of the ideas of Rudolf Kjellén and Friedrich Patzel, Ritter argued that the state should be regarded as a living entity, which, to live successfully, required economic and territorial growth. Using that argument, Ritter contended that Frederick the Great's invasion of Silesia in 1740 was a necessary act to allow the Prussian state to live regardless of international laws against aggression. Stein biography During the last years of the Weimar Republic, Ritter changed his focus from the medieval period to the early modern period to the modern period and from cultural history to biographies of political figures. In 1931, Ritter wrote the biography of the Prussian statesmen Karl vom Stein. Ritter's two-volume work portrayed Stein as the total opposite of Bismarck. Ritter argued that Bismarck was the ultimate power politician and that Stein was the ultimate anti-power politician. Ritter argued that Stein's success as a politician was limited by his moralism but contended that despite his lack of political sense, he was nonetheless successful because of his strong moral character. Views on eve of Nazi takeover On 11 February 1933, in a letter to a friend, Ritter described his intentions: I am planning to write two books. One will be entitled 'What is Liberalism?', and will be the attempt to pave the way for the founding of a large national party of the center, a party which we need today more than ever before. The book will contribute to the drafting of a new liberal national program, which will offer political orientation based on historical reflection.... The second book is to...shed light on the great crises in the political and intellectual history of Germany, and will thus explain the present state of mind of the German people. This second book will serve two purposes. It will develop a new concept of the history of our nation... and it will help deepen the notion of the idea of German nationality and national consciousness after a time which this idea has in public use become unbearably trivial. New tasks are crowding in upon us. In our era the historian acquires a distinctive national function, an educational function. Certainly, for the time being no one wants to listen to him, because everyone is still running after noisy political agitators. But I am confident that a time will come when everyone will be thoroughly fed up with the din of national phrase-making and will