TheSybel-Ficker controversy (German:Sybel-Ficker-Streit) is the name given to a dispute in the second half of the 19th century between the historiansHeinrich von Sybel (1817–1895) andJulius von Ficker (1826–1902). It involved a discussion concerning relations between Rome (that is, thepapal see) and theHoly Roman Empire, which also had an important bearing on theAustria–Prussia rivalry—whether Austria was to be part of a federal Germany, or whether Germany would continue without Austria (as aLesser Germany).
Heinrich von Sybel fired the first shot in the dispute in an 1859 lecture, in which he condemned the medieval politics of the German Empire as "unnational". Julius Ficker countered in 1861 in lectures at theUniversity of Innsbruck, in which he justified the emperors' national politics, which he also presented as universal. While Sybel's was a "kleindeutsch-norddeutsch-protestantische" (Little German-North German-Protestant) concept of history,[1] Ficker promoted aGreater Germany which would include Austria.
The controversy's roots are in theAustria–Prussia rivalry which had grown more intense in the 18th century. Prussia, under Frederick the Great, had emerged as a major European power, and Sybel finds cause for the dispute in early 19th-century Prussian historiography. It continues with thefounding of the German Empire under Bismarck in 1871, which had become possible with the Prussian victory over Austria in theAustro-Prussian War of 1866. Historians have argued that it continued into the 20th century, with Hitler'sAnschluss of 1938 as one high point.
The disagreement over the politics of the medieval Empire was important because those should determine the political direction and the national identity of the first national German state. Comments byWilhelm von Giesebrecht, who like Sybel was a student ofLeopold von Ranke, provoked Sybel into taking a public position. In hisGeschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit (1855–1888), Giesebrecht wrote: "Moreover, the period of the Empire is the era when our people, strengthened through unity, had risen to a position of power where it could not only freely determine its own fate, but could also commandeer other peoples, and where the German man exercised his greatest power in the world and the German name had the richest sound".[2] Sybel countered that throughout the period of the Empire, starting withOtto I, Holy Roman Emperor, "national" interests had been betrayed while the Empire pursued interests in Italy, that its interest in the affairs of theKingdom of Italy had led only to meaningless loss of life. This was different, according to Sybel, under Otto's father,Henry the Fowler, but after him German politics were aimed in the wrong direction: "The powers of the nation, which at first and correctly following instinct had been directed toward the great colonization of the east, were afterwards aimed at an always alluring and always incorrect gleam of power south of the Alps.".[3]
Sybel's position suggested the kind of imperialist thinking that found its expression in the famousDrang nach Osten phrase and had become a reality in theOstsiedlung, the migration and settlement of German-speaking peoples during the Holy Roman Empire. Sybel leaned on this development, even though it hadn't started under Heinrich I but rather in the 12th century, first past theElbe and then across theOder, the settlement that had createdPrussia,Saxony, andSilesia in Slavic areas. At the inception of theAlldeuscher Verband, this movement was reiterated: "The old drive toward the East should be restored".[4] The development byFriedrich Ratzel, in 1898, of the idea ofLebensraum supported thissettler colonialism, which came to be seen as an alternative for the transatlantic migration to America..
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