How the Germans Became the Huns

By Martin Kristoffer Hambre

Just as the Huns a thousand years ago under the leadership of Etzel gained a reputation in virtue of which they still live in historical tradition, so may the name of Germany become known in such a manner in China that no Chinaman will ever dare to look askance at a German .    

Kaiser Wilhelm II,  27 July 1900

During the First World War, the British war propaganda machine massively promoted the stereotype of the German enemy as brutal, ruthless,  and murderous Hun. The stereotype of the Huns as a barbaric people can be traced back to the historical Huns of the 5th century, but ironically, the first to draw the analogy between the Huns and the Germans was the German emperor Wilhelm II, himself, who used the comparison in a speech he delivered in Bremerhaven in 1900. 

The notion of the "Scourge of God" has dominated the image and memory of the Huns in Europe for a very long time. Attila and his mounted warriors had left a deep mark on Europe’s history, and they were remembered as strong, cruel, and merciless. The negative depiction of the Huns by Roman writers has shaped the stereotype of the Huns as a barbaric nation, and the same was true for the rest of the non-Roman barbarian Europe even though there were huge historic differences between the Huns and other European tribes.

Ironically, it was none other than the German Kaiser Wilhelm II himself who drew the analogy between this old Hun stereotype and the German nation. He was provoked by the so-called Boxer Rebellion in China during the summer of 1900, which lead to "a condition of unexampled bloodthirsty aggressiveness" by the Kaiser. 

The speech made its way to the press through the local newspaper Weser-Zeitung, and subsequently reached the English press where it  was translated and published in the Times on 30 July 1900. The Paris  correspondent of the Times was one of the first Englishman to comment on the speech, calling it "one of the most amazing expressions  of intemperate language in which even the German Emperor has ever  indulged."

Both in the short-term and the long-term perspective, the speech had fatal consequences for the reputation of Kaiser Wilhelm and the German Reich. In the short term, as the German soldiers, who were sent to China on the campaign of vengeance, operated brutally and without  mercy, committing atrocities and slaughtering women and children. As  an excuse, German soldiers referred to Kaiser Wilhelm’s speech. These  atrocities were disclosed to the public by means of the so-called Hun letters (Hunnenbriefe) that German soldiers sent home to Germany.

In 1900, the British press did not yet focus on the Hun reference but more on Germany’s actual China policy. But in the aftermath of the brutal German China expedition, the British press and especially the Daily Mail referred to the imperial speech to defame the German imperialistic policy and, thus, gave rise to the new Hun stereotype that the British propaganda machine would use during the First World War. 

In 1902, Rudyard Kipling wrote the poem "The Rowers,"  in which he warned the British Empire about working together "with the Goth and the Shameless Hun"  in a naval mission against Venezuela. The British press occasionally used the Hun reference from 1900 to 1914, but the events of the Great War marked the real breakthrough [in its usage.] The German atrocities committed in Belgium led to the narrative of the "Rape of Belgium," and thee embrace of "The Hun" as the perpetrator of the atrocities by Britain's press and propaganda ministry, played significant roles with regard to the emergence of the new Hun stereotype. 

Source: Excerpted from "How the Germans became the Huns. Continuity and Discontinuity of the Hun Stereotype between the 19th Century and the British War Propaganda during the First World War," in From Reflection to Deconstruction? Categories, Types and Stereotypes, 2017; Imperial War Museum