American Society of Church History

Schleiermacher's Political Thought and Activity, 1806-1813

Author(s): R. C. Raack
Source: Church History, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Dec., 1959), pp. 374-390
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of Church
History
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 SCHLEIERMACHER'S POLITICAL THOUGHT AND
ACTIVITY, 1806-18131

R. C. RAACK, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In the period of the Prussian reform movement, Friedrich Schlei-

ermacher, pastor and intellectual, found a key political role in the Pru
sian state. Some aspects of Schleiermacher's singular public life dur
ing these years were considered by Wilhelm Dilthey in his short articl
on Schleiermacher's political thought and activity, written almost a
hundred years ago.2 But Dilthey never expanded this preliminary anal-
ysis which was, in any case, partial in coverage and limited in criti
approach. The recovery of a vast body of material and information un
available to Dilthey as well as greater historical perspective necessit
a thorough reconsideration of Schleiermacher's activities during the
critical years.
The collapse of the Prussian state following the great defeats of
Jena and Auerstadt in October, 1806, created the opportunity, previou
ly absent in Prussia, for the first real participation by an informed pu
lic in the affairs of the state. With one blow Napoleon had rent the
whole fabric of historical Prussia, had shattered its legends and h
opened the political scene to critical and constructive public apprais
Schleiermacher, then Professor and Pastor to the University in Hal
had a background of interest in public affairs which prepared him f
the challenge occasioned by the sudden and utter defeats. Though h
writing and lecturing before 1806 had largely been on non-politic
themes, a rather well-considered and consistent political philosophy ca
readily be derived from his earlier books and lecture notes. This was
sufficiently developed by the time of the debacle to make later accretions,
even those added during his active political life, merely refinements of
an already clear pattern.3 Presumably his later propensity to formal po-
litical speculation was the result both of his involvement in politics and
an increasing political awareness stimulated by his studies in the Greek
classics.
Schleiermacher's political theories are actually a reasonable ex-
tension of his carefully evolved religious views. Recall that to Schleier-
macher the single moment of religious intuition, and thus practically
any single and unique religious experience, is the point of absolute
validity in religion.4 This moment naturally belongs to the individual,
but the course of religious development after the individual intuition
is in the care of the religious community and finds its highest expres-
sion in the group. In similar fashion Schleiermacher establishes the
374

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 SCHTITF,TRMACHER'S POLITICAL THOUGHT 375

point on which must rest one important concern of any poli

losophy-the relation of the individual and the group. Every in
ual is to Schleiermacher a distinct and precious materialization
divine spirit.5 Each individual, however, can find completion, pe
moral and spiritual, only in a society.6 The same completion
the group exists for the individual in the political community an
other aspects of human society: "the state is interlaced with t
dividuated intellect, free association in society caught together w
and religion. Because the individual and the general are really
each particular expression is inextricably and reciprocally int
trated with all other expressions: community and property, phil
and religion, art and language."7 The nation-state, just like t
gious community, is one single manifestation of the universe
torical development from the natural familial relationship.8 Geog
and language contribute to the further uniqueness of the indi
people.9 As a result, each nation-state in its ideal form is a cultu
linguistic unity based on the group culture, a culture that impre
each of its manifestations its own character. The ultimate goa
formation by a people of its own separate nation. Until the co
of that end by each people, war must be regarded as inevitabl
tervening periods of peace must be considered as transient.10
Recognizing that the state performs an essential function in
human society, Schleiermacher accorded it a major role. At
time, his discouragement with the temper of his age as reflected
decline of its political standards was often manifested in his early
Reden iiber die Religion and Monologen. In the Monologen he lamented
the failure of the state to maintain the ideal standard he found pre-
figured in the political hopes of the past. He chided those who saw the
best state as that government which governed least: "Whoever thus
regards the greatest achievement of human art, by which man should
be raised to the highest level of which he is capable, as nothing but a
necessary evil, as an indispensable method for covering up crime and
mitigating its effects, must inevitably sense nothing but a limitation in
that which is designed to enhance his life in the highest degree."1 His
complete rejection of the prevailing Enlightenment political philosophy
compounded of mutual self-interest and eudaemonism was, in fact, im-
plicit in all his political thought including his demand, uttered well
before the actual rout of the Prussian armies by Napoleon in 1806, for
a fundamental recasting of the political life of the nation.12
While Schleiermacher posited a massive role for the state in the
life of the individual, he was often aware of the potential and actual
antinomies between the two. He was particularly sensitive as well to
the relationship between the two institutions of his community: state

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376 CHkURCH HISTORY

and church. Because religion, of its very nature, was to Schleiermac

a tender and fragile moment of experience which could best be nou
ished by free intercourse between individuals who had possessed a
common moment of religious intuition, the church, like the state, he
imagined as a voluntary association of kindred spirits. It was, there-
fore, absolutely necessary that the connection between the state and the
religious community not molest free religious expression. Schleier-
macher was well aware that the relation he deemed necessary between
the state and religious communities had not existed in the past.13
In summary, on the eve of the war between France and Prussia
Schleiermacher had a sweeping conception of the function of the state
and its place in the development of society. He based its entire rationale
upon the necessity for the fullest development of the individual. With
this principle was combined Schleiermacher's awareness of past
and potential conflicts of interest between the individual and the politi-
cal group. These convictions insured that his response to the crisis of
1806 would envisage the reconstruction of Prussia in terms pri-
marily considerate of the individual and his fulfillment, and of the in-
terrelation of the other community institutions with the state.
It would, however, be insufficient to examine Schleiermacher's ac-
tivities during the period of the Prussian reform movement and the
wars of liberation against France purely in terms of his abstruse
philosophical formulations. His rationalized considerations were but-
tressed with a number of loyalties and attachments. Born a Prussian, he
never wavered in his fundamental loyalty to his homeland. Most of the
time he had no real reason to do so for, despite the stereotype, early
nineteenth-century Prussia provided a hospitable climate for a figure
of intellectual stature like Schleiermacher. Berlin, where he had spent
many of his earlier years, prided itself as being "the Athens of the
North." One foreign visitor termed it "the most enlightened city in
Germany."'4 And King Friedrich Wilhelm III, encouraged by the en-
lightened bureaucracy around him, had vague and half-formulated
ideas of making his capital a center of free thought and of German
art.15 In fact, the Prussian government, apparently desirous of caring
for its intellectuals, had stayed Schleiermacher's reluctant decision to
accept a professorship outside Prussia at Wurzburg in 1804 in place of
his rather isolated pastorate in Stolp in Prussian Pomerania with the
offer of a chair and pulpit in Halle.16
The war threat in the fall of 1806 gave Schleiermacher his first
opportunity to spell out his specific political concepts, the roots of which
can be discerned in his earlier lectures and writings and in his loyalties
to the Prussian state. As early as June of that year he wrote to his
future sister-in-law, Charlotte von Kathen, that every individual must

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 SCHT-TI I'KRMACHER'S POLITICAL THOUGHT 377

throw himself into the inevitable war, for ". . . no individual can hope
save himself. Our whole life is rooted in and enhanced by German fre
dom and conviction." He foresaw slavery and ruin for the Germa
people as the consequences of a defeat in the forthcoming battle. A
stake were the German conscience, religion and the continued form
tion of the national spirit. Schleiermacher called upon the German peo
ple to rally to the cause, one which transcended the care of princes an
their mercenary armies. "The crisis appears to me to be that of al
Germany, and Germany is the kernel of Europe. ... I breathe desire fo
the tempest, anticipating from the coming storm the explosion.""7

As the war threat alternately advanced and retreated during t

summer of 1806, Schleiermacher's own conviction that a conflict was
necessary remained firm. In late August he wrote to his publisher and
friend, Georg Reimer, that regrettably it appeared that the crisis would
pass without action. His fingers were itching to turn out a political
pamphlet, he declared, and he longed to deliver a political talk.18 About
the same time he delivered from his pulpit in Halle a sermon demanding
an end to indifference toward public life and to the infection of cos-
mopolitanism. The state, Schleiermacher iterated in this moment of
great peril to Prussia, is neither an artificial machine nor a necessary
evil. Rather, it is an essential part of the life of the individual. He called
upon the citizen to recognize his dependence upon the national group
and, at least inferentially, to support it.19 Schleiermacher was fully
cognizant of the political role he had undertaken through his pulpit.20
Furthermore, in the second edition of his Reden, which he was pre-
paring in Halle to be forwarded to Georg Reimer, he had newly inter-
polated in more than one spot references to the Napoleonic danger to
Germany and particularly, as he imagined it, to Protestantism. Specifi-
cally, as a comparative perusal of the editions of the Reden reveals,
Schleiermacher saw Napoleon as the instrument of a revived Catholic
menace.21

The occupation of Halle by the French army almost immediately

after the rout of the Prussians confronted Schleiermacher with the con-
sequences of defeat. In the sack of the city he lost his. quarters and
some of his personal belongings.22 Somewhat more staggering for his
personal equilibrium was the loss of his position, for Napoleon, after
ordering the students to leave the city, closed the university.23 Schleier-
macher bitterly lamented the fate that had deprived him of the post in
which he could successfully combine his predilections for philosophy,
theology and the pulpit.24 In spite of the "reign of Attila" (as he de-
scribed the occupation of Halle25), Schleiermacher was able to continue
his patriotic strictures from the pulpit with apparent effect through-
out the winter of 1806-1807.26 But the institution of a prayer for the

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378 CHURCH HISTORY

King and Queen of Westphalia, to which Halle, detached fro

sia dismembered by Napoleon, had been attached in the spring
led Schleiermacher to refuse to ascend the pulpit.27

Long before 1806, Schleiermacher had identified the future

ligion as he knew it with an undefined German spirit. In co
associated the religion of Rome with a rigidity which he fo
thetical to individuated religious experience.28 The first edit
Reden in 1799 had already prefigured the union of this Germ
with religion. In the edition of 1806 this identification was stren
Furthermore, he linked intellectual progress with Christian
even more specifically, with Protestantism.29 Around the ou
the war Schleiermacher made even more precise the identificat
tween the future of Protestantism with its independent spir
cause of Germany and especially of Prussia. In December, 1
than two months after Jena, he recalled to his friend and f
tor, Ehrenfried von Willich, the prophecy which he had m
second edition of the Reden: "Napoleon hates Protestantism as he
hates speculative thought." Should a time of persecution come, he
wrote, "let us stand at our posts and fear nothing."30 To Georg Reimer
he wrote on a similar theme at the same time. He had hoped, he declared,
that Napoleon would continue his conquest and subjection of North
Germany with an assault on and persecution of Protestantism. On this
basis Schleiermacher contemplated the beginning of a religious war
"in the old German fashion." What he seems to have meant was some
sort of mass outbreak of the German people which would call forth
superficially obscured but essentially deep religious sentiments of the
German people, as well as a fervent and deep-seated patriotic loyalty.
In Protestantism, Schleiermacher repeated, reposed not only the
strength of the North German spirit (Sinn) but also the fundamental
verities of the German world of learning.31
Although the disaster of the Prussian state was complete, Schlei-
ermacher lost neither his conviction that the Prussian cause was funda-
mentally good nor his belief that the future held the prospect of re-
covery. Again and again he returned to the theme so deeply rooted in
the political theories which he had proposed in his sermon of the pre-
ceding August. The cause of the ruin of the Prussian state was its
failure to grow beyond the level of mechanical organization. While
Prussia had achieved an internal unity in learning and religion, the
separation of the individual and the family and the group from the
state had not been remedied. Without internal disunity, the worst mis-
takes and lack of talent could not have led to such a debacle. Yet he
was certain that the blood and sacrifice of the war had not been in vain.
He contemplated a revival coming out of the depths of the nation stir-

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 SCHT.IAi I:MIACHER'S POLITICAL THOUGHT 379

red, as he wrote to Reimer and Willich, by its unity in learning

ligion. Additional hints of his own future political involveme
seen in his criticism of the educated of the Prussian state for their
separation from the masses. Often he reaffirmed his faith in the Prus-
sian royal house. But he had no real ideal of how the regeneration of
the Prussian state was to be brought about if Napoleon should fail to
unleash the anticipated anti-Protestant crusade.32 After the detach-
ment of Halle from Prussia in the spring of 1807, Schleiermacher's
expressed loyalty to the Prussian state became ever stronger while, a
the same time, he reemphasized the connection of Germany and th
Protestant faith. Whatever the fate of Prussia, he wrote to his sister
in the autumn of 1807, "I want, as long as I can, to seek the Germa
fatherland where a Protestant can live and where Germans rule." His
remarks concerning the religious strength of Prussia indicate that he
had previously thought it to be the spiritual homeland of Protestant
Germans.33 It might be supposed, considering his juxtaposition of Prot-
estantism and the progress of civilization, that he would naturally as-
sociate Prussia with Protestant cultural preeminence as well.
The important place of Berlin in the German intellectual world
of the period tended to substantiate this notion of the cultural pre-
eminence of Prussia. And it was to that city that Schleiermacher went
in 1807 after deciding that his position in Halle was no longer tenable
It was natural that Schleiermacher should return to Berlin, where he
had found so much satisfaction in earlier years. Despite the dreariness
occasioned there by the French occupation and the economic difficulties
which the loss of his position entailed, he found it possible to renew his
old friendships and to take up once again both frequent guest sermons
and private lecturing.34 Furthermore, there Schleiermacher's place in
Prussian university life might be restored. The king, stimulated by the
petitions of two Halle professors who had visited him in Tilsit, decided
to establish a higher educational institution in Berlin to replace that
lost in Halle.35 Schleiermacher was wholly in accord with this idea. Hi
pamphlet, Gelegentliche Gedanken iiber Universititen im deutschen
Sinne, composed in 1808, expressed his hopes for the future of the new
educational institution, his continued faith in Prussia and its cultural
role, and his belief that Berlin, as the intellectual center of Prussia,
was the proper place to establish a university.36 This faith and these
hopes were again closely connected with his belief that to Prussia be-
longed the spiritual leadership of Protestant North Germany.37
Berlin did not immediately present the opportunities which had
been offered by his influential position in Halle. Often Schleiermacher's
despair over the destiny of defeated Prussia was joined to his lamenta-
tions over the uncertainty of his future.38 He wished to become a "po-

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380 CHURCH HISTORY

litical person," although, as he wrote to his friend, Gustav von

mann, he felt that he could do nothing for the regeneration "bu
But he promised that, should he ever have the chance to do som
else, he would fulfill the task assigned him.39 Opportunities bo
pulpit and in the broader political world were presented him
course of the same year. Access to the pulpit itself (he gave
mately eighteen sermons in the period from January throu
1808, in various Berlin churches) offered to him an importa
in a city where no political meetings were allowed and where t
papers were subject to the strictest censorship.40

The winter and spring of 1807-1808 was a period of gr

sions in Prussia. Baron Stein and the innovating bureaucrats
Prussian government in exile were introducing the economi
litical reforms that were to give their name to this period o
history. Schleiermacher must have early become aware of
eral outlines of the reform legislation. His approval and esp
these efforts were expressed in the sermon which he gave
old Dreifaltigkeitskirche on January 24, 1808, in commemorati
birthday of Frederick the Great. In this sermon Schleiermac
far beyond the simple patriotic appeal which had characte
previous sermons, themselves not much removed from the
political sermon in Prussia.41 Schleiermacher recalled the re
change in the Frederician spirit which made it possible for
to cast off obsolescent usages and to replace them with meas
in keeping with the exigencies of the times. In a contemporary
he discussed the outmoded structure and vast inequality of the
under the Prussian crown. A transformation of the old social order
in a more egalitarian direction was one of the chief objectives of the
group around Baron Stein. While Schleiermacher wisely based his ap-
peal for progress on the basis of tradition, his effort from the pulpi
was in substance revolutionary. It was the first of a series of such
reform sermons which definitely aligned Schleiermacher and his in-
fluential pulpit with the reform party in the Prussian state on one of
the first clear partisan political issues in its history.42 In keeping with
his proposals for the replacement of the mechanistic tyranny of the
state by a free community of citizens were those measures of the
Stein government which conceded to the individual greater moral
autonomy as a participant in the state-community. Schleiermacher was
to take up the same reform theme again in support of the introduction of
elected governments in the cities and the liberation of the church from
state control-the latter an aspect of the reform movement in which he
himself naturally had intense interest.43
Schleiermacher's political sermons, his influential contacts in Ber-

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 SCHTT.T::I IKMAC-HE'S POLITICAL THOUGHT 381

lin and his desire to become a "political person" brought him into
secret conspiracy against Napoleonic domination in Germany. Appar
ently an attempt was to be made to bring Prussia, through an insurrec-
tion against Napoleon, into an alliance with Austria, which was know
to be preparing to sponsor an uprising in all Germany. The whole
scheme was encouraged by the success of the insurgents in Spain. Fo
such a plot it was not difficult to find adherents. Prussia was overrun
with discharged officers and soldiers and other uprooted patriots suc
as Schleiermacher himself. A similar group had formed the famous
Tugendbund in K6nigsberg. In late August, 1808, Schleiermacher wen
to K6nigsberg on a mission for the Berlin conspirators, who ha
cloaked themselves with secret names (which, written in a notebook
along with their real equivalents, Schleiermacher, in the naive mann
of the nineteenth century, seems to have carried about with him). I
the negotiations in progress between the Prussian government and
Napoleon toward a final peace treaty, the Prussians faced the bleake
of terms. It was the wish of the Berlin patriotic group that the govern-
ment might come to recognize its latent strengths and join the Austrian
in a patriotic outburst against Napoleonic domination in Germany.
These hopes were later undermined by the discovery by the French o
Stein's own participation in anti-French activities and Napoleon's sub
sequently realized demand for Stein's removal from office. Neverth
less, Schleiermacher utilized the occasion of his visit in K6nigsberg
to meet the leading military and civilian personalities of the Prussia
government and to seek to win among them a following for his own
ideas.44 He preached once in the Schlosskirche, had an audience wit
Queen Louise and social contact with the crown prince and princess,
well as many conferences with the leading personalities of the Prussian
government, including Baron Stein, whom he came to estimate ver
highly. His opinions on representation of the public in politics wer
solicited and Stein commissioned him to write a plan for the reorganiza-
tion of the relation between state and church in Prussia.45
Schleiermacher returned to Berlin at the end of September with
his political faith much renewed. The contacts he had made in K6nigs-
berg and the commission he had been given gave him hope that he
might ultimately realize some of his ideas with respect to the free as-
sociation of church and state. His experiences had renewed his pa-
triotic conviction and his belief in the destiny of the Prussian state. The
K6nigsberg trip was, despite the failure of its original purpose, the
beginning of Schleiermacher's influence in governmental affairs.
Although French pressure brought down the Stein government in
November, it was replaced by another ministry to which Schleier-
macher ascribed many hopes. Many of the officials in the new ministry,

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382 CHURCH HISTORY

which was headed by Karl Friedrich von Altenstein and Sc

macher's old friend Count Alexander von Dohna, were the same re-
reform-conscious administrators whom Schleiermacher had met in
Konigsberg. Dohna called upon Schleiermacher for direct political ad-
vice and ultimately, in July 1809, had him installed under Wilhelm von
Humboldt in the Section for Public Instruction, where the plans for
the new university in Berlin and other educational reforms, which
Humboldt was advancing as rapidly as possible, were being
formulated.46
Yet Schleiermacher, despite his own personal successes: his new
post in the government, his newly permanent pulpit as Reformed pas-
tor in the Dreifaltigkeitskirche and his marriage in the spring of 1809,
was soon very much aware that the political situation, in which he had
placed so many hopes despite the fall of Stein, was rapidly worsening.47
The ministry of Altenstein and Dohna, except for the section under
Humboldt, was plainly unable to carry on with the work which had
been begun by Stein and his associates. In addition, the Prussian state
faced bankruptcy.48 Schleiermacher's program for the reform of the
church, Vorschlag zu einer neuen Verfassunig der protestantischen
Kirche im Preussischen Staate, which incorporated his ideas on the
gradual unification of the two Protestant confessions and proposed the
virtual independence of the church from the secular power, was far too
revolutionary to suit the ideas of the head of the Section for Cults in
the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, Ludwig Nicolovius.49
Schleiermacher was deeply troubled by the dilatory course of the
reform movement and, in addition, by the failure of the Prussian state
to renew the struggle against the French. The Austrians had sounded
the national call to the German people in the spring of 1809. He and
the conspirators of the Berlin group, as well as many of those in high
places in the Prussian government, had hoped that Prussia would join.
Instead, Prussia remained an idle spectator while the Austrian-led Ger-
man patriots were systematically eradicated by the French armies.50
All the patriots must have shared Schleiermacher's despair, expressed
in the late fall of 1809: "The hope of a suitable regeneration of our
state, in which much has already begun, sinks ever further.... A sud-
den collapse is a good presumption."51
While Schleiermacher was merely discouraged with the course of
the internal reform movement under the ministry of Altenstein and
Dohna as well as the failure of Prussia to take up the German national
cause, the ministry of Karl Friedrich Hardenberg, which succeeded
that of Altenstein and Dohna in October, 1810, evoked from him a
spirit of positive opposition. What particularly in the Hardenberg re-
forms offended Schleiermacher is difficult to determine. Hardenberg,

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 SCHT-AI P:KMACHiR'S POLITICAL THOUGHT 383

concerned with meeting the urgent financial problems of the

state, concentrated his initial efforts upon increasing its revenu
he secularized some of the lands belonging to the church. Sub
he attempted to widen the tax base to include the nobility. It wa
ably not the secularization which annoyed Schleiermacher, fo
come from those lands had long been diverted from its original
into the hands of high church and state officials.52 Certainly th
to involve all the citizens in the tax base was a step in the dir
the equal participation and involvement of all the citizens in t
which Schleiermacher, it would seem, would have approved
ciple. What appears to have displeased Schleiermacher (so mu
that he wrote a letter to Stein and urged the latter to dissoci
self from the Hardenberg government which, he alleged, wa
ing as a continuation of the Stein tradition) was the fact that
troversial fiscal nature of the Hardenberg program had set of
battle among the estates within Prussia. The nobility, or a large
of it, simply refused to surrender its privileges without a s
Curiously enough, it was the government's efforts which w
Schleiermacher's eyes, undermining all hope of uniting the P
in a single cause. Hardenberg's reforms with their preeminent ec
emphasis, reported Schleiermacher, demeaned the original g
tentions of the reformers.53 In any case, the reform note dis
entirely from his sermons.54
Nor could Schleiermacher appreciate Hardenberg's obv
difference to the plans of the still active patriot group. With
exile, the hopes of the patriots centered on patriotic generals
Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Boyen. Gneisenau in 1808 had m
plan for an uprising against the French, advocating the use
Prussian clergy in its traditional role to awaken the public spi
doubt Schleiermacher found such ideas quite acceptable. In 1811
Gneisenau, in a memoir submitted to the king, made a new and similar
proposal to which Hardenberg, at least originally, was not hostile.56
Gneisenau again proposed utilizing the pastors. Stein, from his place
of exile, suggested Schleiermacher's name to Hardenberg as the most
suitable man for arranging such a scheme.57 The king, however, re-
jected Gneisenau's plan mockingly, noting that, "if one pastor should
be shot, the affair would end." Shortly thereafter, both Scharnhorst
and Gneisenau left Prussian service. The king made the alliance with
the French which preceded the attack by Napoleon on Russia in June,
1812. In this alliance, Hardenberg willingly concurred.58
The French alliance strained the very limits of Schleiermacher's
political faith. The reform movement was directed down channels
which he found unacceptable, while the proud Prussian eagle, to which

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384 CHURCH HISTORY

he had assigned preeminence in Germany, was shackled, however un-

comfortably, to the grande armee in its drive to the east. Even the news
of the retreat of the French and allied armies from Russia did not im-
mediately revive his hopes. He wrote to his friend, Count Alexander
von Dohna, as late as January 2, 1813, that the Prussian state, which
he had felt had had a destiny in Germany and in Europe, had proved
itself unworthy.59 Yet in his sermon on the following day he alluded
to the favorable situation which the defeat of the French might yield
to Prussia. On December 28, 1812, the Prussian General Yorck had
neutralized his corps and had refused for his own part to continue sup-
porting the French. Schleiermacher had apparently learned of this
neutralization from Gneisenau before his sermon. He proposed to his
congregation that contracts made under duress need not be honored.
Apparently this was not the first of his sermons of the period of the
alliance with the French which had concerned itself with Prussia's
status as a Napoleonic satellite. His activities in the church were al-
ready under the observation of one of Hardenberg's agents. Harden-
berg, justifiably nervous with respect to the precarious status of Prus-
sia, still under French occupation as well as allied to the vanquished,
undoubtedly wished to see a stabilization of the situation before he
determined with the king a proper policy for the state. Extraordinary
efforts had been made to control public opinion in Prussia. Schleier-
macher's discussion of the basic issue of the neutralization of Yorck's
army before his congregation in a city where the news of Yorck's ac-
tion was yet an official secret brought him further into disfavor.6?
The next few weeks were filled with the confusion attending the
preparations by the Prussian government for a reversal of alliances.
On January 23, the king's flight from Berlin to Breslau was made pub-
lic. In early February, he asked for volunteers. To this summons
Schleiermacher responded with an appeal to the young men of his con-
gregation to heed the king's appeal to liberate the Fatherland, although
the specific purpose of the king's call had not been announced.61 In
late February the new alliance between Prussia and Russia was pro-
claimed. On March 20, the king issued an appeal to the patriotism of
his subjects, followed in the next week by a summons to join the volun-
teer Landwehr. The request for volunteers was supported enthusiasti-
cally by Schleiermacher from the pulpit. The events of the foregoing
two months portended to him the awakening of the national voice at
last. The call for volunteers he considered the first step in the right
direction toward a solution of the national question. The war should
be fought, as he had noted in his reflections on the defeat of 1806, by
the whole people and not by mercenary armies. By his action, the king
was making the whole nation privy to the affairs of the nation at war,
just as the Stein reforms had contemplated opening the path for the

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 SCHTLEI ;KMACHER'S POLITICAL THOUGHT 385

recruitment of individual strengths toward the revival of th

community at peace.62
Schleiermacher was not content to express his patriotism fr
pulpit alone. He volunteered to serve as a chaplain with the
army. Unsuccessful in that attempt, he enlisted in the Land
sort of national guard, which he saw as another means by w
Prussian state was capitalizing on the latent public strength
he was dissatisfied with the cautious policy of Hardenberg
refusal of the government to take the people into its confidenc
the summoning of the two popular military groups. He cond
well the failure of the common citizen to respond enthusias
the German cause.64
But Schleiermacher's commitment to Prussia again carr
beyond these doubts. In a letter of June, 1813, to his old frie
rich Schlegel, he formulated his hopes for the future Germ
Analyzed, they provide a weak buttress for the zeal and emotional
intensity which he brought to his own political activities. He foresaw a
German state united militarily and diplomatically, recognizing individ-
ual liberty and the special place of its traditional groups. His mistrust
of the Catholic Habsburgs was manifest as well as his awareness of the
difficulty of finding a subordinate position for Prussia in any Austrian-
led German state. Beyond hopes for a continuation of the wartime
cooperation between the two allies he would not go.65 The exact method
of attaining a German national state, and authoritarian Prussia's role
in obtaining it-a cause to which Schleiermacher was already con-
tributing all his strength-were at no time made precise. How were
the vaguely formulated desires which he outlined to Schlegel connected
with the heady patriotism of his daily activities ? His own doubt about
the conduct of the Prussian government and of the failure of the
masses to respond suitably to what he thought was their own cause do
not appear to have lessened his unshakeable faith and arduous efforts
in favor of the goal he regarded himself to be supporting.
Yet Schleiermacher's ardent patriotism never went to the excesses
of Francophobia reached by some of the patriots. Schleiermacher was
too much aware of the great contribution of French culture to Eu-
ropean society and of the enriching effect of the interpenetration of
cultures. He condemned the exacerbation of national hatreds which
was the main theme of so many of the patriotic manifestations of the
period. Napoleon, not the French people, was Schleiermacher's enemy.66
The desire for patriotic activity led Schleiermacher to the editor-
ship of the Preussischer Correspondent, a newspaper founded as the
voice of the Prussian state at war in June, 1813.67 And it was Schleier-
macher's term as editor that ultimately led to his disillusionment with

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386 CHURCH HISTORY

the Prussian cause. In July, 1813, the Landsturm was c

order of the king acting on the suggestion of frightened cons
who saw in an armed public force a possible menace to inter
bility. This was the first breach in the concept of the nati
which was so important to Schleiermacher's hopes for the
the nation. Only a few of those hopes had been realized. In
spondent he openly challenged the government's policy an
the motives behind the war effort which had permitted the t
vailing armistice with the French.68 The government was o
Schleiermacher's provocative article. Some went so far as to
that Schleiermacher be tried for high treason, although the is
allowed to die with his resignation from the editorship.69

This episode juxtaposed in Schleiermacher's mind, appar

the first time, the Prussia of his ideals and hopes, and the
circumscribed and manifestly authoritarian state of Harden
Friedrich Wilhelm III. The doubts with respect to the conduct of the
war and its relevance to his goals, which he had expressed as early as
the spring and summer of 1813, were coalesced with a recognition of
the realities of the Prussian state.70 While he rejoiced at the great Al-
lied victory at Leipzig in October, 1813, he felt that the energies en-
gendered by the enthusiasm of the war period were being dissipated
without regard for the future.71 In the succeeding winter his disenchant-
ment was to become so complete that he was ready to give up Berlin and
Prussia and the prominent position he held there as soon as tolerable
employment could be found elsewhere.72

With the rout and westward retreat of the French, all Germany
was soon emptied of the former occupying armies. The conditions for
the regeneration of Prussia, for which Schleiermacher had hoped since
before the war of 1806, were at hand. They were not exploited. The
Stein reform program, from which Schleiermacher had expected so
much, was dormant. The political bases for a national movement in
Germany were not essentially improved. Prussia was to be physically
aggrandized but remained in basic character the pre-Jena state. The
victory over the French had, in fact, apparently resanctified the exist-
ence of old Prussia and had removed the greatest stimuli toward
change: the leaven of French revolutionary ideas which persisted still
under Bonaparte and the necessity, born of defeat, for a basic reassess-
ment of the old order in Prussia. The Protestant Church in Prussia was
on the eve of its severest test, a new Byzantinism, which grew out of
the failure of the reformers to diminish the vast arbitrary power of the
Prussian crown. Against this effort to reorder the church by royal fiat
Schleiermacher was to fight his greatest campaign in pulpit and pamph-

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 SCIT..I: HlKMACHER'S POLITICAL THOUGHT 387

let. But his hopes for a free and independent religious comm
free state were eventually reduced to a mockery.
Schleiermacher himself had given the internal reform prog
tle attention since he had come to disapprove of the methods of
berg's reforms. He had, instead, focused his hopes on the reg
of the Prussian nation and people through a mass patriotic o
against French hegemony in Germany. Despite the evidence
he had long recognized) that the effect for which he had h
not noticeably developed, he had dedicated all his energies to
cause of the Prussian state. His qualms about Prussian policy were
submerged in his ideals for the future of Germany. The victory over
France brought neither the rewards which his heart had led him to
expect from the great trial by battle nor did it bring nearer the social
and political goals anticipated in his formal speculations.
The historian cannot demand from any figure a superhuman con-
sistency. Between speculation and action there remain always the real-
ities of performance. Certainly one consistency in Schleiermacher's
political world was his attachment, sanctioned by his speculative
thought, to the institutions to which he as a citizen belonged: the Prot-
estant church and the Prussian crown. Coupled with this loyalty to
the church and nation was Schleiermacher's identification of the inter-
ests of the Protestant faith in Germany with the cause of the Prussian
state, and his correlation of the progress of German culture with
Protestantism.
Yet in any overall assessment of Schleiermacher's political ac-
tivities there must be recognized a serious hiatus between the ideal and
the reality. Seizing the opportunity offered by his influential post, he
entered the lists for the internal reforms under Stein, but he aban-
doned the same effort under Hardenberg for reasons which seem
neither clear, consistent nor realistic. Furthermore, as the obstacles to
the internal reform movement became increasingly serious, he equated
more and more the achievement of his goals inside Prussia with attain-
ing the national interests of the German people, even though he rec-
ognized that the Prussia which was pursuing the war was not far dif-
ferent from the nation he had condemned earlier. If it be extenuating
rather than merely explanatory, let it be admitted that he made under
pressure the same simple transfer of focus followed by most leading
contemporaries. His example was but one of many in which the political
liberalizer turned from the harder course of internal reform to the
more immediately attainable panacea offered by the national cause. No
was he alone in the Protestant intellectual world in willingly losing
reservations toward the Prussian authoritarian state out of his grea
fear, real or imagined, of militant Catholicism. These two themes are

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388 CHURCH HISTORY

fundamental to an understanding of Schleiermacher's political ac-

tivity and its relation to his political thought in these first few years
of his public influence. Beyond Schleiermacher and his contemporaries
they recur in the response repeatedly made in nineteenth-century Ger-
man history by others who faced a similar task of resolving a difficult,
seemingly insuperable, internal issue. These problems were often and
easily effaced, at least temporarily, by seeking a general and all-
embracing solution to the ever-present German national question.

1. This paper was presented before a ses- 126. See also on Berlin, Wilhelm Dil-
sion of the American Society of Church they, Leben Schleiermachers, I (second
History in Washington, D.C., on 29 De- ed., Berlin, 1922), 218-229.
cember 1958. Much of the research 15. Max Lenz, Geschichte der K6niglichen
abroad was made possible by a grant Friedrich-Wilhelms Universitdt zu Ber-
from the American Philosophical Asso- lin, I, (Halle, 1910), 7-9.
tion (Penrose Fund). 16. Dilthey, Leben Schleiermachers, I, 697-
2. Wilhelm Dilthey, "Schleiermachers po- 711. See also the extracts from the let-
litische Gesinnung und Wirksamkeit," ters written in the spring of 1804 from
Preussische Jahrbiicher, X (1862), 234- Schleiermiacher to Heinrich Paulus in
277. Wiirzburg, in Karl Ernst Heinrici
3. Giinther Holstein, Die Staatsphilosophie (Berlin), Autographen Katalog, Ver-
Schleiermachers (Bonner Staatsgewis- steigerung LXIII (1920).
senschaftliche Untersuchungen, Heft 8, 17. Schleiermacher to Charlotte von Ka-
Bonn, 1923), 90. then, 20 June 1806, Wilhelm Dilthey,
4. Friedrich Schleiermacher, Ober die Re- Aus Schleiermachers Leben in Briefen,
ligion, Reden an die Gebildeten unter II (Berlin, 1858), 63.
ihren Veriichtern (first ed.) in Otto 18. S. to Georg Reimer, end bf August,
Braun and Johannes Bauer, eds., 1806, Schleiermacher Nachlass, Deut-
Schleiermachers Werke, IV (Leipzig, sche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu
1911), 245, 254. Berlin, Literatur-Archiv des Instituts
5. Reden iiber die Religion (first ed.) 256, fur deutsche Sprache und Literatur;
265; Horace Deland Fries, ed. and S. to Ehrenfried von Willich, 15 Sep-
trans., Schleiermacher 's Soliloquies tember 1806, Dilthey, Briefe, II, 67.
(Chicago, 1926), 31. 19. Johannes Bauer, Schleiermacher als
6. Soliloquies, 36; Friedrich Schleiermach- patriotischer Prediger: ein Beitrag zur
er, Brouillon zur Ethik, in Otto Braun Geschichte der nationalen Erhebung vor
and Johannes Bauer, eds., Schleier- hundert Jahren (Studien zur Geschichte
mnachers Werke, II (Leipzig, 1913), 93. des neuern Protestantismus, Heft 4,
7. Brouillon zur Ethik, 103. Giessen, 1908) 23; Friedrich Schleier-
8. Ibid., 95, 139-40. macher, "Wie sehr es die Wiirde des
9. Ibid., 95, 100-1, 147, 166. Menschen erhoht, wenn er mit ganzer
10. Ibid., 147, 166-7. Seele an der biirgerlichen Vereinigung
11. Soliloquies, 58-9. hangt, der er angehort," Siimmtliche
12. Ibid., 51-3, 61-2; Friedrich Schleier- Werke, Part II, Predigten, vol. I (new
macher, Grundlinien einer Kritik der ed., Berlin, 1834), 223-38; Holstein,
bisherigen Sittenlehre, in Otbo Braun Die Staatsphilosophie Schleiermachers,
90-3.
and Johannes Bauer, eds., Schleier-
machers Werke, I (Leipzig, 1910), 237. 20. S. to E. v. Willich, 15 September 1806,
13. Reden iiber die Religion (first ed.), Dilthey, Briefe, II, 67.
334, 337-42; Friedrich Schleiermacher, 21. This threat was later accounted for by
Die Lehre von Staat, in Otto Braun Schleiermacher in the explanations to
and Johannes Bauer, eds., Schleier- the third edition of the Reden: Fried-
machers Werke, III (Leipzig, 1911), rich Schleiermacher, tber die Religion,
574; see also Friedrich Schleiermacher, Reden an die Gebildeten unter ihren
The Christian Faith (translated from Verichtern (third ed., Berlin, 1821),
the second [1831] German edition by 461.
H. R. Mackintosh and J. S. Stewart, 22. S. to Heinrich Eichstadt, 9 December
Edinburgh, 1928), 6, 28-9. 1806, in J. A. Stargardt (Berlin), Au-
14. Quoted by Wilhelm Treue, "Adam tographen Katalog (1926), 53; S. to
Smith in Deutschland. Zum Problem des G. Reimer, 4 November 1806, Heinrich
'Politischen Professors' zwisehen 1776 Meisner, Schleiermacher als Mensech, II
und 1810," in Walter Conze, ed., (Sein Wirken, Briefe, 1804-1834, Gotha,
Deutschland und Europa: Festschrift 1923), 69-70; S. to Henriette Herz, 4
fiir Hans Rothfels (Diisseldorf, 1951), November 1806, Dilthey, Briefe, II, 71.

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 SCHT,hlri h:KMACIHEt'S POLITICAL THOUGHT 389

23. Dilthey, Leben Schleiermachers, I, 816- 43. See the sermon of January 1809,
7. Sdmmntliche Werke, Part II, vol. IV, 1-
24. Ibid., 821. 13, and one from 1810, ibid., 387-9.
25. S. to Eichstadt, 9 December 1806, Star- Schleiermacher 's Tagebiicher which
gardt, Katalog (1926), 53. exist for the years 1808, 1809 and 1810,
26. Sdm4ntliche Werke, Part II, Vol. 1, 223- indicate the extent of his activities in
38; Reimer to S., 17 December 1806, the pulpit. Most of the sermons them-
Schleiermacher Nachlass; Adolph Miil- selves are lost. See Bauer, Schleier-
ler, Briefe von der Universitdt in die macher als patriotischer Prediger, 53.
Heimath (ed. by Ludmilla Assing, 44. For a key to at least one set of the
Leipzig, 1874), 359. pseudonyms see Schleiermacher Tage-
27. S. to Charlotte v. Kathen, 31 December buch, 1808, Sehleiermacher Nachlass.
1807, Meisner, Briefe, II, 96. See also, Dilthey, "Schleiermachers po-
28. Reden ilber die Religion (first ed.), litische Gesinnung und Wirksamkeit,"
248. 270-1; and Meisner, Briefe, II, 382; S.
29. Ibid., 219-21; Friedrich Schleiermacher, to Reimer, 30 August 1808, Schleier-
eber die Religion. Reden an die Gebil- macher Nachlass; S. to Reimer, 6 Sep-
deten unter ihren Verdichtern (second tember 1808, Meisner, Briefe, II, 110-1;
ed., Berlin, 1806), 364, 369, 371-2. Theodor von Schon, Aus den Papieren des
30. S. to E. v. Willich, 1 December 1806, Ministers und Burggrafen von Marien-
Meisner, Briefe, II, 78. burg Theodor von Schon, I (Halle,
31. S. to Reimer, 20 December 1806, Ibid., 1875), 51.
83.
45. Schleiermacher Tagebuch, 1808, Schlei-
32. S. to G. Reimer, 6-8 December 1806, ermacher Nachlass; Schon, Aus den
ibid., 81; November 1806, ibid., 72; Papieren Schons, IV (Halle, 1876),
S. to Charlotte v. Kathen, 1 December 566; S. to Brinckmann, 17 December
1806, Dilthey, Briefe, II, 79; S. to G. 1809, Meisner, Briefe, II, 122; Franz
Reimer, 4 November 1806, ibid., 70-1; Ruehl, ed., Briefe und Aktenstiieke ztr
Friedrich Schlegel to S., 26 August Geschichte Preussens unter Friedrich
1807, ibid., III (3862), 424. Wilhelm III. vorzugsweise aus dem
33. S. to Charlotte v. Kathen, autumn 1807, Nachlass von F. A.. von Stdgemann,
Meisner, Briefe, II, 96; also, S. to Erganzungsband (Leipzig, 1904), 114.
Friedrich v. Raumer, 12 Jan. 1807, 46. Schleiermacher Tagebuch, 1808, Schlei-
ibid.. 88; Dilthey, Leben Schleiermach- ermacher Nachlass; Gerhard Ritter,
ers, I, 860. Stein, eine politische Biographie, I
34. Ibid., 859; Scheiermacher Tagebuch, (Stuttgart, 1931), 455; Herman Mu-
1808, Sehleiermacher Nachlass.
lert, ed., Briefe Schleiermachers (Ber-
35. Franz Kade, Schleiermachers Anteil an lin, 1923), 277; Kade, Schleiermachers
der Entwicklung des preussischen Bil- Anteil .... 111-2; Ruehl, Stdgemann
dungswesens von 1808-1818 (Leipzig, Briefe, Ergiinzungsband, 160.
1925), 109. 47. Schleiermacher Tagebuch, 1809, Schlei-
36. Friedrich Schleiermacher, Gelegentliche ermacher Nachlass; S. to Charlotte v.
Gedanklen iiber Universitilten im deut- Kathen, 3 August 1809, Meisner,
schen Sinne, in Otto Braun and Johan- Briefe, II, 1206; S. to G. v. Brinck-
nes Bauer, eds., Schleiermachers Werkce, mann, 17 December 1809, ibid., 122.
IV (Leipzig, 1911), 623-5. 48. Walter Simon, The Failure of the Prus-
37. Ibid., 642.
sian Reform Movement (Ithaca, N. Y.,
38. S. to Gustav v. Brinckmann, 1 March 1955), ch. III, passim.
1808, Schleiermacher Nachlass; S. to 49. Schleiermacher's orsh l a g .... is
Charlotte v. Kathen, 10 April 1808, printed by Erich Forster, Die Entste-
ibid. hung der preussischen Landeskirche
39). S. to G. v. Brinckmann, 24 May 1808, unter der Begierung K6nig Friedrich
Meisner, Briefe, II, 107. Wilhelms des Dritten nach den Quellen
erziihlt: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der
40. Schleiermacher Tagebuch, 1808, Schlei-
Kirchenbildung im deutschen Protes-
ermacher Nachlass; Walter Wendland,
Siebenhundert Jahre Kirchengeschichte tantismus, I (Tuibingen, 1905), 160;
Berlins (Berlin, 1930), 190-1. see also, ibid., 167; Fritz Fischer, Lud-
wig Nicolovius (Stuttgart, 1939), 303;
41. On the political sermon see Curt Horn, S. to G. v. BrinckTnann, 17 December
" Die patriotische Predigt zur Zeit
1809, Meisner, Briefe, II, 122; Dilthey,
Friedrichs des Grossen," Jahrbuch fiiur Briefe, IV (1863), 173 f.n.
brandenburgische Kirchengeschichte, 50. Friedrich Thimme, "Zu den Erhe-
XIX (1924), 78-92; see also, Wend- bungsplinen der Preussischen Patrioten
land, Siebenhundert Jahre Kirchenge- im Sommer 1808. Ungedruckte Denk-
schiehte Berlins, ch. VIII, passim. schriften Gneisenau 's u n d Scharn-
42. Friedrich Schleiermacher, "ttber die horst's," Hist orische Zeitschrift,
rechte Verehrung gegen das einhei- LXXXVI (1901), 78-9; Ritter, Stein,
mische grosse aus einer fruheren Zeit," I, 426, II (Stuttgart, 1931), 47.
Sdmmtliche Werlke, Part II, Predigten, 51. S. to G. v. Brinckmann, 17 December
Vol. I, 360-7. 1809, Meisner, Briefe, II, 122.

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390 CHURCH HISTORY

52. Simon, Prussian Reform Movement, 85; Erleben des Krieges, verdeutlicht aus
Walter Wendland, Die Beligiositait und Schleiermachers Kriegspredigten, " Mo-
die kirchenpolitischen G r un d s a t z e natsschrift fiir Pastioraltheologie, XIII
Friedrich Wilhelms des Dritten (Stu- Jahrg. (1917), 89. For the earlier
dien zur Geschichte des neuern Protes- references see S. to Charlotte v. Kathen,
tantismus, Heft 5, Giessen, 1909), 78. 20 June 1806, Meisner, Briefe, II, 64.
53. S. to Stein, 1 July 1811, Meisner, 63. S. to A. v. Dohna, 17 April 1813, ibid.,
Briefe, II, 135-6. 153; S. to his wife, 14 May 1813, ibid.,
54. There is, unfortunately, only one ser- 157.
mon extant from the year 1811. Those 64. S. to Hermann v. Boyen, 13 [May
from 1812 have no political references. 1813?], Stargardt, Autographen Kata-
See Bauer, Schleiermacher als politi- log (1926), 30; S. to his wife, 30 May
scher Prediger, 74-90. 1813, Meisner, Briefe, II, 178.
55. Thimme, "Erhebungsplane," 78-9, 83- 65. S. to Friedrich Schlegel, 12 June 1813,
4; Ritter, Stein, II, 47-56, I, 426-7. ibid., II, 189-90.

56. Franz Schnabel, Deutsche Geschichte im 66. Die Lehre vom Staat, 589; Hermann
neunzehnten Jahrhundert, I (Freiburg- Dreyhaus, "Der Preussische Corres-
im-Br., 1929), 475; Fischer, Nicolovius, pondent von 1813/14 und der Anteil
363. seiner Griinder Niebuhr und Schleier-
57. Erich Botzenhart, ed., Freiherr vom macher," Fo-rschungen zur branden-
Stein: Briefwechsel, Denlcschriften und burgischen und preussischen Geschichte,
XXII (1909), 428.
Aufzeichnungen, III (Berlin, n.d.),
453. 67. Scharnhorst to S., 8 March 1813, Mu-
58. Schnabel, Deutsche Geschichte, I, 475- lert, Briefe, 300. On the Preussischer
Correspondent, see Dreyhaus, "Der
6; Hans Delbruck, Das Leben des Feld-
marschalls Grafen Neidthardt von Gnei- Preussische Correspondent...., " pas-
sim.
senau, I (third ed., Berlin, 1908), 220-
1. 68. S. to G. Reimer, 24 July 1813, Meisner,
59. S. to A. v. Dohna, 2 January 1813, Briefe, II, 204; Dreyhaus, "Der Preus-
Meisner, Briefe, II, 149. sische Correspondent..., f" 427.
69. S. to G. Reimer, 24 July 1813, Meisner,
60. Paul Czygan, Zur Geschiohte der Tages-
Briefe, II, 204; Dreyhaus, "Der Preus-
literatur wahrend der Freiheitscriege,
sische Correspondent...., " 433-41.
I (Leipzig, 1911), 230.
70. S. to Grafin v. Voss, 3 July 1813, Meis-
61. So, at least, reported Hardenberg's ner, Briefe, II, 201.
agent, Czygan, I, 230; Bauer, Schleier- 71. S. to G. Reimer, 14 November 1813,
macher als patriotischer Prediger, 93. ibid., 205.
62. Ruleman F. Eylert, Characterziige und 72. S. to G. Reimer, 14 November 1813,
historische Fragmente aus dem Leben ibid., 205; S. to J. Eichhorn, 8 Novem-
des Konigs Friedrich Wilhelm III, I ber 1813, 13 December 1813, former
(third ed., Magdeburg, 1843), 172-3, Preuss. Geh. Staatsarchiv; now Deut-
175; Bauer, Schleiermacher als patrio- sches Zentralarchiv, Abt. Merseburg,
tischer Prediger, 93-5; S. to A. v. Rep. 92, Eichhorn Nr. 53, Bl. 6-9; W.
Dohna, 7 March 1813, Meisner, Briefe, C. Muller to S., 30 April 1814, Schleier-
II, 150-1; Hans Reuter, "Das innere macher Nachlass.

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