HI290- History of Germany

Nation and Nationalism:

The making of Modern Germany
 Module Themes

• The Making of the modern German

state and society.
• Germany’s transformation from
maverick to model state.
• Diversity
• No direct historical lines.
 Germany’s ‘special path’
(Deutscher sonderweg)
• Distinctive German way to modernity which contrasts with the standard (West
European, British, French) way:
• Industrialization: belated industrial revolution, several decades after that of England
• Failed bourgeois revolution in Germany (defeat of the democratic revolution of 1848)
• German unification not a result of the success of a liberal and democratic movement
but created by the militarist Prussian state (born in war)
• Weimar republic not accepted by large part of the population, seen as a result of the
defeat and forced onto Germany by the victorious Entente
• Continuous dominance of antidemocratic, reactionary elites (ostelbian agrarians, estate
owners and “big business”)
• Traditions of Prussian militarism
• Culminating in: Third Reich, seen as logical result of the German “special path”
 Criticism of the Sonderweg Theory
• Not a valid or normal model:
• suggested that there’s something wrong with German society as a whole;
• very inflexible: does not allow for historical coincidence, individual failure, or
other factors.
• Wilhelmine Germany more modern than often assumed.
• Built on a very conventional and old-fashioned viewpoint of political
history.
• Nevertheless: still important and relevant questions concerning the
long-term factors and continuities in modern German history.
 The Germanies in history:
• The Holy Roman Empire, c.800-1806
• The Confederation of the Rhine, 1806-1815
• The German Confederation, 1815-1871
• Second Empire: Imperial Germany, 1871-1918: with Bismarck (1871-1890)
and Wilhelmine Germany (1890-1918)
• The Weimar Republic, 1918-1933
• The Third Reich (Nazi Germany), 1933-1945
• Allied Occupation of Germany, 1945-49
• The Federal Republic of Germany (West), 1949-
• The German Democratic Republic (East), 1949-1990
• Reunited Germany, since 1990, and since 1998, “The Berlin Republic”
The Rise of Prussia
‘The Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars
witnessed the first upsurge of Nationalism
in European history, partly under the
inspiration of the French armies and
message of liberation, partly in reaction
against those armies and the realities of
occupation and oppression.’

Robert Gildea, Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800-1914 (Oxford: OUP, 1996)
 Johann Gottlieb Fichte
(1762-1814)
• Dismissed as professor of
philosophy at the University of
Jena in 1799 for his support of
the French Revolution.
• Addresses to the German Nation
(1807-08): Argued that France
now represented despotism and
that it was therefore up to ‘the
German nation’ to be the
champion of liberty. The Volk
(people) should thus rise up and
drive out the invader.
 Wars of Liberation

Georg Friedrich Kersting, On Sentry Duty (1815) –

showing three Freikorps volunteers of the Wars
of Liberation.
Source: Martin Kitchen, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Germany (1996)
The Beginnings of German Nationalism
• Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803): The
Volk (‘nation’ or ‘race’) is the decisive
determinant of human identity. The nation is
therefore identified not with the state (which is
an artificial body), but with the ‘organic body’
of the Volk.
• Johann Goethe (1749-1832): No need for a
nation-state – Germany was a ‘cultural
community’ like Ancient Greece.
• Geog Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831): An
individual only achieved their full potential
through service to the state.
• German nationalism based on the idea of a
racial/cultural community with shared
language, history, traditions, myths etc.
 Which Germany?

• Both The Kingdom of Prussia and the Austrian Empire incorporated territory
outside the German Confederation and non-German citizens.
• Grossdeutschland (Greater Germany) – would incorporate the German-speaking
parts of the Austrian Empire and would maintain Catholic Austria’s leadership of
Germany.
• Kleindeutschland (Little Germany) – would exclude Austria but include the whole
of Prussia (including her ‘Polish’ territories), leaving Protestant Prussia as the
dominant German state.
The Zollverein

Early 19th century cartoon supporting the

elimination of customs barriers between states
 The 1848
Revolutions
• 24 Feb. 1848: Revolution in France – King Louis
Philippe overthrown and a Republic established.
• 13 March: Demonstrations in Vienna lead to the fall
of Metternich
• 24 October: The Austrian Emperor Ferdinand (1835-
48) abdicates in favour of his nephew Franz Josef
(1848-1916).
• 13 March: Prussian troops fire on demonstrators in
the palace square in Berlin, leading to 2 days of
rioting
• 16 March: News of Metternich’s fall reaches Berlin.
King Friedrich Wilhelm IV (1840-61) agrees in
principle to a new constitution, parliament and an
end to censorship.
• 18 March: More fighting in Berlin – at least 300
rioters killed by the Army.
• 21 March: Friedrich Wilhelm grants a series of
reforms including the appointment of a liberal
ministry. Revolutionaries man the Barricades, Berlin 1848
• August-November: The Prussian King reasserts his
control. Martial Law is introduced in November and
the liberal constitution and parliament overturned
 The Frankfurt Parliament
• 5 March 1848: The Heidelberg Declaration: calls for a single
German state governed by a united German parliament.
• 31 March: 574 representatives from the German states met in
Frankfurt to agree on what form the new German parliament would
take (the Vorparlament).
• After elections in April the parliament met in Frankfurt in May
1848. It was largely made up of liberal middle-class professionals
(teachers, lawyers etc.) and was moderate in character.
• The Assembly soon became bogged down in debate over what form
a united Germany should take and how it should be governed.
• June: A provisional government led by the Habsburg Archduke John
was elected, but it had no real power and an ill-defined role.
• March 1849: A Constitution for a united German Empire agreed and
the Imperial crown was offered to the King of Prussia, who refused
it. The rulers of Bavaria, Saxony and Hanover also rejected the
Constitution.

Meeting of the National Assembly in Frankfurt’s Paulskirche dominated by • May 1849: The parliament expelled from Frankfurt and moved to
Philipp Veit’s painting of Germania, July 1848 Stuttgart.
• June 1849: The parliament forcibly broken up by the King of
Württemberg’ s troops.
 The Development of Prussia
• Economic boom in the 1850s:
industrial production, foreign trade &
railway building all doubled between
1851 and 1858.
• 1850-58: Minister-President Otto von
Manteuffel pursued a policy of trying
to bolster support for the monarchy
through limited social (but not
political) reform.
• 1858: Friedrich Wilhelm IV declared
insane and his brother Wilhelm
becomes regent.
• 1858: The ‘New Era’ – Wilhelm I
appoints a mixed ministry of liberals
and conservatives and the Liberals
gain 55% of the seats in the Prussian
King Wilhelm I (1797-1888) Diet.
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1970-077-18 / Wilhelm Kuntzemüller (1845-1918) / CC-BY-SA
 Enter Bismarck…
• 1860: Constitutional crisis in
Prussia when parliament refuses
to finance army reforms.
• 1862: Otto von Bismarck
appointed minister-president.
• “As soon as the army shall have
been brought into such a
condition as to inspire respect, I
shall seize the first best pretext to
declare war against Austria,
dissolve the German Diet, subdue
the minor states and give
national unity to Germany under
Prussian leadership.”
 Austro-Prussian Rivalry
and Wars of Unification
• 1849-50: Austrian attempts to join the Zollverein come to nothing, leaving Austria
as the political leader of the German Confederation, but economically isolated.
• 1850: The ‘Capitulation at Olmütz’ – Prussia forced to abandon her plan to
replace the German Confederation with a union led jointly by Prussia and Austria.
• 1862: Bismarck demanded that Austria recognize Prussia as its equal within
Germany.
• 1864: German-Danish War – Austria & Prussia co-operate to prevent Denmark
from annexing the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. By the terms of the
Convention of Gastein: Schleswig was ceded to Prussia and Holstein to Austria.
• 1866: Seven Weeks (Austro-Prussian) War – Austria brings an action against
Prussia in the Federal Diet & Prussia walks out declaring the end of the German
Confederation. Prussia decisively defeats Austria a Sadowa (Königgrätz) on 3 July.
 Germany United
• The Franco-Prussian War
(1870-71)
• War with France created an
huge upsurge in German
national feeling – popular
pressure in the South German
states to transform the
wartime alliance into a
permanent union.
• 18 January 1871:
Proclamation of the German
Empire in the Hall of Mirrors
The Proclamation of the German Empire
in the Palace of Versailles.
by Anton von Werner (1888)