the sort of women to lay hold of a man’s heart [endnote 17].

This view of the German woman, her domesticity, simplicity, love of children, and so forth, may have been influenced by the fact that Englishwomen of Jerome’s time were already fighting for their political rights. Jerome does not, at least, view the former’s lack of political interest negatively:

The German women are not beautiful, but they are lovable and sweet; and they are broad-breasted and broad-hipped, like the mothers of big sons should be. They do not seem to trouble themselves about their ‘rights’, but appear to be contented and happy without votes [endnote 18].

Decades later, Katherine Mansfield has a German woman speaking to her (female) narrator make a similar statement:

But you never have large families in England now; I suppose you are too busy with your suffrage. Now I have had nine children [endnote 19].

[p. 99] On closer inspection of the judgments of Anglo-Saxon authors on German women, one observes that despite all the loving treatment, a shortcoming nonetheless emerges, often hidden or excused in advance but still not fully concealed. German women lack immediate charm. They do not know how to dress attractively, they cannot turn a man’s head; one comes to appreciate them only gradually, and not as lovers but as lovable and hardworking housewives. Thomas Wolfe, in his novel The Web and the Rock, remarks:

It is a good kind of woman that one meets in Germany, a kind that seems to be wonderfully lacking in the flirtatious tricks and femininisms which a good many American women have [endnote 20].

Have people abroad wrongly held onto this cliché, or did German women change fundamentally in the 1950s? In any case, after the war years, in which personal contact with German women was not possible, the English and especially the Americans were astonished when a supposedly new type of German woman – pretty, blonde, self-confident, well-dressed, charming – was presented to them that, by analogy with the German economic miracle, people now speak also of a ‘young ladies’ miracle’.

3. Work and Leisure

Many English people and Americans had and have the impression that the greater part of the average German’s life consists of work and the fulfilment of duties. The Germans are not considered masters of the art of living as are, for instance, the Italians and the French, who often see work only as a necessity for a pleasant life, rather than as an end in itself. According to Bertram Schaffner, the German child is made aware of the great importance of work at an early age:

Parents teach their children that work will solve all problems and overcome all obstacles, and that it is the German’s ability to work which has distinguished himself, his family, his city and country from others [endnote 21].

J. A. Cole, describing Germany after 1945, comes to a similar conclusion: ‘You have only to work beside Germans to convince yourself that they like work’ [endnote 22]. Nor is the Germans’ restless activity limited to their actual working hours:

Their leisure hours must be active too. ‘What can we do now?’ is a question which arises as soon as two or three people find themselves without any immediate occupation. Where they get this vitality from is to me a mystery [endnote 23].

In his humorous, slightly exaggerated description, George Mikes reaches the conclusion that Germans even plan the time in which they wish to be exuberant and cheerful, [p. 100] like a precisely timed work process. High-spiritedness itself is seen as a duty that must be performed on certain days of the year:

A man must occasionally enjoy himself, and they are performing a duty now… And, of course they [the Germans] laugh, too. But the question is not so much: at what as when? It rather depends on the Calendar. Every German knows that the times of Fasching (carnival time) are times of gaiety. They know for months beforehand that, let us say, on the 3rd of October, they will be hilariously happy [endnote 24].

What do these ‘times of gaiety’ look like? Above all, merrymaking and amusement are associated with the consumption of alcoholic beverages, especially beer, which is usually served in large stone tankards. After copious, even excessive, consumption of alcohol, Germans can indulge in loud and boisterous exuberance. It is truly astounding how long this image of Germans’ drinking and loudly enjoying themselves has survived and how little it has changed over time.

In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (I,2), the young Italian noblewoman Portia examines her suitors, who come from different parts of Europe. The Neapolitan only talks about horses, the count palatine is too humourless and melancholic, the Frenchman is ‘every man in no man’s land’, she cannot understand the Englishman, who in any case is dressed too strangely, and the Scot fails to take revenge for an insult from an Englishman because he is currently insolvent. The next suitor is another young German:

Nerissa [waiting-maid]: How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony’s nephew?

Portia: Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober, and most vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk: when he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is a little better than a beast. And the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without him.

Nerissa: If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you should refuse to perform your father’s will, if you should refuse to accept him.

Portia: Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee, set a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket, for if the devil be within and that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do any thing, Nerissa, ere I’ll be married to a sponge.

In February 1700, Addison wrote to a Mr Stanyan from Blois in France:

The place where I am at present, … is very much infested with fogs and German counts. These last are a kind of gentlemen that are just come wild out of their country, and more noisy and senseless than any I have yet had the honour to be acquainted with. They are at the Cabaret from morning to night, and I suppose came into France on no other account but to drink [endnote 25].

[p. 101] If we compare this testimony, to which similar reports from earlier centuries can be added, with a modern description, their great similarity cannot be denied. George Mikes reports on Oktoberfest:

And then they let themselves really go. They shriek and shout. They sit next to each other, singing songs, rocking rhythmically, drinking beer by the gallon [endnote 26].

While for the average German, drinking bouts are limited to certain holidays (family celebrations, carnival, Oktoberfest, etc.), they have become near-constant among the student body and were especially so in the 19th century. ‘The German is habitually sober, and the student invariably drunk’, says the American J. L. Motley [endnote 27].

In Vanity Fair, Thackeray describes two German students from the university town of Schoppenhausen:

Max and Fritz came presently downstairs, their caps on one side, their spurs jingling, their pipes splendid with coat-of-arms and full-blown tassels… and called for the ration of butterbrod and beer… It [their conversation] was mainly about ‘Fuchs’ [a newly recruited fraternity member on probation] and ‘Philister’ [a former fraternity brother, old boy], and duels and drinking-bouts… ‘Saufen and singen [boozing and singing] go not together,’ observed Fritz with the red nose, who evidently preferred the former amusement [endnote 28].

Mark Twain, who, unlike most Americans, tries to defend student duels and is impressed by the courage, discipline and self-contempt of the duelling students, cannot, however, overlook the excessive eating and drinking of German students of his time:

The student duels in Germany occasion two or three deaths every year, now, but this arises only from the carelessness of the wounded men; they eat or drink imprudently [endnote 29].

It would be unfair to the Anglo-Saxon visitors, however, to insinuate that they only observed Germans not currently working when they were carousing, drinking, singing, swaying or duelling, even if these activities particularly caught the eye. Other, more bourgeois recreational activities are often mentioned in passing without embellishment, including gardening, Sunday strolls and playing cards.

One further German passion should not go unmentioned: their love of music. Bertram Schaffner explicitly notes that, unlike other ‘unmanly’ activities (such as pushing a pram or helping in the kitchen), demonstrating skill in playing a musical instrument does not damage the authority of a strict family man. German tradition has sanctified this custom.

[p. 102] Mark Twain was surprised at the stamina and enthusiasm with which Germans would listen to an opera by Wagner, and he openly noted that this participation was not, as it was for many Americans, contrived and insincere [endnote 30]. Hermann Levy attests to the German love of singing, though this time not after copious drinking but rather out of a sense of world-weariness:

The German song always has been and always will be a vital part of German life – it expresses the sentimental aspect of the German character so perfectly. It has no counterpart in the English lyrical world. It is one of the singular traits of the German people that they enjoy singing mournful songs and that they sing these songs even when they are happy. At picnic parties in the mountains and forests, young men used to sing that well-known folk song – Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten, dass ich so traurig bin [I don’t know what it means that I’m so sad; endnote 31].

The English love of German music, which Levy calls ‘the closest link between the two countries’, was even maintained during the two world wars. A fitting testimony to the high esteem in which German music is held was given by the then-Prime Minister Arthur James Balfour at an anniversary celebration in honour of the German violinist Joseph Joachim:

If the music of all other nations were destroyed we should be the poorer by many great masterpieces, but we might get on; if the music of Germany were destroyed we could not get on [endnote 32].

Endnotes

1 The Freeholder, No. 30 (1716); The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Vol. IV, London, Henry G. Bohn, 1856, pp. 507f.

2 Cf. Charles Goethe Baylor, America to Germany, Boston Daily Journal, 6 January 1871; also printed in: G. Kostuch and F. Kröger, Germany Seen Through British and American Eyes, Frankfurt, Diesterweg Verlag, 1969, p. 97.

3 John Moore, Mordaunt, London, 1956, p. 10.

4 Ibid., p. 12.

5 Cf. the satirical poem: Kaiser, Kaiser, Shining Bright; in: Harper’s Weekly, Vol. XLVII, 1914, p. 475; also printed in: Germany Seen Through British and American Eyes, p. 62.

6 Jerome K. Jerome, The Diary of a Pilgrimage, London, J.M. Dent and Sons, first published 1891, last reprinted 1951, pp. 87ff.

7 Bertram Schaffner, Father Land. A Study of Authoritarianism in the German Family, New York, 1948, pp. 52f.

8 Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men on the Bummel, London, J. M. Dent and Sons, 1954, p. 182; also printed in: Germany Seen Through British and American Eyes, pp. 29f.

9 J.A. Cole, My Host Michel, London, 1955, pp. 270f.; also printed in: Germany Seen Through British and American Eyes, p. 50.

10 Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men on the Bummel, London, J. M. Dent and Sons, 1954, p. 91; also printed in: Germany Seen Through British and American Eyes, p. 33.

11 Ibid., p. 91.

12 Ibid., p. 91.

13 The Old Vicarage, Grantchester (Café des Westens, Berlin, May 1912), The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke, New York, 1944, p. 162.

14 The Freeholder, No. 30 (1716); The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Vol. IV, London, Henry G. Bohn, 1856, pp. 508.

15 The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray (Centenary Biographical Edition), Vanity Fair, Vol. II, London, Smith, Elder, and Co., 1910, p. 357.

16 Byron, Lord George Gordon Noel, Extracts from a Diary, p. 171.

17 Jerome K. Jerome, The Diary of a Pilgrimage, London, J.M. Dent and Sons, first published 1891, last reprinted 1951, pp. 87ff., also printed in: Germany Seen Through British and American Eyes, p. 36.

18 Ibid., p. 246.

19 Germans at Meat, Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield, London, first published 1945, reprinted 1948, p. 699.

20 Thomas Wolfe, The Web and the Rock, New York, The Sun Dial Press, 1940, p. 655.

21 Bertram Schaffner, Father Land. A Study of Authoritarianism in the German Family, New York, 1948, p. 42.

22 J.A. Cole, My Host Michel, London, 1955, pp. 270f.; also printed in: Germany Seen Through British and American Eyes, p. 267.

23 Ibid., pp. 267f.

24 George Mikes, Über Alles – Germany Explored, André Deutsch Limited, London, 1953, p. 40; also printed in: Germany Seen Through British and American Eyes, p. 44.

25 The Freeholder, No. 30 (1716); The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Vol. V, London, Henry G. Bohn, 1856, p. 330.

26 George Mikes, Über Alles – Germany Explored, André Deutsch Limited, London, 1953, p. 40; also printed in: Germany Seen Through British and American Eyes, p. 40.

27 John Lothrop Motley, Morton’s Hope or the Memoirs of a Provincial, Book II, Chapter 5, New York, Harper and Bros., 1839; also printed in: Germany Seen Through British and American Eyes, p. 73.

28 The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray (Centenary Biographical Edition), Vanity Fair, Vol. II, London, Smith, Elder, and Co., 1910, pp. 397f.

29 Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad, Chapter 6, The Complete Travel Books of Mark Twain, Vol. II, Garden City, New York, 1967, p. 35; also printed in: Germany Seen Through British and American Eyes, p. 75.

30 Ibid., Chapter 9, pp. 50f.

31 Levy, Hermann, England and Germany, Affinity and Contrast, Leigh-on-Sea (Essex), 1949, p. 18.

32 Quoted from Edward Speyer, My Life and Friends, London, 1937, p. 190.