A Warrior Spirit

Robert Grözinger

Robert Grözinger lives and works in the United Kingdom.

The American historian and economist Dr Gary North once observed that for many centuries Germans used to be a warrior nation—until 1945. I couldn’t agree more. However, while growing up and living in (West) Germany from the 1960s until the year 2000, I observed that even after World War Two, a remnant had survived among the Germans with their warrior spirit intact.

Due to well-known circumstances, these post-war Germanic Samurai poured their warrior energy exclusively into productive work and business life. With grim and focussed determination, tenacity, and relentless diligence they cleared the rubble, built or reconstructed their homes, infrastructure, and companies, had careers and ventured forth to create cutting-edge, world-renowned machines, precision tools and other production and consumer goods. The famous West German “economic miracle” was not only due to Ludwig Erhard’s elimination of price controls in 1948. It was also, crucially, due to the presence of this warrior remnant.

I met numerous people in Germany full of such spirit. A few of them I was able to observe for some time from close quarters. One was my father who, despite his shrapnel-damaged hands, became an influential professor of Graphic Design. Another was a classical liberal local councillor I worked for who had survived an East German concentration camp. Yet another, whose writings I didn’t encounter and whom I didn’t meet personally until after I had left Germany, is Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

Hans’s determination, diligence and uncompromising insistence on intellectual honesty make him a unique feature even within the highly individualistic and truthfulness-valuing community of libertarians. With his numerous thoughtful contributions to political economy he has injected, and continues to inject, a heavy dose of warrior spirit into the liberty movement around the world. He exudes an inspiring fearlessness, while his laser-like mind misses not the minutest flaw in anybody’s chain of argument. Thus, in a world gone mad, he has made himself a lot of enemies. However, as the German saying goes: Viel Feind, viel Ehr’, which means “The more enemies, the greater the honor.”

In this and many other ways, Hans is a worthy successor of his role models Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard. He deserves all the praise he receives. It matters not that Hans is German. It matters a lot that he is a true warrior on the side of liberty, wealth-creation, and truth. For this he deserves to be honored by, and receive the highest accolades from, both his contemporaries and future generations.

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