A Brief History of Germany
Germany is still divided.
Germany has rarely been united in its long history. For the majority of the two millennia that German-speaking peoples, such as the Eastern Franks, inhabited Central Europe, the area now known as Germany was divided into hundreds of states, many of which were quite small, including duchies, principalities, free cities, and ecclesiastical states. Even the Romans were unable to unite what is now known as Germany under a single government; they were only able to occupy its southern and western portions.
In A.D. 800, Charlemagne, who had been crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III, ruled over a territory that included much of modern-day Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, but its existence was more symbolic than real within a generation.
Germany in Medieval Times
Medieval Germany was riven with divisions. Germany was racked by a never-ending series of wars between local rulers as France and England began their centuries-long evolution into united nation-states. The Habsburg Dynasty’s long monopoly on the Holy Roman Empire’s crown provided only a semblance of Germ an unity. Within the empire, German princes fought each other as before. Germany’s religious unity was shattered by the Protestant Reformation, which left the country’s population divided between Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists. These religious divisions heightened the ferocity of military conflict during the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), during which Germany was ravaged to an extent not seen again until World War II.
Westphalian Peace
The Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 divided German-speaking Europe into hundreds of states. During the next two centuries, the two largest of these states, Prussia and Austria, vied for supremacy. Smaller states attempted to maintain their independence by allying with one, then the other, depending on local conditions. Much of the area was occupied by French troops from the mid-1790s until Prussia, Austria, and Russia defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813 and drove him out of German territory. Napoleon’s officials abolished many small states, and as a result, Germany’s territory consisted of only about 40 states after the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
Unification and Democracy Revolutions
Bismarck, Otto von
Despite conservative opposition, German unification occurred more than two decades later, in 1871, after the Franco-Prussian War, when Germany was unified and transformed into an empire under Emperor Wilhelm I, King of Prussia. Unification was brought about by a conservative Prussian aristocrat, Otto von Bismarck, rather than by revolutionary or liberal forces. Bismarck, sensing the power of nationalism, sought to harness it for his own ends: the preservation of a feudal social order and the triumph of his country, Prussia, in the long contest for supremacy in Germany with Austria. Bismarck achieved a united Germany without Austria through a series of masterful diplomatic maneuvers and three brief but spectacularly successful military campaigns. He gathered the so-called “small” Germany,” made up of Prussia and the remaining German states, some of which had been conquered by Prussian armies before becoming part of a Prussian-ruled Germany.
The hegemony of the Prussians
Despite the fact that united Germany had a parliament, the Reichstag, which was elected by universal male suffrage, supreme power was held by the emperor and his ministers, who were not accountable to the Reichstag. The Reichstag could challenge the government’s decisions, but the emperor could ultimately govern as he saw fit. The nobility, large rural landowners, business and financial elites, the civil service, Protestant clergy, and the military all backed the emperor. The military, which had made unification possible, was extremely powerful. These organizations were pitted against the Roman Catholic Centre Party, the Socialist Party, and a variety of liberal and regional political organizations opposed to Prussia’s hegemony over Germany. Bismarck and his successors were unable to subjugate this in the long run opposition. By 1912, the Socialists had amassed the most representatives in the Reichstag. They and the Centre Party made it more difficult for the empire’s conservative leadership to govern.
World War II
During World War I (1914–18), Germany’s goals were annexationist in nature, envisioning an enlarged Germany with vassal states Belgium and Poland, as well as African colonies. However, Germany’s military strategy, which included a two-front war in western France and Belgium and eastern Russia, ultimately failed. The defeat of Germany in 1918 marked the end of the German Empire. The Treaty of Versailles, the 1919 peace treaty negotiated by the victors (Britain, France, and the United States), imposed punitive conditions on Germany, including territorial loss, financial reparations, and a reduced military. These circumstances pave the way for World War II.
The Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (1919–33) established a republic with a constitution that provided for parliamentary democracy and held the government ultimately accountable to the people. The first president and prime minister of the new republic were both committed democrats, and Germany appeared to be on the verge of joining the community of democratic nations. However, the Weimar Republic ultimately disappointed those who hoped it would usher in democracy in Germany. Adolf Hitler, its declared enemy since his first days in public, had destroyed it by mid-1933.
The Weimar Republic (1919–33) established a republic with a constitution that allowed for parliamentary democracy and ultimately held the government accountable to the people. Both the new republic’s first president and prime minister were committed democrats, and Germany appeared to be on the verge of joining the community of democratic nations. The Weimar Republic, on the other hand, ultimately disappointed those who hoped it would usher in democracy in Germany. By mid-1933, Adolf Hitler, its declared enemy since his first public appearance, had destroyed it.
Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor
From 1924 to 1929, the Weimar Republic enjoyed a brief respite due to a modest economic recovery. The severe social stress caused by the Great Depression, on the other hand, increased the vote received by extreme anti-democratic parties in the 1930 election and the two elections in 1932. The government ruled through an emergency declaration. Leading conservative politicians formed a new government in January 1933, with Hitler as chancellor. They intended to use him and his party (the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or Nazis), which was now the largest in the country, to achieve their own goal of replacing the republic with an authoritarian government. However, within a few months, Hitler had outmaneuvered them and established a totalitarian regime. Only in 1945 was he deposed by a military alliance of dozens of nations, and only after his regime and the nation it ruled had committed atrocities of unprecedented magnitude known as the Holocaust.
The Post-war Period and the Unification of Germany
Following the occupation of the victorious powers (the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France) in the aftermath of World War II (1939–45), Germany became divided into two states. East Germany, for example, never achieved true legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens, fell further and further behind economically, and was forced to use force to keep its population from fleeing to the West. West Germany, on the other hand, was a resounding success. Within two decades of its defeat, it had risen to become one of the world’s richest countries, with prosperity extending to all segments of the population. The economy performed so well that several million foreigners eventually came to work in West Germany. An extensive, mostly nongovernment welfare system shielded both West German and foreign workers from need due to illness, accidents, and old age. German unification ended the geographical separation of the two German states, including the infamous Berlin Wall, in 1990, but economic integration has yet to be achieved satisfactorily. Globalization forces are posing a renewed challenge to the nation’s social-market economy in the first decade of the twenty-first century.
