Der Deutsche Michel ("Michael the German") is a figure representing the national character of the German people, rather as John Bull represents the English. He originated in the first half of the 19th century.
Der Deutsche Michel ("Michael the German") is a figure representing the national character of the German people, rather as John Bull represents the English. He originated in the first half of the 19th century.
Michel differs from figures that serve as personifications of the nation itself, as Germania did the German nation and Marianne the French, in that he represents the German people. [1] He is usually depicted wearing a nightcap and nightgown, sometimes in the colors of the German flag, and represents the Germans' conception of themselves, especially in his easy-going nature and Everyman appearance. In any event, the nightgown and the night cap, which have been present in all pictorial representations of the German Michel –the first ones dating from the first half of the nineteenth century –are also interpreted in a way that the German Michel is, in fact, a rather naive and gullible person, not prone, for example, to question the authority of the government. On the contrary, he prefers a decent, plain and quiet lifestyle.
Over the centuries, the character traits attributed to the German Michel were subject to some change. The British historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote the most notable aspect of Deutscher Michel as portrayed in Imperial Germany was that: [1]
The point about Deutscher Michel is that his image stressed both the innocence and simple-mindedness so readily exploited by cunning foreigners, and the physical strength he could mobilize to frustrate their knavish tricks and conquests when finally roused. 'Michel' seems to have been essentially an anti-foreign image.
The central problem of creating a national identity in the newly unified German Reich was all of the various German states had their own histories and traditions, none of which could be used as a symbol to appeal to everybody, leading to a situation where Hobsbawm noted: [2]
Like many another liberated 'people', 'Germany' was more easily defined by what it was against than in any other way.
The xenophobic tendency to the Deutscher Michel character in the 19th century, whose innocence stands in marked contrast to the cunning and devious foreigners who are always trying to trick him, reflected the fact it was more easy to define the Reich in terms of what it was against, rather than it was for. [1] In this regard, Deutscher Michel was very different from Marianne, who was defined in a more positive way as a symbol of the French republic and its values. [1]
A typical cartoon featuring Deutscher Michel was published in the May 1914 edition of the magazine Kladderadatsch, where Deutscher Michel is working happily in his garden with a seductive and voluptuous Marianne on one side and a brutish muzhik (Russian peasant) on the other; the message of the cartoon was that France should not be allied to Russia, and would be better off allied to Germany, since Deutscher Michel with his well-tended garden was clearly a better potential husband than the vodka-drinking muzhik whose garden is a disorderly disaster. [3] To further reinforce the point, Deutscher Michel is pouring cold water on two chickens in a cage whose initials stand for Alsace-Lorraine, meaning that Germany can pour cold water on France's hopes of taking back Alsace-Lorraine anytime it wants. [4] The caption has Deutscher Michel saying that he wants peace, but if his neighbors want war, then they will get it: the message implies that Michel, for all his good-natured and easy-going ways, is utterly ferocious when angered. [4]
In German, Michel is also the short form of Michael, though quite rare today.
Pan-Germanism, also occasionally known as Pan-Germanicism, is a pan-nationalist political idea. Pan-Germanists originally sought to unify all the German-speaking people – and possibly also non-German Germanic-speaking peoples – in a single nation-state known as the Greater Germanic Reich, fully styled the Greater Germanic Reich of the German Nation.
Alsace is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,919,745. Alsatian culture is characterized by a blend of German and French influences.
A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants existed: non-free slaves, semi-free serfs, and free tenants. Peasants might hold title to land outright, or by any of several forms of land tenure, among them socage, quit-rent, leasehold, and copyhold.
Alsace–Lorraine, officially the Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine, was a former territory of the German Empire, located in modern day France. It was established in 1871 by the German Empire after it had occupied the region during the Franco-Prussian War. The region was officially ceded to the German Empire in the Treaty of Frankfurt. French resentment about the loss of the territory was one of the contributing factors to World War I. Alsace-Lorraine was ceded to France in 1920 as part of the Treaty of Versailles following Germany's defeat in the war, although already annexed in 1918.
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A national personification is an anthropomorphic personification of a state or the people(s) it inhabits. It may appear in political cartoons and propaganda.
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Personification is the representation of a thing or abstraction as a person. In the arts, many things are commonly personified. These include numerous types of places, especially cities, countries, and continents, elements of the natural world such as the months or four seasons, four elements, four cardinal winds, five senses, and abstractions such as virtues, especially the four cardinal virtues and seven deadly sins, the nine Muses, or death.
German nationality law details the conditions by which an individual is a national of Germany. The primary law governing these requirements is the Nationality Act, which came into force on 1 January 1914. Germany is a member state of the European Union (EU) and all German nationals are EU citizens. They have automatic and permanent permission to live and work in any EU or European Free Trade Association (EFTA) country and may vote in elections to the European Parliament.
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The Holocaust in France was the persecution, deportation, and annihilation of Jews between 1940 and 1944 in occupied France, metropolitan Vichy France, and in Vichy-controlled French North Africa, during World War II. The persecution began in 1940, and culminated in deportations of Jews from France to Nazi concentration camps in Nazi Germany and Nazi-occupied Poland. The deportation started in 1942 and lasted until July 1944. Of the 340,000 Jews living in metropolitan/continental France in 1940, more than 75,000 were deported to death camps, where about 72,500 were murdered.
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The history of Alsace has been influenced by the Rhine and its tributaries, a favorable climate, fertile loess soils, and the region's relative accessibility through and around the Vosges. It was first inhabited by early modern humans during the Paleolithic. Peoples speaking Celtic and Germanic languages occupied the region prior to its conquest by Roman armies under the command of Julius Caesar. In the centuries after the fall of Rome the area acquired its name and identity as an early medieval pagus. Since then, suzerainty and effective control have shifted among competing European powers, including the Kingdom of Alamannia, the Frankish Empire, Lotharingia, the Holy Roman Empire, France, and the German Empire. Alsace has remained part of France since the end of the Second World War.
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