![]() ![]() It is a tribute to the enduring power of the "Prussian myth" that the victors felt the need to exhume the corpse, ram a final stake through its heart and bury it for good.Ĭhristopher Clark begins Iron Kingdom, his history of "the rise and downfall of Prussia", with this famous decree, but his remarkable book is not another exorcism, nor an uncritical celebration. By then the heartlands of Silesia, Pomerania and East Prussia had been annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union, and ethnically cleansed of their German population, and the notorious "Junker" noble class systematically uprooted. Prussia is unique in that it was formally abolished by decree of the British, American, French and Soviet victors in February 1947, after it ceased to exist in any meaningful sense. Many states have been conquered, partitioned, occupied, "ended" and even destroyed. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |