Treitschke developed an increasing hearing problem at a young age, and so was prevented from entering public service.

At one time he became very popular with the students, but his political opinions made it impossible for the Saxon government to appoint him to a professorship.

His violent article, in which he demanded the annexation of the Kingdoms of Hanover and Saxony, and attacked with great invective the Saxon royal house, caused an estrangement from his father, a personal friend of the king.

He was largely deaf during this period and had an aide sit by his side to transcribe discussion into writing so that he could participate.

His increasingly-chauvinistic Anglophobia in the late-19th century increasingly considered England as the strongest potential adversary of the rapidly-industrialising German Empire.

In the Reichstag, he had originally been a member of the National Liberal Party, but in 1879, he was the first to accept the new commercial policy of Bismarck.

[7] Treitschke rejected the concern of the Enlightenment and liberalism for individual rights and the separation of powers, in favour of an authoritarian monarchist and militarist concept of the state.

[10][11][12] He deplored the "penetration of French liberalism" (Eindringen des französischen Liberalismus) within the German nation.

He made several antisemitic remarks such as the following: The Jews at one time played a necessary role in German history, because of their ability in the management of money.

[17][18][19] Endorsing the idea of exterminating conquered nations, he wrote: In the unhappy clash between races, inspired by fierce mutual enmity, the blood-stained savagery of quick war of annihilation is more humane, less revolting, than the specious clemency of sloth which keeps the vanquished in a state of brute beasts.

His first works to be translated into English were two pamphlets on the War of 1870, What we demand from France (London, 1870) and The Baptism of Fire of the North German Confederation (1870).

This opinion was repeated by historians such as Fritz Fischer, who deemed him a major influence on decision-makers before World War I.