German Unit

The German unit , also called the German question , relates to the evolution of the national concept of the “German people” with and the political unit of these people within the same State. It appears at the 18th century at the time some 300 States born from the Traités of Westphalia into 1648 understand that they cannot play any part on the European chess-board. The German unit is carried out at the 19th century around Prussia by excluding the German-speaking populations from the Empire of Austria. The German defeat of 1918 involves territorial amputations which start again the German question. One considers the German question solved on October 3rd, 1990 when the the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic republic created into 1949 are joined together.

Birth of German nationalism

Germany knew, with the Middle Ages, the Saint Germanic Roman Empire which was weakening and while splitting. The Treated of Westphalia, in 1648, put certainly fine at the Guerre Thirty Year old but especially reinforce the dissolution of the Saint Worsens by affirming the capacity of the hundreds of microphone-principalities (the Kleinstaaterei ). This Peace of Westphalia devotes the territoriality like principle of sovereignty and non-interference in the businesses of the other States. It thus prevents the formation of a national State German and territorialement plain.

The French occupation during the Revolution and the Empire is used as catalyst with the national feeling

The German national feeling was born at the 18th century at the Akademiker (“graduates of the University”), top-civils servant or pastors Lutherans. This explains the development of a German nationalism in Protestant matter, which wants to be lit, vis-a-vis the empire of the catholic and perceived Habsbourg like obscurantist. With the French revolution, the national feeling, in the beginning the prerogative of the intellectuals, is popularized. The annexation of the the Rhineland by France is perceived like an amputation of the national territory. In 1803, the first consul, Napoleon Bonaparte reorganize the Saint Worsens who passes of more than 300 states to a hundred, grace, in particular, with the dissolution of all the ecclesiastical principalities. August 6th, 1806, the last emperor of the Holy Germanic Roman Empire, François II, subjects to an ultimatum Napoleon i, gives up the imperial crown and unties all the German States of their allegiance.

Under the Empire, the French Armies present on the territory live requisitions. The continental Blocus limit commercial exchanges even if it allows the development of the production of coal in the the Ruhr to replace the English imports. At that time a new form of nationalism hatches. It is about the political romanticism founded on the glorification of the medieval past and the noble work of the ground. The philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte written, as for him:

For the German ancestors, freedom consisted in remaining German (…). It is with them, their language and their manner of thinking that we are indebted, us, the most direct heirs to their ground, of being still Germans (…). It is with them that we are indebted of all our national past and, if it is not finished by it to us, as long as it will remain in our veins a last drop of their blood, it is with them which we will owe all that we will be in the future | Johann Gottlieb Fichte |Speech with the German nation , eighth speech, 1807-1808. |taille=

The idea that the German people were welded in a history of common fight is very present in its speeches. It underlines also how much the Luthéranisme is enraciné in German mentality: “only it will be able to fight against the Roman obscurantism”, i.e. the Catholic religion. Taking again the terms of Herder, he insists on the importance of the language like cement of the German identity.

The destruction of the Large army at the time of the Retraite of Russia causes a war of liberation which is completed with the French withdrawal in November 1813 after the Bataille of Leipzig. Many lampoons then claim the foundation of a German State grouping all the people speaking German. Thus appears the concept of Volkstum , union of all the men of language and German culture.

After the Congress of Vienna which closes in June 1815, late Saint Empire is replaced by the German Confédération ( Deutscher Bund ) which gathers thirty-nine States under the honorary direction of the Habsbourg which carry nothing any more but the title of emperor of Austria. But Prussia, more homogeneous linguistically than the Empire of Austria where the German-speaking ones are minority, quickly seems the main motor of the German national feeling vis-a-vis the multinational empire of Austria. The partisans of the German unit fustigate the weakness of the Confederation which does not have any weight on the international scene and which depends on goodwill its two “great powers”. Until 1840, they almost exclusively recruit its members in the academic world then extends to the liberals who want to combine German nation and freedom.

1848 or the failure of the German unit by the will of the people

In 1848, at the time of the Spring of the people, with the Parisian news of the revolutions and Viennese, Germany blazes up: it is the Révolution of Mars. The revolutionists support claims of national unit, freedom and democracy. Some brought together patriots with Heidelberg, in the duchy of Bade issue the election of a constituent assembly elected by the vote for all and concerning all the Germans.

The Parlement of Frankfurt meets and decides, in January 1849, to transform the Germanic Confederation into a Federal state with an emperor at his head. For the deputies, the German-speaking Austrians must belong to this union. It is without counting on the Prussia which ambitionne to carry out the German unit with its profit and causes a party of the small Germany , i.e. without Austria, which carries finally the decision.

As a German emperor, Frederic-Guillaume IV of Prussia, wants to hold its capacity only of itself or war. He refuses the crown which proposes to him the Parlement of Frankfurt. Its speech is very clearly on this subject:

This crown is not a crown. The crown which a Hohenzollern could take, it is not (…) the crown manufactured by an assembly of a revolutionary germ, (…) it is the crown which carries the print of God, the crown which does sovereign by the grace of God that which receives it (…) who always associates the last oint of the Lord with the antique line which precedes it. The crown that the Ottoniens carried, the Hohenstaufen, the Habsbourg, Hohenzollern can it carry, that goes without saying; it is for him a superabundance of honor, a thousand years radiation of glare. That one on the contrary, (…) is dishonoured superabundantly by the odor of carrion which the revolution of 1848 gives him, more niaise, most stupid, most stupid. |Frederic-Guillaume IV |Correspondence , quoted in the Memories of Europe , Paris, R. Laffont, 1972, T.V, p. 209 |taille=

Frederic-Guillaume IV proposes then, in vain, a German union with, on the one hand, the Empire of Austria and, on the other hand, a German Empire of which he would be the sovereign. The Austria refuses and even its attempt to establish a restricted union of the Prussia and small States runs up against the international hostility. The Printemps of the people fails to make the German unit.

Prussia, engine of the German unit of 1870

In the years 1850, the Germanic Confédération is industrialized. The Zollverein (customs union), the constitution of a necessarily transborder rail network, the adoption of a single money of account by almost all the States of the Confederation are as many elements of an economic unit which precedes the political unit around the Prussia. The unit current which was not very active since the failure of the Parlement of Frankfurt reappears in 1859. The National union ( Nationalverein ) largely takes up the ideas developed in 1848. The term of “Realpolitik” appears a test of the liberal author Ludwig August von Rochau, published in 1853 pennies the title Grundsätze der Realpolitik, Angewendet auf die staatlichen Zustände Deutschlands (Principles of Realpolitik applied to the official context of Germany). Realpolitik is encumbered little French principle of the right of the people to have them same: it attaches more importance to the unit than with freedom. The ideas on the German unification are also relayed by many evangelic associations of the charitable organizations, of shooting, choral societies and circles of reading. Education also plays a great part in the propagation of the unit ideology. Primary school education is generalized in all the kingdom; that of secondary education popularizes and counts in proportion twice more pupils than in France. The German unit is largely the work of Otto von Bismarck. This noble Prussian with the very preserving opinions represents Prussia with the Diète of Frankfurt of 1851 to 1859. He acquires the conviction of it that there is no place for two powers in Germany. He thinks that early or late the confrontation will occur between the two States. Its writings are very clear on this subject:

There is no place for two in Germany. I want to avenge the Reculade for Olmütz, I want to cut down Austria. I want to raise Prussia and to give him in Germany the dominating situation which returns to him from right. | Otto von Bismarck |Thoughts and memories, 1899. |taille=

It is Guillaume Ier, king de Prusse since 1861 who invite it at the post of minister-president in 1862 to solve the conflict between Landstag, the Prussian Parliament and the king about the reform of the army. It founds an authoritative government and controls decree, which allows the organization of a many army, effective and not equipped well. Indeed, “iron and blood” are for Bismarck the means of carrying out the German unit by the top, i.e. without the assent of the people.

Short the War of the Duchies, in 1864, is the first stage of the German unit. Schleswig, populated Germans and Holstein, populated Germans and of Dane are personal properties of the king of Denmark without belonging to its kingdom. In 1863, this last incorporates them in its kingdom. This involves a war of the Germanic Confederation carried out by Prussia and Austria against Denmark in 1864. The rapid victory makes it possible Austria to obtain the administration of Holstein and Prussia that of Schleswig. For Bismarck, this arrangement is provisional. It waits the favourable moment to face Austria. After being itself assured benevolent neutrality France and Italian alliance thanks to the French mediation, Prussia multiplies the provocations with regard to Austria and, under a futile pretext Holstein invades.

In the War austro-Prussian which follows, Austria, although profiting from the support of the Germanic Confederation, severely is beaten with the Bataille of Sadowa on July 3rd, 1866. When the armistice is signed on July 22nd, 1866, the Prussian armies are not any more but to 60 km of Vienna. Prussia which always profits from the French support annexes the the Schleswig-Holstein, the kingdom of Hanover, the duchy of Nassau and the Hesse, which makes it possible Prussia to have a State of only one holding, to form the Confédération of Germany of North excluding Austria and in which the catholic States of the south of Germany refuse to return. No Plébiscite is organized to make sure of the agreement of people concerned with the annexations. The unification is done well by the top.

In 1867, the Confédération of Germany of North gathers States blackjack. Each State keeps its local government but there exists with the top a federal government, including/understanding two rooms, directed by president, Guillaume Ier and the federal chancellor, Bismarck. A common army is composed of the armies of each member. To complete the German unit, the chancellor must fight the feelings anti-Prussians of the States of the South. Awkwardnesses of Napoleon III enable him to draw up the public opinion of all the States against France. Indeed, after the bright victory of Prussia, the emperor of the French who until nothing had there claimed, request of the compensations for its neutrality, the territories over left bank of the Rhine initially, then the Luxembourg. Bismarck, with skill, makes public these claims which it describes as policy of the tips. In 1870, a new bone of contention emerges between the two States. The Spaniards who drove out their queen, propose the throne, in the greatest secrecy, with Léopold de Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. When this proposal is known in June 1870, France is moved. She does not want a sovereign Prussian in the south. Initially, Guillaume Ier ensures the French ambassador, the count Vincent Benedetti whom he will not be opposed to a withdrawal of the candidature Hohenzollern in Spain. But the France is obstinated and requires the guarantee that the king will oppose all new Hohenzollern candidature. Guillaume gets rid of the ambassador and fact share of the meeting in a telegram, the Dépêche of Ems, that Bismarck, which did not expect such an amount of of it, hastens to publish. The German States see in French insistence a desire to humiliate them.

France, ulcerated by the publication of the telegram declares the war in Prussia on July 19th, 1870. The Franco-German Guerre starts. French unpreparedness leads it to the disaster whereas the States of Germany of the South agree as of November 1870 to enter the Confederation of Germany of North and that the German Empire is proclaimed on January 18th, 1871 in the Galerie of the Ices of the castle of Versailles, birthday day of the crowning of Frederic Ier of Prussia, the first King de Prusse with Koenigsberg in 1701. The French defeat finished sealing the German unit. The Traité of Frankfurt is signed on May 10th, 1871. France yields to the German Empire the Alsace-Lorraine. Franco-German antagonism is born from this annexation.

however according to the German designs of the nation of the time, the Empire is a State-Nation incomplete. indeed the Austrians, from language allemandes are excluded from it, the integration of the minorities Danish and Polish present on the territory is a failure. In 1886, Friedrich Nietzsche writes that the Germans are What is German? What is German?

The German question at the XXe century

See also: German Reunification

The First World War and the German defeat are heavy consequences for the German territory and the people. The Traité of Versailles, that the Germany sign on June 28th, 1919, is felt like a " diktat" because it cuts down the German territory with the profit by reappearing Poland. The treaty affirms the responsibility for the German Empire in the bursting of the war. The separation of Germany in two distinct territories, the Corridor of Dantzig separating Eastern Prussia from the remainder of the territory, the prohibition made in Austria link itself in Germany whereas there is no more obstacle with the realization of large Germany are perceived like as many injustices. In the same way, the incorporation of the areas inhabited by the Germans of Sudètes and pertaining to the new Czechoslovakian Republic is prohibited. These prohibitions do not manage to dam up the resurgence of the dream of large Germany. Germany overcome on the military and suffering level of the consequences of this defeat, is only more sensitive to the attractions of a magnifié past. The Saint Germanic Roman Empire of the Moyen-âge becomes again a idealized model.

In the Inter-war period, the opposition to the treaty of Versailles mobilizes as well the Communist party as the line. However the German question becomes again acuter with the come to power of Adolf Hitler in 1933. German nationalism takes a turn revanchist, openly racist and anti-semite. The occupation of the demilitarized Rhineland in March 1936, the fastening of Austria (the Anschluss) in March 1938, that of the Sudètes to the autumn of the same year, make climb the popularity of Hitler to record rates in all the social layers. The myth of the Empire and its historical mission, whose Hitler can play remarkably gives him the support of the cultivated classes.

The collapse of the Third Reich in May 1945 represents a rupture much major than the end of the Empire in November 1918. The Empire had remained as a territory after the First World War. The winners, the United States, Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France, assume the capacity and decide future of Germany. The political elites and soldiers lose their goods and their capacity. The territories in the east of the Oder and the Neisse are conceded with the Poland or the USSR. the German populations are driven out of these areas. However these conditions harder and arbitrary than in 1919, never constituted a compost for the nationalist or unit claims. The departure of million refugees and expelled German explains why the problem of the inadequacy of the limits of the German State and the limits of the German nation disappeared today. In 1945, the dream of large Germany takes definitively fine. Germans and Austrians develop their own national conscience then.

After 1945, Germany is again divided. The division of the country between Western and Soviet zones of occupation leads to the birth of two States independent in 1949, the the Federal Republic of Germany, capitalist and liberal, and the German Democratic republic communist and totalitarian. Political anchorings seem to mark an increasingly large ditch. The the Federal Republic of Germany between with NATO in 1955, whereas the German Democratic republic belongs to the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet occupation, by empéchant the formation of only one German State created a completely artificial situation, that the Général de Gaulle identified since 1959, indicating GDR like a mode of occupation.

It is necessary to await the end of the year 1980 so that the order of post-war period starts to stagger. With the autumn 1989, the pressure of the protesters in the East-German State is so strong that the Communist regime, discredited, ends up capitulating. November 9th, 1989, the Berlin Wall, symbol of communist oppression, fall. The following year, the four powers having troops stationed in Germany signs on September 12th, 1990 the Treaty “4 + 2” also called Traité of Moscow. FRG absorbs its colleague " démocratique" the next November 9th. The Germans are finally gathered in a unit State, removed from expansionist slags.

See too

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