Pining for the periphery: German decolonisation and the negative nostalgia of Hans Grimm

Abstract

The literature of Hans Grimm is an expression of the intransigence of Germany's liberals in the face of the historical change brought about by the First World War and the persistence of imperialism as a central tenet of the liberal concept of German national identity. Since the time of Friedrich List, German liberalism had expressed its vision of modernity and progress in imperialist, colonial terms. Despite the defeat of this imperialist vision in the First World War, German liberals considered themselves as imperial masters in exile, and it was not until the Untergang of 1945 that the German middle classes jettisoned their colonial nostalgia and revised their understanding of what it meant to be a liberal nation.