Wasn Hegel a German nationalist?
No. German nationalism began flourishing after 1807, as a consequence of Prussia’s humiliating defeat by Napoleon’s army and of the occupation of most of the former German Empire by French troops. Though sympathetic to the idea of a unified Germany, Hegel was never a nationalist. He actually endorsed Napoleon’s victory over Prussia (just like Goethe), seeing in it the progress into Germany of the ideas born with the French Revolution. Soon German nationalism evolved in a form of irrational exaltation of everything “German”, and the condemnation of foreign principles (among the, the ones of the French Revolution). The foremost supporter of this exalted form of nationalism were Fries and Schleiermacher. Both of them were bitter academic adversaries of Hegel, who never embraced this kind of nationalism and remained skeptical towards any reactionary glorification of “typically German” traditions.
