German versus Hun

Long I was merely a man among men, but lo! in a moment
History chose to condemn me again to become a German.

FRIEDRICH HEBBEL, 1857-1863

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I renounce Germany with a calm and cold heart; and I know
that I must do so. RICHARD WAGNER, 1859

It is only with real horror that I now think of Germany
and my future undertakings there. God forgive me, but I
can see there nothing but what is petty and miserable: the
appearance and presumption of excellence without any solid
foundation. RICHARD WAGNER, 1860

We have no fatherland 1 And if 1 am "German" I assuredly
bear my Germany within me. RICHARD WAGNER, 1860

I cannot endure it in Germany ; the spirit of pettiness and
servility permeates everything, down to the smallest local
journals, and up to the respectable artists and scholars —
together with an empty-minded insolence toward all inde-
pendent men and nations.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, 1876-1879

Those who leave the country are the capable and kindly;
just as once upon a time the migration of the peoples de-
prived the home-keeping Germans, in the Goths, Vandals,
Franks and Lombards, of their really heroic strains. Those
who remained were the Philistines.

RICHARD WAGNER, 1879
* *

A good German — forgive me if I repeat it for the tenth
time — is a German no longer .

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, 1882-1888
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