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Caesar conquered Gaul (1st century BC), but was assasinated before he could expand Rome east accross the Rhine in force. Augustus' attempt was stopped by the Germanic tribes in the Turtonberg Forest (9 AD). Thus Germany east and west of the Rhine developed differently. This cultural divided lasted until World War II. The Germanic Tribes overwealmed the Western Empire (5th century). Only in Britain, however, did they displace the local population. Germany during the Dark Ages dominated Europe. They became the ruling class throughout the West. Ironically Germany did not overwealm Europe culturally. It might have been thought that given the size ad power of Germany that German would become the dominant European language. Ironically it was English that would emerge as the lengua-franca of Europe ad much of the word. This was because a conflict between the pope and emperor made it impossible to a centalized German state to devlop, unlike other European states. In addition, Germany was in the center of Europe and thus surrounded by hostile neighbors, restructing its expansion. Germany's medieval hitory is complicated. German nationalism was a factor in the Reformation. But it was not until the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars that Germans nationalism grew. The Revolution also inspired a demand for unifiction. After Napoleon's defeat, the fight for the soul of Germany began. The 1848 Revolutions had the prospect of a liberal, democratic German state. But the Russian Army helped put down the liberals. The question then became whether Prussia or Austria would unite Germany. This question was answered by Prussian miitary force. And the Prussian militaristic, authoritative model became Germany's united future. State involvement in industrial development helped make Germany in the early 20th century the dominant European power. Germany's cutural and scietific achievements were impressive. German leders embarked on two disastrous attempts to dominate Europe militarily. They played a major role in launching World war I and were stopped in large measure by a failure to appreciate the rise of the United States as a major power. Germany was solely responsible for launching World war II. The NAZI desire to dominate Europe was fueled by a toxic mixture of nationalism and racial hatred. They were stoped by a grand coaltion of Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States. The Anglo-American alliance later in the 20th century would ironically save Germany from Soviet domination. America not only saved Germany from totalitrian communist dictatorship, but promoted the development of Germany into a democratic country, fully integrated as a peaceful member of Europen society.
Caesar conquered Gaul (1st century BC), but was assasinated before he could expand Rome east accross the Rhine in force. Augustus' attempt was stopped by the Germanic tribes in the Turtonberg Forest (9 AD). Thus Germany east and west of the Rhine developed differently. This cultural divided lasted until World War II. The Germanic Tribes overwealmed the Western Empire (5th century). Only in Britain, however, did they displace the local population.
Germany during the Dark Ages dominated Europe. They became the ruling class throughout the West. Ironically Germany did not overwealm Europe culturally. It might have been thought that given the size ad power of Germany that German would become the dominant European language. Ironically it was English that would emerge as the lengua-franca of Europe ad much of the word. This was because a conflict between the pope and emperor made it impossible to a centalized German state to devlop, unlike other European states. In addition, Germany was in the center of Europe and thus surrounded by hostile neighbors, restructing its expansion. Germany's medieval hitory is complicated.
The Holy Roman Empire originated with the coronation of German King Otto as emperor (962). It survived until Francis II under pressure from Napoleon renounced the imperial title (1806). It was the medieval German state it was ruled by several dynasties before the Emperor becoming dominated by the Hapsburgs. The Holy Roman Empire of the German nation became the effective organization of Germany after the Investiture Controversy. It was not, however, an exclusively German political unit. The Empire included over time the Burgundian inheritance (the Carolingian "middle kingdom") and parts of Italy and the Netherlands, which were not German in any ethnic or linguistic sense. Nor were national loyalties and sensibilities nearly as important in Medieval Europe as would be the case in the 19th century after the French Revolution. Certainly Germany was the nucleus of the Empire. The emperors were Germans and might hve built a powerful empire in central Europe that could have dominated Europe. This did not occur although the Hapsburgs came close to it. Instead the possession of non-German possessions served to involve the Empire in foreign quarrels which drained its resources and exacerbated domestic differences. These problems would come to fruition in the Reformation.
The reformtion began in Germany. This was no accident. The Reformation was only partially a religious movement. It was also a German nationalist movement, alienated from a foreign-dominated church. The Reformation would have had difficulty arising in othr countries with more centralized regimes. Some German princes, desiring to establish their independemce and soverignity, used the Reformation to weaken the authority of the emperor. The Holy Roman Empire was not a centralized state before the Reformation. After the Reformation it was weakened even further. The irony is that it was the Papacy that played a major role in weaking te imperial regime and preventing the Holy Roman Empire from coalesing into a powerful, centralized state. It was the relatively weak emperor that was unable to prevent the Reformation and the split in Western Christendom.
It was not until the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars that Germans nationalism grew. The Revolution also inspired a demand for unifiction. After Napoleon's defeat, the fight for the soul of Germany began.
Germany was not a unified state in 1848. As a result, there were a series of descrete revolutions in the various German states.n The 1848 Revolutions had the prospect of a liberal, democratic German state. But the Russian Army helped put down the liberals. The question then became whether Prussia or Austria would unite Germany. The February revolution in France inspired others in Europe to demand liberal reformns or seek to change recalitrant monarchial governments by force. In Germany the issue of German unification was strongly associated with demands for liberal reform. Both the Prussian and Austrian monarchies were threatened. Germany ws divided into two major states (Austria and Prussia), several small states (Bavaria and Hanover), and a large number of small principalities. These states were loosely associated in the German Confederation. Many Germans were inspired by the French revolutioin with bith liberal and national ideals. The unwillingness of monarchial regimes to implement liberal reforms led in 1848 in riots and disturbances throughout Germany. Many German rulers were forced to agree to liberal reforms. Even in Prussia, King Frederick Wilhelm IV was forced to accept a democratic constitution. The Frankfurt Parliament was organized to draft a constitution for a new united Germany and met in May. Considerable discension developed in the Prliament. The Parliament offered Prussian King Frederick Wilhelm IV the crown, but he refused because the constitution of the new state would have diluted his power. He dismissed the offer with the comment, "I do not accept a crown from the gutter!" By this time Frederick Wilhelm was in firm control of the Prussian army. The disturbances continued in 1849, including revolts in Baden and Dresden.
t was Britain that led the way in the Industrial Revolution. One historian writes, "Great Britain was the pioneer and a portent for the world's future economic organization." [Ashworth, p. 7.] America in its own industrialization benefitted greatly by its linguistic and cultural ties even after separting politically as a rsult of the Revolutionary War (1776-83). It is no accident that the Industrial Revolution was first centered in Britain a variety of factors coallesed that brought this about. Belgium was the first Continental country to experience the Industrial Revolution. Gradually similar developments spread to the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Austriam, and the German states as well as America. The Industrial Revolution in German followed a different pattern than that of Britain and America.
Bismarck for most of his life was not an ardent prpponent of German unification. His love was for Prussia. Interestingly, the movement for German unifications came primarily from democratically minded liberals within Germany and not the Prussian junker class. Perhaps in part because unification was so promoted by the liberals, Busmarck in his early career had no enthusiasm for it. One of the tragedies of German history is that it was not the liberals that united Germany. It could have been very different. Crown Prince Frederick and his English wife Victoria were liberally minded. King Wilhelm's rule, however, was very long and Frderick ruled only a few before dieing of cancer and bdeing replaced by his son Wilhelm II. Germany was, however, united by Bismarck pushing and cajoling the King Wilhelm. Bismarck eventually devoted himself to the task of unifying the German states. This was accomplished through both diplomatic persuasion backed by a series of successful wars, earning him the title of "The IronnChncellor" and stamping the character of the new German Empire with Prussian anti-democratic military traditions.
The question of German unification was answered by Prussian miitary force. And the Prussian militaristic, authoritative model became Germany's united future. State involvement in industrial development helped make Germany in the early 20th century the dominant European power. Germany's cutural and scietific achievements were impressive. German leders embarked on two disastrous attempts to dominate Europe militarily.
Imperial Germany played a major role in launching World war I. Germany had the most powerful Army in Europe and by launching an offensive through Belgium came very close to winning the War in the first month. Russian offensives in the eadt, British intervention, and the French offensive on the Marne denied Germany victory. The War bogged down into a war of attrition, a war that Germany was not well suited to wage. The Royal Navy implemented a debilitating naval blockade. Although the Germans finally defeated the Rusaians in the East, in the West they faced a much expanded British Army and because of a failure to appreciate the rise of the United States as a major power, a huge new American Army. The German public which had thought the War was esentially won, saw their Army defeated in a 100-day Allied offensive in the West.
A new German Weimar Republic relaced the Imperial German Government at the end of World War I. The Allies refused to negotiate with the German military. Thus the Armistace (1918) and resulting Versailles Treaty (1919) were signed by republican officials. This allowed right-wing politicans after the War to claim that the German Army was not defeated, but stabbed in the back. The Republic from the beginning had major problem. It inherited a civil service from Imperial Germany that was strongly monacharist in loyalty and suspicious of parlimentary democracy. The officer corps of the Army took a oath of loyalty to the Reoublic, but in fact was deeply suspicious of the Weimar regime and from the onset set out to evade the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty--in oart explaining how the NAZIs were able to so quickly rearm after seizing power. Popular support for the Weimar Republic was impaired by first the public shock at the Versailles Treaty and then the ruinous inflation. In fact the Republic was headquarters in Weimar rather than Berlin because the Army remamed the Reichwehr could not guarantee security in Berlin. Gradually the Republic began to gain some credibility. Competent fiscal management, the Dawes Plan, and the Locarno Agreements had by 1925 considerably improved the economic situation in Germany.
The rise of the NAZIs is a frightening enough event, but perhaps even more frightening is how Hitler and the NAZIs so easily bent the German nation to their evil purposes. Every country has evil people, but how could a small group of evil thugs so easily cow a great nation into participating or at least acquiese in what were some of the most evil actions of the 20th century. Thus the NAZI years are a case study in modern totalitarianism. A key factor here was the considerable political skills of Adolf Hitler. Another factor was the political ferment in Germany and the tenous acceptance of democracy. Hitler gave the Germans what many wanted (jobs, order, and prestige) while laying the foundation for what he wanted (war, conquest, and genocide). Hitler had convinced conservative elements and the middle-class that he and the NAZIs were a force for stability and conservative social values. In fact, the NAZI Govrnment in the years before the War would launch a revolution transforming German society. And here a major effort was made to win over youth. The NAZI revolution was well underway, but not fully implemented at the time Hitler launched World war II. Germany in 1933 was not a NAZI nation bent on conquest. But in 6 years Hitler and the NAZIs transformed Germany. The German people still did not want war, but their leadership had prepared them and their children for the most terrible war in world history. Perhaps the greatest irony of the Third Reich was that Hitler while a political mastermind, heated politicans and politics. What he wanted (as the Kaiser wanted) was to be a great war leader. Fortunately for the world, Germany did not have the resources for a world war and Hitler was not a military genius.
World War I had convinced most Europeans that there must never be another war. There was no desiire for another war, even in Germany. The War was the creation of one man--German Führer Adolf Hitler. His World war I service had been the high point of his sad life. He thus viewed war differently than most people. In addition the achievement of his goals necesitated war. The question of Germany and the Germans has to feature prominently in any discussion of World War II. Why didn't the German people resist Hitler and the NAZIs? Just how did it transpire that one of the most civilized of European countries, the land of Goethe and Schiller, Beethoven and Brahms, could have started two world wars--the second almost single handely. How could the Germans so passionately have followed the most evil of all historical monsters, Adolf Hitler and so eagerly embrace militarism and racism that would have returned Europe to a new Dark Age of unimagined barbarity? How could so many Germans gave participated in the killing of so many innocent civilians, most of whom were non-combatant women and children. Even more unsettling is how the Germans could have embraced and idolized Adolf Hiter, the mastermind mind of such unspeakable horror so fervently. Germany was solely responsible for launching World war II. YjeNAZI desire to dominate Europe was fueled by a toxic mixture of nationalism and racial hatred. They were stoped by a grand coaltion of Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States.
The World War II Anglo-American alliance later in the 20th century would ironically save Germany from Soviet domination. America not only saved Germany from totalitrian communist dictatorship, but promoted the development of Germany into a democratic country, fully integrated as a peaceful member of Europen society. The Cold War was to be won or lost in Germany. Although newspapers headlines followed dramatic events as they occurred around the world, it was in Germany that the outcome of the Cold War was determined. The country was even with deminished borders the powerhouse of Europe. The Red Army and Stalin's ruthlessness early owned settled the matter in the minds of most Germans. The question became moreone of whether America had the determination to support the Germans in the face of the Soviet threat. The Western Allied in 1949 began to allow the Federal Republic of German to administer the Western occupation zones and formally ended ocupation in 1955. The larger and more important economy allowed the FRG to dominate the East German Democratic Republic (DDR). The FRG worked to prevent other countries recognizing the DDR which was effctive through the 1960s. It also meant that the West Germans lost opportunities to pursue potentially beneficial commercial opportunities in Eastrn Europe and the Soviet Union. [Gray] This did not change until Arab countries began recognizing the DDR in the 1970s. By that time, Willy Brandt in the 1960s began his Ostpolitik, to build realtions with Eastern Europe and the United States.
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