Parts of Poland that had not been part of Wilhelmine Germany were also incorporated into the Reich. Two decrees by Adolf Hitler 8 October and 12 October provided for the division of the annexed areas of Poland into the following administrative units:. The remainder of the Polish territory was annexed by the Soviet Union c. The German government never negotiated or declared a formal annexation, however, in order to preserve the possibility of an agreement with the West.
Luxembourg was invaded and occupied by German Forces in June It was formally annexed to Germany in August All areas that were incorporated into Nazi Germany between and 8 May were de facto repudiated at the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences , and were therefore non-issues in the post-war division of Nazi Germany. As it became evident that the Allies were going to defeat Nazi Germany decisively, the question arose as to how to redraw the borders of Central and Eastern European countries after the war.
In the context of those decisions, the problem arose of what to do about ethnic minorities within the redrawn borders. The territorial changes at the end of World War II were part of negotiated agreements between the victorious Allies to redraw national borders and arrange for deportation of all Germans that were east of the Oder—Neisse line. The Germanies and West Berlin reunified in The final decision to move Poland's boundary westward was made by the US , Britain and the Soviets at the Yalta Conference , shortly before the end of the war.
The precise location of the border was left open; the western Allies also accepted in general the principle of the Oder River as the future western border of Poland and of population transfer as the way to prevent future border disputes. The open question was whether the border should follow the eastern or western Neisse rivers, and whether Stettin , the traditional seaport of Berlin, should remain German or be included in Poland. The wartime Polish government in exile had little to say in these decisions. Key points of the meeting that are relevant to the territorial changes of Germany are as follows:.
At the Potsdam Conference the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union placed the German territories within the Nazi Germany borders east of the Oder—Neisse line , and with the exception of parts of East Prussia, as formally under Polish administrative control These were referred to by the Polish communist government as the "Western Territories" or " Regained Territories ".
It was anticipated that a final peace treaty would follow shortly and either confirm this border or determine whatever alterations might be agreed upon. Northern East Prussia and Memelland were placed under Soviet administrative control. The German population east of the Oder—Neisse line was expelled. The problem with the status of these territories was that the concluding document of the Potsdam Conference in was not a legally binding treaty , but a memorandum between the USSR, the USA and the UK. It regulated the issue of the eastern German border, which was to be the Oder—Neisse line, but the final article of the memorandum said that the final decisions concerning Germany were to be subject to a separate peace treaty.
Based upon this interpretation of the Potsdam Agreement, the CDU controlled German government maintained that the Oder—Neisse line was completely unacceptable and subject to negotiation. Thus, the official German government position on the status of areas vacated by settled German communities east of the Oder—Neisse rivers was that the areas were "temporarily under Polish or [Soviet] administration.
Between and , the West German political establishment gradually recognised the " facts on the ground " and accepted clauses in the Treaty on the Final Settlement , whereby Germany renounced all claims to territory east of the Oder—Neisse line. In the Treaty of Warsaw ; ratified in West Germany recognized the Oder—Neisse line as Poland's western border and renounced any present and future territorial claims; this was reaffirmed by both German states in the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany as a pre-condition for re-union.
The treaty was ratified in by the united Germany. This ended the legal limbo which meant that for 45 years, people on both sides of the border could not be sure whether the status quo reached in might be changed at some future date. As part of the treaty, in exchange for the territory ceded by Germany, Belgium ceded to Germany its territory north of the Fringshaus roads and bounded by the Vennbahn. The detached territory, in containing inhabitants including refugees, was, prior to its dissolution and partition between West Germany and Belgium, ruled as an independent territory by Belgian Army Major General Paul Bolle , who enjoyed dictatorial powers.
Despite the more extensive annexation proposals of the Bakker-Schut Plan , only a few border modifications were implemented. Many other small border changes were executed, mostly in the vicinity of Arnhem and Dinxperlo. At that time, these areas were inhabited by a total of almost 10, people. Starting in March , West Germany negotiated with the Netherlands for the return of these areas.
The negotiations led to an agreement German: Starting on 16 February France disentangled the Saar area and established the separate Saar Protectorate , further attaching parts of the Prussian Rhine Province and the Bavarian Palatinate Saarpfalz. Like the former eastern territories of Germany the Saar area was out of the jurisdiction of the Allied Control Council for Germany and thus no part of Allied-occupied Germany.
However, unlike the eastern territories the domestic Saar population was not expelled by the controlling French. With effect of 1 January the Saar Protectorate declared its accession to the Federal Republic of Germany, as provided by its Grundgesetz constitution art. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Former eastern territories of Germany. Territorial evolution of Poland Territorial changes of the Baltic states.
History of German settlement in Central and Eastern Europe. Administered by the League of Nations. Annexed or transferred to neighbouring countries by the treaty, or later via plebiscite and League of Nation action. Remilitarization of the Rhineland. Saar League of Nations. Indeed, for most peasants, customs and traditions continued largely unchanged, including the old habits of deference to the nobles whose legal authority remained quite strong over the villagers.
Although the peasants were no longer tied to the same land as serfs had been, the old paternalistic relationship in East Prussia lasted into the 20th century. The agrarian reforms in northwestern Germany in the era — were driven by progressive governments and local elites. They abolished feudal obligations and divided collectively owned common land into private parcels and thus created a more efficient market-oriented rural economy, which increased productivity and population growth and strengthened the traditional social order because wealthy peasants obtained most of the former common land, while the rural proletariat was left without land; many left for the cities or America.
Meanwhile, the division of the common land served as a buffer preserving social peace between nobles and peasants. Around the Catholic monasteries, which had large land holdings, were nationalized and sold off by the government. A major social change occurring between —, depending on region, was the end of the traditional "whole house" "ganzes Haus" system, in which the owner's family lived together in one large building with the servants and craftsmen he employed.
No longer did the owner's wife take charge of all the females in the different families in the whole house. In the new system, farm owners became more professionalized and profit-oriented. They managed the fields and the household exterior according to the dictates of technology, science, and economics. Farm wives supervised family care and the household interior, to which strict standards of cleanliness, order, and thrift applied.
The result was the spread of formerly urban bourgeois values into rural Germany. The lesser families were now living separately on wages. They had to provide for their own supervision, health, schooling, and old-age. At the same time, because of the demographic transition, there were far fewer children, allowing for much greater attention to each child. Increasingly the middle-class family valued its privacy and its inward direction, shedding too-close links with the world of work. This allowed for the emergence of working-class organizations. It also allowed for declining religiosity among the working-class, who were no longer monitored on a daily basis.
Before the German upper classes looked to France for intellectual, cultural and architectural leadership; French was the language of high society. Christian Wolff — was the pioneer as a writer who expounded the Enlightenment to German readers; he legitimized German as a philosophic language. Prussia took the lead among the German states in sponsoring the political reforms that Enlightenment thinkers urged absolute rulers to adopt. However, there were important movements as well in the smaller states of Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, and the Palatinate.
In each case Enlightenment values became accepted and led to significant political and administrative reforms that laid the groundwork for the creation of modern states. The reforms were aided by the country's strong urban structure and influential commercial groups, and modernized pre Saxony along the lines of classic Enlightenment principles.
Johann Gottfried von Herder — broke new ground in philosophy and poetry, as a leader of the Sturm und Drang movement of proto-Romanticism. Weimar Classicism "Weimarer Klassik" was a cultural and literary movement based in Weimar that sought to establish a new humanism by synthesizing Romantic, classical, and Enlightenment ideas. The movement, from until , involved Herder as well as polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — and Friedrich Schiller — , a poet and historian.
Herder argued that every folk had its own particular identity, which was expressed in its language and culture. This legitimized the promotion of German language and culture and helped shape the development of German nationalism. Schiller's plays expressed the restless spirit of his generation, depicting the hero's struggle against social pressures and the force of destiny. German music, sponsored by the upper classes, came of age under composers Johann Sebastian Bach — , Joseph Haydn — , and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Kant's work contained basic tensions that would continue to shape German thought — and indeed all of European philosophy — well into the 20th century.
The German Enlightenment won the support of princes, aristocrats, and the middle classes, and it permanently reshaped the culture. Before the 19th century, young women lived under the economic and disciplinary authority of their fathers until they married and passed under the control of their husbands. In order to secure a satisfactory marriage, a woman needed to bring a substantial dowry. In the wealthier families, daughters received their dowry from their families, whereas the poorer women needed to work in order to save their wages so as to improve their chances to wed.
Under the German laws, women had property rights over their dowries and inheritances, a valuable benefit as high mortality rates resulted in successive marriages. The Age of Reason did not bring much more for women: Within the educated classes, there was the belief that women needed to be sufficiently educated to be intelligent and agreeable interlocutors to their husbands. However, the lower-class women were expected to be economically productive in order to help their husbands make ends meet. German reaction to the French Revolution was mixed at first.
German intellectuals celebrated the outbreak, hoping to see the triumph of Reason and The Enlightenment. The royal courts in Vienna and Berlin denounced the overthrow of the king and the threatened spread of notions of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Reformers said the solution was to have faith in the ability of Germans to reform their laws and institutions in peaceful fashion. Europe was racked by two decades of war revolving around France's efforts to spread its revolutionary ideals, and the opposition of reactionary royalty.
War broke out in as Austria and Prussia invaded France, but were defeated at the Battle of Valmy The German lands saw armies marching back and forth, bringing devastation albeit on a far lower scale than the Thirty Years' War , almost two centuries before , but also bringing new ideas of liberty and civil rights for the people. Prussia and Austria ended their failed wars with France but with Russia partitioned Poland among themselves in and The French took control of the Rhineland , imposed French-style reforms, abolished feudalism, established constitutions, promoted freedom of religion, emancipated Jews, opened the bureaucracy to ordinary citizens of talent, and forced the nobility to share power with the rising middle class.
Napoleon created the Kingdom of Westphalia — as a model state. When the French tried to impose the French language, German opposition grew in intensity. Napoleon established direct or indirect control over most of western Europe, including the German states apart from Prussia and Austria. The old Holy Roman Empire was little more than a farce; Napoleon simply abolished it in while forming new countries under his control.
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Prussia tried to remain neutral while imposing tight controls on dissent, but with German nationalism sharply on the rise, the small nation blundered by going to war with Napoleon in Its economy was weak, its leadership poor, and the once mighty Prussian army was a hollow shell. Napoleon easily crushed it at the Battle of Jena Napoleon occupied Berlin, and Prussia paid dearly. Prussia lost its recently acquired territories in western Germany, its army was reduced to 42, men, no trade with Britain was allowed, and Berlin had to pay Paris heavy reparations and fund the French army of occupation.
Saxony changed sides to support Napoleon and join his Confederation of the Rhine; its elector was rewarded with the title of king and given a slice of Poland taken from Prussia. After Napoleon's fiasco in Russia in , including the deaths of many Germans in his invasion army, Prussia joined with Russia. Major battles followed in quick order, and when Austria switched sides to oppose Napoleon, his situation grew tenuous. He was defeated in a great Battle of Leipzig in late , and Napoleon's empire started to collapse.
One after another the German states switched to oppose Napoleon, but he rejected peace terms. Allied armies invaded France in early , Paris fell, and in April Napoleon surrendered. He returned for days in , but was finally defeated by the British and German armies at Waterloo. Prussia was the big winner at the Vienna peace conference, gaining extensive territory. Europe in was a continent in a state of complete exhaustion following the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , and started to turn from the liberal ideas of the Enlightenment and Revolutionary era and to Romanticism under such writers as Edmund Burke , Joseph de Maistre , and Novalis.
Politically, the victorious allies set out to build a new balance of powers in order to keep the peace, and decided that a stable German region would be able to keep French imperialism at bay. To make this a possibility, the idea of reforming the defunct Holy Roman Empire was discarded, and Napoleon 's reorganization of the German states was kept and the remaining princes were allowed to keep their titles. The German Confederation German: Deutscher Bund was the loose association of 39 states created in to coordinate the economies of separate German-speaking countries.
It acted as a buffer between the powerful states of Austria and Prussia. Britain approved of it because London felt that there was need for a stable, peaceful power in central Europe that could discourage aggressive moves by France or Russia. According to Lee , most historians have judged the Confederation to be weak and ineffective, as well as an obstacle to German nationalist aspirations. It collapsed because of the rivalry between Prussia and Austria known as German dualism , warfare, the revolution, and the inability of the multiple members to compromise.
It was a transition from high birth rates and high death rates to low birth and death rates as the country developed from a pre-industrial to a modernized agriculture and supported a fast-growing industrialized urban economic system. In previous centuries, the shortage of land meant that not everyone could marry, and marriages took place after age After , increased agricultural productivity meant a larger food supply, and a decline in famines, epidemics, and malnutrition.
This allowed couples to marry earlier, and have more children. Arranged marriages became uncommon as young people were now allowed to choose their own marriage partners, subject to a veto by the parents. The high birthrate was offset by a very high rate of infant mortality and emigration, especially after about , mostly to the German settlements in the United States , plus periodic epidemics and harvest failures. The upper and middle classes began to practice birth control, and a little later so too did the peasants. Before Germany lagged far behind the leaders in industrial development — Britain, France, and Belgium.
In , Germany's social structure was poorly suited to entrepreneurship or economic development. Domination by France during the era of the French Revolution s to , however, produced important institutional reforms. Reforms included the abolition of feudal restrictions on the sale of large landed estates, the reduction of the power of the guilds in the cities, and the introduction of a new, more efficient commercial law. Nevertheless, traditionalism remained strong in most of Germany.
Until mid-century, the guilds, the landed aristocracy, the churches, and the government bureaucracies had so many rules and restrictions that entrepreneurship was held in low esteem, and given little opportunity to develop. From the s and s, Prussia, Saxony, and other states reorganized agriculture. The introduction of sugar beets, turnips, and potatoes yielded a higher level of food production, which enabled a surplus rural population to move to industrial areas.
The beginnings of the industrial revolution in Germany came in the textile industry, and was facilitated by eliminating tariff barriers through the Zollverein, starting in By mid-century, the German states were catching up. By Germany was a world leader in industrialization, along with Britain and the United States. Historian Thomas Nipperdey sums it up:. Industrialization brought rural Germans to the factories, mines and railways. After , the urban population grew rapidly, due primarily to the influx of young people from the rural areas.
Berlin grew from , in , to , in ; Hamburg grew from , to ,; Munich from 40, to ,; and Dresden from 60, to , Offsetting this growth, there was extensive emigration, especially to the United States. Emigration totaled , in the s, 1,, in the s, and , in the s. The takeoff stage of economic development came with the railroad revolution in the s, which opened up new markets for local products, created a pool of middle managers, increased the demand for engineers, architects and skilled machinists and stimulated investments in coal and iron.
Political disunity of three dozen states and a pervasive conservatism made it difficult to build railways in the s. However, by the s, trunk lines did link the major cities; each German state was responsible for the lines within its own borders. Economist Friedrich List summed up the advantages to be derived from the development of the railway system in Lacking a technological base at first, the Germans imported their engineering and hardware from Britain, but quickly learned the skills needed to operate and expand the railways.
In many cities, the new railway shops were the centres of technological awareness and training, so that by , Germany was self-sufficient in meeting the demands of railroad construction, and the railways were a major impetus for the growth of the new steel industry.
However, German unification in stimulated consolidation, nationalisation into state-owned companies, and further rapid growth. Unlike the situation in France, the goal was support of industrialisation, and so, heavy lines crisscrossed the Ruhr and other industrial districts, and provided good connections to the major ports of Hamburg and Bremen.
By , Germany had 9, locomotives pulling 43, passengers and 30, tons of freight a day, and forged ahead of France.
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A large number of newspapers and magazines flourished; A typical small city had one or two newspapers; Berlin and Leipzig had dozens. The audience was limited to perhaps five percent of the adult men, chiefly from the aristocratic and middle classes, who followed politics. Liberal papers outnumbered conservative ones by a wide margin. Foreign governments bribed editors to guarantee a favorable image. After , strict press laws were used by Bismarck to shut down the Socialist, and to threaten hostile editors.
There were no national newspapers. Editors focused on political commentary, but also included in a nonpolitical cultural page, focused on the arts and high culture. Especially popular was the serialized novel, with a new chapter every week. Magazines were politically more influential, and attracted the leading intellectuals as authors. German artists and intellectuals, heavily influenced by the French Revolution and by the great German poet and writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — , turned to Romanticism after a period of Enlightenment.
Philosophical thought was decisively shaped by Immanuel Kant — Ludwig van Beethoven — was the leading composer of Romantic music. His use of tonal architecture in such a way as to allow significant expansion of musical forms and structures was immediately recognized as bringing a new dimension to music. His later piano music and string quartets, especially, showed the way to a completely unexplored musical universe, and influenced Franz Schubert — and Robert Schumann — In opera, a new Romantic atmosphere combining supernatural terror and melodramatic plot in a folkloric context was first successfully achieved by Carl Maria von Weber — and perfected by Richard Wagner — in his Ring Cycle.
At the universities high-powered professors developed international reputations, especially in the humanities led by history and philology, which brought a new historical perspective to the study of political history, theology, philosophy, language, and literature. With Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel — in philosophy, Friedrich Schleiermacher — in theology and Leopold von Ranke — in history, the University of Berlin , founded in , became the world's leading university.
Von Ranke, for example, professionalized history and set the world standard for historiography. By the s mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology had emerged with world class science, led by Alexander von Humboldt — in natural science and Carl Friedrich Gauss — in mathematics. Young intellectuals often turned to politics, but their support for the failed Revolution of forced many into exile.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — Alexander von Humboldt — Ludwig van Beethoven — Carl Friedrich Gauss — Two main developments reshaped religion in Germany. Across the land, there was a movement to unite the larger Lutheran and the smaller Reformed Protestant churches. The churches themselves brought this about in Baden, Nassau, and Bavaria.
His goal was to unify the Protestant churches, and to impose a single standardized liturgy, organization and even architecture. The long-term goal was to have fully centralized royal control of all the Protestant churches.
Territorial evolution of Germany - Wikipedia
In a series of proclamations over several decades the Church of the Prussian Union was formed, bringing together the more numerous Lutherans, and the less numerous Reformed Protestants. The government of Prussia now had full control over church affairs, with the king himself recognized as the leading bishop. Opposition to unification came from the "Old Lutherans" in Silesia who clung tightly to the theological and liturgical forms they had followed since the days of Luther. The government attempted to crack down on them, so they went underground. Tens of thousands migrated, to South Australia , and especially to the United States, where they formed the Missouri Synod , which is still in operation as a conservative denomination.
Finally in a new king Frederick William IV offered a general amnesty and allowed the Old Lutherans to form a separate church association with only nominal government control. From the religious point of view of the typical Catholic or Protestant, major changes were underway in terms of a much more personalized religiosity that focused on the individual more than the church or the ceremony.
The rationalism of the late 19th century faded away, and there was a new emphasis on the psychology and feeling of the individual, especially in terms of contemplating sinfulness, redemption, and the mysteries and the revelations of Christianity. Pietistic revivals were common among Protestants. Among Catholics there was a sharp increase in popular pilgrimages. In alone, half a million pilgrims made a pilgrimage to the city of Trier in the Rhineland to view the Seamless robe of Jesus , said to be the robe that Jesus wore on the way to his crucifixion. Catholic bishops in Germany had historically been largely independent Of Rome, but now the Vatican exerted increasing control, a new " ultramontanism " of Catholics highly loyal to Rome.
The government passed laws to require that these children always be raised as Protestants, contrary to Napoleonic law that had previously prevailed and allowed the parents to make the decision.
It put the Catholic Archbishop under house arrest. In , the new King Frederick William IV sought reconciliation and ended the controversy by agreeing to most of the Catholic demands. However Catholic memories remained deep and led to a sense that Catholics always needed to stick together in the face of an untrustworthy government. After the fall of Napoleon, Europe's statesmen convened in Vienna in for the reorganisation of European affairs, under the leadership of the Austrian Prince Metternich. The political principles agreed upon at this Congress of Vienna included the restoration, legitimacy and solidarity of rulers for the repression of revolutionary and nationalist ideas.
Deutscher Bund was founded, a loose union of 39 states 35 ruling princes and 4 free cities under Austrian leadership, with a Federal Diet German: Bundestag meeting in Frankfurt am Main. It was a loose coalition that failed to satisfy most nationalists. The member states largely went their own way, and Austria had its own interests.
In a student radical assassinated the reactionary playwright August von Kotzebue , who had scoffed at liberal student organisations. In one of the few major actions of the German Confederation, Prince Metternich called a conference that issued the repressive Carlsbad Decrees , designed to suppress liberal agitation against the conservative governments of the German states. Burschenschaften , removed liberal university professors, and expanded the censorship of the press.
The decrees began the "persecution of the demagogues", which was directed against individuals who were accused of spreading revolutionary and nationalist ideas. In the Zollverein was established, a customs union between Prussia and most other German states, but excluding Austria. As industrialisation developed, the need for a unified German state with a uniform currency, legal system, and government became more and more obvious. Growing discontent with the political and social order imposed by the Congress of Vienna led to the outbreak, in , of the March Revolution in the German states.
But the revolution turned out to be unsuccessful: King Frederick William IV of Prussia refused the imperial crown, the Frankfurt parliament was dissolved, the ruling princes repressed the risings by military force, and the German Confederation was re-established by Many leaders went into exile, including a number who went to the United States and became a political force there. The s were a period of extreme political reaction.
Dissent was vigorously suppressed, and many Germans emigrated to America following the collapse of the uprisings. Frederick William IV became extremely depressed and melancholy during this period, and was surrounded by men who advocated clericalism and absolute divine monarchy. The Prussian people once again lost interest in politics.
Prussia not only expanded its territory but began to industrialize rapidly, while maintaining a strong agricultural base.
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In , the king had a stroke and his brother William became regent, then became King William I in Although conservative, William I was far more pragmatic. His most significant accomplishment was naming Otto von Bismarck as chancellor in The obstacle to German unification was Austria, and Bismarck solved the problem with a series of wars that united the German states north of Austria.
In —64, disputes between Prussia and Denmark grew over Schleswig , which was not part of the German Confederation, and which Danish nationalists wanted to incorporate into the Danish kingdom. The dispute led to the short Second War of Schleswig in Prussia, joined by Austria, easily defeated Denmark and occupied Jutland. The Danes were forced to cede both the duchy of Schleswig and the duchy of Holstein to Austria and Prussia.
In the aftermath, the management of the two duchies caused escalating tensions between Austria and Prussia. The former wanted the duchies to become an independent entity within the German Confederation, while the latter wanted to annex them. The Prussian breech-loading needle guns carried the day over the slow muzzle-loading rifles of the Austrians, who lost a quarter of their army in the battle. Austria ceded Venice to Italy, but Bismarck was deliberately lenient with the loser to keep alive a long-term alliance with Austria in a subordinate role.
Now the French faced an increasingly strong Prussia. In , the German Confederation was dissolved. Austria was excluded, and the Austrian influence in Germany that had begun in the 15th century finally came to an end. The North German Federation was a transitional organisation that existed from to , between the dissolution of the German Confederation and the founding of the German Empire.
Bismarck tried to foster alliances in Europe, on one hand to contain France, and on the other hand to consolidate Germany's influence in Europe. On the domestic front Bismarck tried to stem the rise of socialism by anti-socialist laws, combined with an introduction of health care and social security. At the same time Bismarck tried to reduce the political influence of the emancipated Catholic minority in the Kulturkampf , literally "culture struggle".
The Catholics only grew stronger, forming the Center Zentrum Party. Germany grew rapidly in industrial and economic power, matching Britain by Its highly professional army was the best in the world, but the navy could never catch up with Britain's Royal Navy.
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In , the young and ambitious Kaiser Wilhelm II became emperor. He could not abide advice, least of all from the most experienced politician and diplomat in Europe, so he fired Bismarck. The Kaiser opposed Bismarck's careful foreign policy and wanted Germany to pursue colonialist policies, as Britain and France had been doing for decades, as well as build a navy that could match the British. The Kaiser promoted active colonization of Africa and Asia for those areas that were not already colonies of other European powers; his record was notoriously brutal and set the stage for genocide.
The Kaiser took a mostly unilateral approach in Europe with as main ally the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and an arms race with Britain, which eventually led to the situation in which the assassination of the Austrian-Hungarian crown prince could spark off World War I. Disputes between France and Prussia increased. In , the Spanish queen Isabella II was expelled by a revolution, leaving that country's throne vacant. When Prussia tried to put a Hohenzollern candidate, Prince Leopold, on the Spanish throne, the French angrily protested.
The debacle was swift. A succession of German victories in northeastern France followed, and one French army was besieged at Metz. After a few weeks, the main army was finally forced to capitulate in the fortress of Sedan. The new government, realising that a victorious Germany would demand territorial acquisitions, resolved to fight on. They began to muster new armies, and the Germans settled down to a grim siege of Paris. The starving city surrendered in January , and the Prussian army staged a victory parade in it.
It was a bitter peace that would leave the French thirsting for revenge. The German Empire was thus founded, with the German states unified into a single economic, political, and administrative unit. The empire comprised 25 states, three of which were Hanseatic free cities. It was dubbed the "Little German" solution, since it excluded the Austrian territories and the Habsburgs.
Bismarck, again, was appointed to serve as Chancellor. The new empire was characterised by a great enthusiasm and vigor. There was a rash of heroic artwork in imitation of Greek and Roman styles, and the nation possessed a vigorous, growing industrial economy, while it had always been rather poor in the past. And yet, the nobles clung stubbornly to power, and they, not the bourgeois, continued to be the model that everyone wanted to imitate. He also was supreme commander-in-chief of the armed forces and final arbiter of foreign policy.
But freedom of speech, association, and religion were nonetheless guaranteed by the constitution. Bismarck's domestic policies as Chancellor of Germany were characterised by his fight against perceived enemies of the Protestant Prussian state. In the Kulturkampf — , he tried to minimize the influence of the Roman Catholic Church and of its political arm, the Catholic Centre Party , through various measures—like the introduction of civil marriage—but without much success.
The Kulturkampf antagonised many Protestants as well as Catholics, and was eventually abandoned. Millions of non-Germans subjects in the German Empire, like the Polish, Danish and French minorities, were discriminated against, [] [] and a policy of Germanisation was implemented. The new Empire provided rich new opportunities at the top for the nobility of Prussia, and the other states, to fill. They dominated the diplomatic service, the Army, and the civil service. Through their control of the civil service, the aristocracy had a dominant voice in decisions affecting the universities and the churches.
In , Germany's diplomats consisted of eight princes 29 counts 20 barons 54 other nobles, and a mere 11 commoners. The commoners were chiefly the sons of leading industrialists or bankers. Almost all the diplomats had been socialized into the feudal student corps at the universities. The consular corps comprised commoners, but they had little decision-making ability. It was considered a suitable role for young aristocrats. With its large corps of reserve officers across Germany, the military strengthened its role as "The estate which upheld the nation.
Power increasingly was centralized in the national capital of Berlin including neighboring Potsdam. Berlin's rapidly increasing rich middle-class aped and copied the aristocracy and tried to marry into it. The closed system stood in contrast to Britain where the top levels of the elite were far more open with routes available through a public school education, Oxford, and Cambridge, the Inns of Court, appointment to high office, or leadership in the House of Commons.
A peerage could permanently boost a rich industrial family into the upper reaches of the establishment. For example, of the mines in Silesia were owned by nobles or by the King of Prussia himself. Germany's middle class , based in the cities, grew exponentially, although it never gained the political power it had in France, Britain or the United States. The Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine Association of German Women's Organizations or BDF was established in to encompass the proliferating women's organizations that had sprung up since the s. From the beginning the BDF was a bourgeois organization, its members working toward equality with men in such areas as education, financial opportunities, and political life.
Working-class women were not welcome; they were organized by the Socialists. The rise of the Socialist Workers' Party later known as the Social Democratic Party of Germany , SPD , declared its aim to establish peacefully a new socialist order through the transformation of existing political and social conditions.
From , Bismarck tried to repress the social democratic movement by outlawing the party's organisation , its assemblies and most of its newspapers. When it finally was allowed to run candidates, the Social Democrats were stronger than ever. Bismarck built on a tradition of welfare programs in Prussia and Saxony that began as early as the s. In the s he introduced old age pensions, accident insurance, medical care, and unemployment insurance that formed the basis of the modern European welfare state. His paternalistic programs won the support of German industry because its goals were to win the support of the working classes for the Empire and reduce the outflow of immigrants to America, where wages were higher but welfare did not exist.
Bismarck would not tolerate any power outside Germany—as in Rome—having a say in German affairs. He launched a Kulturkampf "culture war" against the power of the pope and the Catholic Church in , but only in Prussia. This gained strong support from German liberals, who saw the Catholic Church as the bastion of reaction and their greatest enemy.
The Catholic element, in turn, saw in the National-Liberals as its worst enemy and formed the Center Party. Catholics, although nearly a third of the national population, were seldom allowed to hold major positions in the Imperial government, or the Prussian government. After , there was a systematic purge of the remaining Catholics; in the powerful interior ministry, which handled all police affairs, the only Catholic was a messenger boy. Jews were likewise heavily discriminated against. Most of the Kulturkampf was fought out in Prussia, but Imperial Germany passed the Pulpit Law which made it a crime for any cleric to discuss public issues in a way that displeased the government.
Nearly all Catholic bishops, clergy, and laymen rejected the legality of the new laws and defiantly faced the increasingly heavy penalties and imprisonments imposed by Bismarck's government. Historian Anthony Steinhoff reports the casualty totals:. And yet, Germany still aims to reduce its carbon emissions to 40 percent below levels by Laumanns says that with brown coal usage so high, Germany will struggle to hit both this target and its target of a 55 percent reduction.
He says he's optimistic the protest movement will stop the mine from demolishing the village. The irony is not lost on local farmer Jens Hausner. From his farmyard, you can see the coal plant that's threatening his livelihood, but you can also see wind turbines on the horizon.
He says the contrasting view is an apt analogy for the country's confused climate policy. A newly formed coal commission — a group of experts, industry representatives and environmentalists — has until the end of the year to come up with a coal phaseout plan. Stefan Kapferer, the head of Germany's largest energy sector lobby, which includes coal companies, sits on the commission.
He says that for an industrial giant like Germany, the European Union's leading economy, it could take another 20 years to shut down coal use. He adds, "We've got to ensure that our chemical, steel and aluminum industries can access and afford the electricity they need. She says that while the lignite sector employs a mere 20, people, it provides jobs in regions with little other industrial work, and so the miners are going to fight for their jobs.
- Stepping Stone;
- Brumes de Cimmérie (Blanche) (French Edition).
- Endoscopic Sinus Surgery: Anatomy, Three-Dimensional Reconstruction, and Surgical Technique.
- Territorial evolution of Germany.
- Genetics of Colorectal Cancer: 1 (Cancer Genetics).
- CHARMED;
He's never known anything else.