El concepto de Alemania como una región distinta en Europa Central se remonta a Julio César , quien se refirió a la zona no conquistada al este del Rin como Germania , distinguiéndola así de la Galia . La victoria de las tribus germánicas en la batalla del bosque de Teutoburgo ( 9 d. C. ) evitó la anexión por parte del Imperio romano , aunque las provincias romanas de Germania Superior y Germania Inferior se establecieron a lo largo del Rin . Tras la caída del Imperio romano de Occidente , los francos conquistaron las otras tribus germánicas occidentales . Cuando el Imperio franco se dividió entre los herederos de Carlos el Grande en 843, la parte oriental se convirtió en Francia Oriental . En 962, Otón I se convirtió en el primer emperador del Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico , el estado alemán medieval.
Durante la Alta Edad Media , la Liga Hanseática , dominada por ciudades portuarias alemanas, se estableció a lo largo de los mares Báltico y del Norte . El crecimiento de un elemento cruzado dentro de la cristiandad alemana condujo al Estado de la Orden Teutónica a lo largo de la costa báltica en lo que más tarde se convertiría en Prusia . En la Controversia de las Investiduras , los emperadores alemanes resistieron la autoridad de la Iglesia católica. En la Baja Edad Media , los duques, príncipes y obispos regionales obtuvieron poder a expensas de los emperadores. Martín Lutero lideró la Reforma protestante dentro de la Iglesia católica después de 1517, ya que los estados del norte y el este se convirtieron al protestantismo, mientras que la mayoría de los estados del sur y el oeste permanecieron católicos. La Guerra de los Treinta Años , una guerra civil de 1618 a 1648 trajo una tremenda destrucción al Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico. Los estados del imperio alcanzaron una gran autonomía en la Paz de Westfalia , siendo los más importantes Austria , Prusia , Baviera y Sajonia . Con las Guerras napoleónicas , el feudalismo cayó y el Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico se disolvió en 1806. Napoleón estableció la Confederación del Rin como un estado títere alemán, pero después de la derrota francesa, se estableció la Confederación Alemana bajo presidencia austriaca. Las revoluciones alemanas de 1848-1849 fracasaron, pero la Revolución Industrial modernizó la economía alemana, lo que llevó a un rápido crecimiento urbano y al surgimiento del movimiento socialista . Prusia, con su capital Berlín , creció en poder. Las universidades alemanas se convirtieron en centros de clase mundial para la ciencia y las humanidades, mientras que la música y el arte florecieron. La unificación de Alemania se logró bajo el liderazgo del canciller Otto von Bismarck con la formación del Imperio alemán en 1871. El nuevo Reichstag , un parlamento electo, solo tuvo un papel limitado en el gobierno imperial. Alemania se unió a las otras potencias en la expansión colonial en África y el Pacífico .
En 1900, Alemania era la potencia dominante en el continente europeo y su industria en rápida expansión había superado a la de Gran Bretaña al tiempo que la provocaba en una carrera armamentista naval . Alemania lideró a las Potencias Centrales en la Primera Guerra Mundial , pero fue derrotada, parcialmente ocupada, obligada a pagar reparaciones de guerra y despojada de sus colonias y territorio significativo a lo largo de sus fronteras. La Revolución alemana de 1918-1919 terminó con el Imperio alemán con la abdicación de Guillermo II en 1918 y estableció la República de Weimar , una democracia parlamentaria en última instancia inestable. En enero de 1933, Adolf Hitler , líder del Partido Nazi , utilizó las dificultades económicas de la Gran Depresión junto con el resentimiento popular por los términos impuestos a Alemania al final de la Primera Guerra Mundial para establecer un régimen totalitario . Esta Alemania nazi hizo del racismo, especialmente del antisemitismo , un principio central de sus políticas, y se volvió cada vez más agresiva con sus demandas territoriales, amenazando con la guerra si no se cumplían. Alemania se remilitarizó rápidamente, anexó a sus vecinos de habla alemana e invadió Polonia , lo que desencadenó la Segunda Guerra Mundial . Durante la guerra, los nazis establecieron un programa de genocidio sistemático conocido como el Holocausto que mató a 17 millones de personas, incluidos 6 millones de judíos (que representan 2/3 de la población judía europea). En 1944, el ejército alemán fue rechazado en todos los frentes hasta que finalmente colapsó en mayo de 1945. Bajo la ocupación de los Aliados , se llevaron a cabo esfuerzos de desnazificación , grandes poblaciones bajo los antiguos territorios ocupados por Alemania fueron desplazadas, los territorios alemanes fueron divididos por las potencias victoriosas y en el este anexados por Polonia y la Unión Soviética. Alemania pasó la totalidad de la era de la Guerra Fría dividida en Alemania Occidental alineada con la OTAN y Alemania Oriental alineada con el Pacto de Varsovia . Los alemanes también huyeron de las áreas comunistas a Alemania Occidental, que experimentó una rápida expansión económica y se convirtió en la economía dominante en Europa Occidental.
En 1989, se abrió el Muro de Berlín , se derrumbó el Bloque del Este y Alemania Oriental y Occidental se reunificaron en 1990. La amistad franco-alemana se convirtió en la base de la integración política de Europa Occidental en la Unión Europea . En 1998-1999, Alemania fue uno de los países fundadores de la eurozona . Alemania sigue siendo una de las potencias económicas de Europa, contribuyendo aproximadamente con 1/4 del producto interno bruto anual de la eurozona . A principios de la década de 2010, Alemania jugó un papel fundamental al tratar de resolver la creciente crisis del euro, especialmente en lo que respecta a Grecia y otras naciones del sur de Europa . En 2015, Alemania enfrentó la crisis migratoria europea como el principal receptor de solicitantes de asilo de Siria y otras regiones problemáticas. Alemania se opuso a la invasión rusa de Ucrania en 2022 y decidió fortalecer sus fuerzas armadas .
Se cree que los simios prehumanos, como Danuvius guggenmosi , que estuvieron presentes en Alemania hace más de 11 millones de años, están entre los primeros simios en caminar sobre dos piernas antes que otras especies y géneros como Australopithecus . [1] El descubrimiento de la mandíbula del Homo heidelbergensis en 1907 confirma la presencia humana arcaica en Alemania hace al menos 600.000 años, [2] por lo que las herramientas de piedra se remontan a 1,33 millones de años. [3] El conjunto completo de armas de caza más antiguo jamás encontrado en cualquier parte del mundo fue excavado en una mina de carbón en Schöningen , Baja Sajonia . Entre 1994 y 1998, finalmente se desenterraron ocho jabalinas de madera de 380.000 años de antigüedad de entre 1,82 y 2,25 m (5,97 y 7,38 pies) de longitud. [4] [5] En Bilzingsleben se encontró uno de los edificios más antiguos del mundo y una de las piezas de arte más antiguas . [6]
En 1856, los huesos fosilizados de una especie humana extinta fueron rescatados de una gruta de piedra caliza en el valle de Neander cerca de Düsseldorf , Renania del Norte-Westfalia . La naturaleza arcaica de los fósiles, que ahora se sabe que tienen alrededor de 40.000 años de antigüedad, fue reconocida y las características publicadas en la primera descripción paleoantropológica de especies en 1858 por Hermann Schaaffhausen . [7] La especie fue nombrada Homo neanderthalensis , hombre de Neandertal en 1864.
Los rastros más antiguos del homo sapiens en Alemania se encontraron en la cueva Ilsenhöhle en Ranis , donde se descubrieron restos de hasta 47.500 años de antigüedad, entre los más antiguos de Europa. [8] Los restos de ocupación humana moderna temprana del Paleolítico descubiertos y documentados en varias cuevas en el Jura de Suabia incluyen varias esculturas de marfil de mamut que se encuentran entre las obras de arte más antiguas e indiscutibles y varias flautas, hechas de hueso de pájaro y marfil de mamut que se confirma que son los instrumentos musicales más antiguos jamás encontrados. La estatuilla de Löwenmensch de 41.000 años de antigüedad representa la obra de arte figurativa más antigua e indiscutible y la Venus de Hohle Fels de 40.000 años de antigüedad se ha afirmado como el objeto más antiguo e indiscutible de arte figurativo humano jamás descubierto. [9] [10] [11] [12] Estos artefactos se atribuyen a la cultura auriñaciense .
Entre 12.900 y 11.700 años atrás, el centro-norte de Alemania formó parte de la cultura Ahrensburg (llamada así por Ahrensburg ).
Los primeros grupos de agricultores primitivos, distintos de los cazadores-recolectores indígenas, que migraron a Europa procedían de una población de Anatolia occidental a principios del período Neolítico , hace entre 10.000 y 8.000 años. [13]
Alemania central fue una de las principales áreas de la cultura de la cerámica lineal ( c. 5500 a. C. - c. 4500 a. C. ), que fue parcialmente contemporánea con la cultura Ertebølle ( c. 5300 a. C. - c. 3950 a. C. ) de Dinamarca y el norte de Alemania. La construcción de los recintos circulares neolíticos de Europa central cae en este período de tiempo, siendo el más conocido y más antiguo el círculo de Goseck , construido c. 4900 a. C. Posteriormente, Alemania fue parte de la cultura Rössen , la cultura Michelsberg y la cultura Funnelbeaker ( c. 4600 a. C. - c. 2800 a. C. ). Los rastros más antiguos del uso de la rueda y el carro jamás encontrados se encuentran en un sitio de la cultura Funnelbeaker del norte de Alemania y datan de alrededor del 3400 a. C. [14]
Los colonos de la cultura de la cerámica cordada ( c. 2900 a. C. – c. 2350 a. C. ), que se habían extendido por todas las fértiles llanuras de Europa central durante el Neolítico tardío, eran de ascendencia indoeuropea . Los indoeuropeos habían llegado al corazón de Europa a través de migraciones masivas hace unos 4500 años. [16]
A finales de la Edad del Bronce , la cultura de los campos de urnas ( c. 1300 a. C. - c. 750 a. C. ) había reemplazado a las culturas del vaso campaniforme , Unetice y Túmulo en Europa central, [17] mientras que la Edad del Bronce nórdica se había desarrollado en Escandinavia y el norte de Alemania. El nombre proviene de la costumbre de incinerar a los muertos y colocar sus cenizas en urnas , que luego se enterraban en campos. El primer uso del nombre ocurrió en publicaciones sobre tumbas en el sur de Alemania a fines del siglo XIX. [18] [19] En gran parte de Europa, la cultura de los campos de urnas siguió a la cultura de los túmulos y fue sucedida por la cultura de Hallstatt . [20] Los pueblos itálicos , incluidos los latinos , de los que surgieron los romanos , provienen de la cultura de los campos de urnas de Europa central. [21] [22] [23]
La cultura de Hallstatt , que se desarrolló a partir de la cultura de los campos de urnas, fue la cultura predominante en Europa occidental y central entre los siglos XII y VIII a. C. y durante la Edad del Hierro temprana (siglos VIII al VI a. C.). Le siguió la cultura de La Tène (siglos V al I a. C.).
Las personas que adoptaron estas características culturales en el centro y sur de Alemania son consideradas celtas . Cómo y si los celtas están relacionados con la cultura de los campos de urnas sigue siendo objeto de controversia. Sin embargo, los centros culturales celtas se desarrollaron en Europa central durante la Edad del Bronce tardía ( c. 1200 a. C. hasta 700 a. C.). Algunos, como Heuneburg , la ciudad más antigua al norte de los Alpes, [24] crecieron hasta convertirse en importantes centros culturales de la Edad del Hierro en Europa Central, que mantenían rutas comerciales hacia el Mediterráneo . En el siglo V a. C., el historiador griego Heródoto mencionó una ciudad celta en el Danubio- Pirineos , que los historiadores atribuyen a Heuneburg. A partir de alrededor del 700 a. C. (o después), los pueblos germánicos (tribus germánicas) del sur de Escandinavia y el norte de Alemania se expandieron hacia el sur y gradualmente reemplazaron a los pueblos celtas en Europa Central. [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30]
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La etnogénesis de las tribus germánicas sigue siendo objeto de debate. Sin embargo, para el autor Averil Cameron "es obvio que se produjo un proceso constante" durante la Edad de Bronce nórdica , o a más tardar durante la Edad de Hierro prerromana [33] (cultura de Jastorf). Desde sus hogares en el sur de Escandinavia y el norte de Alemania, las tribus comenzaron a expandirse hacia el sur, el este y el oeste durante el siglo I a. C., [34] y entraron en contacto con las tribus celtas de la Galia , así como con las culturas iraníes , [35] bálticas , [36] y eslavas de Europa central y oriental . [37]
El conocimiento factual y detallado sobre la historia temprana de las tribus germánicas es raro. Los investigadores tienen que contentarse con los registros de los asuntos de las tribus con los romanos , las conclusiones lingüísticas, los descubrimientos arqueológicos y los resultados bastante nuevos pero auspiciosos del estudio arqueogenético . [38] A mediados del siglo I a. C., el estadista romano republicano Julio César erigió los primeros puentes conocidos sobre el Rin durante su campaña en la Galia y dirigió un contingente militar a través y hacia los territorios de las tribus germánicas locales. Después de varios días y sin haber hecho contacto con las tropas germánicas (que se habían retirado tierra adentro), César regresó al oeste del río. [39] Para el 60 a. C., la tribu sueva bajo el jefe Ariovisto , había conquistado tierras de la tribu gala hedua al oeste del Rin. Los planes consiguientes para poblar la región con colonos germánicos del este fueron rechazados vehementemente por César, que ya había lanzado su ambiciosa campaña para subyugar toda la Galia. Julio César derrotó a las fuerzas suevas en el 58 a. C. en la batalla de los Vosgos y obligó a Ariovisto a retirarse a través del Rin. [40] [41]
Augusto , primer emperador romano , consideró que la conquista más allá del Rin y el Danubio no era solo una política exterior regular, sino también necesaria para contrarrestar las incursiones germánicas en una Galia todavía rebelde. Se establecieron fuertes y centros comerciales a lo largo de los ríos. Algunas tribus, como los ubii, se aliaron con Roma y adoptaron rápidamente la cultura romana avanzada. Durante el siglo I d.C., las legiones romanas llevaron a cabo campañas extensas en Germania magna , el área al norte del Alto Danubio y al este del Rin, intentando someter a las diversas tribus. Las ideas romanas de administración, la imposición de impuestos y un marco legal se vieron frustradas por la ausencia total de una infraestructura. Las campañas de Germánico , por ejemplo, se caracterizaron casi exclusivamente por frecuentes masacres de aldeanos y saqueos indiscriminados. Las tribus, sin embargo, mantuvieron sus esquivas identidades. Una coalición de tribus bajo el jefe querusco Arminio , que estaba familiarizado con las doctrinas tácticas romanas, derrotó a una gran fuerza romana en la batalla del bosque de Teutoburgo . En consecuencia, Roma decidió establecer permanentemente la frontera entre el Rin y el Danubio y abstenerse de realizar más avances territoriales en Germania. [42] [43] Para el año 100 d. C., la frontera a lo largo del Rin, el Danubio y el Limes Germanicus estaba firmemente establecida. Varias tribus germánicas vivían bajo el dominio romano al sur y al oeste de la frontera, como se describe en Germania de Tácito . Austria formó las provincias regulares de Noricum y Raetia . [44] [45] [46] Las provincias Germania Inferior (con capital situada en Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium , la moderna Colonia ) y Germania Superior (con capital en Mogontiacum , la moderna Maguncia ), se establecieron formalmente en el año 85 d. C., después de largas campañas, ya que el control militar duradero se limitaba a las tierras que rodeaban los ríos. [47] El cristianismo se introdujo en la Germania occidental controlada por los romanos antes de la Edad Media, con estructuras religiosas cristianas como el Aula Palatina de Tréveris construidas durante el reinado de Constantino I ( r. 306-337 ). [48]
La crisis del siglo III en Roma coincidió con el surgimiento de una serie de grandes tribus germánicas occidentales: los alamanes , los francos , los bávaros , los chatos , los sajones , los frisios , los sicambrios y los turingios . En el siglo III, los pueblos de habla germánica comenzaron a migrar más allá del limes y de la frontera del Danubio. [49] Varias tribus grandes (los visigodos , los ostrogodos , los vándalos , los borgoñones , los lombardos , los sajones y los francos ) migraron y desempeñaron su papel en la decadencia del Imperio romano y en la transformación del antiguo Imperio romano occidental . [50] A finales del siglo IV, los hunos invadieron Europa oriental y central, estableciendo el Imperio huno . El acontecimiento desencadenó el Período de Migraciones . [51] La hegemonía huna sobre un vasto territorio en Europa central y oriental duró hasta la muerte del hijo de Atila, Dengizich, en 469. [52] Otro momento crucial en el Período de Migración fue el cruce del Rin en diciembre de 406 por un gran grupo de tribus que incluía a vándalos , alanos y suevos que se establecieron permanentemente dentro del desmoronado Imperio Romano de Occidente. [53]
Los ducados de raíz ( ‹Ver Tfd› en alemán : Stammesherzogtümer ) en Alemania se refieren al territorio tradicional de las diversas tribus germánicas. El concepto de tales ducados sobrevivió especialmente en las áreas que para el siglo IX constituirían Francia Oriental , [54] que incluían el Ducado de Baviera , el Ducado de Suabia , el Ducado de Sajonia , el Ducado de Franconia y el Ducado de Turingia , [55] a diferencia de más al oeste, el Condado de Borgoña o Lorena en Francia Media . [56] [57]
Los emperadores salios (que reinaron entre 1027 y 1125) conservaron los ducados raíz como principales divisiones de Alemania, pero se volvieron cada vez más obsoletos durante el período altomedieval bajo los Hohenstaufen , y Federico Barbarroja finalmente los abolió en 1180 en favor de ducados territoriales más numerosos.
Los sucesivos reyes de Alemania fundaron una serie de condados fronterizos o marcas en el este y el norte. Entre ellas se encontraban Lusacia , la Marca del Norte (que se convertiría en Brandeburgo y el corazón de la futura Prusia ) y la Marca Billung . En el sur, las marcas incluían Carniola , Estiria y la Marca de Austria , que se convertiría en Austria .
El Imperio romano de Occidente cayó en 476 con la deposición de Rómulo Augusto por el líder foederati germánico Odoacro , quien se convirtió en el primer rey de Italia . [58] Posteriormente, los francos, al igual que otros europeos occidentales posromanos, surgieron como una confederación tribal en la región del Rin Medio-Weser, entre el territorio que pronto se llamaría Austrasia (la "tierra oriental"), la porción noreste del futuro Reino de los francos merovingios . En su conjunto, Austrasia comprendía partes de la actual Francia , Alemania , Bélgica , Luxemburgo y los Países Bajos . A diferencia de los alamanes que se encontraban al sur en Suabia , absorbieron grandes franjas del antiguo territorio romano a medida que se extendían hacia el oeste, hacia la Galia , a partir de 250. Clodoveo I , de la dinastía merovingia, conquistó el norte de la Galia en 486 y en la batalla de Tolbiac en 496 la tribu alamanna en Suabia , que finalmente se convirtió en el Ducado de Suabia .
En 500, Clodoveo había unificado a todas las tribus francas, gobernaba toda la Galia [59] y fue proclamado rey de los francos entre 509 y 511. [60] Clodoveo, a diferencia de la mayoría de los gobernantes germánicos de la época, fue bautizado directamente en el catolicismo romano en lugar del arrianismo . Sus sucesores cooperarían estrechamente con los misioneros papales , entre ellos San Bonifacio . Después de la muerte de Clodoveo en 511, sus cuatro hijos repartieron su reino, incluida Austrasia . La autoridad sobre Austrasia pasó de la autonomía a la subyugación real, a medida que los sucesivos reyes merovingios unían y subdividían alternativamente las tierras francas. [61]
Durante los siglos V y VI los reyes merovingios conquistaron los turingios (531 a 532), el reino de los borgoñones y el principado de Metz y derrotaron a los daneses, los sajones y los visigodos. [62] El rey Clotario I (558 a 561) gobernó la mayor parte de lo que hoy es Alemania y emprendió expediciones militares en Sajonia , mientras que el sureste de lo que es la Alemania moderna permaneció bajo la influencia de los ostrogodos . Los sajones controlaban el área desde la costa norte hasta las montañas de Harz y Eichsfeld en el sur. [63]
Los merovingios colocaron las diversas regiones de su imperio franco bajo el control de duques semiautónomos, ya fueran francos o gobernantes locales, [64] y siguieron las tradiciones estratégicas imperiales romanas de integración social y política de los territorios recién conquistados. [65] [66] Si bien se les permitió preservar sus propios sistemas legales, [67] las tribus germánicas conquistadas fueron presionadas para que abandonaran la fe cristiana arriana . [68]
En 718 Carlos Martel emprendió la guerra contra los sajones en apoyo de los neustrianos . En 743 su hijo Carlomán, en su papel de mayordomo de palacio , renovó la guerra contra los sajones, que se habían aliado con el duque Odilón de Baviera y lo habían ayudado . [69] Los francos católicos, que en 750 controlaban un vasto territorio en la Galia, el noroeste de Alemania, Suabia, Borgoña y el oeste de Suiza , que incluía los pasos alpinos , se aliaron con la Curia en Roma contra los lombardos , que representaban una amenaza permanente para la Santa Sede. [59] Presionado por Liutprando, rey de los lombardos , ya se había enviado un enviado papal en busca de ayuda al gobernante de facto Carlos Martel después de su victoria en 732 sobre las fuerzas del califato omeya en la batalla de Tours , sin embargo, una alianza duradera y mutuamente beneficiosa solo se materializaría después de la muerte de Carlos bajo su sucesor, el duque de los francos, Pipino el Breve. [70]
En 751 Pipino III , mayordomo de palacio bajo el rey merovingio, asumió él mismo el título de rey y fue ungido por la Iglesia. El papa Esteban II le otorgó el título hereditario de Patricio Romanorum como protector de Roma y San Pedro [71] en respuesta a la Donación de Pipino , que garantizaba la soberanía de los Estados Pontificios . Carlos el Grande (que gobernó a los francos desde 774 hasta 814) lanzó una campaña militar de décadas de duración contra los rivales paganos de los francos, los sajones y los ávaros . Las campañas e insurrecciones de las Guerras Sajonas duraron desde 772 hasta 804. Los francos finalmente abrumaron a los sajones y ávaros, convirtieron por la fuerza al pueblo al cristianismo y anexaron sus tierras al Imperio carolingio .
Tras la muerte del rey franco Pipino el Breve en 768, su hijo mayor, Carlomagno (Carlos el Grande), consolidó su poder y expandió el reino . Carlomagno puso fin a 200 años de gobierno real lombardo con el asedio de Pavía , y en 774 se instaló como rey de los lombardos . Los nobles francos leales reemplazaron a la antigua aristocracia lombarda después de una rebelión en 776. [72] Los siguientes 30 años de su reinado los pasó fortaleciendo sin piedad su poder en Francia y en la conquista de los eslavos y ávaros panónicos en el este y todas las tribus , como los sajones y los bávaros . [73] [74] El día de Navidad del año 800 d. C., Carlomagno fue coronado Imperator Romanorum (Emperador de los romanos) en Roma por el papa León III . [74]
Las luchas entre los tres nietos de Carlomagno sobre la continuación de la costumbre de la herencia divisible o la introducción de la primogenitura hicieron que el imperio carolingio se dividiera en tres partes por el Tratado de Verdún de 843. [75] Luis el Germánico recibió la parte oriental del reino, Francia Oriental , todas las tierras al este del río Rin y al norte de Italia. Esto incluía los territorios de los ducados germánicos (francos, sajones, suevos y bávaros) que se unieron en una federación bajo el primer rey no franco, Enrique el Pajarero , que gobernó desde 919 hasta 936. [76] La corte real se trasladó permanentemente entre una serie de fortalezas, llamadas Kaiserpfalzen , que se convirtieron en centros económicos y culturales. El Palacio de Aquisgrán jugó un papel central, ya que la Capilla Palatina local sirvió como el sitio oficial para todas las ceremonias de coronación real durante todo el período medieval hasta 1531. [74] [77]
En 936, Otón I fue coronado rey alemán en Aquisgrán , en 961 rey de Italia en Pavía y coronado emperador por el papa Juan XII en Roma en 962. La tradición del rey alemán como protector del Reino de Italia y de la Iglesia latina dio lugar al término Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico en el siglo XII. El nombre, que debía identificar a Alemania, continuó utilizándose oficialmente, con la extensión añadida: Nationis Germanicæ (de la nación alemana) después de la última coronación imperial en Roma en 1452 hasta su disolución en 1806. [76] Otón fortaleció la autoridad real reafirmando los antiguos derechos carolingios sobre los nombramientos eclesiásticos. [78] Otón arrebató a los nobles los poderes de nombramiento de los obispos y abades, que controlaban grandes propiedades de tierra. Además, Otón revivió el antiguo programa carolingio de nombrar misioneros en las tierras fronterizas. Otón siguió apoyando el celibato para el alto clero, por lo que los nombramientos eclesiásticos nunca se volvieron hereditarios. Al conceder tierras a los abades y obispos que nombraba, Otón convirtió a estos obispos en "príncipes del Imperio" ( Reichsfürsten ). [79] De esta manera, Otón pudo establecer una iglesia nacional. Las amenazas externas al reino fueron contenidas con la derrota decisiva de los magiares húngaros en la batalla de Lechfeld en 955. Los eslavos entre los ríos Elba y Óder también fueron subyugados. Otón marchó sobre Roma y expulsó a Juan XII del trono papal y durante años controló la elección del papa, sentando un firme precedente para el control imperial del papado en los años venideros. [80] [81]
Durante el reinado del hijo de Conrado II, Enrique III (1039 a 1056), el imperio apoyó las reformas cluniacenses de la Iglesia, la Paz de Dios , la prohibición de la simonía (la compra de cargos clericales) y el celibato obligatorio de los sacerdotes. La autoridad imperial sobre el Papa alcanzó su apogeo. Sin embargo, Roma reaccionó con la creación del Colegio Cardenalicio y la serie de reformas clericales del Papa Gregorio VII . El Papa Gregorio insistió en su Dictatus Papae en la autoridad papal absoluta sobre los nombramientos para los cargos eclesiásticos. El conflicto posterior en el que el emperador Enrique IV se vio obligado a someterse al Papa en Canossa en 1077, después de haber sido excomulgado, llegó a conocerse como la Controversia de las Investiduras . En 1122, se alcanzó una reconciliación temporal entre Enrique V y el Papa con el Concordato de Worms . Con la conclusión de la disputa, la Iglesia romana y el papado recuperaron el control supremo sobre todos los asuntos religiosos. [83] [84] En consecuencia, el sistema eclesiástico imperial otoniano ( Reichskirche ) decayó. También puso fin a la tradición real/imperial de nombrar a líderes clericales poderosos y selectos para contrarrestar a los príncipes seculares imperiales. [85]
Entre 1095 y 1291 se sucedieron las diversas campañas de las cruzadas a Tierra Santa. Se establecieron órdenes religiosas caballerescas, entre ellas los Caballeros Templarios , los Caballeros de San Juan ( Caballeros Hospitalarios ) y la Orden Teutónica . [86] [87]
El término sacrum imperium (Sacro Imperio) fue utilizado oficialmente por primera vez por Federico I en 1157, [88] pero las palabras Sacrum Romanum Imperium , Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico, recién se combinaron en julio de 1180 y nunca aparecerían de manera consistente en documentos oficiales desde 1254 en adelante. [89]
La Liga Hanseática fue una alianza comercial y defensiva de los gremios de comerciantes de pueblos y ciudades del norte y centro de Europa que dominaron el comercio marítimo en el mar Báltico , el mar del Norte y a lo largo de los ríos navegables conectados durante la Baja Edad Media (siglos XII al XV). Cada una de las ciudades afiliadas mantuvo el sistema legal de su soberano y, con la excepción de las ciudades imperiales libres , tenía solo un grado limitado de autonomía política. [90] Comenzando con un acuerdo de las ciudades de Lübeck y Hamburgo , los gremios cooperaron para fortalecer y combinar sus activos económicos, como asegurar rutas comerciales y privilegios fiscales, para controlar los precios y proteger y comercializar mejor sus productos locales. Importantes centros de comercio dentro del imperio, como Colonia en el río Rin y Bremen en el mar del Norte se unieron a la unión, lo que resultó en una mayor estima diplomática. [91] Reconocidos por los diversos príncipes regionales por el gran potencial económico, se otorgaron cartas favorables para operaciones comerciales, a menudo exclusivas. [92] Durante su apogeo, la alianza mantuvo puestos comerciales y kontors en prácticamente todas las ciudades desde Londres y Edimburgo en el oeste hasta Nóvgorod en el este y Bergen en Noruega. A finales del siglo XIV, la poderosa liga hizo valer sus intereses con medios militares, si era necesario. Esto culminó en una guerra con el soberano reino de Dinamarca entre 1361 y 1370. La ciudad principal de la Liga Hanseática siguió siendo Lübeck, donde en 1356 se celebró la primera dieta general y se anunció su estructura oficial. La liga decayó después de 1450 debido a una serie de factores, como la crisis del siglo XV , las políticas cambiantes de los señores territoriales hacia un mayor control comercial, la crisis de la plata y la marginación en la red comercial euroasiática más amplia, entre otros. [93] [94]
El término Ostsiedlung (lit. asentamiento oriental) se refiere a un proceso de inmigración y de construcción de estructuras de asentamiento en gran medida descoordinado por parte de alemanes étnicos en territorios ya habitados por eslavos y bálticos al este de los ríos Saale y Elba , como las actuales Polonia y Silesia , y al sur en Bohemia , la actual Hungría y Rumanía durante la Alta Edad Media , del siglo XI al XIV. [95] [96] El objetivo principal de las primeras campañas militares imperiales en las tierras del este durante los siglos X y XI era castigar y subyugar a las tribus paganas locales . Los territorios conquistados se perdieron en su mayoría después de que las tropas se retiraran, pero finalmente se incorporaron al imperio como marcas , tierras fronterizas fortificadas con tropas guarnecidas en fortalezas y castillos, que debían garantizar el control militar y hacer cumplir la exacción de tributos. Las fuentes contemporáneas no respaldan la idea de políticas o planes para el asentamiento organizado de civiles. [97]
El emperador Lotario II restableció la soberanía feudal sobre Polonia, Dinamarca y Bohemia a partir de 1135 y nombró margraves para convertir las tierras fronterizas en feudos hereditarios e instalar una administración civil. No hay una cronología discernible del proceso de inmigración, ya que se llevó a cabo en muchos esfuerzos y etapas individuales, a menudo incluso alentados por los señores regionales eslavos. Sin embargo, las nuevas comunidades estaban sujetas a la ley y las costumbres alemanas. El número total de colonos fue generalmente bastante bajo y, dependiendo de quién tuviera una mayoría numérica, las poblaciones generalmente se asimilaron entre sí. En muchas regiones solo persistirían enclaves, como Hermannstadt , fundada por los sajones de Transilvania en el Reino húngaro medieval (hoy en Rumania) que fueron llamados por Geza II para repoblar el área como parte de la Ostsiedlung , habiendo llegado allí y fundado la ciudad en 1147 [los sajones llamaron a estas partes de Transilvania "Altland" para distinguirlas de los asentamientos sajones de inmigrantes posteriores establecidos alrededor de 1220 por la Orden Teutónica]. [98] [99]
En 1230, la orden monástica católica de los Caballeros Teutónicos lanzó la Cruzada Prusiana . La campaña, que fue apoyada por las fuerzas del duque polaco Conrado I de Mazovia , inicialmente destinada a cristianizar a los antiguos prusianos bálticos , tuvo éxito principalmente en la conquista de grandes territorios. La orden, envalentonada por la aprobación imperial , rápidamente decidió establecer un estado independiente , sin el consentimiento del duque Conrado. Reconociendo solo la autoridad papal y basada en una economía sólida, la orden expandió constantemente el estado teutónico durante los siguientes 150 años, participando en varias disputas territoriales con sus vecinos. Los conflictos permanentes con el Reino de Polonia , el Gran Ducado de Lituania y la República de Nóvgorod , finalmente llevaron a la derrota militar y la contención a mediados del siglo XV. El último Gran Maestre Alberto de Brandeburgo se convirtió al luteranismo en 1525 y convirtió las tierras restantes de la orden en el secular Ducado de Prusia . [100] [101]
Enrique V , bisnieto de Conrado II, que había derrocado a su padre Enrique IV, se convirtió en emperador del Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico en 1111. Con la esperanza de obtener un mayor control sobre la Iglesia dentro del Imperio, Enrique V nombró a Adalberto de Saarbrücken como el poderoso arzobispo de Maguncia en el mismo año. Adalberto comenzó a hacer valer los poderes de la Iglesia contra las autoridades seculares, es decir, el Emperador. Esto precipitó la "Crisis de 1111" como otro capítulo de la larga Controversia de las Investiduras . [102] En 1137, los príncipes electores volvieron a la familia Hohenstaufen en busca de un candidato, Conrado III . Conrado intentó despojar a su rival Enrique el Orgulloso de sus dos ducados, Baviera y Sajonia , lo que llevó a una guerra en el sur de Alemania cuando el imperio se dividió en dos poderosas facciones. La facción de los güelfos o güelfos (en italiano) apoyaba a la Casa de los güelfos de Enrique el Orgulloso, que era la dinastía gobernante en el ducado de Baviera. La facción rival de los güelfos o gibelinos (en italiano) juraba lealtad a la Casa suaba de Hohenstaufen. Durante este período inicial, los güelfos mantuvieron en general la independencia eclesiástica bajo el papado y el particularismo político (el enfoque en los intereses ducales contra la autoridad imperial central). Los güelfos, por otro lado, defendían un control estricto de la iglesia y un gobierno imperial central fuerte. [103]
Durante el reinado del emperador Federico I (Barbarroja), de la familia Hohenstaufen , se llegó a un acuerdo en 1156 entre las dos facciones. El ducado de Baviera fue devuelto al hijo de Enrique el Orgulloso, Enrique el León , duque de Sajonia , que representaba al partido güelfo . Sin embargo, el margraviato de Austria fue separado de Baviera y se convirtió en el ducado independiente de Austria en virtud del Privilegium Minus en 1156. [104]
Tras enriquecerse gracias al comercio, las ciudades del norte de Italia, apoyadas por el Papa, se opusieron cada vez más a la pretensión de Barbarroja de ejercer un gobierno feudal (Honor Imperii) sobre Italia. Las ciudades se unieron en la Liga Lombarda y finalmente derrotaron a Barbarroja en la batalla de Legnano en 1176. Al año siguiente se alcanzó una reconciliación entre el emperador y el Papa Alejandro III en el Tratado de Venecia . [105] La Paz de Constanza de 1183 finalmente estableció que las ciudades italianas permanecieran leales al imperio, pero se les concedía jurisdicción local y plenos derechos reales en sus territorios. [106]
En 1180, Enrique el León fue proscrito, Sajonia fue dividida y Baviera fue entregada a Otón de Wittelsbach , quien fundó la dinastía Wittelsbach , que gobernaría Baviera hasta 1918.
Entre 1184 y 1186, el imperio de Federico I Barbarroja alcanzó su máximo esplendor cultural con la Dieta de Pentecostés celebrada en Maguncia y el matrimonio de su hijo Enrique en Milán con la princesa normanda Constanza de Sicilia . [107] El poder de los señores feudales se vio socavado por el nombramiento de ministeriales (sirvientes no libres del Emperador) como funcionarios. La caballería y la vida cortesana florecieron, como se expresa en la filosofía escolástica de Alberto Magno y la literatura de Wolfram von Eschenbach . [108]
Entre 1212 y 1250, Federico II estableció un estado moderno, administrado profesionalmente desde su base en Sicilia . Reanudó la conquista de Italia, lo que llevó a un mayor conflicto con el papado . En el Imperio, se otorgaron amplios poderes soberanos a los príncipes eclesiásticos y seculares, lo que llevó al surgimiento de estados territoriales independientes. La lucha con el Papa minó la fuerza del Imperio, ya que Federico II fue excomulgado tres veces. Después de su muerte, cayó la dinastía Hohenstaufen, seguida de un interregno durante el cual no hubo emperador (1250-1273). Este interregno llegó a su fin con la elección de un pequeño conde suevo, Rodolfo de Habsburgo, como emperador. [109] [110]
El fracaso de las negociaciones entre el emperador Luis IV y el papado condujo a la Declaración de Rhense de 1338 por seis príncipes del Estado Imperial en el sentido de que la elección por todos o la mayoría de los electores confería automáticamente el título real y el gobierno sobre el imperio, sin confirmación papal. Como resultado, el monarca ya no estaba sujeto a la aprobación papal y se volvió cada vez más dependiente del favor de los electores. Entre 1346 y 1378, el emperador Carlos IV de Luxemburgo , rey de Bohemia, intentó restaurar la autoridad imperial. El decreto de 1356 de la Bula de Oro estipuló que todos los futuros emperadores debían ser elegidos por un colegio de solo siete electores (cuatro seculares y tres clericales). Los electores seculares eran el rey de Bohemia, el conde palatino del Rin, el duque de Sajonia y el margrave de Brandeburgo , los electores clericales eran los arzobispos de Maguncia , Tréveris y Colonia . [111]
Entre 1347 y 1351, Alemania y casi todo el continente europeo se vieron afectados por el brote más severo de la pandemia de la Peste Negra . Se estima que causó la muerte repentina de entre el 30 y el 60 % de la población europea y provocó una perturbación social y económica generalizada, así como un profundo descontento religioso y fanatismo. Los grupos minoritarios, y en particular los judíos, fueron culpados, señalados y atacados . Como consecuencia, muchos judíos huyeron y se reasentaron en Europa del Este. [112] [113]
Las estimaciones de población total de los territorios alemanes oscilan entre 5 y 6 millones al final del reinado de Enrique III en 1056 y alrededor de 7 a 8 millones después del gobierno de Federico Barbarroja en 1190. [114] [115] La gran mayoría eran agricultores, típicamente en un estado de servidumbre bajo señores feudales y monasterios. [103] Las ciudades surgieron gradualmente y en el siglo XII se fundaron muchas ciudades nuevas a lo largo de las rutas comerciales y cerca de fortalezas y castillos imperiales. Las ciudades estaban sujetas al sistema legal municipal . Ciudades como Colonia , que habían adquirido el estatus de Ciudades Libres Imperiales , ya no respondían ante los terratenientes locales o los obispos, sino que eran súbditos inmediatos del Emperador y disfrutaban de mayores libertades comerciales y legales. [116] Las ciudades estaban gobernadas por un consejo de la élite, generalmente mercantil , los patricios . Los artesanos formaban gremios , gobernados por reglas estrictas, que buscaban obtener el control de las ciudades; Algunas estaban abiertas a las mujeres. La sociedad se había diversificado, pero estaba dividida en clases claramente delimitadas: clérigos , médicos , comerciantes , diversos gremios de artesanos, jornaleros no cualificados y campesinos . La ciudadanía plena no estaba disponible para los pobres . Surgieron tensiones políticas por cuestiones de impuestos, gasto público, regulación de las empresas y supervisión del mercado, así como por los límites de la autonomía corporativa. [117]
La ubicación central de Colonia en el río Rin la colocó en la intersección de las principales rutas comerciales entre el este y el oeste y fue la base del crecimiento de Colonia. [118] Las estructuras económicas de la Colonia medieval y moderna se caracterizaron por el estatus de la ciudad como un importante puerto y centro de transporte sobre el Rin. Fue la sede de un arzobispo, bajo cuyo patrocinio se construyó la enorme catedral de Colonia desde 1240. La catedral alberga reliquias cristianas sagradas y desde entonces se ha convertido en un conocido destino de peregrinación . En 1288, la ciudad había asegurado su independencia del arzobispo (que se trasladó a Bonn) y estaba gobernada por sus burgueses . [119]
La abadesa benedictina Hildegard von Bingen escribió varios textos teológicos, botánicos y medicinales influyentes, así como cartas, canciones litúrgicas, poemas y posiblemente la obra de teatro moralista más antigua que se conserva , Ordo Virtutum , mientras supervisaba brillantes iluminaciones en miniatura . Unos 100 años después, Walther von der Vogelweide se convirtió en el más célebre de los Minnesänger , que eran poetas líricos del alto alemán medio .
Alrededor de 1439, Johannes Gutenberg de Maguncia utilizó la imprenta con tipos móviles y publicó la Biblia de Gutenberg . Fue el inventor mundial de la imprenta , con lo que inició la Revolución de la Imprenta . Los libros y panfletos impresos a bajo precio desempeñaron un papel central en la difusión de la Reforma y la Revolución Científica .
Hacia la transición del siglo XV al XVI, Alberto Durero de Núremberg estableció su reputación en toda Europa como pintor , impresor , matemático , grabador y teórico cuando todavía tenía veinte años y aseguró su reputación como una de las figuras más importantes del Renacimiento del Norte .
La sociedad europea moderna temprana se desarrolló gradualmente después de los desastres del siglo XIV a medida que la obediencia religiosa y las lealtades políticas declinaban a raíz de la Gran Peste , el cisma de la Iglesia y las prolongadas guerras dinásticas. El auge de las ciudades y el surgimiento de la nueva clase burguesa erosionaron el orden social, legal y económico del feudalismo. [127]
Las empresas comerciales de las élites mercantiles en las ciudades de rápido desarrollo del sur de Alemania (como Augsburgo y Núremberg ), entre las que las familias más prominentes eran los Gossembrot , los Fugger (la familia más rica de Europa durante los siglos XV y XVI [130] ), los Welser , los Hochstetter y los Imholt, generaron medios financieros sin precedentes. Como financistas tanto de los principales gobernantes eclesiásticos como seculares, estas familias influyeron fundamentalmente en los asuntos políticos del imperio durante los siglos XV y XVI. [131] [ 132] [133] [134] La economía cada vez más basada en el dinero también provocó descontento social entre los caballeros y los campesinos y los "caballeros ladrones" depredadores se volvieron comunes. [135]
A partir de 1438 la dinastía de los Habsburgo , que había adquirido el control en el imperio sudoriental sobre el ducado de Austria, Bohemia y Hungría tras la muerte del rey Luis II en 1526, logró ocupar permanentemente el puesto de emperador del Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico hasta 1806 (con excepción de los años entre 1742 y 1745).
Algunas revoluciones de alcance europeo nacieron en el Imperio: la combinación del primer sistema postal moderno establecido por Maximiliano (con la gestión a cargo de la familia Taxis ) con el sistema de imprenta inventado por Gutenberg produjo una revolución de la comunicación [136] [137] [138] – la naturaleza descentralizada del Imperio hizo que la censura fuera difícil y esto combinado con el nuevo sistema de comunicación facilitó la libre expresión, elevando así la vida cultural. El sistema también ayudó a las autoridades a difundir órdenes y políticas, impulsó la coherencia del Imperio en general y ayudó a reformadores como Lutero a difundir sus puntos de vista y comunicarse entre sí de manera efectiva, contribuyendo así a la Reforma religiosa. [139] [140] [141]
Las reformas militares de Maximiliano , especialmente su desarrollo de los Landsknechte , provocaron una revolución militar que quebró la espina dorsal de la clase caballeresca [142] [143] y se extendió por toda Europa poco después de su muerte. [144] [145]
Durante su reinado de 1493 a 1519, Maximiliano I , en un esfuerzo combinado con los Estados (que a veces actuaron como oponentes y a veces como cooperadores suyos), sus funcionarios y sus humanistas, reformó el imperio. Se estableció un sistema dual de Tribunales Supremos (el Reichskammergericht y el Reichshofrat ) (con el Reichshofrat desempeñando un papel más eficiente durante el período moderno temprano), [150] junto con la recepción formalizada del derecho romano; [151] [152] [153] [154] la Dieta Imperial ( Reichstag ) se convirtió en el foro político más importante y la institución jurídica y constitucional suprema, que actuaría como garantía para la preservación del Imperio a largo plazo; [155] [156] una porción de tierra permanente ( Ewiger Landfriede ) fue declarada en 1495 con ligas regionales y uniones que proporcionaban la estructura de apoyo, junto con la creación de los Reichskreise ( círculos imperiales , que servirían para organizar ejércitos imperiales, recaudar impuestos y hacer cumplir las órdenes de las instituciones imperiales); [157] [158] [159] las Cancillerías Imperial y de la Corte se combinaron para convertirse en la institución gubernamental decisiva; [160] [161] los Landsknechte que Maximiliano creó se convirtieron en una forma de ejército imperial; [162] comenzó a surgir una cultura política nacional; [163] [164] y el idioma alemán comenzó a alcanzar una forma unificada. [165] [166] Sin embargo, la estructura política permaneció incompleta y fragmentada, principalmente debido al fracaso del penique común (un impuesto imperial) al que los Estados resistieron. [150] [a] Sin embargo, a través de muchos compromisos entre el emperador y los estados, se formó un mecanismo flexible y orientado al futuro para la resolución de problemas del Imperio, junto con una monarquía a través de la cual el emperador compartía el poder con los estados. [168] [b] Si la Reforma también equivalió a un proceso de construcción de una nación (exitoso o no) sigue siendo un debate. [170]
La adición de Nationis Germanicæ (de nación alemana) al título del emperador apareció por primera vez en el siglo XV: en una ley de 1486 decretada por Federico III y en 1512 en referencia a la Dieta Imperial en Colonia por Maximiliano I. En 1525, el plan de reforma de Heilbronn -el documento más avanzado de la Guerra de los Campesinos Alemanes ( Deutscher Bauernkrieg )- se refería al Reich como von Teutscher Nation (de nación alemana). Durante el siglo XV, el término "nación alemana" había experimentado un aumento en su uso debido al crecimiento de una "comunidad de intereses". Los Estados también distinguieron cada vez más entre su Reich alemán y el Reich más amplio, "universal". [171]
-en.png/1280px-Map_of_the_Imperial_Circles_(1512)-en.png)
Para controlar sus gastos cada vez mayores, los Papas renacentistas del siglo XV y principios del XVI promovieron la venta excesiva de indulgencias y de cargos y títulos de la Curia romana.
En 1517, el monje Martín Lutero publicó un panfleto con 95 tesis que fijó en la plaza de la ciudad de Wittenberg y del que repartió copias a los señores feudales. No está claro si las clavó en la puerta de una iglesia de Wittenberg. La lista detallada de 95 afirmaciones, según él, representaba prácticas corruptas de la fe cristiana y mala conducta dentro de la Iglesia católica. Aunque tal vez no fuera la principal preocupación de Lutero, recibió apoyo popular por su condena de la venta de indulgencias y de los cargos clericales, el abuso de poder del papa y del alto clero y sus dudas sobre la idea misma de la institución de la Iglesia y el papado. [172]
La Reforma protestante fue el primer desafío exitoso a la Iglesia católica y comenzó en 1521 cuando Lutero fue proscrito en la Dieta de Worms después de su negativa a arrepentirse. Las ideas de la reforma se difundieron rápidamente, ya que la nueva tecnología de la imprenta moderna aseguró copias masivas baratas y la distribución de las tesis y fue ayudada por las guerras del emperador Carlos V con Francia y los turcos . [172] Escondido en el castillo de Wartburg , Lutero tradujo la Biblia al alemán, contribuyendo así en gran medida al establecimiento de la lengua alemana moderna. Esto se destaca por el hecho de que Lutero solo hablaba un dialecto local de menor importancia durante ese tiempo. Después de la publicación de su Biblia, su dialecto suprimió a otros y constituye en gran medida lo que ahora es el alemán moderno. Con la protesta de los príncipes luteranos en la Dieta Imperial de Espira en 1529 y la aceptación y adopción de la Confesión de Augsburgo luterana por los príncipes luteranos a partir de 1530, se estableció la iglesia luterana separada. [173]
La Guerra de los Campesinos Alemanes , que comenzó en el suroeste de Alsacia y Suabia y se extendió más al este hacia Franconia , Turingia y Austria, fue una serie de revueltas económicas y religiosas de las clases bajas rurales, alentadas por la retórica de varios reformadores religiosos radicales y anabaptistas contra los señores feudales gobernantes. Aunque ocasionalmente recibieron la ayuda de nobles con experiencia en la guerra como Götz von Berlichingen y Florian Geyer (en Franconia) y el teólogo Thomas Müntzer (en Turingia), las fuerzas campesinas carecían de estructura militar, habilidad, logística y equipo y hasta 100.000 insurgentes fueron finalmente derrotados y masacrados por los príncipes territoriales. [174]
La Contrarreforma católica , iniciada en 1545 en el Concilio de Trento , fue encabezada por la erudita orden religiosa de los jesuitas , que había sido fundada solo cinco años antes por varios clérigos en torno a Ignacio de Loyola . Su intención era desafiar y contener la Reforma protestante mediante escritos y decretos apologéticos y polémicos, reconfiguración eclesiástica, guerras y maniobras políticas imperiales. En 1547, el emperador Carlos V derrotó a la Liga de Esmalcalda , una alianza militar de gobernantes protestantes. [175] La Paz de Augsburgo de 1555 decretó el reconocimiento de la fe luterana y la división religiosa del imperio. También estipuló el derecho del gobernante a determinar la confesión oficial en su principado ( Cuius regio, eius religio ). La Contrarreforma finalmente no logró reintegrar los estados luteranos del centro y norte de Alemania. En 1608/1609 se formaron la Unión Protestante y la Liga Católica .
La Guerra de los Treinta Años , que se desarrolló entre 1618 y 1648 casi exclusivamente en el Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico, tiene su origen, que sigue siendo ampliamente debatido, en los conflictos no resueltos y recurrentes de las facciones católica y protestante. El emperador católico Fernando II intentó lograr la unidad religiosa y política del imperio, mientras que las fuerzas protestantes de la Unión estaban decididas a defender sus derechos religiosos. El motivo religioso sirvió como justificación universal para los diversos príncipes territoriales y extranjeros, que a lo largo de varias etapas se unieron a cualquiera de las dos partes en guerra para ganar territorio y poder. [176] [177]
El conflicto se desató por la revuelta de la nobleza protestante de Bohemia contra las políticas sucesorias del emperador Matías . Tras el triunfo imperial en la batalla de la Montaña Blanca y una breve paz, la guerra se convirtió en un conflicto político europeo por la intervención del rey Cristián IV de Dinamarca entre 1625 y 1630, Gustavo Adolfo de Suecia entre 1630 y 1648 y Francia bajo el cardenal Richelieu entre 1635 y 1648. El conflicto evolucionó cada vez más hacia una lucha entre la Casa francesa de Borbón y la Casa de Habsburgo por el predominio en Europa, para lo cual los territorios alemanes centrales del imperio sirvieron como campo de batalla. [178]
La guerra se encuentra entre las más catastróficas de la historia, ya que tres décadas de guerra constante y destrucción habían dejado el país devastado. Ejércitos merodeadores saquearon incesantemente el campo, se apoderaron de las ciudades y les impusieron fuertes impuestos y saquearon indiscriminadamente las reservas de alimentos del campesinado. A esto se sumaron innumerables bandas de forajidos asesinos, enfermos, personas sin hogar, personas perturbadas y soldados inválidos. Los trastornos sociales y económicos generales provocaron una disminución dramática de la población como resultado de asesinatos pandémicos y violaciones y asesinatos aleatorios, enfermedades infecciosas endémicas, malas cosechas, hambruna, disminución de las tasas de natalidad, robos sin sentido, caza de brujas y la emigración de personas aterrorizadas. Las estimaciones varían entre una caída del 38% de 16 millones de personas en 1618 a 10 millones en 1650 y una mera caída del 20% de 20 millones a 16 millones. Las regiones de Altmark y Württemberg fueron especialmente afectadas, donde tardaron generaciones en recuperarse por completo. [176] [179]
La guerra fue la última gran lucha religiosa en la Europa continental y terminó en 1648 con la Paz de Westfalia . Resultó en una mayor autonomía para los estados constituyentes del Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico, limitando el poder del emperador. La mayor parte de Alsacia fue cedida a Francia, Pomerania Occidental y Bremen-Verden fueron entregadas a Suecia como feudos imperiales, y los Países Bajos abandonaron oficialmente el Imperio. [180]
La población de Alemania alcanzó unos veinte millones de personas a mediados del siglo XVI, la gran mayoría de los cuales eran campesinos. [182]
La Reforma protestante fue un triunfo para la alfabetización y la nueva imprenta . [183] [c] [185] [186] La traducción de la Biblia de Lutero al alto alemán (el Nuevo Testamento se publicó en 1522; el Antiguo Testamento se publicó en partes y se completó en 1534) fue un impulso decisivo para el aumento de la alfabetización en la Alemania moderna temprana , [181] y estimuló la impresión y distribución de libros y panfletos religiosos. A partir de 1517, los panfletos religiosos inundaron Alemania y gran parte de Europa. La Reforma instigó una revolución de los medios de comunicación, ya que en 1530 se publicaron más de 10.000 obras individuales con un total de diez millones de copias. Lutero fortaleció sus ataques a Roma al representar una iglesia "buena" contra una "mala". Pronto quedó claro que la imprenta podía usarse para la propaganda en la Reforma para agendas particulares. Los escritores de la Reforma utilizaron estilos, clichés y estereotipos anteriores a la Reforma y cambiaron los elementos según fuera necesario para sus propios fines. [187] Especialmente eficaces fueron el Catecismo Menor de Lutero , para uso de los padres que enseñaban a sus hijos, y el Catecismo Mayor, para pastores. [188] Utilizando la lengua vernácula alemana, expresaron el Credo de los Apóstoles en un lenguaje trinitario más simple y personal. Las ilustraciones en la Biblia recién traducida y en muchos tratados popularizaron las ideas de Lutero. Lucas Cranach el Viejo , el pintor patrocinado por los electores de Wittenberg, era un amigo cercano de Lutero e ilustró la teología de Lutero para una audiencia popular. Dramatizó las opiniones de Lutero sobre la relación entre el Antiguo y el Nuevo Testamento, al tiempo que se mantuvo consciente de las cuidadosas distinciones de Lutero sobre los usos apropiados e inapropiados de las imágenes visuales. [189]
La traducción de la Biblia de Lutero al alto alemán también fue decisiva para la lengua alemana y su evolución desde el alto alemán temprano hasta el alemán estándar moderno. [181] La publicación de la Biblia de Lutero fue un momento decisivo en la difusión de la alfabetización en la Alemania moderna temprana , [181] y promovió el desarrollo de formas no locales de lenguaje y expuso a todos los hablantes a formas de alemán de fuera de su propia área. [190]
Entre los eruditos notables de finales del siglo XV y principios del XVIII se incluyen: Johannes Trithemius , uno de los fundadores de la criptografía moderna, fundador de la esteganografía , así como de la bibliografía y los estudios literarios como ramas del conocimiento; [191] [192] [193] Conrad Celtes , el primer y más importante escritor cartográfico alemán y "el mayor genio lírico y ciertamente el mayor organizador y divulgador del humanismo alemán"; [194] [195] [196] [197] Athanasius Kircher , descrito por Fletcher como "una figura fundadora de varias disciplinas: de la geología (ciertamente la vulcanología), la musicología (como un topógrafo de formas musicales), la curaduría de museos, la coptología, por nombrar algunas, y podría ser reivindicado hoy como el primer teórico de la gravedad y un originador a largo plazo de las imágenes en movimiento (con sus espectáculos de linterna mágica). A través de sus muchos entusiasmos, además, fue el conducto de las búsquedas de otros en el horizonte de conocimiento en rápida expansión que marca el Renacimiento posterior". [198] y Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz , uno de los más grandes, si no el más grande "genio universal", de todos los tiempos. [199] [200]
La cartografía experimentó un fuerte desarrollo, con su centro en Núremberg, a principios del siglo XVI. La Universalis Cosmographia de Martin Waldseemüller y Matthias Ringmann y la edición de 1513 de la Geografía marcaron el clímax de una revolución cartográfica. [201] [202] El propio emperador incursionó en la cartografía. [203]
En 1515, Johannes Stabius (astrónomo de la corte de Maximiliano I), Alberto Durero y el astrónomo Konrad Heinfogel produjeron los primeros planisferios de los hemisferios sur y norte, así como los primeros mapas celestes impresos. Estos mapas impulsaron el resurgimiento del interés por el campo de la uranometría en toda Europa. [204] [205] [206] [207]
El astrónomo Johannes Kepler, de Weil der Stadt, fue una de las mentes pioneras de la investigación empírica y racional. Mediante la aplicación rigurosa de los principios del método científico, construyó sus leyes del movimiento planetario . Sus ideas influyeron en el científico italiano contemporáneo Galileo Galilei y proporcionaron principios mecánicos fundamentales para la teoría de la gravitación universal de Isaac Newton . [208]
Las colonias alemanas en América existieron porque las ciudades imperiales libres de Augsburgo y Núremberg obtuvieron derechos coloniales en la provincia de Venezuela o el norte de América del Sur a cambio de las deudas contraídas por el Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico Carlos V , quien también era rey de España. En 1528, Carlos V emitió una carta por la cual la familia Welser poseía los derechos para explorar, gobernar y colonizar el área, también con la motivación de buscar la legendaria ciudad dorada de El Dorado . Su colonia principal fue Klein-Venedig . Un proyecto colonial nunca realizado fue Hanauish-Indies pretendido por Friedrich Casimir, conde de Hanau-Lichtenberg como feudo de la Compañía Holandesa de las Indias Occidentales . El proyecto fracasó debido a la falta de fondos y al estallido de la guerra franco-holandesa en 1672.
Federico Guillermo , gobernante de Brandeburgo-Prusia desde 1640 y posteriormente llamado el Gran Elector , adquirió Pomerania Oriental mediante la Paz de Westfalia en 1648. Reorganizó sus territorios sueltos y dispersos y logró deshacerse del vasallaje de Prusia bajo el Reino de Polonia durante la Segunda Guerra del Norte . [212] Para abordar el problema demográfico de la población mayoritariamente rural de Prusia de aproximadamente tres millones, atrajo la inmigración y el asentamiento de hugonotes franceses en áreas urbanas. Muchos se convirtieron en artesanos y empresarios. [213] El rey Federico Guillermo I , conocido como el Rey Soldado , que reinó desde 1713 hasta 1740, estableció las estructuras para el estado prusiano altamente centralizado y levantó un ejército profesional, que desempeñaría un papel central. [214] También operó con éxito una economía de comando que algunos historiadores consideran mercantilista. [215] [216]
La población total de Alemania (en su extensión territorial de 1914 ) creció de 16 millones en 1700 a 17 millones en 1750 y alcanzó los 24 millones en 1800. La economía del siglo XVIII se benefició notablemente de la aplicación práctica generalizada del método científico, ya que mayores rendimientos y una producción agrícola más confiable y la introducción de estándares de higiene afectaron positivamente el equilibrio entre la tasa de natalidad y la tasa de mortalidad. [217]
Luis XIV de Francia libró una serie de guerras exitosas para extender el territorio francés. Ocupó Lorena (1670) y anexó el resto de Alsacia (1678-1681) que incluía la ciudad imperial libre de Estrasburgo . Al comienzo de la Guerra de los Nueve Años , también invadió el Electorado del Palatinado (1688-1697). [218] Luis estableció una serie de tribunales cuya única función era reinterpretar decretos y tratados históricos, los Tratados de Nimega (1678) y la Paz de Westfalia (1648) en particular a favor de sus políticas de conquista. Consideró que las conclusiones de estos tribunales, las Chambres de réunion, eran justificación suficiente para sus anexiones ilimitadas. Las fuerzas de Luis operaron dentro del Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico en gran medida sin oposición, porque todos los contingentes imperiales disponibles lucharon en Austria en la Gran Guerra Turca . La Gran Alianza de 1689 tomó las armas contra Francia y contrarrestó cualquier avance militar de Luis. El conflicto terminó en 1697, cuando ambas partes acordaron entablar conversaciones de paz después de que ambas partes se dieran cuenta de que una victoria total era financieramente inalcanzable. El Tratado de Ryswick preveía la devolución de Lorena y Luxemburgo al imperio y el abandono de las reivindicaciones francesas sobre el Palatinado. [219]
Después del alivio de último minuto de Viena de un asedio y la inminente toma por una fuerza turca en 1683, las tropas combinadas de la Liga Santa , que se había fundado el año siguiente, se embarcaron en la contención militar del Imperio otomano y reconquistaron Hungría en 1687. [220] Los Estados Pontificios , el Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico, la Mancomunidad de Polonia-Lituania , la República de Venecia y desde 1686 Rusia se habían unido a la liga bajo el liderazgo del papa Inocencio XI . El príncipe Eugenio de Saboya , que sirvió bajo el emperador Leopoldo I, tomó el mando supremo en 1697 y derrotó decisivamente a los otomanos en una serie de espectaculares batallas y maniobras. El Tratado de Karlowitz de 1699 marcó el final de la Gran Guerra Turca y el príncipe Eugenio continuó su servicio para la monarquía de los Habsburgo como presidente del Consejo de Guerra . Terminó efectivamente con el dominio turco sobre la mayoría de los estados territoriales de los Balcanes durante la Guerra austro-turca de 1716-1718 . El Tratado de Passarowitz dejó a Austria la libertad de establecer dominios reales en Serbia y el Banato y mantener la hegemonía en el sudeste de Europa , sobre la que se basaba el futuro Imperio austríaco . [221] [222]
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Federico II "el Grande" es más conocido por su genio militar y su utilización única de un ejército altamente organizado para convertir a Prusia en una de las grandes potencias de Europa, además de escapar de un desastre nacional casi seguro en el último minuto. También fue un artista, autor y filósofo, que concibió y promovió el concepto del absolutismo ilustrado . [223] [224]
La emperatriz austriaca María Teresa logró que la guerra de 1740 a 1748 por el reconocimiento de su sucesión al trono le fuera favorable , pero como consecuencia de las guerras de Silesia y la guerra de los Siete Años , Silesia quedó definitivamente en manos de Prusia . El Tratado de Hubertusburg de 1763 dispuso que Austria y Sajonia debían renunciar a todas sus pretensiones sobre Silesia. Prusia, que casi había duplicado su territorio, fue finalmente reconocida como una gran potencia europea, con la consecuencia de que la política del siglo siguiente estuvo fundamentalmente influida por el dualismo alemán , la rivalidad de Austria y Prusia por la supremacía en Europa Central. [225]
El concepto de absolutismo ilustrado, aunque rechazado por la nobleza y la ciudadanía, fue defendido en Prusia y Austria y aplicado desde 1763. El rey prusiano Federico II defendió la idea en un ensayo y argumentó que el monarca benévolo simplemente es el primer servidor del estado , que ejerce su poder político absoluto en beneficio de la población en su conjunto. Una serie de reformas legales (por ejemplo, la abolición de la tortura y la emancipación de la población rural y de los judíos), la reorganización de la Academia Prusiana de Ciencias , la introducción de la educación obligatoria para niños y niñas y la promoción de la tolerancia religiosa, entre otras, provocaron un rápido desarrollo social y económico. [226]
Entre 1772 y 1795, Prusia promovió la partición de Polonia al ocupar los territorios occidentales de la antigua Mancomunidad de Polonia y Lituania . Austria y Rusia decidieron adquirir las tierras restantes, con el resultado de que Polonia dejó de existir como estado soberano hasta 1918. [227]
Los estados alemanes más pequeños se vieron eclipsados por Prusia y Austria. Baviera tenía una economía rural . Sajonia se encontraba en buena forma económica, aunque numerosas guerras habían pasado factura. Durante la época en que Prusia ascendió rápidamente dentro de Alemania, Sajonia se distrajo con los asuntos exteriores. La Casa de Wettin se concentró en adquirir y luego conservar el trono polaco, lo que finalmente no tuvo éxito. [228] [ aclaración necesaria ]
Muchos de los estados más pequeños de Alemania estaban dirigidos por obispos, que en realidad pertenecían a poderosas familias nobles y mostraban escaso interés por la religión. Si bien ninguno de los gobernantes eclesiásticos posteriores alcanzó la destacada reputación de Johann Philipp von Schönborn de Maguncia o Christoph Bernhard von Galen de Münster , algunos de ellos promovieron la Ilustración, como el benévolo y progresista Franz Ludwig von Erthal en Würzburg y Bamberg . [229]
En Hesse-Kassel , el landgrave Federico II gobernó de 1760 a 1785 como un déspota ilustrado y recaudó dinero alquilando soldados ( llamados "hessianos" ) a Gran Bretaña para ayudar a luchar en la Guerra de la Independencia de los Estados Unidos . Combinó las ideas de la Ilustración con los valores cristianos, planes cameralistas para el control central de la economía y un enfoque militarista hacia la diplomacia. [230]
Hannover no tenía por qué mantener una corte fastuosa: sus gobernantes también eran reyes de Inglaterra y residían en Londres. Jorge III , elector (gobernante) de 1760 a 1820, nunca visitó Hannover. La nobleza local que dirigía el país abrió la Universidad de Gotinga en 1737; pronto se convirtió en un centro intelectual de talla mundial. Baden ostentaba quizás el mejor gobierno de los estados más pequeños. Karl Friedrich gobernó durante 73 años y fue un entusiasta de la Ilustración; abolió la servidumbre en 1783. [231]
Los estados más pequeños no lograron formar coaliciones entre sí y finalmente fueron abrumados por Prusia, que absorbió a muchos de ellos entre 1807 y 1871. [232]
Prusia experimentó un importante cambio social entre mediados del siglo XVII y mediados del XVIII a medida que la nobleza declinaba mientras la aristocracia tradicional luchaba por competir con la creciente clase mercantil , [233] que se convirtió en una nueva clase media burguesa , [234] [ 235] [236] mientras que la emancipación de los siervos otorgó al campesinado rural derechos de compra de tierras y libertad de movimiento, [237] y una serie de reformas agrarias en el noroeste de Alemania abolieron las obligaciones feudales y dividieron la tierra feudal, dando lugar a campesinos más ricos y allanó el camino para una economía rural más eficiente . [238]
A mediados del siglo XVIII, el reconocimiento y la aplicación de los ideales y estándares culturales, intelectuales y espirituales de la Ilustración condujeron a un florecimiento del arte, la música, la filosofía, la ciencia y la literatura. El filósofo Christian Wolff fue un autor pionero en una gran cantidad de campos de la racionalidad de la Ilustración y estableció el alemán como la lengua predominante del razonamiento filosófico, la instrucción académica y la investigación. [239]
En 1685, el margrave Federico Guillermo de Prusia emitió el Edicto de Potsdam una semana después del Edicto de Fontainebleau del rey francés Luis XIV , que decretaba la abolición de la concesión de 1598 a la libre práctica religiosa para los protestantes . Federico Guillermo ofreció a sus correligionarios, que son oprimidos y atacados por causa del Santo Evangelio y su doctrina pura... un refugio seguro y libre en todas Nuestras Tierras . [240] Alrededor de 20.000 refugiados hugonotes llegaron en una oleada inmediata y se establecieron en las ciudades, el 40% en Berlín, la residencia ducal únicamente. El Liceo Francés en Berlín se estableció en 1689 y, a finales del siglo XVII, el idioma francés había reemplazado al latín para ser hablado universalmente en la diplomacia internacional. La nobleza y la clase media educada de Prusia y los diversos estados alemanes usaban cada vez más el idioma francés en la conversación pública en combinación con modales cultivados universales. Como ningún otro estado alemán, Prusia tenía acceso a las ideas de la Ilustración paneuropea y las capacidades necesarias para aplicarlas y desarrollar instituciones políticas y administrativas más racionales. [241] Los príncipes de Sajonia llevaron a cabo una serie de reformas fiscales, administrativas, judiciales, educativas, culturales y económicas generales fundamentales. Las reformas se vieron facilitadas por la sólida estructura urbana del país y por influyentes grupos comerciales que modernizaron la Sajonia anterior a 1789 siguiendo los principios clásicos de la Ilustración. [242]
Johann Gottfried von Herder abrió nuevos caminos en la filosofía y la poesía, como líder del movimiento Sturm und Drang del proto-romanticismo. El Clasicismo de Weimar ("Weimarer Klassik") fue un movimiento cultural y literario con sede en Weimar que buscaba establecer un nuevo humanismo mediante la síntesis de ideas románticas, clásicas y de la Ilustración. El movimiento, desde 1772 hasta 1805, involucró a Herder, así como al polímata Johann Wolfgang von Goethe y Friedrich Schiller , un poeta e historiador. Herder sostuvo que cada pueblo tenía su propia identidad particular, que se expresaba en su lengua y cultura. Esto legitimó la promoción de la lengua y la cultura alemanas y ayudó a dar forma al desarrollo del nacionalismo alemán. Las obras de Schiller expresaron el espíritu inquieto de su generación, representando la lucha del héroe contra las presiones sociales y la fuerza del destino. [243]
La música alemana, patrocinada por las clases altas, alcanzó su madurez con los compositores Johann Sebastian Bach , Joseph Haydn y Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart . [244]
El filósofo de Königsberg, Immanuel Kant, intentó reconciliar el racionalismo con la fe religiosa, la libertad individual y la autoridad política. La obra de Kant contenía tensiones básicas que seguirían dando forma al pensamiento alemán –y, de hecho, a toda la filosofía europea– hasta bien entrado el siglo XX. [245] [246] Las ideas de la Ilustración y su aplicación recibieron la aprobación y el reconocimiento general como causa principal del progreso cultural generalizado. [247]
Al principio, la reacción alemana ante la Revolución Francesa fue mixta. Los intelectuales alemanes celebraron el estallido, con la esperanza de ver el triunfo de la Razón y la Ilustración. Las cortes reales de Viena y Berlín denunciaron el derrocamiento del rey y la amenaza de propagación de las nociones de libertad, igualdad y fraternidad. En 1793, la ejecución del rey francés y el inicio del Terror desilusionaron a la Bildungsbürgertum (clase media educada). Los reformistas dijeron que la solución era tener fe en la capacidad de los alemanes para reformar sus leyes e instituciones de manera pacífica. [248]
Europa se vio sacudida por dos décadas de guerra que giraron en torno a los esfuerzos de Francia por difundir sus ideales revolucionarios y la oposición de la realeza reaccionaria. La guerra estalló en 1792 cuando Austria y Prusia invadieron Francia, pero fueron derrotadas en la batalla de Valmy (1792). Las tierras alemanas vieron a los ejércitos marchar de un lado a otro, trayendo devastación (aunque en una escala mucho menor que la Guerra de los Treinta Años , casi dos siglos antes), pero también trayendo nuevas ideas de libertad y derechos civiles para el pueblo. Prusia y Austria pusieron fin a sus guerras fallidas con Francia, pero (junto con Rusia) se repartieron Polonia entre ellos en 1793 y 1795.
Francia tomó el control de Renania , impuso reformas al estilo francés, abolió el feudalismo, estableció constituciones, promovió la libertad de religión, emancipó a los judíos, abrió la burocracia a los ciudadanos comunes con talento y obligó a la nobleza a compartir el poder con la creciente clase media. Napoleón creó el Reino de Westfalia como estado modelo. [249] Estas reformas resultaron en gran medida permanentes y modernizaron las partes occidentales de Alemania. Cuando los franceses intentaron imponer el idioma francés, la oposición alemana aumentó en intensidad. Una segunda coalición de Gran Bretaña, Rusia y Austria atacó entonces a Francia, pero fracasó. Napoleón estableció un control directo o indirecto sobre la mayor parte de Europa occidental, incluidos los estados alemanes aparte de Prusia y Austria. El antiguo Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico era poco más que una farsa; Napoleón simplemente lo abolió en 1806 mientras formaba nuevos países bajo su control. En Alemania, Napoleón estableció la " Confederación del Rin ", que comprendía la mayoría de los estados alemanes excepto Prusia y Austria. [250]
Under Frederick William II's weak rule (1786–1797) Prussia had undergone a serious economic, political and military decline. His successor king Frederick William III tried to remain neutral during the War of the Third Coalition and French emperor Napoleon's dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and reorganisation of the German principalities. Induced by the queen and a pro-war party Frederick William joined the Fourth Coalition in October 1806. Napoleon easily defeated the Prussian army at the Battle of Jena and occupied Berlin. Prussia lost its recently acquired territories in western Germany, its army was reduced to 42,000 men, no trade with Britain was allowed and Berlin had to pay Paris high reparations and fund the French army of occupation. Saxony changed sides to support Napoleon and joined the Confederation of the Rhine. Ruler Frederick Augustus I was rewarded with the title of king and given a part of Poland taken from Prussia, which became known as the Duchy of Warsaw.[251]
After Napoleon's military fiasco in Russia in 1812, Prussia allied with Russia in the Sixth Coalition. A series of battles followed and Austria joined the alliance. Napoleon was decisively defeated in the Battle of Leipzig in late 1813. The German states of the Confederation of the Rhine defected to the Coalition against Napoleon, who rejected any peace terms. Coalition forces invaded France in early 1814, Paris fell and in April Napoleon surrendered. Prussia as one of the winners at the Congress of Vienna, gained extensive territory.[217]
In 1815, continental Europe was in a state of overall turbulence and exhaustion, as a consequence of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The liberal spirit of the Enlightenment and Revolutionary era diverged toward Romanticism.[252] The victorious members of the Coalition had negotiated a new peaceful balance of powers in Vienna and agreed to maintain a stable German heartland that keeps French imperialism at bay. However, the idea of reforming the defunct Holy Roman Empire was discarded. Napoleon's reorganization of the German states was continued and the remaining princes were allowed to keep their titles. In 1813, in return for guarantees from the Allies that the sovereignty and integrity of the Southern German states (Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria) would be preserved, they broke with France.[253]
During the 1815 Congress of Vienna the 39 former states of the Confederation of the Rhine joined the German Confederation, a loose agreement for mutual defense. Attempts of economic integration and customs coordination were frustrated by repressive anti-national policies. Great Britain approved of the union, convinced that a stable, peaceful entity in central Europe could discourage aggressive moves by France or Russia. Most historians, however, concluded, that the Confederation was weak and ineffective and an obstacle to German nationalism. The union was undermined by the creation of the Zollverein in 1834, the 1848 revolutions, the rivalry between Prussia and Austria and was finally dissolved in the wake of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866,[254] to be replaced by the North German Confederation during the same year.[254]
Increasingly after 1815, a centralized Prussian government based in Berlin took over the powers of the nobles, which in terms of control over the peasantry had been almost absolute. To help the nobility avoid indebtedness, Berlin set up a credit institution to provide capital loans in 1809, and extended the loan network to peasants in 1849. When the German Empire was established in 1871, the Junker nobility controlled the army and the navy, the bureaucracy, and the royal court; they generally set governmental policies.[255]
Between 1815 and 1865 the population of the German Confederation (excluding Austria) grew around 60% from 21 million to 34 million.[256] Simultaneously the Demographic Transition took place as the high birth rates and high death rates of the pre-industrial country shifted to low birth and death rates of the fast-growing industrialized urban economic and agricultural system. Increased agricultural productivity secured a steady food supply, as famines and epidemics declined. This allowed people to marry earlier, and have more children. The high birthrate was offset by a very high rate of infant mortality and after 1840, large-scale emigration to the United States. Emigration totaled at 480,000 in the 1840s, 1,200,000 in the 1850s, and at 780,000 in the 1860s. The upper and middle classes first practiced birth control, soon to be universally adopted.[257]
In 1800, Germany's social structure was poorly suited to entrepreneurship or economic development. Domination by France during the French Revolution (1790s to 1815), however, produced important institutional reforms, that 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. The idea, that these reforms were beneficial for Industrialization has been contested.[258]
In the early 19th century the Industrial Revolution was in full swing in Britain, France, and Belgium. The various small federal states in Germany developed only slowly and independently as competition was strong. Early investments for the railway network during the 1830s came almost exclusively from private hands. Without a central regulatory agency the construction projects were quickly realized. Actual industrialization only took off after 1850 in the wake of the railroad construction.[259] The textile industry grew rapidly, profiting from the elimination of tariff barriers by the Zollverein.[260][261] During the second half of the 19th century the German industry grew exponentially and by 1900, Germany was an industrial world leader along with Britain and the United States.[262]</ref>
In 1800, the population was predominantly rural, as only 10% lived in communities of 5,000 or more people, and only 2% lived in cities of more than 100,000 people. After 1815, the urban population grew rapidly, due to the influx of young people from the rural areas. Berlin grew from 172,000 in 1800, to 826,000 inhabitants in 1870, Hamburg from 130,000 to 290,000, Munich from 40,000 to 269,000 and Dresden from 60,000 to 177,000.[263]
The takeoff stage of economic development came with the railroad revolution in the 1840s, 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 1830s. However, by the 1840s, 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 1841:
Lacking a technological base at first, engineering and hardware was imported from Britain. In many cities, the new railway shops were the centres of technological awareness and training, so that by 1850, 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. Observers found that even as late as 1890, their engineering was inferior to Britain. However, German unification in 1870 stimulated consolidation, nationalisation into state-owned companies, and further rapid growth. Unlike the situation in France, the goal was the support of industrialisation. Eventually numerous lines criss-crossed the Ruhr area and other industrial centers and provided good connections to the major ports of Hamburg and Bremen. By 1880, 9,400 locomotives pulled 43,000 passengers and 30,000 tons of freight a day.[259]
While there existed no national newspaper the many states issued a great variety of printed media, although they rarely exceeded regional significance. In a typical town existed one or two outlets, urban centers, such as Berlin and Leipzig had dozens. The audience was limited to a few per cent of male adults, chiefly from the aristocratic and upper middle class. Liberal publishers outnumbered conservative ones by a wide margin. Foreign governments bribed editors to guarantee a favorable image.[265] Censorship was strict, and the imperial government issued the political news that was supposed to be published. After 1871, strict press laws were enforced by Bismarck to contain the Socialists and hostile editors. Editors focused on political commentary, culture, the arts, high culture and the popular serialized novels. Magazines were politically more influential and attracted intellectual authors.[266]
19th-century artists and intellectuals were greatly inspired by the ideas of the French Revolution and the great poets and writers Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Friedrich Schiller. The Sturm und Drang romantic movement was embraced and emotion was given free expression in reaction to the perceived rationalism of the Enlightenment. Philosophical principles and methods were revolutionized by Immanuel Kant's paradigm shift. Ludwig van Beethoven was the most influential composer of the period from classical to 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. The Brothers Grimm collected folk stories into the popular Grimm's Fairy Tales and are ranked among the founding fathers of German studies, who initiated the work on the Deutsches Wörterbuch ("The German Dictionary"), the most comprehensive work on the German language.[267]
University 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, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Weber, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in philosophy, Friedrich Schleiermacher in theology and Leopold von Ranke in history became famous. The University of Berlin, founded in 1810, became the world's leading university. Von Ranke, for example, professionalized history and set the world standard for historiography. By the 1830s 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 1848 forced many into exile.[217]
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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. However, in Prussia King Frederick William III was determined to handle unification entirely on his own terms, without consultation. 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. 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 1845 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.[268][269][270]
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 1844 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.[271] A sharp controversy broke out in 1837–1838 in the largely Catholic Rhineland over the religious education of children of mixed marriages, where the mother was Catholic and the father Protestant. 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 1840, 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.[272]
After the fall of Napoleon, Europe's statesmen convened in Vienna in 1815 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.
The German Confederation (‹See Tfd›German: Deutscher Bund) was founded, a loose union of 39 states (35 ruling princes and 4 free cities) under Austrian leadership, with a Federal Diet (‹See Tfd›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 1819, 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.[273] The Decrees terminated the fast-fading nationalist fraternities (‹See Tfd›German: 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. Among the persecuted were the poet Ernst Moritz Arndt, the publisher Johann Joseph Görres and the "Father of Gymnastics" Ludwig Jahn.[274]
In 1834, 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 1848, of the March Revolution in the German states. In May the German National Assembly (the Frankfurt Parliament) met in Frankfurt to draw up a national German constitution.
But the 1848 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 1850. Many leaders went into exile, including a number who went to the United States and became a political force there.[275]
The 1850s were a period of extreme political reaction. Dissent was vigorously suppressed, and many Germans emigrated to America following the collapse of the 1848 uprisings. Frederick William IV became extremely depressed and melancholic 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.
In 1857, the Prussian king Frederick William IV suffered a stroke and his brother William served as regent until 1861 when he became King William I. Although conservative, William was very pragmatic. His most significant accomplishment was the naming of Otto von Bismarck as Prussian minister president in 1862. The cooperation of Bismarck, Defense Minister Albrecht von Roon, and Field Marshal Helmut von Moltke set the stage for the military victories over Denmark, Austria, and France, that led to the unification of Germany.[276][277]
In 1863–1864, disputes between Prussia and Denmark over Schleswig escalated, which was not part of the German Confederation, and which Danish nationalists wanted to incorporate into the Danish kingdom. The conflict led to the Second War of Schleswig in 1864. 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. The subsequent management of the two duchies led to tensions between Austria and Prussia. Austria wanted the duchies to become an independent entity within the German Confederation, while Prussia intended to annex them. The disagreement served as a pretext for the Seven Weeks War between Austria and Prussia, that broke out in June 1866. In July, the two armies clashed at Sadowa-Königgrätz (Bohemia) in an enormous battle involving half a million men. Prussian superior logistics and the modern breech-loading needle guns superiority over the slow muzzle-loading rifles of the Austrians, proved to be elementary for Prussia's victory. The battle had also decided the struggle for hegemony in Germany and Bismarck was deliberately lenient with defeated Austria, that was to play only a subordinate role in future German affairs.[278][279]
After the Seven Weeks War, the German Confederation was dissolved and the North German Federation (German Norddeutscher Bund) was established under the leadership of Prussia. Austria was excluded and its immense influence over Germany finally came to an end. The North German Federation was a transitional organisation that existed from 1867 to 1871, between the dissolution of the German Confederation and the founding of the German Empire.[280]
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Chancellor Otto von Bismarck determined the political course of the German Empire until 1890. He fostered alliances in Europe to contain France on the one hand and aspired to consolidate Germany's influence in Europe on the other. His principal domestic policies focused on the suppression of socialism and the reduction of the strong influence of the Roman Catholic Church on its adherents. He issued a series of anti-socialist laws in accord with a set of social laws, that included universal health care, pension plans and other social security programs. His Kulturkampf policies were vehemently resisted by Catholics, who organized political opposition in the Center Party (Zentrum). German industrial and economic power had grown to match Britain by 1900.
In 1888, the young and ambitious Kaiser Wilhelm II became emperor. He rejected advice from experienced politicians and ordered Bismarck's resignation in 1890. He opposed Bismarck's careful and delicate foreign policy and was determined to pursue colonialist policies, as Britain and France had been doing for centuries. The Kaiser promoted the active colonization of Africa and Asia for the lands that were not already colonies of other European powers. The Kaiser took a mostly unilateral approach in Europe only allied with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and embarked on a dangerous naval arms race with Britain. His aggressive and erroneous policies greatly contributed to the situation in which the assassination of the Austrian-Hungarian crown prince would spark off World War I.
Bismarck was the dominant personality not just in Germany but in all of Europe and indeed the entire diplomatic world 1870–1890. Historians continue to debate his goals. Lothar Gall and Ernst Engelberg consider Bismarck was a future-oriented modernizer. In sharp contrast, Jonathan Steinberg decided he was basically a traditional Prussian whose highest priorities were to reinforce the monarchy, the Army, and the social and economic dominance of his own Junker class, thereby being responsible for a tragic history after his removal in 1890.[281]
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In 1868, the Spanish queen Isabella II was deposed in the Glorious Revolution, leaving the country's throne vacant. When Prussia suggested the Hohenzollern candidate, Prince Leopold as successor, France vehemently objected. The matter evolved into a diplomatic scandal and in July 1870, France resolved to end it in a full-scale war. The conflict was quickly decided as Prussia, joined by forces of a pan-German alliance never gave up the tactical initiative. A series of victories in north-eastern France followed and another French army group was simultaneously encircled at Metz. A few weeks later, the French army contingent under Emperor Napoleon III's personal command was finally forced to capitulate in the fortress of Sedan.[282][283] Napoleon was taken prisoner and a provisional government hastily proclaimed in Paris. The new government resolved to fight on and tried to reorganize the remaining armies while the Germans settled down to besiege Paris. The starving city surrendered in January 1871 and Jules Favre signed the surrender at Versailles. France was forced to pay indemnities of 5 billion francs and cede Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. This conclusion left the French national psyche deeply humiliated and further aggravated the French–German enmity.
During the Siege of Paris, the German princes assembled in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles on 18 January 1871 and announced the establishment of the German Empire and proclaimed the Prussian King Wilhelm I as German Emperor. The act unified all ethnic German states with the exception of Austria in the Little German solution of a federal economic, political and administrative unit. Bismarck, was appointed to serve as Chancellor.
The new empire was a federal union of 25 states that varied considerably in size, demography, constitution, economy, culture, religion and socio-political development. However, even Prussia itself, which accounted for two-thirds of the territory as well as of the population, had emerged from the empire's periphery as a newcomer. It also faced colossal cultural and economic internal divisions. The Prussian provinces of Westphalia and the Rhineland for example had been under French control during the previous decades. The local people, who had benefited from the liberal, civil reforms, that were derived from the ideas of the French Revolution, had only little in common with predominantly rural communities in authoritarian and disjointed Junker estates of Pommerania.[284]The inhabitants of the smaller territorial lands, especially in central and southern Germany greatly rejected the Prussianized concept of the nation and preferred to associate such terms with their individual home state. The Hanseatic port cities of Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck ranked among the most ferocious opponents of the so-called contract with Prussia. As advocates of free trade, they objected to Prussian ideas of economic integration and refused to sign the renewed Zollverein (Custom Union) treaties until 1888.[285] The Hanseatic merchants' overseas economic success corresponded with their globalist mindset. The citizen of Hamburg, whom Bismark characterized as extremely irritating and the German ambassador in London as the worst Germans we have, were particularly appalled by Prussian militarism and its unopposed growing influence.[286][unreliable source?]
The Prusso-German authorities were aware of necessary integration concepts as the results and the 52% voter turnout of the first imperial elections had clearly demonstrated. Historians increasingly argue, that the nation-state was forged through empire.[287] National identity was expressed in bombastic imperial stone iconography and was to be achieved as an imperial people, with an emperor as head of state and it was to develop imperial ambitions – domestic, European and global.[288][287]
Bismarck's domestic policies as Chancellor of Germany were based on his effort to universally adopt the idea of the Protestant Prussian state and achieve the clear separation of church and state in all imperial principalities. In the Kulturkampf (lit.: culture struggle) from 1871 to 1878, he tried to minimize the influence of the Roman Catholic Church and its political arm, the Catholic Centre Party, via secularization of all education and introduction of civil marriage, but without success. The Kulturkampf antagonised many Protestants as well as Catholics and was eventually abandoned. The millions of non-German imperial subjects, like the Polish, Danish and French minorities, were left with no choice but to endure discrimination or accept[289][290] the policies of Germanisation.
The new Empire provided attractive top level career opportunities for the national nobility in the various branches of the consular and civil services and the army. As a consequence the aristocratic near total control of the civil sector guaranteed a dominant voice in the decision making in the universities and the churches. The 1914 German diplomatic corps consisted of 8 princes, 29 counts, 20 barons, 54 representants of the lower nobility and a mere 11 commoners. These commoners were indiscriminately recruited from elite industrialist and banking families. The consular corps employed numerous commoners, that however, occupied positions of little to no executive power.[291] The Prussian tradition to reserve the highest military ranks for young aristocrats was adopted and the new constitution put all military affairs under the direct control of the Emperor and beyond control of the Reichstag.[292] With its large corps of reserve officers across Germany, the military strengthened its role as "The estate which upheld the nation", and historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler added: "it became an almost separate, self-perpetuating caste".[293]
Power increasingly was centralized among the 7000 aristocrats, who resided in the national capital of Berlin and neighboring Potsdam. Berlin's rapidly increasing rich middle-class copied the aristocracy and tried to marry into it. A peerage could permanently boost a rich industrial family into the upper reaches of the establishment.[294] However, the process tended to work in the other direction as the nobility became industrialists. For example, 221 of the 243 mines in Silesia were owned by nobles or by the King of Prussia himself.[295]
The middle class in the cities grew exponentially, although it never acquired the powerful parliamentary representation and legislative rights as in France, Britain or the United States. The Association of German Women's Organizations or BDF was established in 1894 to encompass the proliferating women's organizations that had emerged since the 1860s. 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 and were organized by the Socialists.[296]
The rise of the Socialist Workers' Party (later known as the Social Democratic Party of Germany, SPD), aimed to peacefully establish a socialist order through the transformation of the existing political and social conditions. From 1878, Bismarck tried to oppose the growing social democratic movement by outlawing the party's organisation, its assemblies and most of its newspapers. Nonetheless, the Social Democrats grew stronger and Bismarck initiated his social welfare program in 1883 in order to appease the working class.[297]
Bismarck built on a tradition of welfare programs in Prussia and Saxony that began as early as the 1840s. In the 1880s 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.[298][299] Bismarck further won the support of both industry and skilled workers by his high tariff policies, which protected profits and wages from American competition, although they alienated the liberal intellectuals who wanted free trade.[300][301]
Bismarck would not tolerate any power outside Germany—as in Rome—having a say in domestic affairs. He launched the Kulturkampf ("culture war") against the power of the pope and the Catholic Church in 1873, but only in the state of 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 the worst enemy and formed the Center Party.[302]
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 1871, 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.[303][304]
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:
As of 1878, only three of eight Prussian dioceses still had bishops, some 1,125 of 4,600 parishes were vacant, and nearly 1,800 priests ended up in jail or in exile ... Finally, between 1872 and 1878, numerous Catholic newspapers were confiscated, Catholic associations and assemblies were dissolved, and Catholic civil servants were dismissed merely on the pretence of having Ultramontane sympathies.[305]
Bismarck underestimated the resolve of the Catholic Church and did not foresee the extremes that this struggle would attain.[306][307] The Catholic Church denounced the harsh new laws as anti-Catholic and mustered the support of its rank and file voters across Germany. In the following elections, the Center Party won a quarter of the seats in the Imperial Diet.[308] The conflict ended after 1879 because Pope Pius IX died in 1878 and Bismarck broke with the Liberals to put his main emphasis on tariffs, foreign policy, and attacking socialists. Bismarck negotiated with the conciliatory new pope Leo XIII.[309] Peace was restored, the bishops returned and the jailed clerics were released. Laws were toned down or taken back, but the laws concerning education, civil registry of marriages and religious disaffiliation remained in place. The Center Party gained strength and became an ally of Bismarck, especially when he attacked socialism.[310]
Historians have cited the campaign against the Catholic church, as well as a similar campaign against the Social Democratic Party, as leaving a lasting influence on the German consciousness, whereby national unity can be encouraged by excluding or persecuting a minority. This strategy, later referred to as "negative integration", set a tone of either being loyal to the government or an enemy of the state, which directly influenced German nationalist sentiment and the later Nazi movement.[311]
Chancellor Bismarck's imperial foreign policy basically aimed at security and the prevention of a Franco-Russian alliance, in order to avoid a likely Two-front war. The League of Three Emperors was signed in 1873 by Russia, Austria, and Germany. It stated that republicanism and socialism were common enemies and that the three powers would discuss any matters concerning foreign policy. Bismarck needed good relations with Russia in order to keep France isolated. Russia fought a victorious war against the Ottoman Empire from 1877 to 1878 and attempted to establish the Principality of Bulgaria, that was strongly opposed by France and Britain in particular, as they were long concerned with the preservation of the Ottoman Empire and Russian containment at the Bosphorus Strait and the Black Sea. Germany hosted the Congress of Berlin in 1878, where a more moderate peace settlement was agreed upon.
In 1879, Germany formed the Dual Alliance with Austria-Hungary, an agreement of mutual military assistance in the case of an attack from Russia, which was not satisfied with the agreement of the Congress of Berlin. The establishment of the Dual Alliance led Russia to take a more conciliatory stance and in 1887, the so-called Reinsurance Treaty was signed between Germany and Russia. In it, the two powers agreed on mutual military support in the case that France attacked Germany or an Austrian attack on Russia. Russia turned its attention eastward to Asia and remained largely inactive in European politics for the next 25 years. In 1882, Italy, seeking supporters for its interests in North Africa against France's colonial policy, joined the Dual Alliance, which became the Triple Alliance. In return for German and Austrian support, Italy committed itself to assisting Germany in the case of a French attack.[312]
Bismarck had always argued that the acquisition of overseas colonies was impractical and the burden of administration and maintenance would outweigh the benefits. Eventually, Bismarck gave way, and a number of colonies were established in Africa (Togo, the Cameroons, German South-West Africa, and German East Africa) and in Oceania (German New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the Marshall Islands). Consequently, Bismarck initiated the Berlin Conference of 1885, a formal meeting of the European colonial powers, who sought to "established international guidelines for the acquisition of African territory" (see Colonisation of Africa). Its outcome, the General Act of the Berlin Conference, can be seen as the formalisation of the "Scramble for Africa" and "New Imperialism".[313]
Emperor William I died in 1888. His son Frederick III, open for a more liberal political course, reigned only for ninety-nine days, as he was stricken with throat cancer and died three months after his coronation. His son Wilhelm II followed him on the throne at the age of 29. Wilhelm rejected the liberal ideas of his parents and embarked on a conservative autocratic rule. He early on decided to replace the political elite and in March 1890 he forced chancellor Bismarck into retirement.[314] Following his principle of "Personal Regiment", Wilhelm was determined to exercise maximum influence on all government affairs.[315][316][317]
The young Kaiser Wilhelm set out to apply his imperialist ideas of Weltpolitik (German: [ˈvɛltpoliˌtiːk], "world politics"), as he envisaged a gratuitously aggressive political course to increase the empire's influence in and control over the world. After the removal of Bismarck, foreign policies were tackled with by the Kaiser and the Federal Foreign Office under Friedrich von Holstein. Wilhelm's increasingly erratic and reckless conduct was unmistakably related to character deficits and the lack of diplomatic skills.[318][319] The foreign office's rather sketchy assessment of the current situation and its recommendations for the empire's most suitable course of action were:
First a long-term coalition between France and Russia had to fall apart, secondly, Russia and Britain would never get together, and finally, Britain would eventually seek an alliance with Germany.
Subsequently, Wilhelm refused to renew the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia. Russia promptly formed a closer relationship with France in the Dual Alliance of 1894, as both countries were concerned about the novel disagreeability of Germany. Furthermore, Anglo–German relations provided, from a British point of view, no basis for any consensus as the Kaiser refused to divert from his, although somewhat peculiarly desperate and anachronistic, aggressive imperial engagement and the naval arms race in particular. Holstein's analysis proved to be mistaken on every point and Wilhelm failed too, as he did not adopt a nuanced political dialogue. Germany was left gradually isolated and dependent on the Triple Alliance, with Austria-Hungary and Italy. This agreement was hampered by differences between Austria and Italy and in 1915 Italy left the alliance.[250]
In 1897, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, state secretary of the German Imperial Naval Office devised his initially rather practical, yet nonetheless ambitious plan to build a sizeable naval force. Although basically posing only an indirect threat as a Fleet in being, Tirpitz theorized, that its mere existence would force Great Britain, dependent on unrestricted movement on the seas, to agree to diplomatic compromises.[320] Tirpitz started the program of warship construction in 1898 and enjoyed the full support of Kaiser Wilhelm. Wilhelm entertained less rational ideas on the fleet, that circled around his romantic childhood dream to have a "fleet of [his] own some day" and his obsessive adherence to direct his policies along the line of Alfred Thayer Mahan's work The Influence of Sea Power upon History.[321] In exchange for the eastern African island of Zanzibar, Germany had bargained the island of Heligoland in the German Bight with Britain in 1890, and converted the island into a naval base and installed immense coastal defense batteries. Britain considered the imperial German endeavours to be a dangerous infringement on the century-old delicate balance of global affairs and trade on the seas under British control. The British, however, resolved to keep up the naval arms race and introduced the highly advanced new Dreadnought battleship concept in 1907. Germany quickly adopted the concept and by 1910 the arms race again escalated.[322][323]
In the First Moroccan Crisis of 1905, Germany nearly clashed with Britain and France when the latter attempted to establish a protectorate over Morocco. Kaiser Wilhelm II was upset at having not been informed about French intentions, and declared their support for Moroccan independence. William II made a highly provocative speech regarding this. The following year, a conference was held in which all of the European powers except Austria-Hungary (by now little more than a German satellite) sided with France. A compromise was brokered by the United States where the French relinquished some, but not all, control over Morocco.[324]
The Second Moroccan Crisis of 1911 saw another dispute over Morocco erupt when France tried to suppress a revolt there. Germany, still smarting from the previous quarrel, agreed to a settlement whereby the French ceded some territory in central Africa in exchange for Germany's renouncing any right to intervene in Moroccan affairs. This confirmed French control over Morocco, which became a full protectorate of that country in 1912.[325]
By 1890, the economy continued to industrialize and grow on an even higher rate than during the previous two decades and increased dramatically in the years leading up to World War I. Growth rates for the individual branches and sectors often varied considerably, and periodical figures provided by the Kaiserliches Statistisches Amt ("Imperial Statistical Bureau) are often disputed or just assessments. Classification and naming of internationally traded commodities and exported goods was still in progress and the structure of production and export had changed during four decades. Published documents provide numbers such as: The proportion of goods manufactured by the modern industry was approximately 25% in 1900, while the proportion of consumer related products in manufactured exports stood at 40%.[326] Reasonably exact are the figures for the entire industrial production between 1870 and 1914, which increased about 500%.[327]
Historian J. A. Perkins argued that more important than Bismarck's new tariff on imported grain was the introduction of the sugar beet as a main crop. Farmers quickly abandoned traditional, inefficient practices in favor of modern methods, including the use of artificial fertilizers and mechanical tools. Intensive methodical farming of sugar and other root crops made Germany the most efficient agricultural producer in Europe by 1914. Even so, farms were usually small in size and women did much of the field work. An unintended consequence was the increased dependence on migratory, especially foreign, labor.[328][329]
The basics of the modern chemical research laboratory layout and the introduction of essential equipment and instruments such as Bunsen burners, the Petri dish, the Erlenmeyer flask, task-oriented working principles and team research originated in 19th-century Germany and France. The organisation of knowledge acquisition was further refined by laboratory integration in research institutes of the universities and the industries. Germany acquired the leading role in the world's chemical industry by the late 19th century through strictly organized methodology. In 1913, the German chemical industry produced almost 90 per cent of the global supply of dyestuffs and sold about 80 per cent of its production abroad.[330][331]
Germany became Europe's leading steel-producing nation in the 1890s, thanks in large part to the protection from American and British competition afforded by tariffs and cartels.[332] The leading firm was "Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp", run by the Krupp family.[333] The merger of several major firms into the Vereinigte Stahlwerke (United Steel Works) in 1926 was modeled on the U.S. Steel corporation in the United States. The new company emphasized rationalization of management structures and modernization of the technology; it employed a multi-divisional structure and used return on investment as its measure of success. By 1913, American and German exports dominated the world steel market, as Britain slipped to third place.[334]
In machinery, iron and steel, and other industries, German firms avoided cut-throat competition and instead relied on trade associations. Germany was a world leader because of its prevailing "corporatist mentality", its strong bureaucratic tradition, and the encouragement of the government. These associations regulate competition and allowed small firms to function in the shadow of much larger companies.[335]
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By the 1890s, German colonial expansion in Asia and the Pacific (Kiauchau in China, the Marianas, the Caroline Islands, Samoa) led to frictions with Britain, Russia, Japan and the United States.[336] The construction of the Baghdad Railway, financed by German banks, was designed to eventually connect Germany with the Turkish Empire and the Persian Gulf, but it also collided with British and Russian geopolitical interests.[337]
The largest colonial enterprises were in Africa.[338] The harsh treatment of the Nama and Herero in what is now Namibia in Africa in 1906–1907 led to charges of genocide against the Germans. Historians are examining the links and precedents between the Herero and Namaqua Genocide and the Holocaust of the 1940s.[339][340][341]
Other claimed territories of the German Colonial Empire are: Bear Island (occupied in 1899),[342] Togo-Hinterlands,[343] German Somali Coast,[344] Katanga Territories, Pondoland (failed attempt by Emil Nagel),[345] Nyassaland (Mozambique), Southwestern Madagascar,[346] Santa Lucia Bay (South Africa) (failed attempt in 1884),[347] and the Farasan Islands.[348]
Ethnic demands for nation states upset the balance between the empires that dominated Europe, leading to World War I, which started in August 1914. Germany stood behind its ally Austria in a confrontation with Serbia, but Serbia was under the protection of Russia, which was allied to France. Germany was the leader of the Central Powers, which included Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and later Bulgaria; arrayed against them were the Allies, consisting chiefly of Russia, France, Britain, and in 1915 Italy.
In explaining why neutral Britain went to war with Germany, author Paul M. Kennedy recognized it was critical for war that Germany become economically more powerful than Britain, but he downplays the disputes over economic trade imperialism, the Baghdad Railway, confrontations in Central and Eastern Europe, high-charged political rhetoric and domestic pressure-groups. Germany's reliance time and again on sheer power, while Britain increasingly appealed to moral sensibilities, played a role, especially in seeing the invasion of Belgium as a necessary military tactic or a profound moral crime. The German invasion of Belgium was not important because the British decision had already been made and the British were more concerned with the fate of France. Kennedy argues that by far the main reason was London's fear that a repeat of 1870 – when Prussia and the German states smashed France – would mean that Germany, with a powerful army and navy, would control the English Channel and northwest France. British policy makers insisted that would be a catastrophe for British security.[349]
In the west, Germany sought a quick victory by encircling Paris using the Schlieffen Plan. But it failed due to Belgian resistance, Berlin's diversion of troops, and very stiff French resistance on the Marne, north of Paris. The Western Front became an extremely bloody battleground of trench warfare. The stalemate lasted from 1914 until early 1918, with ferocious battles that moved forces a few hundred yards at best along a line that stretched from the North Sea to the Swiss border. The British imposed a tight naval blockade in the North Sea which lasted until 1919, sharply reducing Germany's overseas access to raw materials and foodstuffs. Food scarcity became a serious problem by 1917.[350] The United States joined with the Allies in April 1917. The entry of the United States into the war – following Germany's declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare – marked a decisive turning-point against Germany.[351]
Total casualties on the Western Front were 3,528,610 killed and 7,745,920 wounded.[352]
More wide open was the fighting on the Eastern Front. In the east, there were decisive victories against the Russian army, the trapping and defeat of large parts of the Russian contingent at the Battle of Tannenberg, followed by huge Austrian and German successes. The breakdown of Russian forces – exacerbated by internal turmoil caused by the 1917 Russian Revolution – led to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk the Bolsheviks were forced to sign on 3 March 1918 as Russia withdrew from the war. It gave Germany control of Eastern Europe. Spencer Tucker says, "The German General Staff had formulated extraordinarily harsh terms that shocked even the German negotiator."[353] When Germany later complained that the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 was too harsh on them, the Allies responded that it was more benign than Brest-Litovsk.[354]
By defeating Russia in 1917, Germany was able to bring hundreds of thousands of combat troops from the east to the Western Front, giving it a numerical advantage over the Allies. By retraining the soldiers in new storm-trooper tactics, the Germans expected to unfreeze the Battlefield and win a decisive victory before the American army arrived in strength.[355] However, the spring offensives all failed, as the Allies fell back and regrouped, and the Germans lacked the reserves necessary to consolidate their gains. In the summer, with the Americans arriving at 10,000 a day, and the German reserves exhausted, it was only a matter of time before multiple Allied offenses destroyed the German army.[356]
Although war was not expected in 1914, Germany rapidly mobilized its civilian economy for the war effort, the economy was handicapped by the British blockade that cut off food supplies.[357]
Steadily conditions deteriorated rapidly on the home front, with severe food shortages reported in all urban areas. Causes involved the transfer of many farmers and food workers into the military, an overburdened railroad system, shortages of coal, and especially the British blockade that cut off imports from abroad. The winter of 1916–1917 was known as the "turnip winter", because that vegetable, usually fed to livestock, was used by people as a substitute for potatoes and meat, which were increasingly scarce. Thousands of soup kitchens were opened to feed the hungry people, who grumbled that the farmers were keeping the food for themselves. Even the army had to cut the rations for soldiers.[358] Morale of both civilians and soldiers continued to sink. According to historian William H. MacNeil:
1918 was the year of the deadly 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic which struck hard at a population weakened by years of malnutrition.
The end of October 1918, in Wilhelmshaven, in northern Germany, saw the beginning of the German Revolution of 1918–1919. Units of the German Navy refused to set sail for a last, large-scale operation in a war which they saw as good as lost, initiating the uprising. On 3 November, the revolt spread to other cities and states of the country, in many of which workers' and soldiers' councils were established. Meanwhile, Hindenburg and the senior commanders had lost confidence in the Kaiser and his government. The Kaiser and all German ruling princes abdicated. On 9 November 1918, the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed a Republic.
On 11 November, the Compiègne armistice was signed, ending the war. The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919. Germany was to cede Alsace-Lorraine to France. Eupen-Malmédy would temporarily be ceded to Belgium, with a plebiscite to be held to allow the people the choice of the territory either remaining with Belgium or being returned to German control. Following a plebiscite, the territory was allotted to Belgium on 20 September 1920. The future of North Schleswig was to be decided by plebiscite. In the Schleswig Plebiscites, the Danish-speaking population in the north voted for Denmark and the southern, German speaking populace, part voted for Germany. Schleswig was thus partitioned. Holstein remained German without a referendum. Memel was ceded to the Allied and Associated powers, to decide the future of the area. On 9 January 1923, Lithuanian forces invaded the territory. Following negotiations, on 8 May 1924, the League of Nations ratified the annexation on the grounds that Lithuania accepted the Memel Statute, a power-sharing arrangement to protect non-Lithuanians in the territory and its autonomous status. Until 1929, German-Lithuanian co-operation increased and this power-sharing arrangement worked. Poland was restored and most of the provinces of Posen and West Prussia, and some areas of Upper Silesia were reincorporated into the reformed country after plebiscites and independence uprisings. All German colonies were to be handed over to League of Nations, who then assigned them as Mandates to Australia, France, Japan, New Zealand, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. The new owners were required to act as disinterested trustee over the region, promoting the welfare of its inhabitants in a variety of ways until they were able to govern themselves. The left and right banks of the Rhine were to be permanently demilitarised. The industrially important Saarland was to be governed by the League of Nations for 15 years and its coalfields administered by France. At the end of that time a plebiscite was to determine the Saar's future status. To ensure the execution of the treaty's terms, Allied troops would occupy the left (German) bank of the Rhine for a period of 5–15 years. The German army was to be limited to 100,000 officers and men; the general staff was to be dissolved; vast quantities of war material were to be handed over and the manufacture of munitions rigidly curtailed. The navy was to be similarly reduced, and no military aircraft were allowed. Germany was also required to pay reparations for all civilian damage caused during the war.
The humiliating peace terms in the Treaty of Versailles provoked bitter indignation throughout Germany, and seriously weakened the new democratic regime. In December 1918, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was founded, and in 1919 it tried and failed to overthrow the new republic. Adolf Hitler in 1919 took control of the new National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), which failed in a coup in Munich in 1923. Both parties, as well as parties supporting the republic, built militant auxiliaries that engaged in increasingly violent street battles. Electoral support for both parties increased after 1929 as the Great Depression hit the economy hard, producing many unemployed men who became available for the paramilitary units. The Nazis (NSDAP), with a mostly rural and lower middle class base, came to power by appearing to work within the Weimar constitution[360] and ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945.
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On 11 August 1919, the Weimar constitution came into effect, with Friedrich Ebert as first President.
On 30 December 1918, the Communist Party of Germany was founded by the Spartacus League, who had split from the Social Democratic Party during the war. It was headed by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, and rejected the parliamentary system. In 1920, about 300,000 members from the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany joined the party, transforming it into a mass organization. The Communist Party had a following of about 10% of the electorate.[361]
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In the first months of 1920, the Reichswehr was to be reduced to 100,000 men, in accordance with the Treaty of Versailles. This included the dissolution of many Freikorps – units made up of volunteers. In an attempt at a coup d'état in March 1920, the Kapp Putsch, extreme right-wing politician Wolfgang Kapp let Freikorps soldiers march on Berlin and proclaimed himself Chancellor of the Reich. After four days the coup d'état collapsed, due to popular opposition and lack of support by the civil servants and the officers. Other cities were shaken by strikes and rebellions, which were bloodily suppressed.
Germany was the first state to establish diplomatic relations with the new Soviet Union. Under the Treaty of Rapallo, Germany accorded the Soviet Union de jure recognition, and the two signatories mutually cancelled all pre-war debts and renounced war claims. For the next twenty years Russia and Germany would work together helping to re-establish a military build up in Germany, and assist Russia in creating an industrial power under the weight of centralised planning of Lenin's communism.
When Germany defaulted on its reparation payments, French and Belgian troops occupied the heavily industrialised Ruhr district (January 1923). The German government encouraged the population of the Ruhr to engage in passive resistance: shops would not sell goods to the foreign soldiers, coal-miners would not dig for the foreign troops, trams in which members of the occupation army had taken a seat would be left abandoned in the middle of the street. The passive resistance proved effective, insofar as the occupation became a loss-making deal for the French government. But the Ruhr fight also helped fuel hyperinflation,[362] and many who lost all their fortune would become bitter enemies of the Weimar Republic and voters of the anti-democratic right. See 1920s German inflation.
In September 1923, the deteriorating economic conditions led Chancellor Gustav Stresemann to call an end to the passive resistance in the Ruhr. In November, his government introduced a new currency, the Rentenmark (later: Reichsmark), together with other measures to stop the hyperinflation. In the following six years the economic situation improved. In 1928, Germany's industrial production even regained the pre-war levels of 1913.
The national elections of 1924 led to a swing to the right. Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg was elected President in 1925.
In October 1925, the Treaty of Locarno was signed by Germany, France, Belgium, Britain and Italy; it recognised Germany's borders with France and Belgium. Moreover, Britain, Italy and Belgium undertook to assist France in the case that German troops marched into the demilitarised Rheinland. Locarno paved the way for Germany's admission to the League of Nations in 1926.
The actual amount of reparations that Germany was obliged to pay out was not the 132 billion marks decided in the London Schedule of 1921 but rather the 50 billion marks stipulated in the A and B Bonds. Historian Sally Marks says the "C bonds" were entirely chimerical—a device to fool the public into thinking Germany would pay much more. The actual total payout from 1920 to 1931 (when payments were suspended indefinitely) was 20 billion German gold marks, worth about US$5 billion or £1 billion stg. 12.5 billion was cash that came mostly from loans from New York bankers. The rest was goods like coal and chemicals, or from assets like railway equipment. The reparations bill was fixed in 1921 on the basis of a German capacity to pay, not on the basis of Allied claims. The highly publicized rhetoric of 1919 about paying for all the damages and all the veterans' benefits was irrelevant for the total, but it did determine how the recipients spent their share. Germany owed reparations chiefly to France, Britain, Italy and Belgium; the US received $100 million.[363]
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 marked the beginning of the worldwide Great Depression, which hit Germany as hard as any nation. In July 1931, the Danat-Bank – one of the biggest German banks – failed. In early 1932, the number of unemployed had soared to more than 6,000,000.
On top of the collapsing economy came a political crisis: the proportional representation that the political system operated on meant that for every 60,000 votes a party received, it earned a seat in the Reichstag. This resulted in a disparate and myriad collection of minor parties that struggled to cooperate.[364] The political parties represented in the Reichstag were unable to build a governing majority in the face of escalating extremism from both the far right (the Nazis, NSDAP) and the far left (Communist Party of Germany).[365] In March 1930, President Hindenburg appointed Heinrich Brüning Chancellor. To push through a package of austerity measures against a majority of Social Democrats, Communists and the NSDAP (Nazis), Brüning and Hindenburg made use of emergency decrees provided for in article 48 of Weimar's constitution. They also used the power to prematurely dissolve Parliament. In March and April 1932, Hindenburg was re-elected in the German presidential election of 1932.[366]
The Nazi Party was the largest party in the national elections of 1932. On 31 July 1932 it received 37.3% of the votes, and in the election on 6 November 1932 it received less, but still the largest share, 33.1%, making it the biggest party in the Reichstag. The Communist KPD came third, with 15%.[367] Together, the anti-democratic parties of the far right were now able to hold a considerable share of seats in Parliament, but they were at sword's point with the political left, fighting it out in the streets. The Nazis were particularly successful among Protestants, among unemployed young voters, among the lower middle class in the cities and among the rural population. It was weakest in Catholic areas and in large cities. On 30 January 1933, pressured by former Chancellor Franz von Papen and other conservatives, President Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor.[368]
The Weimar years saw a flowering of German science and high culture, before the Nazi regime resulted in a decline in the scientific and cultural life in Germany and forced many renowned scientists and writers to flee. German recipients dominated the Nobel prizes in science.[369] Germany dominated the world of physics before 1933, led by Hermann von Helmholtz, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Albert Einstein, Otto Hahn, Max Planck and Werner Heisenberg. Chemistry likewise was dominated by German professors and researchers at the great chemical companies such as BASF and Bayer and persons like Justus von Liebig, Fritz Haber and Emil Fischer. Theoretical mathematicians Georg Cantor in the 19th century and David Hilbert in the 20th century. Karl Benz, the inventor of the automobile, and Rudolf Diesel were pivotal figures of engineering, and Wernher von Braun, rocket engineer. Ferdinand Cohn, Robert Koch and Rudolph Virchow were three key figures in microbiology.
Among the most important German writers were Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse and Bertolt Brecht. The reactionary historian Oswald Spengler wrote The Decline of the West (1918–1923) on the inevitable decay of Western Civilization, and influenced intellectuals in Germany such as Martin Heidegger, Max Scheler, and the Frankfurt School, as well as intellectuals around the world.[370]
After 1933, Nazi proponents of "Aryan physics", led by the Nobel Prize-winners Johannes Stark and Philipp Lenard, attacked Einstein's theory of relativity as a degenerate example of Jewish materialism in the realm of science. Many scientists and humanists emigrated; Einstein moved permanently to the U.S. but some of the others returned after 1945.[371][372]
The Nazi regime suppressed labor unions and strikes, leading to prosperity which gave the Nazi Party popularity, with only minor, isolated and subsequently unsuccessful cases of resistance among the German population over their rule. The Gestapo (secret police) destroyed the political opposition and persecuted the Jews, trying to force them into exile. The Party took control of the courts, local government, and all civic organizations except the Christian churches. All expressions of public opinion were controlled the propaganda ministry, which used film, mass rallies, and Hitler's hypnotic speaking. The Nazi state idolized Hitler as its Führer (leader), putting all powers in his hands. Nazi propaganda centered on Hitler and created the "Hitler Myth"—that Hitler was all-wise and that any mistakes or failures by others would be corrected when brought to his attention.[373] In fact Hitler had a narrow range of interests and decision making was diffused among overlapping, feuding power centers; on some issues he was passive, simply assenting to pressures from whoever had his ear. All top officials reported to Hitler and followed his basic policies, but they had considerable autonomy on a daily basis.[374]
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To secure a Reichstag majority for his party, Hitler called for new elections. After the 27 February 1933 Reichstag fire, Hitler swiftly blamed an alleged Communist uprising, and convinced President Hindenburg to approve the Reichstag Fire Decree, rescinding civil liberties. Four thousand communists were arrested [375] and Communist agitation was banned. Communists and Socialists were brought into hastily prepared Nazi concentration camps, where they were at the mercy of the Gestapo, the newly established secret police force. Communist Reichstag deputies were taken into "protective custody".
Despite the terror and unprecedented propaganda, the last free General Elections of 5 March 1933, while resulting in 43.9% failed to give the Nazis their desired majority. Together with the German National People's Party (DNVP), however, he was able to form a slim majority government. On 23 March 1933, the Enabling Act marked the beginning of Nazi Germany,[376] allowing Hitler and his cabinet to enact laws on their own without the President or the Reichstag.[377] The Enabling Act formed the basis for the dictatorship and the dissolution of the Länder. Trade unions and all political parties other than the Nazi Party were suppressed. A centralised totalitarian state was established, no longer based on the liberal Weimar constitution. Germany withdrew from the League of Nations shortly thereafter. The coalition parliament was rigged by defining the absence of arrested and murdered deputies as voluntary and therefore cause for their exclusion as wilful absentees. The Centre Party was voluntarily dissolved in a quid pro quo with the Pope under the anti-communist Pope Pius XI for the Reichskonkordat; and by these manoeuvres Hitler achieved movement of these Catholic voters into the Nazi Party, and a long-awaited international diplomatic acceptance of his regime. The Nazis gained a larger share of their vote in Protestant areas than in Catholic areas.[378] The Communist Party was proscribed in April 1933.
Hitler used the SS and Gestapo to purge the entire SA leadership—along with a number of Hitler's political adversaries in the Night of the Long Knives from 30 June to 2 July 1934.[379] As a reward, the SS became an independent organisation under the command of the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Upon Hindenburg's death on 2 August 1934, Hitler's cabinet passed a law proclaiming the presidency to be vacant and transferred the role and powers of the head of state to Hitler.
The Nazi regime was particularly hostile towards Jews, who became the target of unending antisemitic propaganda attacks. The Nazis attempted to convince the German people to view and treat Jews as "subhumans"[380] and immediately after the 1933 federal elections the Nazis imposed a nationwide boycott of Jewish businesses. In March 1933 the first Nazi concentration camp was established at Dachau[381] and from 1933 to 1935 the Nazi regime consolidated their power. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service forced all Jewish civil servants to retire from the legal profession and the civil service.[382] The Nuremberg Laws banned sexual relations between Jews and Germans and only those of German or related blood were eligible to be considered citizens; the remainder were classed as state subjects, without citizenship rights.[383] This stripped Jews, Romani and others of their legal rights.[384] Jews continued to suffer persecution under the Nazi regime, exemplified by the Kristallnacht pogrom of 1938, and about half of Germany's 500,000 Jews fled the country before 1939, after which escape became almost impossible.[385]
In 1941, the Nazi leadership decided to implement a plan that they called the "Final Solution" which came to be known as the Holocaust. Under the plan, Jews and other "lesser races" along with political opponents from Germany as well as occupied countries were systematically murdered at murder sites, and starting in 1942, at extermination camps.[386] Between 1941 and 1945 Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, communists, homosexuals, the mentally and physically disabled and members of other groups were targeted and methodically murdered – the origin of the word "genocide". In total approximately 11 million people were killed during the Holocaust.[387]
In 1935, Hitler officially re-established the Luftwaffe (air force) and reintroduced universal military service, in breach of the Treaty of Versailles; Britain, France and Italy formally protested. Hitler had the officers swear their personal allegiance to him.[388] In 1936, German troops marched into the demilitarised Rhineland.[389] As the territory was part of Germany, the British and French governments did not feel that attempting to enforce the treaty was worth the risk of war.[390] The move strengthened Hitler's standing in Germany. His reputation swelled further with the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, and proved another great propaganda success for the regime as orchestrated by master propagandist Joseph Goebbels.[391]
Hitler's diplomatic strategy in the 1930s was to make seemingly reasonable demands, threatening war if they were not met. When opponents tried to appease him, he accepted the gains that were offered, then went to the next target. That aggressive strategy worked as Germany pulled out of the League of Nations, rejected the Versailles Treaty and began to re-arm, won back the Saar, remilitarized the Rhineland, formed an alliance with Mussolini's Italy, sent massive military aid to Franco in the Spanish Civil War, annexed Austria, took over Czechoslovakia after the British and French appeasement of the Munich Agreement, formed a peace pact with Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union, and finally invaded Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany and World War II in Europe began.[392][393]
Having established a "Rome-Berlin axis" with Benito Mussolini, and signing the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan – which was joined by Italy a year later in 1937 – Hitler felt able to take the offensive in foreign policy. On 12 March 1938, German troops marched into Austria, where an attempted Nazi coup had been unsuccessful in 1934. When Austrian-born Hitler entered Vienna, he was greeted by loud cheers and Austrians voted in favour of the annexation of their country. After Austria, Hitler turned to Czechoslovakia, where the Sudeten German minority was demanding equal rights and self-government. At the Munich Conference of September 1938, Hitler, Mussolini, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier agreed upon the cession of Sudeten territory to the German Reich by Czechoslovakia. Hitler thereupon declared that all of German Reich's territorial claims had been fulfilled. However, hardly six months after the Munich Agreement Hitler used the smoldering quarrel between Slovaks and Czechs as a pretext for taking over the rest of Czechoslovakia. He then secured the return of Memel from Lithuania to Germany. Chamberlain was forced to acknowledge that his policy of appeasement towards Hitler had failed.
At first Germany was successful in its military operations. In less than three months (April – June 1940), Germany conquered Denmark, Norway, the Low Countries, and France. The unexpectedly swift defeat of France resulted in an upswing in Hitler's popularity and an upsurge in war fever.[394][395] Hitler made peace overtures to the new British leader Winston Churchill in July 1940, but Churchill remained dogged in his defiance with major help from U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hitler's bombing campaign against Britain (September 1940 – May 1941) failed. Some 43,000 British civilians were killed and 139,000 wounded in the Blitz; much of London was destroyed. Germany's armed forces invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 swept forward until they reached the gates of Moscow. The Einsatzgruppen (Nazi mobile death squads) executed all Soviet Jews that it located, while the Germans went to Jewish households and forced the families into concentration camps for labor or to extermination camps for death.
The tide began to turn in December 1941, when the invasion of the Soviet Union hit determined resistance in the Battle of Moscow and Hitler declared war on the United States in the wake of the Japanese Pearl Harbor attack. After surrender in North Africa and losing the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942–1943, the Germans were forced into the defensive. By late 1944, the United States, Canada, France, and Great Britain were closing in on Germany in the West, while the Soviets were victoriously advancing in the East.
In 1944–1945, Soviet forces completely or partially liberated Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Denmark, and Norway. Nazi Germany collapsed as Berlin was taken by the Soviet Union's Red Army in a fight to the death on the city streets. 2,000,000 Soviet troops took part in the assault, and they faced 750,000 German troops. 78,000–305,000 Soviets were killed, while 325,000 German civilians and soldiers were killed.[396] Hitler committed suicide on 30 April 1945. The final German Instrument of Surrender was signed on 8 May 1945, marking the end of Nazi Germany.
By September 1945, Nazi Germany and its Axis partners (mainly Italy and Japan) had all been defeated, chiefly by the forces of the Soviet Union, the United States, and Great Britain. Much of Europe lay in ruins, over 60 million people worldwide had been killed (most of them civilians), including approximately 6 million Jews and 11 million non-Jews in what became known as the Holocaust. World War II destroyed Germany's political and economic infrastructure, caused its partition, considerable loss of territory (especially in the East), and historical legacy of guilt and shame.[397]
As a consequence of the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 and the onset of the Cold War in 1947, the country's territory was shrunk and split between the two global blocs in the East and West, a period known as the division of Germany. Millions of refugees from Central and Eastern Europe moved west, most of them to West Germany. Two countries emerged: West Germany was a parliamentary democracy, a NATO member, a founding member of what since became the European Union as one of the world's largest economies and under allied military control until 1955,[398] while East Germany was a totalitarian Communist dictatorship controlled by the Soviet Union as a satellite of Moscow. With the collapse of Communism in Europe in 1989, reunion followed.
No one doubted Germany's economic and engineering prowess; the question was how long bitter memories of the war would cause Europeans to distrust Germany, and whether Germany could demonstrate it had rejected totalitarianism and militarism and embraced democracy and human rights.[399]
At the Potsdam Conference, Germany was divided into four military occupation zones by the Allies and did not regain independence until 1949. The provinces east of the Oder and Neisse rivers (the Oder-Neisse line) were transferred to Poland and Soviet Russia (Kaliningrad oblast) while Saarland separated from Germany to become a French protectorate on 17 December 1947 (joined West Germany on 1 January 1957), pending a final peace conference with Germany, which eventually never took place.[400] Most of the remaining German population was expelled. Around 6.7 million Germans living in "west-shifted" Poland, mostly within previously German lands, and the 3 million in German-settled regions of Czechoslovakia were deported west.[401]
The total of German war dead was 8% to 10% out of a prewar population of 69,000,000, or between 5.5 million and 7 million people. This included 4.5 million in the military, and between 1 and 2 million civilians. There was chaos as 11 million foreign workers and POWs left, while soldiers returned home and more than 14 million displaced German-speaking refugees from both the eastern provinces and East-Central and Eastern Europe were expelled from their native land and came to the western German lands, often foreign to them.[402] During the Cold War, the West German government estimated a death toll of 2.2 million civilians due to the flight and expulsion of Germans and through forced labour in the Soviet Union.[403][404] This figure remained unchallenged until the 1990s, when some historians put the death toll at 500,000–600,000 confirmed deaths.[405] In 2006, the German government reaffirmed its position that 2.0–2.5 million deaths occurred.
Denazification removed, imprisoned, or executed most top officials of the old regime, but most middle and lower ranks of civilian officialdom were not seriously affected. In accordance with the Allied agreement made at the Yalta Conference, millions of POWs were used as forced labor by the Soviet Union and other European countries.[406]
In the East, the Soviets crushed dissent and imposed another police state, often employing ex-Nazis in the dreaded Stasi. The Soviets extracted about 23% of the East German GNP for reparations, while in the West reparations were a minor factor.[407]
In 1945–1946 housing and food conditions were bad, as the disruption of transport, markets, and finances slowed a return to normal. In the West, bombing had destroyed the fourth of the housing stock,[408] and over 10 million refugees from the east had crowded in, most living in camps.[409] Food production in 1946–1948 was only two-thirds of the prewar level, while grain and meat shipments – which usually supplied 25% of the food – no longer arrived from the East. Furthermore, the end of the war brought the end of large shipments of food seized from occupied nations that had sustained Germany during the war. Coal production was down 60%, which had cascading negative effects on railroads, heavy industry, and heating.[410] Industrial production fell more than half and reached prewar levels only at the end of 1949.[411]
Allied economic policy originally was one of industrial disarmament plus building the agricultural sector. In the western sectors, most of the industrial plants had minimal bomb damage and the Allies dismantled 5% of the industrial plants for reparations.[412]
However, deindustrialization became impractical and the U.S. instead called for a strong industrial base in Germany so it could stimulate European economic recovery.[413] The U.S. shipped food in 1945–1947 and made a $600 million loan in 1947 to rebuild German industry. By May 1946 the removal of machinery had ended, thanks to lobbying by the U.S. Army. The Truman administration finally realised that economic recovery in Europe could not go forward without the reconstruction of the German industrial base on which it had previously been dependent. Washington decided that an "orderly, prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany".[414][415]
In 1945, the occupying powers took over all newspapers in Germany and purged them of Nazi influence. The American occupation headquarters, the Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS) began its own newspaper based in Munich, Die Neue Zeitung. It was edited by German and Jewish émigrés who fled to the United States before the war. Its mission was to encourage democracy by exposing Germans to how American culture operated. The paper was filled with details on American sports, politics, business, Hollywood, and fashions, as well as international affairs.[416]
On 7 October 1949, the Soviet zone became the "Deutsche Demokratische Republik" – "DDR" ("German Democratic Republic" – "GDR", simply often "East Germany"), under control of the Socialist Unity Party. Neither country had a significant army until the 1950s, but East Germany built the Stasi into a powerful secret police that infiltrated every aspect of its society.[417]
East Germany was an Eastern bloc state under political and military control of the Soviet Union through her occupation forces and the Warsaw Treaty. Political power was solely executed by leading members (Politburo) of the communist-controlled Socialist Unity Party (SED). A Soviet-style command economy was set up; later the GDR became the most advanced Comecon state. While East German propaganda was based on the benefits of the GDR's social programs and the alleged constant threat of a West German invasion, many of her citizens looked to the West for political freedoms and economic prosperity.[418]
Walter Ulbricht was the party boss from 1950 to 1971. In 1933, Ulbricht had fled to Moscow, where he served as a Comintern agent loyal to Stalin. As World War II was ending, Stalin assigned him the job of designing the postwar German system that would centralize all power in the Communist Party. Ulbricht became deputy prime minister in 1949 and secretary (chief executive) of the Socialist Unity (Communist) party in 1950.[419] Some 2.6 million people had fled East Germany by 1961 when he built the Berlin Wall to stop them – shooting those who attempted it. What the GDR called the "Anti-Fascist Protective Wall" was a major embarrassment for the program during the Cold War, but it did stabilize East Germany and postpone its collapse.[420][421] Ulbricht lost power in 1971, but was kept on as a nominal head of state. He was replaced because he failed to solve growing national crises, such as the worsening economy in 1969–1970, the fear of another popular uprising as had occurred in 1953, and the disgruntlement between Moscow and Berlin caused by Ulbricht's détente policies toward the West.
The transition to Erich Honecker (General Secretary from 1971 to 1989) led to a change in the direction of national policy and efforts by the Politburo to pay closer attention to the grievances of the proletariat. Honecker's plans were not successful, however, with the dissent growing among East Germany's population.
In 1989, the socialist regime collapsed after 40 years, despite its omnipresent secret police, the Stasi. The main reasons for its collapse included severe economic problems and growing emigration towards the West.
East Germany's culture was shaped by Communism and particularly Stalinism. It was characterized by East German psychoanalyst Hans-Joachim Maaz in 1990 as having produced a "Congested Feeling" among Germans in the East as a result of Communist policies criminalizing personal expression that deviates from government approved ideals, and through the enforcement of Communist principals by physical force and intellectual repression by government agencies, particularly the Stasi.[422] Critics of the East German state have claimed that the state's commitment to communism was a hollow and cynical tool of a ruling elite. This argument has been challenged by some scholars who claim that the Party was committed to the advance of scientific knowledge, economic development, and social progress. However, the vast majority regarded the state's Communist ideals to be nothing more than a deceptive method for government control.[422]
According to German historian Jürgen Kocka (2010):
On 23 May 1949, the three western occupation zones (American, British, and French) were combined into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany). The government was formed under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and his conservative CDU/CSU coalition.[424] The CDU/CSU was in power during most of the period since 1949. The capital was Bonn until it was moved to Berlin in 1990. In 1990, FRG absorbed East Germany and gained full sovereignty over Berlin. At all points West Germany was much larger and richer than East Germany, which became a dictatorship under the control of the Communist Party and was closely monitored by Moscow. Germany, especially Berlin, was a cockpit of the Cold War, with NATO and the Warsaw Pact assembling major military forces in west and east. However, there was never any combat.[425]
West Germany enjoyed prolonged economic growth beginning in the early 1950s (Wirtschaftswunder or "Economic Miracle").[426] Industrial production doubled from 1950 to 1957, and gross national product grew at a rate of 9 or 10% per year, providing the engine for economic growth of all of Western Europe. Labor unions supported the new policies with postponed wage increases, minimized strikes, support for technological modernization, and a policy of co-determination (Mitbestimmung), which involved a satisfactory grievance resolution system as well as requiring representation of workers on the boards of large corporations.[427] The recovery was accelerated by the currency reform of June 1948, U.S. gifts of $1.4 billion as part of the Marshall Plan, the breaking down of old trade barriers and traditional practices, and the opening of the global market.[428] West Germany gained legitimacy and respect, as it shed the horrible reputation Germany had gained under the Nazis.
West Germany played a central role in the creation of European cooperation; it joined NATO in 1955 and was a founding member of the European Economic Community in 1958.
The most dramatic and successful policy event was the currency reform of 1948.[429] Since the 1930s, prices and wages had been controlled, but money had been plentiful. That meant that people had accumulated large paper assets, and that official prices and wages did not reflect reality, as the black market dominated the economy and more than half of all transactions were taking place unofficially. On 21 June 1948, the Western Allies withdrew the old currency and replaced it with the new Deutsche Mark at the rate of 1 new per 10 old. This wiped out 90% of government and private debt, as well as private savings. Prices were decontrolled, and labor unions agreed to accept a 15% wage increase, despite the 25% rise in prices. The result was that prices of German export products held steady, while profits and earnings from exports soared and were poured back into the economy. The currency reforms were simultaneous with the $1.4 billion in Marshall Plan money coming in from the United States, which was used primarily for investment.
In addition, the Marshall Plan forced German companies, as well as those in all of Western Europe, to modernize their business practices and take account of the international market. Marshall Plan funding helped overcome bottlenecks in the surging economy caused by remaining controls (which were removed in 1949), and Marshall Plan business reforms opened up a greatly expanded market for German exports. Overnight, consumer goods appeared in the stores, because they could be sold for realistic prices, emphasizing to Germans that their economy had turned a corner.[409]
The success of the currency reform angered the Soviets, who cut off all road, rail, and canal links between the western zones and West Berlin. This was the Berlin Blockade, which lasted from 24 June 1948 to 12 May 1949. In response, the U.S. and Britain launched an airlift of food and coal and distributed the new currency in West Berlin as well. The city thereby became economically integrated into West Germany.[430] Until the mid-1960s, it served as "America's Berlin", symbolizing the United States' commitment to defending its freedom, which John F. Kennedy underscored during his visit in June 1963.[431]
Konrad Adenauer was the dominant leader in West Germany.[432] He was the first chancellor (top official) of the FRG and until his death was the founder and leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a coalition of conservatives, ordoliberals, and adherents of Protestant and Catholic social teaching that dominated West Germany politics for most of its history. During his chancellorship, the West Germany economy grew quickly, and West Germany established friendly relations with France, participated in the emerging European Union, established the country's armed forces (the Bundeswehr), and became a pillar of NATO as well as firm ally of the United States. Adenauer's government also commenced the long process of reconciliation with the Jews and Israel after the Holocaust.[433]
Ludwig Erhard was in charge of economic policy as economics director for the British and American occupation zones and was Adenauer's long-time economics minister. Erhard's decision to lift many price controls in 1948 (despite opposition from both the social democratic opposition and Allied authorities), plus his advocacy of free markets, helped set the Federal Republic on its strong growth from wartime devastation.[434] Norbert Walter, a former chief economist at Deutsche Bank, argues that "Germany owes its rapid economic advance after World War II to the system of the Social Market Economy, established by Ludwig Erhard."[435][436] Erhard was politically less successful when he served as the CDU Chancellor from 1963 until 1966. Erhard followed the concept of a social market economy, and was in close touch with professional economists. Erhard viewed the market itself as social and supported only a minimum of welfare legislation. However, Erhard suffered a series of decisive defeats in his effort to create a free, competitive economy in 1957; he had to compromise on such key issues as the anti-cartel legislation. Thereafter, the West German economy evolved into a conventional west European welfare state.[437]
Meanwhile, in adopting the Godesberg Program in 1959, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) largely abandoned Marxism ideas and embraced the concept of the market economy and the welfare state. Instead it now sought to move beyond its old working class base to appeal the full spectrum of potential voters, including the middle class and professionals. Labor unions cooperated increasingly with industry, achieving labor representation on corporate boards and increases in wages and benefits.[438]
In 1966, Erhard lost support and Kurt Kiesinger was elected as Chancellor by a new CDU/CSU-SPD alliance combining the two largest parties. Social democratic (SPD) leader Willy Brandt was Deputy Federal Chancellor and Foreign Minister. The 1966–1969 Grand Coalition reduced tensions with the Soviet bloc nations and establishing diplomatic relations with Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia.
With a booming economy short of unskilled workers, especially after the Berlin Wall cut off the steady flow of East Germans, the FRG negotiated migration agreements with Italy (1955), Spain (1960), Greece (1960), and Turkey (1961) that brought in hundreds of thousands of temporary guest workers, called Gastarbeiter. In 1968, the FRG signed a guest worker agreement with Yugoslavia that employed additional guest workers. Gastarbeiter were young men who were paid full-scale wages and benefits, but were expected to return home in a few years.[439]
The agreement with Turkey ended in 1973 but few workers returned because there were few good jobs in Turkey.[440] By 2010 there were about 4 million people of Turkish descent in Germany. The generation born in Germany attended German schools, but had a poor command of either German or Turkish, and had either low-skilled jobs or were unemployed.[441][442]
Willy Brandt was the leader of the Social Democratic Party in 1964–1987 and West German Chancellor in 1969–1974. Under his leadership, the German government sought to reduce tensions with the Soviet Union and improve relations with the German Democratic Republic, a policy known as the Ostpolitik.[426] Relations between the two German states had been icy at best, with propaganda barrages in each direction. The heavy outflow of talent from East Germany prompted the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, which worsened Cold War tensions and prevented East Germans from travel. Although anxious to relieve serious hardships for divided families and to reduce friction, Brandt's Ostpolitik was intent on holding to its concept of "two German states in one German nation".
Ostpolitik was opposed by the conservative elements in Germany, but won Brandt an international reputation and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971.[443] In September 1973, both West and East Germany were admitted to the United Nations. The two countries exchanged permanent representatives in 1974, and, in 1987, East Germany's leader Erich Honecker paid an official state visit to West Germany.[444]
After 1973, Germany was hard hit by a worldwide economic crisis, soaring oil prices, and stubbornly high unemployment, which jumped from 300,000 in 1973 to 1.1 million in 1975. The Ruhr region was hardest hit, as its easy-to-reach coal mines petered out, and expensive German coal was no longer competitive. Likewise the Ruhr steel industry went into sharp decline, as its prices were undercut by lower-cost suppliers such as Japan. The welfare system provided a safety net for the large number of unemployed workers, and many factories reduced their labor force and began to concentrate on high-profit specialty items. After 1990 the Ruhr moved into service industries and high technology. Cleaning up the heavy air and water pollution became a major industry in its own right. Meanwhile, formerly rural Bavaria became a high-tech center of industry.[412]
A spy scandal forced Brandt to step down as Chancellor while remaining as party leader. He was replaced by Helmut Schmidt (b. 1918), of the SPD, who served as Chancellor in 1974–1982. Schmidt continued the Ostpolitik with less enthusiasm. He had a PhD in economics and was more interested in domestic issues, such as reducing inflation. The debt grew rapidly as he borrowed to cover the cost of the ever more expensive welfare state.[445] After 1979, foreign policy issues grew central as the Cold War turned hot again. The German peace movement mobilized hundreds of thousands of demonstrators to protest against American deployment in Europe of new medium-range ballistic missiles. Schmidt supported the deployment but was opposed by the left wing of the SPD and by Brandt.
The pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) had been in coalition with the SPD, but now it changed direction.[446] Led by Finance Minister Otto Graf Lambsdorff the FDP adopted the market-oriented "Kiel Theses" in 1977; it rejected the Keynesian emphasis on consumer demand, and proposed to reduce social welfare spending, and try to introduce policies to stimulate production and facilitate jobs. Lambsdorff argued that the result would be economic growth, which would itself solve both the social problems and the financial problems. As a consequence, the FDP switched allegiance to the CDU and Schmidt lost his parliamentary majority in 1982. For the only time in West Germany's history, the government fell on a vote of no confidence.[409][447]
Helmut Kohl brought the conservatives back to power with a CDU/CSU-FDP coalition in 1982, and served as Chancellor until 1998.[426] He orchestrated reunification with the approval of all the Four Powers from World War II, who still had a voice in German affairs.[448] He lost in the left's biggest landslide victory in 1998, and was succeeded by the SPD's Gerhard Schröder.[449]
During the summer of 1989, rapid changes known as peaceful revolution or Die Wende took place in East Germany, which quickly led to German reunification.[426] Growing numbers of East Germans emigrated to West Germany, many via Hungary after Hungary's reformist government opened its borders.
The opening of the Iron Curtain between Austria and Hungary at the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989 then triggered a chain reaction, at the end of which there was no longer a GDR and the Eastern Bloc had disintegrated. Otto von Habsburg's idea developed the greatest mass exodus since the construction of the Berlin Wall and it was shown that the USSR and the rulers of the Eastern European satellite states were not ready to keep the Iron Curtain effective. This made their loss of power visible and clear that the GDR no longer received effective support from the other communist Eastern Bloc countries.[450][451][452] Thousands of East Germans then tried to reach the West by staging sit-ins at West German diplomatic facilities in other East European capitals, most notably in Prague. The exodus generated demands within East Germany for political change, and mass demonstrations in several cities continued to grow.[453]
Unable to stop the growing civil unrest, Erich Honecker was forced to resign in October, and on 9 November, East German authorities unexpectedly allowed East German citizens to enter West Berlin and West Germany. Hundreds of thousands of people took advantage of the opportunity; new crossing points were opened in the Berlin Wall and along the border with West Germany. This led to the acceleration of the process of reforms in East Germany that ended with the dissolution of East Germany and the German reunification that came into force on 3 October 1990.[454]
The SPD/Green coalition won the 1998 elections and SPD leader Gerhard Schröder positioned himself as a centrist "Third Way" candidate in the mold of U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President Bill Clinton. Schröder proposed Agenda 2010, a significant downsizing of the welfare state with five goals: tax cuts; labor market deregulation, especially relaxing rules protecting workers from dismissal and setting up Hartz concept job training; modernizing the welfare state by reducing entitlements; decreasing bureaucratic obstacles for small businesses; and providing new low-interest loans to local governments.[455]
On 26 December 2004 during Boxing Day celebration, about more than nearly 540 Germans have died and many more thousands of Germans are missing from Indian Ocean tsunami from Indonesian earthquake while vacationing in Southern Thailand.[citation needed]
In 2005, after the SPD lost to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in North Rhine-Westphalia, Gerhard Schröder announced he would call federal elections "as soon as possible". A motion of confidence was subsequently defeated after Schröder urged members not to vote for his government to trigger new elections. In response, a grouping of left-wing SPD dissidents and the neo-communist Party of Democratic Socialism agreed to run on a joint ticket in the general election, with Schröder's rival Oskar Lafontaine leading the new group.
In the 2005 elections, Angela Merkel became the first female chancellor. In 2009 the German government approved a €50 billion stimulus plan.[456] Among the major German political projects of the early 21st century are the advancement of European integration, the energy transition (Energiewende) for a sustainable energy supply, the debt brake for balanced budgets, measures to increase the fertility rate (pronatalism), and high-tech strategies for the transition of the German economy, summarised as Industry 4.0.[457]From 2005 to 2009 and 2013 to 2021, Germany was ruled by a grand coalition led by the CDU's Angela Merkel as chancellor. From 2009 to 2013, Merkel headed a centre-right government of the CDU/CSU and FDP.[458]
Together with France, Italy, Netherlands, and other EU member nations, Germany has played the leading role in the European Union. Germany (especially under Chancellor Helmut Kohl) was one of the main supporters of admitting many East European countries to the EU. Germany is at the forefront of European states seeking to exploit the momentum of monetary union to advance the creation of a more unified and capable European political, defence and security apparatus. German Chancellor Schröder expressed an interest in a permanent seat for Germany in the UN Security Council, identifying France, Russia, and Japan as countries that explicitly backed Germany's bid. Germany formally adopted the Euro on 1 January 1999 after permanently fixing the Deutsche Mark rate on 31 December 1998.[459][460]
Since 1990, German Bundeswehr has participated in a number of peacekeeping and disaster relief operations abroad. Since 2002, German troops formed part of the International Security Assistance Force in the War in Afghanistan, resulting in the first German casualties in combat missions since World War II.
In light of the worldwide Great Recession that began in 2008, Germany did not experience as much economic hardship as other European nations. Germany later sponsored a massive financial rescue in the wake of the Eurozone crisis which affected the German economy.
Following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which led to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, German public opinion turned sharply against nuclear power in Germany, which at the time produced a fourth of the electricity supply. In response Merkel announced plans to close down the nuclear power plants over the following decade, and a commitment to rely more heavily on wind and other alternative energy sources, in addition to coal and natural gas.[461]
Germany was affected by the European migrant crisis in 2015 as it became the final destination of choice for many asylum seekers from Africa and the Middle East entering the EU. The country took in over a million refugees and migrants and developed a quota system which redistributed migrants around its federal states based on their tax income and existing population density.[462] The decision by Merkel to authorize unrestricted entry led to heavy criticism in Germany as well as within Europe.[463][464] This was a major factor in the rise of the far-right party Alternative for Germany which entered the Bundestag in the 2017 federal election.[465]
In January 2020, Germany has confirmed the first case of novel coronavirus, found from Wuhan, China. In March 2020, Germany went to the national lockdowns, which was greatly affected by the pandemic, and greatly impact on German economy, healthcare system, and society, and also commended for being an effective model for instituting methods of curbing infections and deaths, but lost this status by the end of the year due to rising number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. In December 2020, COVID-19 vaccines began to be administered in Germany. Unfortunately, from June 2021 to the end of March 2022, Germany has might seeing a new surge of huge COVID-19 infection wave, fueled by the highly transmissible Deltacron hybrid variant, which is combined of Delta and Omicron mutations. However, Germany has suffered from a recombination event of Deltacron, which was caused of less access to vaccine shortage in the first quarter. As of May 2022, Germany has reported 140,292 COVID-19-related deaths, the fifth highest mortality toll (Behind Russia, the United Kingdom, Italy, and France), out of 2 million deaths in Europe.[466]
On 8 April 2022 just after the first two years of pandemic, Germany joined France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus were lifted all COVID-19 restrictions, measures, and state of emergencies up in the future.[citation needed]
On 8 December 2021 just three months after Germany's centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) narrowly won the federal election, ending 16 years of conservative-led rule under Angela Merkel, Social Democrat Olaf Scholz was sworn in as Germany's new chancellor. He formed a coalition government with the Green Party and the liberal Free Democrats.[467][468]
In February 2022, Frank-Walter Steinmeier was elected for a second five-year term as Germany's president. Although largely ceremonial post, he has been seen as a symbol of consensus and continuity.[469]
After Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Germany's previous foreign policy towards Russia (traditional Ostpolitik) has been severely criticized for having been too credulous and soft.[470] Following concerns from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Germany announced a major shift in policy, pledging a €100 billion special fund for the Bundeswehr – to remedy years of underinvestment – along with raising the budget to above 2% GDP.[471]As of April 2023, over 1.06 million refugees from Ukraine were recorded in Germany.[472]
As of December 2023, Germany is the fourth largest economy in the world after the United States, China and Japan and the largest economy in Europe. It is the third largest export nation in the world.[473]
For on the bitterly cold night of December 31, 406, there was apparently no Roman army on guard when a host of Vandal, Alan, Suevi and Burgundian warriors, with their families and possessions, crossed the frozen Rhine and headed southwest through Gaul. This time, Rome's frontiers had been breached by barbarians who meant to stay.
These stem duchies were: Franconia [...]; Lorraine (not strictly a stem duchy but with a tradition of unity); Swabia [...] .
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