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179-705: Pan-Germanism was highly influential in German politics in the 19th century during the unification of Germany when the German Empire was proclaimed as a nation-state in 1871 but without Habsburg Austria , Luxembourg and Liechtenstein (Kleindeutsche Lösung/Lesser Germany) and the first half of the 20th century in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the German Empire. From the late 19th century, many Pan-Germanist thinkers, since 1891 organized in

358-497: A Greater Germany . This notion also led the way for an even more expansive state to be envisioned, the Greater Germanic Reich, which Nazi Germany tried to establish. This pan-Germanic empire was expected to assimilate practically all of Germanic Europe into an enormously expanded Greater Germanic Reich. Territorially speaking, this encompassed the already-enlarged Reich itself (consisting of pre-1938 Germany plus

537-542: A multi-ethnic state, but the German-speaking people there did not have an absolute numerical majority; its re-shaping into the Austro-Hungarian Empire was one result of the growing nationalism of other ethnicities—especially the Hungarians . Under Prussian leadership, Otto von Bismarck would ride on the coat-tails of nationalism to unite all of the northern German lands. After Bismarck excluded Austria and

716-769: A "pull towards the East" ( Drang nach Osten ) where that could be found and colonized , in a model that the Nazis explicitly derived from the American Manifest Destiny in the Far West and its clearing of native inhabitants. As the foreign volunteers of the Waffen-SS were increasingly of non-Germanic origin, especially after the Battle of Stalingrad , among the organization's leadership (e.g. Felix Steiner )

895-692: A Europe balanced and guaranteed by four " great powers ": Great Britain, France, Russia, and Austria, with each power having a geographic sphere of influence. France's sphere included the Iberian Peninsula and a share of influence in the Italian states. Russia's included the eastern regions of Central Europe and a balancing influence in the Balkans. Austria's sphere expanded throughout much of the Central European territories formerly held by

1074-634: A German client state of France known as the Confederation of the Rhine which, inter alia , provided for the mediatization of over a hundred petty princes and counts and the absorption of their territories, as well as those of hundreds of imperial knights , by the Confederation's member-states. Several states were promoted to kingdoms such as the Kingdom of Bavaria , the Kingdom of Saxony or

1253-638: A German nation would stretch. There was also uncertainty as to who would best lead and defend "Germany", however it was defined. Different groups offered different solutions to this problem. In the Kleindeutschland ("Lesser Germany") solution, the German states would be united under the leadership of the Prussian Hohenzollerns ; in the Grossdeutschland ("Greater Germany") solution, the German states would be united under

1432-616: A German province but to instead become an allied seafaring partner of the Germans. The eastern Reichskommissariats in the vast stretches of Ukraine and Russia were also intended for future integration, with plans for them stretching to the Volga or even beyond the Urals . They were deemed of vital interest for the survival of the German nation, as it was a core tenet of Nazi ideology that it needed "living space" ( Lebensraum ), creating

1611-484: A Germany without multi-ethnic Austria (under Austria-Hungary ) or its German-speaking part , the political and administrative unification in 1871 at least temporarily solved the problem of dualism. Despite undergoing in the later years several further changes of its name and borders, overhauls of its constitutional system, periods of limited sovereignty and interrupted unity of its territory or government, and despite dissolution of its dominant founding federated state ,

1790-512: A Prussian customs union in 1818, the Zollverein linked the many Prussian and Hohenzollern territories. Over the ensuing thirty years (and more) other German states joined. The Union helped to reduce protectionist barriers between the German states, especially improving the transport of raw materials and finished goods, making it both easier to move goods across territorial borders and less costly to buy, transport, and sell raw materials. This

1969-452: A campaign in the German states to bring them back into the French orbit; the subsequent War of Liberation culminated in the great Battle of Leipzig , also known as the Battle of Nations . In October 1813, more than 500,000 combatants engaged in ferocious fighting over three days, making it the largest European land battle of the 19th century. The engagement resulted in a decisive victory for

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2148-690: A common language. Schneckenburger wrote "The Watch on the Rhine" in a specific patriotic response to French assertions that the Rhine was France's "natural" eastern boundary. In the refrain, "Dear fatherland, dear fatherland, put your mind to rest / The watch stands true on the Rhine", and in such other patriotic poetry as Nicholaus Becker's "Das Rheinlied" ("The Rhine"), Germans were called upon to defend their territorial homeland. In 1807, Alexander von Humboldt argued that national character reflected geographic influence, linking landscape to people. Concurrent with this idea, movements to preserve old fortresses and historic sites emerged, and these particularly focused on

2327-496: A constitution and reach an agreement on the kleindeutsch solution. While the liberals failed to achieve the unification they sought, they did manage to gain a partial victory by working with the German princes on many constitutional issues and collaborating with them on reforms. Scholars of German history have engaged in decades of debate over how the successes and failures of the Frankfurt Parliament contribute to

2506-859: A fellow confederation . In the 20th century the German Nazi Party sought to create a Greater Germanic Reich that would include most of the Germanic peoples of Europe within it under the leadership of Germany, including peoples such as the Danes , the Dutch , the Swedes , the Norwegians , and the Flemish within it. Anti-German Scandinavism surged in Denmark in the 1930s and 1940s in response to

2685-426: A geographically central organizing feature (such as a national capital), the rails were laid in webs, linking towns and markets within regions, regions within larger regions, and so on. As the rail network expanded, it became cheaper to transport goods: in 1840, 18 Pfennigs per ton per kilometer and in 1870, five Pfennigs . The effects of the railway were immediate. For example, raw materials could travel up and down

2864-611: A growing sense of unity among German speakers of Central Europe. At the Wartburg Festival in 1817 the first real movements among the students were formed – fraternities and student organizations emerged. The colors black, red and gold were symbolic of this. Agitation by student organizations led such conservative leaders as Klemens Wenzel, Prince von Metternich , to fear the rise of national sentiment. The assassination of German dramatist August von Kotzebue in March 1819 by

3043-485: A league or society of independent nations would be realized in his own lifetime. In practice Young Europe lacked the money and popular support for more than a short-term existence. Nevertheless he always remained faithful to the ideal of a united continent for which the creation of individual nations would be an indispensable preliminary. King Frederick William IV suffered a stroke in 1857 and could no longer rule. This led to his brother William becoming prince regent of

3222-546: A massive dictionary known as The Grimm , also assembled a compendium of folk tales and fables, which highlighted the story-telling parallels between different regions. Karl Baedeker wrote guidebooks to different cities and regions of Central Europe, indicating places to stay, sites to visit, and giving a short history of castles, battlefields, famous buildings, and famous people. His guides also included distances, roads to avoid, and hiking paths to follow. The words of August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben expressed not only

3401-544: A master plan to expand the North German Confederation of 1866 to include the remaining independent German states into a single entity or simply to expand the power of the Kingdom of Prussia. They conclude that factors in addition to the strength of Bismarck's Realpolitik led a collection of early modern polities to reorganize their political, economic, military, and diplomatic relationships in

3580-539: A multitude of invisible bonds by nature herself, long before any human art begins; they understand each other and have the power of continuing to make themselves understood more and more clearly; they belong together and are by nature one and an inseparable whole. A common language may have been seen to serve as the basis of a nation, but as contemporary historians of 19th-century Germany noted, it took more than linguistic similarity to unify these several hundred polities. The experience of German-speaking Central Europe during

3759-413: A new political, bureaucratic, or administrative apparatus. While many spoke about the need for a constitution, no such document appeared from the discussions. In 1848, nationalists sought to remedy that problem. Several other factors complicated the rise of nationalism in the German states. The man-made factors included political rivalries between members of the German confederation, particularly between

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3938-455: A permanent national parliament, and a unified Germany, possibly under the leadership of the Prussian king. This seemed to be the most logical course since Prussia was the strongest of the German states, as well as the largest in geographic size. Meanwhile, center-right revolutionaries sought some kind of expanded suffrage within their states and potentially, a form of loose unification. Finally,

4117-887: A pivotal role in German politics. Ever since the Prince-Elector of Brandenburg had made himself King in Prussia at the beginning of that century, their domains had steadily increased through inheritance and war. Prussia's consolidated strength had become especially apparent during the Partitions of Poland , the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War under Frederick the Great . As Maria Theresa and Joseph tried to restore Habsburg hegemony in

4296-482: A radical student seeking unification was followed on 20 September 1819 by the proclamation of the Carlsbad Decrees , which hampered intellectual leadership of the nationalist movement. Metternich was able to harness conservative outrage at the assassination to consolidate legislation that would further limit the press and constrain the rising liberal and nationalist movements. Consequently, these decrees drove

4475-571: A small portion of the male population. Problematically, the built-in Austrian dominance failed to take into account Prussia's 18th-century emergence in Imperial politics. This impractical solution did not reflect the new status of Prussia in the overall scheme. Although the Prussian army had been dramatically defeated in the 1806 Battle of Jena-Auerstedt , it had made a spectacular comeback at Waterloo. Consequently, Prussian leaders expected to play

4654-643: A speech given in April 1943 to the officers of the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler , the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich and the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf : We do not expect you to renounce your nation. [...] We do not expect you to become German out of opportunism. We do expect you to subordinate your national ideal to a greater racial and historical ideal, to the Germanic Reich. The defeat of Germany in World War II brought about

4833-588: A total length of 925 km (575 miles). From 1301, the upper Meuse roughly marked the western border of the Holy Roman Empire with the Kingdom of France , after Count Henry III of Bar had to receive the western part of the County of Bar ( Barrois mouvant ) as a French fief from the hands of King Philip IV . In 1408, a Burgundian army led by John the Fearless went to the aid of John III against

5012-542: Is mainly limited to a few nationalist groups, mainly on the political far right in Germany and Austria. The word pan is a Greek word element meaning "all, every, whole, all-inclusive". The word "German" in this context derives from Latin "Germani" originally used by Julius Caesar referring to tribes or a single tribe in northeastern Gaul . In the Late Middle Ages , it acquired a loose meaning referring to

5191-450: Is often interpreted as a repudiation of the political process—a repudiation Bismarck did not himself advocate. Second, his emphasis on blood and iron did not imply simply the unrivaled military might of the Prussian army but rather two important aspects: the ability of the assorted German states to produce iron and other related war materials and the willingness to use those war materials if necessary. By 1862, when Bismarck made his speech,

5370-618: The Alldeutsche Bewegung , a political movement which sought to unite all German speaking people in one country, whereas "Pangermanismus" can refer to both the pursuit of uniting all the German-speaking people and movements which sought to unify all speakers of Germanic languages. The origins of Pan-Germanism began with the birth of Romantic nationalism during the Napoleonic Wars , with Friedrich Ludwig Jahn and Ernst Moritz Arndt being early proponents. Germans , for

5549-605: The Austrian Empire 's sphere of influence. The Congress established a loose German Confederation (1815–1866), headed by Austria, with a "Federal Diet " (called the Bundestag or Bundesversammlung , an assembly of appointed leaders) that met in the city of Frankfurt am Main . Its borders resembled those of its predecessor, the Holy Roman Empire (though there were some deviations e.g. Prussian territory in

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5728-596: The Austrian Empire . Pan-Germanism was widespread among the revolutionaries of 1848 , notably among Richard Wagner and the Brothers Grimm . Writers such as Friedrich List and Paul Anton Lagarde argued for German hegemony in Central and Eastern Europe, where German domination in some areas had begun as early as the 9th century AD with the Ostsiedlung , Germanic expansion into Slavic and Baltic lands. For

5907-852: The Austro-Hungarian Empire . There was also a rejection of Roman Catholicism with the Away from Rome! movement (ca 1900 onwards) calling for German-speakers to identify with Lutheran or Old Catholic churches. The Pan-German Movement gained an institutional format in 1891, when Ernst Hasse , a professor at the University of Leipzig and a member of the Reichstag , organized the Pan-German League , an ultra-nationalist political-interest organization which promoted imperialism , antisemitism , and support for ethnic German minorities in other countries. The organization achieved great support among

6086-500: The Austrofascist Federal State of Austria which imposed a distinct Austrian national identity and in accordance said that Austrians were "better Germans." Kurt Schuschnigg adopted a policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany and called Austria the "better German state", but he still struggled to keep Austria independent. With " Anschluss " of Austria in 1938, the historic aim of Austria's German nationalists

6265-764: The Belt ", i.e. as including East Prussia and South Tyrol . Reflecting upon the First Schleswig War in 1848, Karl Marx noted in 1853 that "by quarrelling amongst themselves, instead of confederating, Germans and Scandinavians, both of them belonging to the same great race, only prepare the way for their hereditary enemy, the Slav ." Defunct Defunct There is, in political geography, no Germany proper to speak of. There are Kingdoms and Grand Duchies, and Duchies and Principalities, inhabited by Germans, and each separately ruled by an independent sovereign with all

6444-575: The Burschenschaften underground, restricted the publication of nationalist materials, expanded censorship of the press and private correspondence, and limited academic speech by prohibiting university professors from encouraging nationalist discussion. The decrees were the subject of Johann Joseph von Görres 's pamphlet Teutschland [archaic: Deutschland] und die Revolution ( Germany and the Revolution ) (1820), in which he concluded that it

6623-586: The Coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Saxony, and Sweden. As a result, the Confederation of the Rhine collapsed and the French period came to an end. Success encouraged the Coalition forces to pursue Napoleon across the Rhine; his army and his government collapsed, and the victorious Coalition incarcerated Napoleon on Elba . During the brief Napoleonic restoration known as the 100 Days of 1815, forces of

6802-478: The Congress of Vienna established a new European political-diplomatic system based on the balance of power . This system reorganized Europe into spheres of influence , which, in some cases, suppressed the aspirations of the various nationalities, including the Germans and Italians. Generally, an enlarged Prussia and the 38 other states consolidated from the mediatized territories of 1803 were confederated within

6981-692: The Congress of Vienna in 1814–1815 after the Napoleonic Wars endorsed Austrian dominance in Central Europe through Habsburg leadership of the German Confederation, designed to replace the Holy Roman Empire. The negotiators at Vienna took no account of Prussia's growing strength within and declined to create a second coalition of the German states under Prussia's influence, and so failed to foresee that Prussia (Kingdom of Prussia) would rise to challenge Austria for leadership of

7160-563: The Electorate of Bavaria , the Margraviate of Brandenburg or the Kingdom of Bohemia . Their governance varied: they included free imperial cities , also of different sizes, such as the powerful Augsburg and the minuscule Weil der Stadt ; ecclesiastical territories, also of varying sizes and influence, such as the wealthy Abbey of Reichenau and the powerful Archbishopric of Cologne ; and dynastic states such as Württemberg . Among

7339-549: The Frankfurt Parliament passed the Paulskirchenverfassung (Constitution of St. Paul's Church) and offered the title of Kaiser (Emperor) to the Prussian king Frederick William IV the next month. He refused for a variety of reasons. Publicly, he replied that he could not accept a crown without the consent of the actual states, by which he meant the princes. Privately, he feared opposition from

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7518-456: The German Empire later regarded the railways as the first indicator of a unified state; the patriotic novelist, Wilhelm Raabe , wrote: "The German empire was founded with the construction of the first railway..." Not everyone greeted the iron monster with enthusiasm. The Prussian king Frederick William III saw no advantage in traveling from Berlin to Potsdam a few hours faster, and Metternich refused to ride in one at all. Others wondered if

7697-677: The German entry into World War I , Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg authorized the Septemberprogramm proposing that the German Empire use the First World War to seek territorial annexations similar to the ones demanded by pan-German nationalists. The West German historian Fritz Fischer argued in his 1962 thesis Germany's Aims in the First World War that this and other documents indicated that Germany

7876-494: The Great Irish Famine ) and several seasons of bad weather, encouraged many to think that the rich and powerful had no interest in their problems. Those in authority were concerned about the growing unrest, political and social agitation among the working classes, and the disaffection of the intelligentsia . No amount of censorship, fines, imprisonment, or banishment, it seemed, could stem the criticism. Furthermore, it

8055-611: The Hohenzollern Kingdom of Prussia (both the German-speaking former Duchy of Prussia and the non-German-speaking entire territory of the Prussian partition of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) as well as the German-speaking Swiss cantons were outside of the Imperial borders. This became known as the practice of Kleinstaaterei ("small-statery") As a further consequence, there was no German national identity in development as late as 1800, mainly due to

8234-406: The Holy Roman Empire . Britain's sphere was the rest of the world, especially the seas. This sphere of influence system depended upon the fragmentation of the German and Italian states, not their consolidation. Consequently, a German nation united under one banner presented significant questions. There was no readily applicable definition for who the German people would be or how far the borders of

8413-641: The Kingdom of Hanover . Following the formal secession from the Empire of the majority of its constituent states, the Emperor dissolved the Holy Roman Empire. In his abdication, Francis released all former estates from their duties and obligations to him, and took upon himself solely the title of Emperor of Austria, which had been established since 1804. Under the hegemony of the First French Empire (1804–1814), popular German nationalism thrived in

8592-412: The Kotzebue assassination, Metternich used the popular demonstration at Hambach to push conservative social policy. The "Six Articles" of 28 June 1832 primarily reaffirmed the principle of monarchical authority. On 5 July, the Frankfurt Diet voted for an additional 10 articles, which reiterated existing rules on censorship, restricted political organizations, and limited other public activity. Furthermore,

8771-460: The Langres plateau in France from where it flows northwards past Sedan (the head of navigation ) and Charleville-Mézières into Belgium. At Namur it is joined by the Sambre . Beyond Namur the Meuse winds eastwards and passes Liège before turning north. The river then forms part of the Belgian-Dutch border, except that at Maastricht the border lies further to the west. In the Netherlands it continues northwards through Venlo closely along

8950-423: The Low Countries , and Scandinavia . Although Bismarck had excluded Austria and the German Austrians from his creation of the Kleindeutschland state in 1871, integrating the German Austrians nevertheless remained a strong desire for many people of both Austria and Germany. The most radical Austrian pan-German Georg Schönerer (1842–1921) and Karl Hermann Wolf (1862–1941) articulated Pan-Germanist sentiments in

9129-402: The North Germanic -speaking Scandinavians into a Pan-German state, sometimes referred to as Pan-Germanicism , was promoted alongside mainstream pan-German ideas. Jacob Grimm adopted Munch's anti-Danish Pan-Germanism and argued that the entire peninsula of Jutland had been populated by Germans before the arrival of the Danes and that thus it could justifiably be reclaimed by Germany, whereas

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9308-446: The Norwegian independence movement . Prominent supporters included Peter Andreas Munch , Christopher Bruun , Knut Hamsun , Henrik Ibsen and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson . Bjørnson, who wrote the lyrics for the Norwegian national anthem , proclaimed in 1901: I'm a Pan-Germanist, I'm a Teuton , and the greatest dream of my life is for the South Germanic peoples and the North Germanic peoples and their brothers in diaspora to unite in

9487-457: The Oude Maasje . In the late 19th century and early 20th century the connection between the Maas and Rhine was closed off and the Maas was given a new, artificial mouth – the Bergse Maas . The resulting separation of the rivers Rhine and Maas reduced the risk of flooding and was considered to be the greatest achievement in Dutch hydraulic engineering before the completion of the Zuiderzee Works and Delta Works . The former main branch was, after

9666-430: The Pan-German League , had adopted openly ethnocentric and racist ideologies, and ultimately gave rise to the foreign policy Heim ins Reich pursued by Nazi Germany under Austrian-born Adolf Hitler from 1938, one of the primary factors leading to the outbreak of World War II . As a result of the Second World War, there was a clear backlash against Pan-Germanism and other related ideologies. Today, pan-Germanism

9845-468: The Pan-German Society demanded the annexation of all German-speaking territories under the rule of the Habsburg monarchy to the German Empire, and fervently rejected Austrian nationalism and a pan-Austrian identity. Schönerer's völkisch and racist German nationalism was an inspiration to Adolf Hitler 's Nazi ideology . In 1933, Austrian Nazis and the national-liberal Greater German People's Party formed an action group, fighting together against

10024-464: The Punctation of Olmütz , but among Prussians it was known as the "Humiliation of Olmütz." Although seemingly minor events, the Erfurt Union proposal and the Punctation of Olmütz brought the problems of influence in the German states into sharp focus. The question became not a matter of if but rather when unification would occur, and when was contingent upon strength. One of the former Frankfurt Parliament members, Johann Gustav Droysen , summed up

10203-495: The Revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas , in which the liberal nationalistic revolutionaries advocated the Greater German solution, the Austrian defeat in the Austro-Prussian War (1866) with the effect that Austria was now excluded from Germany, and increasing ethnic conflicts in the multinational Habsburg monarchy , a German national movement evolved in Austria. Led by the radical German nationalist and Austrian antisemite Georg Ritter von Schönerer , organisations such as

10382-405: The Ruhr Valley without having to unload and reload. Railway lines encouraged economic activity by creating demand for commodities and by facilitating commerce. In 1850, inland shipping carried three times more freight than railroads; by 1870, the situation was reversed, and railroads carried four times more. Rail travel changed how cities looked and how people traveled. Its impact reached throughout

10561-457: The Second War of Schleswig in 1864. Second, the unification of Italy provided Prussia an ally against Austria in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Finally, France—fearing Hohenzollern encirclement—declared war on Prussia in 1870, resulting in the Franco-Prussian War . Through a combination of Bismarck's diplomacy and political leadership, von Roon 's military reorganization, and von Moltke 's military strategy, Prussia demonstrated that none of

10740-420: The Seventh Coalition , including an Anglo-Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington and a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard von Blücher , were victorious at Waterloo (18 June 1815). The critical role played by Blücher's troops, especially after having to retreat from the field at Ligny the day before, helped to turn the tide of combat against the French. The Prussian cavalry pursued

10919-441: The Sonderweg analysis helpful in understanding the period of National Socialism . After the Frankfurt Parliament disbanded, Frederick William IV, under the influence of General Joseph Maria von Radowitz , supported the establishment of the Erfurt Union —a federation of German states, excluding Austria—by the free agreement of the German princes. This limited union under Prussia would have almost eliminated Austrian influence on

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11098-414: The areas annexed into the Großdeutsche Reich ), the Netherlands , Belgium , areas in north-eastern France considered to be historically and ethnically Germanic, Denmark , Norway , Sweden , Iceland , at least the German-speaking parts of Switzerland , and Liechtenstein . The most notable exception was the predominantly Anglo-Saxon United Kingdom, which was not projected as having to be reduced to

11277-401: The sillon industriel , was the first fully industrialized area in continental Europe. The Afgedamde Maas was created in the late Middle Ages, when a major flood made a connection between the Maas and the Merwede at the town of Woudrichem . From that moment on, the current Afgedamde Maas was the main branch of the lower Meuse. The former main branch eventually silted up and is today called

11456-441: The "failure" of 1848 reaffirmed latent aristocratic longings among the German middle class; consequently, this group never developed a self-conscious program of modernization. More recent scholarship has rejected this idea, claiming that Germany did not have an actual "distinctive path" any more than any other nation, a historiographic idea known as exceptionalism . Instead, modern historians claim 1848 saw specific achievements by

11635-489: The 15th century, with few exceptions, the Empire's Prince-electors had chosen successive heads of the House of Habsburg from the Duchy of Austria to hold the title of Holy Roman Emperor . Although they initially sought to restore central Imperial power, preserving a weak and fragmented Empire was convenient for France and Sweden, and therefore, their ensuing intervention led to the Peace of Westphalia which effectively thwarted for centuries any serious attempts to reinforce

11814-465: The 19th century. The period of Austrian and Prussian police-states and vast censorship between the Congress of Vienna and the Revolutions of 1848 in Germany later became widely known as the Vormärz ("before March"), referring to March 1848. During this period, European liberalism gained momentum; the agenda included economic, social, and political issues. Most European liberals in the Vormärz sought unification under nationalist principles, promoted

11993-412: The 19th century. Reaction to Danish and French nationalism provided for expressions of German unity. Military successes—especially those of Prussia—in three regional wars generated enthusiasm and pride that politicians could harness to promote unification. This experience echoed the memory of mutual accomplishment in the Napoleonic Wars, particularly in the War of Liberation of 1813–1814. By establishing

12172-452: The Austrians and the Prussians, and socio-economic competition among the commercial and merchant interests, and the old land-owning and aristocratic interests. Natural factors included widespread drought in the early 1830s, and again in the 1840s, and a food crisis in the 1840s. Further complications emerged as a result of a shift in industrialization and manufacturing; as people sought jobs, they left their villages and small towns to work during

12351-429: The Central European economy. The invasion of Russia included nearly 125,000 troops from German lands, and the loss of that army encouraged many Germans, both high- and low-born, to envision a Central Europe free of Napoleon's influence. The creation of student militias such as the Lützow Free Corps exemplified this tendency. The debacle in Russia loosened the French grip on the German princes. In 1813, Napoleon mounted

12530-402: The Confederation was extended to include also the formerly Polish territories of the Lauenburg and Bütow Land and the former Starostwo of Draheim , while Austrian part was extended to include in the years 1818–1850 also the formerly Polish territories of the Duchy of Oświęcim and the Duchy of Zator ), meaning that large portions of both Prussia and Austria were left outside. In recognition of

12709-460: The Empire by the French Third Republic ). Despite the legal, administrative, and political disruption caused by the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the German-speaking people of the old Empire had a common linguistic, cultural, and legal tradition. European liberalism offered an intellectual basis for unification by challenging dynastic and absolutist models of social and political organization; its German manifestation emphasized

12888-707: The European signatories of the 1815 peace treaty could guarantee Austria's sphere of influence in Central Europe, thus achieving Prussian hegemony in Germany and ending the dualism debate. Meuse (river) The Meuse or Maas is a major European river , rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta . It has

13067-737: The First World War, with vast portions of eastern Germany directly annexed by the Soviet Union and Poland . The scale of the Germans' defeat was unprecedented; Pan-Germanism became taboo because it had been tied to racist concepts of the " master race " and Nordicism by the Nazi party . However, the reunification of Germany in 1990 revived the old debates. 18th century and before 19th century 20th century Notes Further reading Unification of Germany The unification of Germany ( German : Deutsche Einigung , pronounced [ˈdɔʏtʃə ˈʔaɪnɪɡʊŋ] )

13246-574: The German Austrians from Germany in the German war of 1866 and (following a few other events over the next few years), the unification of Germany , established the Prussian-dominated German Empire in 1871 with the proclamation of Wilhelm I as head of a union of German-speaking states , while disregarding millions of its non-German subjects who desired self-determination from German rule. After World War I

13425-538: The German nationalism of the 1830s and the French nationalism of the July Revolution : the focus of German nationalism lay in the education of the people; once the populace was educated as to what was needed, they would accomplish it. The Hambach rhetoric emphasized the overall peaceable nature of German nationalism: the point was not to build barricades, a very "French" form of nationalism, but to build emotional bridges between groups. As he had done in 1819, after

13604-505: The German peoples. This German dualism presented two solutions to the problem of unification : Kleindeutsche Lösung , the small Germany solution (Germany without Austria), or Großdeutsche Lösung , the greater Germany solution (Germany with Austria or its German-speaking part), ultimately settled in favor of the former solution in the Peace of Prague . Historians debate whether Otto von Bismarck — Minister President of Prussia —had

13783-842: The German states. In this context, one can detect its roots in the experience of Germans in the Napoleonic period. Furthermore, implicit and sometimes explicit promises made during the German Campaign of 1813 engendered an expectation of popular sovereignty and widespread participation in the political process, promises that largely went unfulfilled once peace had been achieved. Despite considerable conservative reaction, ideas of unity joined with notions of popular sovereignty in German-speaking lands. The Burschenschaft student organizations and popular demonstrations, such as those held at Wartburg Castle in October 1817, contributed to

13962-426: The German-speaking states, the Holy Roman Empire's administrative and legal mechanisms provided a venue to resolve disputes between peasants and landlords, between jurisdictions, and within jurisdictions. Through the organization of imperial circles ( Reichskreise ), groups of states consolidated resources and promoted regional and organizational interests, including economic cooperation and military protection. Since

14141-532: The Germanic Reich of the German Nation would be racist and nationalist . Rather than a return to the values of the Middle Ages, its establishment was to be " a push forward to a new golden age , in which the best aspects of the past would be combined with modern racist and nationalist thinking". The historical borders of the Holy Roman Empire were also used as grounds for territorial revisionism by

14320-647: The Holy Roman Empire by the First French Empire in the War of the Second Coalition (1798–1802) resulted in crushing the Empire and allied forces by Napoleon Bonaparte . The treaties of Lunéville (1801) and the Mediatization of 1803 secularized the ecclesiastical principalities and abolished most free imperial cities and these territories along with their inhabitants were absorbed by dynastic states. This transfer particularly enhanced

14499-568: The Holy Roman Empire, Frederick countered with the creation of the Fürstenbund (Union of Princes) in 1785. Austrian-Prussian dualism lay firmly rooted in old Imperial politics. Those balance of power manoeuvers were epitomized by the War of the Bavarian Succession , or " Potato War " among common folk. Even after the end of the Holy Roman Empire, this competition influenced the growth and development of nationalist movements in

14678-511: The Kingdom of Prussia in 1858. Meanwhile, Helmuth von Moltke had become chief of the Prussian General Staff in 1857, and Albrecht von Roon would become Prussian Minister of War in 1859. This shuffling of authority within the Prussian military establishment would have important consequences. Von Roon and William (who took an active interest in military structures) began reorganizing the Prussian army, while Moltke redesigned

14857-643: The Meuse basin was one of the many regions in Europe to experience catastrophic flooding during the 2021 European floods . The name Meuse is derived from the French name of the river, derived from its Latin name, Mosa , which ultimately derives from the Celtic or Proto-Celtic name * Mosā . This probably derives from the same root as English " maze ", referring to the river's twists and turns. The Dutch name Maas descends from Middle Dutch Mase , which comes from

15036-666: The Meuse but pumps running water into the Meuse). Most of the basin area (approximately 36,000 km ) is in Wallonia (12,000 km ), followed by France (9,000 km ), the Netherlands (8,000 km ), Germany (2,000 km ), Flanders (2,000 km ) and Luxembourg (a few km ). An International Commission on the Meuse has the responsibility of the implementation of the treaty. The costs of this Commission are met by all these countries, in proportion of their own territory in

15215-440: The Meuse has been relatively stable over the last few thousand years. One recent study estimates that average flow has increased by about 10% since 2000 BC. The hydrological distribution of the Meuse changed during the later Middle Ages, when a major flood forced it to shift its main course northwards towards the river Merwede . From then on several stretches of the original Merwede were renamed "Maas" (i.e. Meuse) and served as

15394-418: The Meuse is bypassed by the 36 km (22.4 mi) Juliana Canal . South of Namur, further upstream, the river can only carry more modest vessels, although a barge as long as 100 m (328 ft). can still reach the French border town of Givet. From Givet, the river is canalized over a distance of 272 kilometres (169 mi). The canalized Meuse used to be called the "Canal de l'Est — Branche Nord" but

15573-459: The NSDAP, laying claim to modern territories and states that were once part of it. Even before the war, Hitler had dreamed of reversing the Peace of Westphalia , which had given the territories of the Empire almost complete sovereignty. On November 17, 1939, Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary that the "total liquidation" of this historic treaty was the "great goal" of

15752-697: The Nazi regime, and that since it had been signed in Münster , it would also be officially repealed in the same city. Final solution Parties The Heim ins Reich ("Back Home to the Reich") initiative was a policy pursued by the Nazis which attempted to convince the ethnic Germans living outside of Nazi Germany (such as in Austria and Sudetenland ) that they should strive to bring these regions "home" into

15931-589: The Pan-Germanist philosophy changed drastically during Adolf Hitler's rise to power . Pan-Germanists originally sought to unify all the German-speaking populations of Europe in a single nation-state known as Großdeutschland (Greater Germany), where "German-speaking" was sometimes taken as synonymous with Germanic-speaking , to the inclusion of the Frisian - and Dutch -speaking populations of

16110-622: The Pan-Germanists, this movement was seen as a Drang nach Osten , in which Germans would be naturally inclined to seek Lebensraum by moving eastwards to reunite with the German minorities there. The Deutschlandlied ("Song of Germany"), written in 1841 by Hoffmann von Fallersleben , in its first stanza defines Deutschland as reaching "From the Meuse to the Memel / From the Adige to

16289-548: The Polish majority living in the share of Polish territory annexed by Prussia pursued their own liberation agenda . Their pressure resulted in a variety of elections, based on different voting qualifications, such as the Prussian three-class franchise , which weighted votes based on the amount of taxes paid and therefore gave some electoral groups—chiefly the wealthier, landed ones—greater representative power. On 27 March 1849,

16468-541: The Prussian monarchy is now wholly German, while that of Austria cannot be. Unification under these conditions raised a basic diplomatic problem. The possibility of German (or Italian ) unification would overturn the overlapping spheres of influence system created in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna. The principal architects of this convention, Metternich , Castlereagh , and Tsar Alexander (with his foreign secretary Count Karl Nesselrode ), had conceived of and organized

16647-642: The Rhine distributaries. The resulting separation of the rivers Rhine and Meuse is considered to be the greatest achievement in Dutch hydraulic engineering before the completion of the Zuiderzee Works and Delta Works . In 1970 the Haringvlietdam has been finished. Since then the reunited Rhine and Meuse waters have reached the North Sea either at this site or, during times of lower discharges of

16826-560: The Rhine had been removed by Napoleon's orders, but by the 1820s, steam engines freed riverboats from the cumbersome system of men and animals that towed them upstream. By 1846, 180 steamers plied German rivers and Lake Constance , and a network of canals extended from the Danube , the Weser , and the Elbe rivers. As important as these improvements were, they could not compete with the impact of

17005-412: The Rhine, at Hook of Holland . A 2008 study notes that the difference between summer and winter flow volumes has increased significantly in the last 100–200 years. It points out that the frequency of serious floods ( i.e. flows > 1000% of normal) has increased markedly. They predict that winter flooding of the Meuse may become a recurring problem in the coming decades. The Meuse flows through

17184-603: The Rhineland, the site of so many confrontations with France and Spain. The widespread—mainly German— revolutions of 1848–49 sought unification of Germany under a single constitution. The revolutionaries pressured various state governments, particularly those in the Rhineland , for a parliamentary assembly that would have the responsibility to draft a constitution. Ultimately, many of the left-wing revolutionaries hoped this constitution would establish universal male suffrage ,

17363-649: The Waal, the main stem of the Rhine at Woudrichem , and then flows under the name of Boven Merwede to Hardinxveld-Giessendam , where it splits into Nieuwe Merwede and Beneden Merwede . Near Lage Zwaluwe , the Nieuwe Merwede joins the Amer, forming the Hollands Diep , which splits into Grevelingen and Haringvliet , before finally flowing into the North Sea. The Meuse is crossed by railway bridges between

17542-701: The Wartburg rally in 1817 and the Hambach Festival in 1832 had lacked any clear-cut program of unification. At Hambach, the positions of the many speakers illustrated their disparate agendas. Held together only by the idea of unification, their notions of how to achieve this did not include specific plans but instead rested on the nebulous idea that the Volk (the people), if properly educated, would bring about unification on their own. Grand speeches, flags, exuberant students, and picnic lunches did not translate into

17721-553: The basic pan-German visions with the Pan-German League , but differences in political style led the two groups to open rivalry. The German Workers Party of Bohemia cut its ties to the pan-German movement, which was seen as being too dominated by the upper classes, and joined forces with the German Workers' Party led by Anton Drexler , which later became the Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers' Party, NSDAP) that

17900-599: The basin of the Meuse: Netherlands 30%, Wallonia 30%, France 15%, Germany 14.5%, Flanders 5%, Brussels 4.5%, Kingdom of Belgium 0.5%, and Luxembourg 0.5%. The map of the basin area of Meuse was joined to the text of the treaty. As for culture, as a major communication route the River Meuse is the origin of Mosan art , principally (Wallonia and France). The first landscape painted in the Renaissance

18079-723: The border to Germany, then turns towards the west, where it runs parallel to the Waal and forms part of the extensive Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta , together with the Scheldt to its south and the Rhine to the north. The river has been divided near Heusden into the Afgedamde Maas on the right and the Bergse Maas on the left. The Bergse Maas continues under the name of Amer , which is part of De Biesbosch . The Afgedamde Maas joins

18258-402: The circumstances to create a war, rather than a grand scheme to unify a nation-state. Regardless of motivation, by manipulating events of 1866 and 1870, Bismarck demonstrated the political and diplomatic skill that had caused Wilhelm to turn to him in 1862. Three episodes proved fundamental to the unification of Germany. First, the death without male heirs of Frederick VII of Denmark led to

18437-658: The citizens of Liège, who were in open revolt. After the battle , which saw the men from Liège defeated, John ordered the drowning in the Meuse of burghers and noblemen in Liège whose loyalties he suspected. The border remained relatively stable until the annexation of the Three Bishoprics Metz, Toul and Verdun by King Henry II in 1552 and the occupation of the Duchy of Lorraine by the forces of King Louis XIII in 1633. Its lower Belgian ( Walloon ) portion, part of

18616-493: The crisis in favor of the war minister. The Crimean War of 1854–55 and the Italian War of 1859 disrupted relations among Great Britain, France, Austria, and Russia. In the aftermath of this disarray, the convergence of von Moltke's operational redesign, von Roon and Wilhelm's army restructure, and Bismarck's diplomacy influenced the realignment of the European balance of power. Their combined agendas established Prussia as

18795-402: The customary date of the German Empire 's foundation, although the legally meaningful events relevant to the accomplishment of unification occurred on 1 January 1871 ( accession of South German states and constitutional adoption of the name "German Empire" ), 4 May 1871 (entry into force of the permanent Constitution of the German Empire ) and 10 May 1871 ( Treaty of Frankfurt and recognition of

18974-703: The dam at its southern inlet was completed in 1904, renamed Afgedamde Maas and no longer receives water from the Maas. The Meuse and its crossings were a key objective of the Battle of France , the Battle of Sedan and also for the last major German WWII counter-offensive on the Western Front , the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 and January 1945. The Meuse is represented in the documentary The River People released in 2012 by Xavier Istasse. In July 2021,

19153-505: The decline of Pan-Germanism, much as World War I had led to the demise of Pan-Slavism . Parts of Germany itself were devastated, and the country was divided, firstly into Soviet, French, American, and British zones and then into West Germany and East Germany . Austria was separated from Germany and the German identity in Austria was also weakened. The end of World War II in Europe brought even larger territorial losses for Germany than

19332-473: The defeated French in the evening of 18 June, sealing the allied victory. From the German perspective, the actions of Blücher's troops at Waterloo, and the combined efforts at Leipzig, offered a rallying point of pride and enthusiasm. This interpretation became a key building block of the Borussian myth expounded by the pro-Prussian nationalist historians later in the 19th century. After Napoleon's defeat,

19511-549: The early 19th century, German roads had deteriorated to an appalling extent. Travelers, both foreign and local, complained bitterly about the state of the Heerstraßen , the military roads previously maintained for the ease of moving troops. As German states ceased to be a military crossroads, however, the roads improved; the length of hard–surfaced roads in Prussia increased from 3,800 kilometers (2,400 mi) in 1816 to 16,600 kilometers (10,300 mi) in 1852, helped in part by

19690-593: The early 9th century AD, large parts of Europe had been united under the rule of the Frankish leader Charlemagne , who expanded the Frankish Empire (Francia) in several directions including east of the Rhine, where he conquered Saxons and Frisians . A confederated realm of German princedoms , along with some adjacent lands, had been in existence for over a thousand years; dating to the Treaty of Verdun i.e.

19869-414: The educated middle and upper class; it promoted German nationalist consciousness, especially among ethnic Germans outside Germany . In his three-volume work, "Deutsche Politik" (1905–07), Hasse called for German imperialist expansion in Europe. The Munich professor Karl Haushofer , Ewald Banse , and Hans Grimm (author of the novel Volk ohne Raum ) preached similar expansionist policies. During

20048-504: The establishment of East Francia from eastern Frankish Empire in east of the Rhine in 843, especially when the Ottonian dynasty took power to rule East Francia in 919. The realm later in 962 made up the core of the Holy Roman Empire , which at times included more than 1,000 entities and was called the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" from 1512 with the Diet of Cologne (new title

20227-586: The following stations (on the left and right banks respectively): There are also numerous road bridges and around 32 ferry crossings. The Meuse is navigable over a substantial part of its total length: In the Netherlands and Belgium, the river is part of the major inland navigation infrastructure, connecting the Rotterdam-Amsterdam-Antwerp port areas to the industrial areas upstream: 's-Hertogenbosch, Venlo, Maastricht, Liège, Namur. Between Maastricht and Maasbracht , an unnavigable section of

20406-406: The highly autonomous or semi-independent nature of the princely states; most inhabitants of the Holy Roman Empire , outside of those ruled by the emperor directly, identified themselves mainly with their prince rather than with the Empire or the nation as a whole. However, by the 19th century, transportation and communications improvements started to bring these regions closer together. Invasion of

20585-532: The historiographical explanations of German nation building. One school of thought, which emerged after The Great War and gained momentum in the aftermath of World War II , maintains that the failure of German liberals in the Frankfurt Parliament led to bourgeoisie compromise with conservatives (especially the conservative Junker landholders), which subsequently led to the so-called Sonderweg (distinctive path) of 20th-century German history. Failure to achieve unification in 1848, this argument holds, resulted in

20764-473: The idea of a German nation-state in the peaceful spirit of Pan-Germanism had shifted from the liberal and democratic character of 1848 to accommodate Bismarck's more conservative Realpolitik . Bismarck sought to link a unified state to the Hohenzollern dynasty, which for some historians remains one of Bismarck's primary contributions to the creation of the German Empire in 1871. While the conditions of

20943-511: The imperial central authority and petrified fragmentation, resulting in the German-speaking territories comprising on the eve of the Napoleonic Wars still more than 300 political entities, most of them being parts of the Holy Roman Empire , though portions of the extensive Habsburg Monarchy (exclusively its large non-German-speaking territories: Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen and the Austrian partition of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) or of

21122-543: The imperial position traditionally held by the Habsburgs, the emperors of Austria became the titular presidents of this parliament. Despite the nomenclature of Diet (Assembly or Parliament), this institution should in no way be construed as a broadly, or popularly, elected group of representatives. Many of the states did not have constitutions, and those that did, such as the Duchy of Baden , based suffrage on strict property requirements which effectively limited suffrage to

21301-638: The importance of tradition, education, and linguistic unity. Economically, the creation of the Prussian Zollverein (customs union) in 1818, and its subsequent expansion to include other states of the Austria (under Austrian Empire )-led German Confederation , reduced competition between and within states. Emerging modes of transportation facilitated business and recreational travel, leading to contact and sometimes conflict between and among German-speakers from throughout Central Europe . The model of diplomatic spheres of influence resulting from

21480-485: The invention of macadam . By 1835, Heinrich von Gagern wrote that roads were the "veins and arteries of the body politic..." and predicted that they would promote freedom, independence and prosperity. As people moved around, they came into contact with others, on trains, at hotels, in restaurants, and for some, at fashionable resorts such as the spa in Baden-Baden . Water transportation also improved. The blockades on

21659-418: The late formation of the nation-state in 1871, which in turn delayed the development of positive national values. Hitler often called on the German public to sacrifice all for the cause of their great nation, but his regime did not create German nationalism: it merely capitalized on an intrinsic cultural value of German society that still remains prevalent even to this day. Furthermore, this argument maintains,

21838-520: The leadership of the Austrian Habsburgs . This controversy, the latest phase of the German dualism debate that had dominated the politics of the German states and Austro-Prussian diplomacy since the 1701 creation of the Kingdom of Prussia , would come to a head during the following twenty years. Other nationalists had high hopes for the German unification movement, and the frustration with lasting German unification after 1850 seemed to set

22017-618: The leading German power through a combination of foreign diplomatic triumphs—backed up by the possible use of Prussian military might—and an internal conservatism tempered by pragmatism, which came to be known as Realpolitik . Bismarck expressed the essence of Realpolitik in his subsequently famous "Blood and Iron" speech to the Budget Committee of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies on 30 September 1862, shortly after he became Minister President: "The great questions of

22196-597: The legacy of this medieval empire in German history were both celebrated and derided by the Nazi government . Hitler admired the Frankish Emperor Charlemagne for his "cultural creativity", his powers of organization, and his renunciation of the rights of the individual . He criticized the Holy Roman Emperors however for not pursuing an Ostpolitik ( Eastern Policy ) resembling his own, while being politically focused exclusively on

22375-469: The liberal politicians. Many of their ideas and programs were later incorporated into Bismarck's social programs (e.g., social insurance, education programs, and wider definitions of suffrage). In addition, the notion of a distinctive path relies upon the underlying assumption that some other nation's path (in this case, the United Kingdom's) is the accepted norm. This new argument further challenges

22554-502: The linguistic unity of the German people but also their geographic unity. In Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles , officially called Das Lied der Deutschen (" The Song of the Germans "), Fallersleben called upon sovereigns throughout the German states to recognize the unifying characteristics of the German people. Such other patriotic songs as " Die Wacht am Rhein " ("The Watch on the Rhine") by Max Schneckenburger began to focus attention on geographic space, not limiting "Germanness" to

22733-415: The machinery of State. Yet there is a natural undercurrent tending to a national feeling and toward a union of the Germans into one great nation, ruled by one common head as a national unit. By the 1860s Prussia and Austria had become the two most powerful states dominated by German-speaking elites. Both sought to expand their influence and territory. The Austrian Empire—like the Holy Roman Empire —was

22912-577: The member states agreed to send military assistance to any government threatened by unrest. Prince Wrede led half of the Bavarian army to the Palatinate to "subdue" the province. Several hapless Hambach speakers were arrested, tried and imprisoned; one, Karl Heinrich Brüggemann (1810–1887), a law student and representative of the secretive Burschenschaft , was sent to Prussia, where he was first condemned to death, but later pardoned. Crucially, both

23091-405: The most part, had been a loose and disunited people since the Reformation , when the Holy Roman Empire was shattered into a patchwork of states following the end of the Thirty Years' War with the Peace of Westphalia . Advocates of the Großdeutschland (Greater Germany) solution sought to unite all the German-speaking people in Europe , under the leadership of the German Austrians from

23270-455: The name "German Austria" was forbidden by the Treaty of St. Germain and the name had to be changed back to Austria. It was in the Weimar Republic that the Austrian-born Adolf Hitler , under the influence of the stab-in-the-back myth , first took up German nationalist ideas in his Mein Kampf . Hitler met Heinrich Class in 1918, and Class provided Hitler with support for the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch . Hitler and his supporters shared most of

23449-457: The national movement back. Revolutionaries associated national unification with progress. As Giuseppe Garibaldi wrote to German revolutionary Karl Blind on 10 April 1865, "The progress of humanity seems to have come to a halt, and you with your superior intelligence will know why. The reason is that the world lacks a nation [that] possesses true leadership. Such leadership, of course, is required not to dominate other peoples but to lead them along

23628-467: The no doubt distant future free nations might combine to form a loosely federal Europe with some kind of federal assembly to regulate their common interests. [...] His intention was nothing less than to overturn the European settlement agreed [to] in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, which had reestablished an oppressive hegemony of a few great powers and blocked the emergence of smaller nations. [...] Mazzini hoped, but without much confidence, that his vision of

23807-450: The norms of the British-centric model of development: studies of national development in Britain and other "normal" states (e.g., France or the United States) have suggested that even in these cases, the modern nation-state did not develop evenly. Nor did it develop particularly early, being rather a largely mid-to-late-19th-century phenomenon. Since the end of the 1990s, this view has become widely accepted, although some historians still find

23986-413: The other German princes and military intervention from Austria or Russia. He also held a fundamental distaste for the idea of accepting a crown from a popularly elected parliament: he would not accept a crown of "clay". Despite franchise requirements that often perpetuated many of the problems of sovereignty and political participation liberals sought to overcome, the Frankfurt Parliament did manage to draft

24165-452: The other German states. Combined diplomatic pressure from Austria and Russia (a guarantor of the 1815 agreements that established European spheres of influence) forced Prussia to relinquish the idea of the Erfurt Union at a meeting in the small town of Olmütz in Moravia. In November 1850, the Prussians—specifically Radowitz and Frederick William—agreed to the restoration of the German Confederation under Austrian leadership. This became known as

24344-412: The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Historians have long debated Bismarck's role in the events leading up to the war. The traditional view, promulgated in large part by late 19th- and early 20th-century pro-Prussian historians, maintains that Bismarck's intent was always German unification. Post-1945 historians, however, see more short-term opportunism and cynicism in Bismarck's manipulation of

24523-435: The pan-Germanic ambitions of Nazi Germany. World War I became the first attempt to carry out the Pan-German ideology in practice, and the Pan-German movement argued forcefully for expansionist imperialism. Following the defeat in World War I , the influence of German-speaking elites over Central and Eastern Europe was greatly limited. At the Treaty of Versailles , Germany was substantially reduced in size. Alsace-Lorraine

24702-411: The path of duty, to lead them toward the brotherhood of nations where all the barriers erected by egoism will be destroyed." Garibaldi looked to Germany for the "kind of leadership [that], in the true tradition of medieval chivalry, would devote itself to redressing wrongs, supporting the weak, sacrificing momentary gains and material advantage for the much finer and more satisfying achievement of relieving

24881-440: The polity resulting from the unification process continues its existence, surviving until today in its contemporary form known as the Federal Republic of Germany . Germans emerged in medieval times among the descendants of the Romanized Germanic peoples in the area of modern western Germany, between the Rhine and Elbe rivers, particularly the Franks , Frisians , Saxons , Thuringii , Alemanni , and Baiuvarii . The region

25060-434: The presumed but unattested Old Dutch form * Masa , from Proto-Germanic * Masō . Modern Dutch and German Maas and Limburgish Maos preserve this Germanic form. Despite the similarity, the Germanic name is not derived from the Celtic name, judging from the change from earlier o into a , which is characteristic of the Germanic languages. The Meuse rises in Pouilly-en-Bassigny, commune of Le Châtelet-sur-Meuse on

25239-425: The primary outflow of that river. Those branches are currently known as the Nieuwe Maas and Oude Maas. However during another series of severe floods the Meuse found an additional path towards the sea, resulting in the creation of the Biesbosch wetlands and Hollands Diep estuaries. Thereafter the Meuse split near Heusden into two main distributaries, one flowing north to join the Merwede and one flowing direct to

25418-399: The problem: We cannot conceal the fact that the whole German question is a simple alternative between Prussia and Austria. In these states, German life has its positive and negative poles—in the former, all the interests [that] are national and reformative, in the latter, all that are dynastic and destructive. The German question is not a constitutional question but a question of power; and

25597-416: The proposition for a Greater Germanic Empire gave way to a concept of a European union of self-governing states, unified by German hegemony and the common enemy of Bolshevism . The Waffen-SS was to be the eventual nucleus of a common European army where each state would be represented by a national contingent. Himmler himself, however, gave no concession to these views, and held on to his Pan-Germanic vision in

25776-428: The railway. German economist Friedrich List called the railways and the Customs Union "Siamese Twins", emphasizing their important relationship to one another. He was not alone: the poet August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote a poem in which he extolled the virtues of the Zollverein , which he began with a list of commodities that had contributed more to German unity than politics or diplomacy. Historians of

25955-628: The railways were an "evil" that threatened the landscape: Nikolaus Lenau 's 1838 poem An den Frühling ( To Spring ) bemoaned the way trains destroyed the pristine quietude of German forests. The Bavarian Ludwig Railway , which was the first passenger or freight rail line in the German lands, connected Nuremberg and Fürth in 1835. Although it was 6 kilometers (3.7 mi) long and only operated in daylight, it proved both profitable and popular. Within three years, 141 kilometers (88 mi) of track had been laid, by 1840, 462 kilometers (287 mi), and by 1860, 11,157 kilometers (6,933 mi). Lacking

26134-495: The rates of the Zollverein. Brunswick joined the Zollverein Customs Union in 1842, while Hanover and Oldenburg finally joined in 1854 After the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg were annexed by Prussia and thus annexed also to the Customs Union, while the two Mecklenburg states and the city states of Hamburg and Bremen joined late because they were reliant on international trade. The Mecklenburgs joined in 1867, while Bremen and Hamburg joined in 1888 . By

26313-434: The regalia was thus done to both legitimize Hitler's Germany as the successor of the "Old Reich", but also weaken Vienna, the former imperial residence. After the 1939 German occupation of Bohemia , Hitler declared that the Holy Roman Empire had been "resurrected", although he secretly maintained his own empire to be better than the old "Roman" one. Unlike the "uncomfortably internationalist Catholic empire of Barbarossa ",

26492-410: The reorganized German states. Due in part to the shared experience, albeit under French dominance, various justifications emerged to identify "Germany" as a potential future single state. For the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte , The first, original, and truly natural boundaries of states are beyond doubt their internal boundaries. Those who speak the same language are joined to each other by

26671-416: The rest of Denmark should be incorporated into Sweden . This line of thinking was countered by Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae , an archaeologist who had excavated parts of Danevirke , who argued that there was no way of knowing the language of the earliest inhabitants of Danish territory. He also pointed out that Germany had more solid historical claims to large parts of France and England, and that Slavs —by

26850-402: The river Meuse. The first fossils of it were discovered outside Maastricht in 1780. An international agreement was signed in 2002 in Ghent , Belgium, about the management of the river amongst France, Germany, Luxembourg , the Netherlands, and Belgium. Also participating in the agreement were the Belgian regional governments of Flanders , Wallonia , and Brussels (which is not in the basin of

27029-413: The same reasoning—could annex parts of Eastern Germany . Regardless of the strength of Worsaae's arguments, pan-Germanism spurred on the German nationalists of Schleswig and Holstein and led to the First Schleswig War in 1848. In turn, this likely contributed to the fact that Pan-Germanism never caught on in Denmark as much as it did in Norway. Pan-Germanic tendencies were particularly widespread among

27208-413: The sea. The branch of the Meuse leading direct to the sea eventually silted up (and now forms the Oude Maasje stream), but in 1904 the canalised Bergse Maas was dug to take over the functions of the silted-up branch. At the same time the branch leading to the Merwede was dammed at Heusden (and has since been known as the Afgedamde Maas ) so that little water from the Meuse entered the old Maas courses or

27387-401: The small town of Hambach, in the Palatinate province of Bavaria. Carrying flags, beating drums, and singing, the participants took the better part of the morning and mid-day to arrive at the castle grounds, where they listened to speeches by nationalist orators from across the conservative to radical political spectrum. The overall content of the speeches suggested a fundamental difference between

27566-428: The social order, affecting the highest born to the lowest. Although some of the outlying German provinces were not serviced by rail until the 1890s, the majority of the population, manufacturing centers, and production centers were linked to the rail network by 1865. As travel became easier, faster, and less expensive, Germans started to see unity in factors other than their language. The Brothers Grimm , who compiled

27745-401: The south . After the Anschluss , Hitler ordered the old imperial regalia (the Imperial Crown , Imperial Sword , the Holy Lance and other items) residing in Vienna to be transferred to Nuremberg , where they were kept between 1424 and 1796. Nuremberg, in addition to being the former unofficial capital of the Holy Roman Empire, was also the place of the Nuremberg rallies . The transfer of

27924-517: The south of Prussia had joined the Customs Union, except Austria. In contrast, the coastal states already had barrier free access to international trade and did not want consumers and producers burdened with the import duties they would pay if they were within the Zollverein customs border. Hanover on the north coast formed its own customs union – the "Tax Union" or Steuerverein – in 1834 with Brunswick and with Oldenburg in 1836. The external tariffs on finished goods and overseas raw materials were below

28103-417: The speakers of Germanic languages some of whom spoke dialects ancestral to modern German . In English, "Pan-German" was first attested in 1892. In German various concepts can be included under the heading of Pan-Germanism, though often with slight or significant differences in meaning. For example adjectives such as "alldeutsch" or "gesamtdeutsch", which can be translated as "pan-german", typically refer to

28282-408: The spring of 1834, while at Berne, Mazzini and a dozen refugees from Italy, Poland and Germany founded a new association with the grandiose name of Young Europe . Its basic, and equally grandiose idea, was that, as the French Revolution of 1789 had enlarged the concept of individual liberty, another revolution would now be needed for national liberty; and his vision went further because he hoped that in

28461-425: The strategic defense of Prussia by streamlining operational command. Prussian army reforms (especially how to pay for them) caused a constitutional crisis beginning in 1860 because both parliament and William—via his minister of war—wanted control over the military budget. William, crowned King Wilhelm I in 1861, appointed Otto von Bismarck to the position of Minister-President of Prussia in 1862. Bismarck resolved

28640-463: The suffering of our fellow men. We need a nation courageous enough to give us a lead in this direction. It would rally to its cause all those who are suffering wrong or who aspire to a better life and all those who are now enduring foreign oppression." German unification had also been viewed as a prerequisite for the creation of a European federation, which Giuseppe Mazzini and other European patriots had been promoting for more than three decades: In

28819-419: The territories of Württemberg and Baden . In 1806, after a successful invasion of Prussia and the defeat of Prussia at the joint battles of Jena-Auerstedt 1806 during the War of the Third Coalition , Napoleon dictated the Treaty of Pressburg which included the formal dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and the abdication of Emperor Francis II from the nominal reign over it. Napoleon established instead

28998-415: The time will not be resolved by speeches and majority decisions—that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849—but by iron and blood." Bismarck's words, "iron and blood" (or "blood and iron", as often attributed), have often been misappropriated as evidence of a German lust for blood and power. First, the phrase from his speech "the great questions of time will not be resolved by speeches and majority decisions"

29177-435: The transition to capitalism, sought the expansion of male suffrage, among other issues. Their "radicalness" depended upon where they stood on the spectrum of male suffrage : the wider the definition of suffrage, the more radical. The surge of German nationalism , stimulated by the experience of Germans in the Napoleonic period and initially allied with liberalism , shifted political, social, and cultural relationships within

29356-408: The treaties binding the various German states to one another prohibited Bismarck from taking unilateral action, the politician and diplomat in him realized the impracticality of this. To get the German states to unify, Bismarck needed a single, outside enemy that would declare war on one of the German states first, thus providing a casus belli to rally all Germans behind. This opportunity arose with

29535-417: The week in the cities, returning for a day and a half on weekends. The economic, social and cultural dislocation of ordinary people, the economic hardship of an economy in transition, and the pressures of meteorological disasters all contributed to growing problems in Central Europe. The failure of most of the governments to deal with the food crisis of the mid-1840s, caused by the potato blight (related to

29714-558: The years of French hegemony contributed to a sense of common cause to remove the French invaders and reassert control over their own lands. The Napoleon's campaigns in Poland (1806–07) resulting in his decision to re-establish a form of Polish statehood (the Duchy of Warsaw ) at the cost of also Prussian-conquered Polish territories, as well as his campaigns on Iberian Peninsula , in western Germany, and his disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812 disillusioned many Germans, princes and peasants alike. Napoleon's Continental System nearly ruined

29893-413: Was a process of building the first nation-state for Germans with federal features based on the concept of Lesser Germany (one without Habsburgs ' multi-ethnic Austria or its German-speaking part). It commenced on 18 August 1866 with adoption of the North German Confederation Treaty establishing the North German Confederation , initially a military alliance de facto dominated by Prussia which

30072-423: Was achieved. After the end of Nazi Germany and the events of World War II in 1945, the ideas of pan-Germanism and an Anschluss fell out of favour due to their association with Nazism and allowed Austrians to develop their own national identity. Nevertheless, such notions were revived with the German national camp in the Federation of Independents and the early Freedom Party of Austria . The idea of including

30251-443: Was adopted partly because the Empire lost most of its territories in Italy and Burgundy to the south and west by the late 15th century, but also to emphasize the new importance of the German Imperial Estates in ruling the Empire due to the Imperial Reform ). The states of the Holy Roman Empire ranged in size from the small and complex territories of the princely Hohenlohe family branches to sizable, well-defined territories such as

30430-436: Was also influenced by the Francization after it returned to France. Austria-Hungary was split up. A rump Austria, which to a certain extent corresponded to the German-speaking areas of Austria-Hungary (a complete split into language groups was impossible due to multi-lingual areas and language-exclaves) adopted the name " German Austria " (German: Deutschösterreich ) in hope for union with Germany . Union with Germany and

30609-419: Was becoming increasingly clear that both Austria and Prussia wanted to be the leaders in any resulting unification; each would inhibit the drive of the other to achieve unification. Formation of the Zollverein , an institution key to unifying the German states economically, helped to create a larger sense of economic unification. Initially conceived by the Prussian Finance Minister Hans, Count von Bülow , as

30788-414: Was both impossible and undesirable to repress the free utterance of public opinion by reactionary measures. The Hambach Festival ( Hambacher Fest ) in May 1832 was attended by a crowd of more than 30,000. Promoted as a county fair , its participants celebrated fraternity, liberty, and national unity. Celebrants gathered in the town below and marched to the ruins of Hambach Castle on the heights above

30967-400: Was divided into long-lasting divisions, or " Stem duchies ", based upon these ethnic designations, under the dominance of the western Franks starting with Clovis I , who established control of the Romanized and Frankish population of Gaul in the 5th century, and began a new process of conquering the peoples east of the Rhine. In subsequent centuries the power of the Franks grew considerably. By

31146-471: Was particularly important for the emerging industrial centers, most of which were located in the Prussian regions of the Rhineland , the Saar , and the Ruhr valleys. States more distant from the coast joined the Customs Union earlier. Not being a member mattered more for the states of south Germany, since the external tariff of the Customs Union prevented customs-free access to the coast (which gave access to international markets). Thus, by 1836, all states to

31325-402: Was recently rebaptized into "Canal de la Meuse". The waterway can be used by the smallest barges that are still in use commercially almost 40 m (131 ft) long and just over 5 metres (16 ft) wide. Just upstream of the town of Commercy, the Canal de la Meuse connects with the Marne–Rhine Canal by means of a short diversion canal. The Cretaceous sea reptile Mosasaur is named after

31504-421: Was responsible for World War I and intended to fulfill pan-German aims, although other historians have since disputed this conclusion. After Naval Minister Alfred von Tirpitz resigned from the Cabinet under pressure from Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg over Tirpitz's push to introduce unrestricted submarine warfare , Tirpitz united pan-German nationalists under the German Fatherland Party in the Reichstag . After

31683-401: Was subsequently deepened through adoption of the North German Constitution . The process symbolically concluded when most of south German states joined the North German Confederation with the ceremonial proclamation of the German Empire i.e. the German Reich having 25 member states and led by the Kingdom of Prussia of Hohenzollerns on 18 January 1871; the event was later celebrated as

31862-415: Was the landscape of Meuse by Joachim Patinir . He was likely the uncle of Henri Blès , who is sometimes defined as a Mosan landscape painter active during the second third of the 16th century (i.e. second generation of landscape painters). The main tributaries of the Meuse are listed below in downstream-upstream order, with the town where the tributary meets the river: The mean annual discharge rate of

32041-459: Was to be headed by Adolf Hitler from 1921. Nazi propaganda also used the political slogan Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer ("One people, one Reich, one leader"), to enforce pan-German sentiment in Austria for an " Anschluss ". The chosen name for the projected empire was a deliberate reference to the Holy Roman Empire (of the German Nation) that existed in the Middle Ages , known as the First Reich in Nazi historiography. Different aspects of

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