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Brief Lives

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814)

Matt Qvortrup on the cosmopolitan idealist who became the misunderstood father of German nationalism.

On the 19th of February 1919, The Times carried a report of a speech made the previous day by the German President, Friedrich Ebert. “We shall realise that which Fichte has given to the German nation as its task,” said the Social Democrat: “We want to establish a state of justice and truthfulness founded upon the equality of all humanity.” It is as telling as it is noteworthy that Ebert evoked the name of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) in his address to the Parliament of the newly established Weimar Republic. For Ebert and his contemporaries, Fichte was a cosmopolitan thinker and proponent of social justice and equality.

Fast forward almost a hundred years, and Fichte is regarded as a national chauvinist.

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