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Introduction: Germany on His Mind: "Das Neue Vaterland"

The year 1888 was an important one for W. E. B. Du Bois. He was chosen valedictorian of his class at Fisk University in Tennessee, and also was admitted to Harvard University for further education, a goal he had desired for many years. What is surprising is that his thoughts turned toward Germany at least twice in this critical year of his life. First, he delivered his commencement speech on the 73-year-old Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of the relatively young German Empire. (1) Secondly, he wrote a brief essay in German, apparently for his own edification, addressed to German immigrants who were flocking to the U.S. in unprecedented numbers. (2) What led Germany to preoccupy his thoughts in 1888 is not clear. At secondary school in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois followed the advice of his teacher, Frank Hosmer, and studied the classical languages, Greek and Latin, that were then required for admission by many universities. At Fisk he chose to learn German with a very compelling teacher named Bennett, whose daughter was in many of his classes. In 1888 he was completing his third year of studying what was widely recognized in Europe and America at the time as the language of scholarship: German. (3) The speech on Bismarck is known to Du Bois scholars. It was quite laudatory regarding the Iron Chancellor's success in uniting the German states into a viable nation, but somewhat skeptical about Bismarck's ability or desire to create a nation engaged in self-government. His praise of Bismarck was measured. Still, what drove Du Bois to concentrate on Bismarck rather than his contemporaries in Britain, Benjamin Disraeli or William Ewart Gladstone, is puzzling. One possibility is that he may have been impressed with the creation of a major European power out of more than thirty-five states that had been historically divided by religion and internecine warfare over many centuries. He told his Fisk classmates, "The life of this powerful Chancellor illustrates the power of purpose, the force of an idea. It shows what a man can do if he will. So near is grandeur to our dust, so near is God to man." (4) In its emphasis on heroic individualism the speech brings to mind the Thomas Carlyle of Heroes and Hero Worship. More likely, however, is that the major philosophical work of Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, influenced Du Bois's approach to Bismarck, although the evidence is circumstantial. Both the curator of the Du Bois archive in Amherst, Massachusetts and I, independently of each other, came to the conclusion that the blank space in his valedictory speech where, quite clearly, a name is missing, was intended for Schopenhauer. In a crossed out section of the speech he refers to two German philosophers; one is termed an idealist and the other a pessimist. The evidence is that the importance given to the word "will" in Du Bois's speech is an indication that he had some familiarity with Schopenhauer's major scholarly book, in which he puts forth the assertion that "will" can be an extremely powerful force for change in a heroic figure who firmly believes in his vision. Schopenhauer was, indeed, recognized at the time as the great pessimist of German philosophy. Also, the last line in the Bismarck speech, rarely noted by scholars, predicted that after Bismarck would come the "deluge," a very pessimistic and prescient statement, particularly since the young German Empire was widely recognized as the most powerful nation in Europe. (5) More importantly, Thomas Nipperdey, a major German intellectual historian, wrote in Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck, the standard work in the field, "What made Schopenhauer different was this: 'In contrast to the optimism of culture and progress in idealism, and in contrast to science and empiricism, and to all ideas of meaning, Schopenhauer was a pessimist.'" (6) Also, in the last paragraph of this 1888 speech, which is crossed out with a large X, but legible (perhaps because the speech was too long for the time allotted), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the great German philosopher of his age, makes an appearance. …