Pan-Germanism

Origins: birth of German nationalism

The origins of Pan-Germanism would go back to the beginning of the year 1800, following the Napoleonean Guerres. These wars started a social movement born in France even following the French revolution: the Nationalism. Nationalism was a serious threat for the old aristocratic modes. Indeed, the majority of the ethnicities of the Central Europe were divided by the borders of the empires of the old dynasties of the Romanov and the Habsbourg. The Germans, on their side, were people without political unit since the Réforme, when the Saint Germanic Roman Empire was divided into a series of small independent States. The new German nationalists, mainly of young reformists, wished to join together the whole of the people sharing the ethnos group and the German language, the Volksdeutschen .

In Europe dominated by Napoleon i gather around Prussia of the German patriots in a patriotic war and main road which one very quickly calls war of liberation ( Befreiungskriege ). Appear then a whole series of make out and of texts claiming the constitution of a German State grouping all the people speaking the German language, including with the need for the people apart from what was until in 1806 the Saint Worsens. Thus develops the “Volkstum”, gathering of all the of the same men language, of the same culture.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte evokes in its Discours with the German nation the " powerful nationality allemande" , and the " volkgeist" (spirit of the people) German.

Prussia, Austria and nationalism

In the years 1860, the two more powerful German-speaking States were the Prussia and the Austria, and these two powers sought to extend their territories and their influence. The multi-ethnic structure of the Austrian empire however was criticized by the German-speaking ones living inside as outside the borders of the empire. It is to affirm its multi-ethnicity which the empire redefined like the Empire Austro-Hungarian. Prussia, under Otto von Bismarck, used on its side nationalism to join together the whole of the territory which forms modern Germany. The Germanic empire, the Second Reich , was completed in 1871 following the crowning of Guillaume I {{er}} with the head of a union of German-speaking States. However, of many Germans always lived outside the new empire. These groups used the Germanic nationalist feeling to try a unification of their territory with the motherland. The Austria and the Sudètes thus became in the center of the controversy.

Many Austrians started to have resentment for the ethnic diversity of their own empire. Being defined themselves as the descendants of the Bavarois, which conquer and were established in the area, of many of them supported the separation of the empire of Habsbourg to join the new Germanic empire.

Beginnings of Pan-Germanism

Pan-Germanism, strictly speaking, shapes in the Années 1890. According to some, one should not confuse the “national start” of 1814 referred to above and even the policy bismarck ienne, more Prussian that Germanic, with Pan-Germanism. Besides this movement shapes in reaction to the thought bismarckienne, centered above all on Prussia. Bismarck was based moreover on alliances in the East which prohibited to him any inclination of expansion in Central and Eastern Europe.

Until the First World War, one distinguishes two types of Pans-Germanism: the continental version and the colonial version. Indeed, with the image of the other great European nations, the Germany wants to obtain a colonial empire. One of the major political expressions in Germany at the time of this phase is the emergence of the party being entitled “Pan-German League”. This party which defends the (the spirit of the race), influence the young person Adolf Hitler. This party extremist remained however very minority in Germany.

Pan-Germanism after the First World War

After the First World War, the influence of the Germany in Europe was considerably reduced and shook the dreams of colonial empire for the pangermanists. Germany was humiliated and the Austro-Hungarian empire was divided into many States. The creation of the Poland, of the Czechoslovakia, the Hungary, as well as the expansion of the Romania again separated the German people, after being almost entirely joined together under the two empires Austrian and German. Many lately formed Slavic States were préjudicieux towards their German-speaking minorities, especially in the territories controlled in the past by the Austro-Hungarian empire. Acts of racism and oppression were listed. The idea of Pan-Germanism therefore did not disappear from it and to the thinkers and writers endeavor to define it and explain it. In 1915, Friedrich Naumann publishes the famous Mittel Europa . In 1916, Andre Chéradame, in the work entitled the pangermanist plan uncovered , described with precision another vision of Pan-Germanism. Indeed, according to this author, the purpose of Pan-Germanism is not to join together populations which have a Germanic language but it aims, apart from any question of language or race, to absorb the various areas whose possession is regarded as useful for the power of the Hohenzollern . In 1926, Hans Grimm popularizes the expression of “vital Espace” (Lebensraum). Adolf Hitler is in phase with this family of thought, as Mein Kampf shows it clearly ( My Combat , 1925).

Adolf Hitler, after having taken the capacity, started a radical policy applying Pan-Germanism by making control to all the issued territories “Germanic”. The Sudètes, an area of current the Czech Republic, were in the center of the controversy. Indeed, mainly German-speaking, the territory had been given to the Czechoslovakia like buffer zone in order to prevent a future German aggression. Hitler used “the oppression” of the Germans in Eastern Europe to justify an invasion. At the end of 1938, the fate of the Sudètes was discussed at the time of the Conférence of Munich. The area, where approximately 3 million Germans lived, was finally yielded to the Third Reich.

During the Second world war, the Austrian , Sudètes, Alsatian-Lorraine, Germans of Transylvania and Germans of the the Baltic was all under the control of the Third Reich and the Pan-German dream was finally carried out. But this irrefutable fact did not comprise only advantages with the Germanic populations. Indeed, the Nazis reinstalled Germans through all Europe with their own way, without taking account of the opinion and the desires of these Easts Germany.

Disappearance of Pan-Germanism

The defeat of 1945 put an end to the dreams Pan-Germanism in the same way that the First World War caused the disappearance of the Panslavisme. The Germans of Eastern Europe were expelled brutally and Germany even was devastated, then divided politically between the Federal Republic of Germany (western) and German Democratic republic (is). Nationalism and Pan-Germanism became subjects taboos because of their connotation Nazi. But the reunification of the country in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall revived the old debates. The fear of the past remains however strong and explains the fear which the Germans themselves have of a plain “Volksdeutschen”.

There currently exists of important German-speaking populations outside Austria and of Germany: in Suisse, in Belgium, France, Europe of the East and in the ex- Soviet Union, even if the many German-speaking ones sought the German citizenship after the collapse of the Communist bloc. Today, the idea even of unification of the Austria and the Germany revives the painful memory of the Nazisme and makes not very probable such a union in the near future. In the same way, Germans and Austrians have cultures (dialect, lifestyle…) who differ at a point such as it is rather incorrect to confuse the Germans and the Austrians.

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