German intellectuals in the last century were infatuated with the classical world to the point where cultural historians can speak of a Greek “tyranny” over the German imagination. Germans were held in thrall not only by the measured beauty of Apollo but also by the mad energy of Dionysus. Indeed, it was the latter's wild, undisciplined force that was reborn in those rude Norse gods so popular with the German public. Consciously or unconsciously, the Germans almost seem to have made their history a modern Greek tragedy. The principal characters do seem cut to mythic dimensions. Bismarck was a haunted giant, hustled by fate, his indomitable will facing down the doom that he anticipated. Bethmann-Hollweg was the archetype of the modern bureaucratic politician – tirelessly patching, infinitely resourceful in avoiding the inevitable, quietly desperate, driven finally to a cosmic gamble. And Hitler, for all the pornography of Nazi politics, was possessed by a terrible elemental force that carried Germany to adventure and ruin awesome enough for any mythic tale.

If German history is a modern tragedy, what is its lesson? Is there a fatal flaw that makes the ruin rational and thereby confirms the world's moral order? Does modern Germany illustrate, as de Gaulle said of Napoleon, the “tragic revenge of measure [and] just wrath of reason”?

Preceding chapters have examined many aspects of the German tragedy. Their broad conclusion seems clear. The German Problem does not somehow emanate from some special German “character.” Imperial Germany was not uniquely aggressive, only uniquely inconvenient. Whatever faults and ambitions the Germans had were amply shared by the other major nations of the modern era.