Friedrich Adolf Julius von Bernhardi (November 22, 1849 – December 11, 1930) was a Prussian general and military historian. He was one of the best-selling authors prior to World War I. A militarist, he is perhaps best known for his bellicose book Deutschland und der Nächste Krieg (Germany and the Next War), printed in 1912. He advocated a policy of ruthless aggression and complete disregard of treaties and regarded war as a "divine business". He is considered a typical spokesman of German militarist feeling prior to 1914. Bernhardi was born in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire, in 1849, although his family immigrated to Schöpstal, Silesia in 1851. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), Bernhardi was a cavalry lieutenant in the Prussian Army, and at the end of that conflict had the honor of being the first German to ride through the Arc de Triomphe when the Germans entered Paris. In Germany and the Next War, Bernhardi stated that war "is a biological necessity," and that it was in accordance with "the natural law, upon which all the laws of Nature rest, the law of the struggle for existence." Bernhardi served during World War I as a general. He was awarded the Pour le Mérite on 20 August 1916, for his participation in the German defense against the Brusilov Offensive.
Partial bibliography
- Videant Consules: Ne Quid Respublica Detrimenti Capiat (1890) (Let the consuls see to it that no harm comes to the republic) (published anonymously)
- Deutschland und der Nächste Krieg. (1912) (Germany and the Next War)
- Vom heutigen Kriege. (1912) (On War of Today)
- Vom Kriege der Zukunft, nach den Erfahrungen des Weltkrieges. (1920) (On War of the Future, in light of the lessons of the World War)
References
- Campion, Loren Keith. "Behind the modern Drang nach Osten: Baltic émigrés and russophobia in nineteenth-century Germany." Dissertation, Indiana University, 1965.
- This article incorporates text from The Modern World Encyclopædia: Illustrated (1935); out of UK copyright as of 2005.
- Tuchman, Barbara W., The Guns of August, 1962.
