A brief survey of the Prussian and Austrian national characters by Hugo von Hofmannsthal recently popped up (g) on my Twitter timeline:
Here’s my translation, based on a slightly different online source (g):
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Hugo von Hofmannsthal Prussian and Austrian: A Typology In General: |
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| PRUSSIA: | AUSTRIA: |
| Made, an artificial construction, country is naturally poor, | Organically arising, fabric of history, naturally rich, |
| Everything in people and from people, therefore: Orientation toward the State as a unifying force, | Everything from outside: Nature and God,
God, love of homeland as a unifying force |
| more virtue, | more piety, |
| more diligence. | more humanity. |
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[…] The Individual: |
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| THE PRUSSIAN: | THE AUSTRIAN: |
| Up-to-date worldview (cosmopolitan around 1800, liberal around 1848, now Bismarckian, with almost no memory of bygone phases). | Traditional mentality, almost unchanging through centuries. |
| Lack of historical sense. | Possesses historical instinct. |
| Strength of abstraction. | Minimal talent for abstraction. |
| Incomparable in orderly execution. | Quicker on the uptake. |
| Acts according to regulations. | Acts according to ideas of decency. |
| Strength of dialectics. | Rejects dialectics. |
| More skilled in expression. | More balanced. |
| More consistent and responsible (Konsequenz) | More ability to come to grips with his given situation. |
| Self-confidence. | Self-irony. |
| Apparent masculinity. | Apparent immaturity. |
| Transforms everything into function. | Turns everything towards the social. |
| Stands up for and justifies self. | Prefers to remain ignorant. |
| Self-righteous, arrogant, schoolmarmish. | Bashful, vain, witty. |
| Forces things to crisis. | Gets out of the way of crises. |
| Fights for rights. | Nonchalance. |
| Inability to imagine what others are thinking. | Ability to think self into others going all the way to loss of own character. |
| Character is product of will. | Drama. |
| Every individual possesses one part of authority. | Every individual possesses one entire humanity. |
| Striving. | Love of pleasure. |
| Predominance of business. | Predominance of the private sphere. |
| Hard exaggeration. | Irony going all the way to self-dissolution. |
| First printing: Vossische Zeitung 25 December 1917. In: Hugo von Hofmannsthal: Gesammelte Werke in zehn Einzelbänden. Reden und Aufsätze II (1914–1924). Hg. von Bernd Schoeller in Beratung mit Rudolf Hirsch. Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag 1979, S. 459–461. | |
German Joys 