This book is intended as a characterological history of the Germans, German history viewed as the formation of the German character. It suggests some reasons why the term capitalism can be properly applied only to commercial development in Germany.

Editors’ Foreword -- A Tribute to Erich Kahler -- Introduction -- Medieval Germany -- The Uniqueness of Germany -- The Confrontation -- The Early Frankish Kingdom -- Charlemagne -- The Feudal System -- The Growth of the French Nation -- Imperium et Sacerdotium -- German Feudalism and Its Disintegration -- The Territorial States -- Provincialism in the Territorial States -- The Origin of the German Cities -- The Ascendancy of the Craft Guilds -- The Innovations of the Inland Cities -- The Beginnings of Capitalism -- The German City and the German Character -- The Reformation -- The Decline of the Catholic Church -- Heresy and Mysticism -- Wycliffe and Hus -- Luther’s Early Years -- The Ninety-Five Theses -- The Debate at Leipzig -- The Three Major Treatises and the Edict of Worms -- The Spread of Protestantism -- Münzer and the Anabaptists -- The Peasants’ War -- Luther’s Influence on the German Character -- The Modern Age -- German Literature and the German Language in the Period of Transition -- German Philosophy -- The Rise of Prussia -- The Hohenzollerns -- Goethe and German Classicism -- The Struggle for National Unification -- World War I -- The Nazi Assumption of Power -- The Literature of Nihilism