Germany Issue 1 (reasons for nationalism) Flashcards
What is the context and background of this issue?
- In 1815, Germany as a unified country did not exist, instead, it was divided into 314 states with complete autonomy, sovereignty, traditions, laws, and rulers.
- After the French Revolution, when Napoleon became in charge of the ‘Confederation of the Rhine’, the idea of Nationalism started to grow in Germans as things were changing throughout Europe.
- Nationalism is the idea of supporting and idolizing your country and wanting what is best for it and in this case, Germans wanted the unification of the states into one country.
What are the factors of this essay?
- The reasons why Nationalism grew were due to the Napoleonic Wars, Cultural Nationalism throughout Germany, The Role of the Liberals and Economic Nationalism.
What is the essay arguing?
- This essay will argue that Economic Nationalism is the main reason nationalism grew throughout Germany during the early 1800s.
What is the first factor of this essay?
- One reason the idea of nationalism grew was due to Economic Nationalism.
What did each German state have that affected trading?
- In 1815, each German state had its own metric system, laws, and currencies and this made it a problem for German states to trade with other states and countries as they had to go through customs when trading.
- They had to fix this problem for the trade to grow between them.
What was set up in 1818 by Prussia?
- This is when in 1818, Prussia decided to set up its own customs union to encourage trade and by 1836, 25/39 German states joined this union, and it was officially named “The Zollverein”.
What did the Zolleverien allow?
- The Zolleverien allowed free trade and countries would not have to pay tariffs on goods when they were transferred from each state/country.
How did the Zolleverin make nationalism grow?
- This effectively made nationalism grow throughout Germany as it did not only help trade grow, but nationalism as each state realised that they benefitted from being in close contact with each other and set an incentive for states to work together.
How did Zolleverin create economic interdependence and businesses?
- Furthermore, this created economic interdependence, and this is when the states decided to cooperate with each other under the Prussian leadership.
- Additionally impacting the growth of nationalism as middle-class men who ran a business could compete with major countries like Britain or France, which was not near possible beforehand, people would want the growth of nationalism and a united Germany for their businesses to grow.
What is the second factor of this essay?
- Another reason the idea of nationalism grew was due to one of the ideas of Cultural Nationalism. The idea of nationalism first grew in universities.
Who saw education as the key to uniting Germany?
- Fredrich Jahn (pro-nationalist) saw education as key to uniting Germany.
What did Fredrich Jahn set up and why?
- He set up the ‘Burschenshaften’ student movement in 1817, with the aim to restructure the morals of university students, and develop an interest in politics, which authorities did not like as they were anti-nationalist.
What did the movement do?
- The movement did extremist things such as murder which discredited their cause.
What did the extremist activities cause to be put in place?
- The extremist activities caused the ‘Carlsbad Decrees’ to be put in place, which disbanded many student societies, introduced the censoring of newspapers and ordered inspectors to monitor universities.
What remerged into the 18030’s and was nationalism stopped permanently?
- Even though this successfully limited organised nationalism in the German states, it did not stop nationalism to grow among students as student societies re-emerged within the 1830s with the group ‘Young Germany’.
What colours did the group use?
- This group officially used the black, gold and red colours which we see in the German flag today, which is a huge step for nationalism.
What limited nationalism further? (What Act?)
- But once the Six Acts were passed, the Carlsbad decrees were reintroduced.
- This limited the growth of nationalism as people could not outrightly protest for it with adding more censorship and empowering states even further.
- This held back any mention of nationalism to come to the table.
What is the third factor of this essay?
- The idea of Nationalism was born from the impact of the Napoleonic Wars.
How many states was Germany divided into before Napoelon’s rise?
- Prior to Napoleon’s rise to the leader of the French nation, Germany was divided into 300 separate states.
What did Napoleon create and what did it do?
- Once he became the First Consul and subsequently conquered the Holy Roman Empire by defeating Austria and Russia in the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, he created the “Confederation of the Rhine”, a state which reorganised the Germanic states from 300, down to 39.
How did Napoleon create the idea of a unified Germany?
- This began the idea of a unified Germany and increased nationalism as it brought the states together, which made Germans have close contact with each other and they can share ideas about nationalism which can unify them further.
What did the victorious powers do? (1)
- After Napoleon’s defeat in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the victorious powers convened to ensure that the following peace treaty with France provided that a war of such scale was never to occur again, and to eradicate any memories of the French Revolution.
What did the victorious powers create? (2)
- This was the ‘Congress of Vienna,’ and the impact this had on German states is that they formed the German Confederation known as ‘The Bund’ which kept the 39 states that the Confederation of the Rhine had made previously but reinstated their original rulers.
How was the Congress of Vienna ineffective in growing nationalism?
- This was ineffective in growing nationalism as it kept the 39 states together instead of unifying them further like Napoleon did with the previous Confederation with the formerly 300 smaller states.