German post-WWI historian compared Germany to ancient Macedonia

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 A German historian, who later drifted into Nazi ideology, compared the defeatet Germany after World War I, to ancient Macedonia in a inflammatory pamphlet against the Americans in the 1920s.

The author Joachim Riecker describes this fact in his work: "The secret of freedom is courage: ancient role models in American foreign policy from Theodore Roosevelt to Bill Clinton" (Das Geheimnis der Freiheit ist Mut: antike Vorbilder in der amerikanischen Außenpolitik von Theodore Roosevelt bis Bill Clinton).

WWI

But first, we take a look about the historian mentioned in the work of Riecker who wrote the anti-American polemics, his name was Ulrich Kahrstedt (excerpts from german Wikipedia).

Ulrich Kahrstedt (born April 27, 1888 in Neisse/Silesia; died January 27, 1962 in Göttingen) was a German historian of ancients.

After the First World War, in which he was briefly a soldier, from 1916 a civil servant in the War Ministry, he worked full-time for the newly founded DNVP. In 1921 he was appointed to the chair of ancient history at the University of Göttingen, succeeding Georg Busolt, which he held until his retirement in 1952. From 1923 to 1948 he was a full member of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen. In 1933 the German Archaeological Institute elected him a full member.

As a professor in Göttingen, Kahrstedt remained politically active for the conservative DNVP. From 1933 he supported the National Socialist university policy.

Outrage over the 'deditio'

In an anti-American polemic published in 1920, Kahrstedt compared current political events with antiquity. In this polemic, with the title "Pax Americana", with which he tried to prove that the Americans pursued a similar policy as the Romans two thousand years earlier, Kahrstedt also mentions or uses the ancient Macedonians to compare them with the political situation at that time.

... just as Rome gave Macedonia the impression that it was only defending the autonomy of the Greeks, America was now leading the slogan of the peoples' right to self-determination against Germany.

As the author further writes, Kahrstedt equates (after the First World War) defeated Germany with ancient Macedonia several times:

Germany, as a modern Macedonia, bears a debt similar to that which ancient Macedonia incurred towards the world at that time, through its soft, indulgent policy during the war, which directly challenged the intervention of the great powers of the West.

As you can see from the lines, both the author and Kahrstedt refer to the episode of the Roman-Macedonian clashes, which Plutarch described as follows:

The Romans did not fight against the Greeks but for the Greeks against the Macedonians!

You can read more about this quote from Plutarch in our (german) article HERE.




Identification with ancient Macedonia - a long tradition among German historians

We find another interesting hint in the work written by Riecker. After describing Kahrstedt's example, Riecker writes that "the identification with Macedonia had a long tradition among German historians". This tradition goes even back to the famous Johann Gustav Droysen.

"Just as Philip II and Alexander had merged under their leadership the small Greek states who were incapable of uniting, Prussia had a similar task in Germany."

But there is also the opposite practice described in his work. 

Riecker presents the example of a French here. He slipped into the role of the Macedonian adversary, or rather, into an ancient Greek figure who is still famous today for his anti-Macedonian stance: Demosthenes.

So we read on page 73:

The French politician Georges Clemenceau, on the other hand, wrote a book about Demosthenes after the war in which he compared his fight against Macedonia with the fight between France and Germany.

Literature: "Das Geheimnis der Freiheit ist Mut": antike Vorbilder in der amerikanischen Außenpolitik von Theodore Roosevelt bis Bill Clinton - Riecker, Joachim 2006

Source: Macedonia History Blog German

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