244 POLITICAL ACTIVITY. 



From my earliest youth I had felt keenly the 

 want of union and the impotence of the German nation. 

 This feeling had been awakened in me and the brothers 

 nearest to me in age through our living in the petty 

 and middle states of Germany, where a patriotism 

 arising from a sense of political unity found no fruit- 

 ful soil, as was the case in Prussia, thanks to its 

 glorious history. Moreover in our family national and 

 liberal views had always prevailed, and my father in 

 particular was devoted to them. In spite of the me- 

 lancholy political condition into which Prussia and all 

 Germany had again sunk after the glorious War of 

 Liberation, yet the hope remained that the state of 

 Frederick the Great, who by his deeds had awakened 

 self-confidence in the Germans, must prove our future 

 saviour. It was this hope which had caused my father 

 to advise me to enter the Prussian service, and in 

 myself also this trust in a future raising of Germany 

 through Prussia had always been strong. Hence I was 

 carried away by the national movement of 1848 with 

 such irresistible force and in spite of opposing private 

 interests drawn to Kiel, to fight with Prussia for Ger- 

 many's unity and greatness. 



When this movement of youthful enthusiasm, al- 

 together overshooting the mark, had collapsed through 

 the unfavourable circumstances of the time, when 

 Germany again had relapsed into impotent disunion 

 and Prussia had been deeply humiliated, a profound 

 dejection crept over all German patriots. Our hope 

 indeed was still fixed on Prussia, yet no one any longer 



