What is a Nation? Germany, the‘Special Path,’ and the Way to

1871

HI136, History of GermanyLecture 1, September 30

• The Making of the modern German state and society.

• Germany’s transformation from maverick to model state.

• Diversity• No direct historical lines.

Module Themes

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)

• Aggression and war (Grasp for the World Power), started both World Wars

• 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;”

later GDR dictatorship

Germany’s ‘special path’(Deutscher Sonderweg)

no valid 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 assumed

built on a very conventional and old-fashioned viewpoint of political history

Still long-term factors continuities important and relevant question

Criticism Sonderweg

• A ‘loose association of territories that preceded the creation of the modern German state.’ (Tim Kirk)

• Usually considered to have come into being with the coronation of Charlemagne as ‘Emperor of the Romans’ in 800, but the term Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (Heiliges Römisches Reich deutscher Nation) was formally adopted in 1512.

• At its greatest extent it encompassed modern-day Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium and parts of France and Italy.

• After the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) which ended the Thirty Years War there were still 234 territories and 51 ‘Imperial Cities’.

• The territories that made up the HRE were self-governing, but their sovereigns owed allegiance to the Emperor, who was elected by 7 Elector-Princes (3 ecclesiastical, 4 secular).

• Rudolf von Habsburg, Duke of Austria, became Emperor in 1273. His descendants ruled the Empire off and on until it was abolished. From the 15th Century there were no non-Habsburg Emperors.

The Holy Roman Empire, c.800-1806

The Rise of Prussia

• Broke the power of the old Monarchical regimes and states in Central Europe.

• German nationalists, liberals and Romantics initially welcomed the French revolution and saw the French armies as liberators.

• 1805: Defeat of Austria at the Battle of Austerlitz

• 1806: Defeat of Prussia at the twin battles of Jena & Auerstädt

• Napoleonic re-ordering of Germany: • Holy Roman Empire abolished• Number of states reduced to 39• Puppet rulers installed in German states• Confederation of the Rhine formed• French legal system imposed

The French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, 1789-1845

Queen Luise (the

Princesses, ca 1795), by

Johann Schadow

Source: Robert Gildea, Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800-1914 (Oxford: OUP, 1996)

Source: Martin Kitchen, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Germany (1996)

• Made up of 39 German States• Designed to help preserve the status quo rather than as a basis

for a United Germany.• The Austrian Chancellor Metternich saw it as a means of

preserving Austrian dominance over Germany.• The Federal Diet (parliament) met at Frankfurt and was made

up of (unelected) representatives of all the states. It was always chaired by the Austrian representative. In theory the Diet could appoint ambassadors, negotiate treaties on behalf of members and organize a Federal Army. In practice little was ever done because the unanimous agreement of all 39 states was required.

The German Confederation

What is a nation?

• 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.

• 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.

Horizontal, trans-regional, emotionally

coded belonging. More important that

loyalty to the state.

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. Notion of the Volk (people) vs the state. Assymetries.

‘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)

• 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/lesser Germany) – would exclude Austria but include the whole of Prussia (including her ‘Polish’ territories), leaving Protestant Prussia as the dominant German state.

Where is Germany?

Schinkel's New Theater (1819-21)

The Zollverein• Prussian Tariff Reform Law (1818):

Designed to protect Prussian industry from cheap imports & break down internal barriers to free trade.

• 1818-34: Prussia tried to encourage free trade within Germany by forming customs unions with neighbouring states.

• By 1836 the Prussian Customs Union (Zollverein) was made up of 25 states with a population of 26 million. Trade barriers & customs duties between members were abolished and there were moves towards standardization of weights and measures and currency.

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.

• May 1849: The parliament expelled from Frankfurt and moved to Stuttgart.

• June 1849: The parliament forcibly broken up by the King of Württemberg’ s troops.

Meeting of the National Assembly in Frankfurt’s Paulskirche dominated by Philipp Veit’s painting of

Germania, July 1848

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.

• August-November: The Prussian King reasserts his control by sending in General Wrangel. Martial Law is introduced in November and the liberal constitution and parliament overturned

Revolutionaries man the Barricades, Berlin 1848

Continuities? Wrangelstraße today

Fete de la soupe (since 2004)

One of the most heterogeneous and politically progressive areas of Berlin

The Development of Prussia

• Economic boom in the 1850s: industrial revolution, 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.

• RealpolitikKing Wilhelm I (1797-1888)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.”

• 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.

Austro-Prussian Rivalry and wars of unification

Germany United

• The Franco-Prussian War (1870-71): primacy of domestic policy

• 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: Bismarck has the German Empire proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles.

The Proclamation of the German Empire by Anton von Werner (1888)