Johann Gustav Droysen - History Meets Politics

History Meets Politics

In 1840, Droysen was appointed professor of history at Kiel. There, the political movement for the defense of the rights of the Elbe duchies, of which Kiel was the center, attracted his interest. Like Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann, he placed his historical learning at the service of the estates of Schleswig and Holstein and composed the address of 1844, in which the estates protested against the claim of King Christian VIII of Denmark to alter the law of succession in the duchies, an issue diplomatically negotiated through the London Protocol of 1852, and ultimately resolved in a war between Denmark and allied forces from Austria and Prussia in the Second Schleswig War.

Droysen's first great political appearance occurred in 1843, on the one thousand year anniversary of the Verdun agreement between Karl the Bald and Ludwig the German, grandsons of Charlemagne. The patrimony of Charlemagne, and his son, Louis the Pius; Droysen found in this event the evidence of the German nation. Later, Droysen gave a lecture to a crowded audience in Berlin entitled the Agreement at Verdun, which was greeted with enthusiasm not only by the listeners but also the German Kaiser himself.