The German Empire
The German Empire
The German Empire is the name conventionally given in English to the German state from the time of the proclamation of Wilhelm I of Prussia as German Emperor (January 18, 1871) to the abdication of Wilhelm II (November 9, 1918). The official name of the state in German was Deutsches Reich, but this continued in official use until 1943 and hence does not exclusively refer to the period of imperial rule.
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As a matter of fact, the modern German states were founded in the year 1871 – through the foundation of the German Empire under the leadership of
Prussia.
January 18, 1871 - The member-states of the North German Confederation unite into a single nation-state known as the German Empire. The King of Prussia is declared the first German Emperor as Wilhelm I of
Germany.
North German Federation (in German, Norddeutscher Bund), came into existence in 1867, following the dissolution of the German Confederation. Formed by 22 states of northern Germany, it was effectively a transitional grouping, lasting only until the founding of the German Empire in 1871.
It cemented Prussian control over northern Germany, and emanated that same control via the Zollverein (Customs Union) and secret peace treaties (agreed with the southern states the day before the peace of Prague) into southern Germany. Notably, the Confederation excluded both Austria and
Bavaria.
The Federation came into being after Prussia defeated Austria in the Austro-Prussian War. Otto von Bismarck created the constitution, which came into force on 1 July, 1867, with the King of Prussia, Wilhelm I, as its President, and Bismarck as Chancellor. The states were represented in the Bundesrat (Federal Council) with 43 seats (of which Prussia held 17), while the people elected the Norddeutscher Reichstag (North German
Diet).
Following Prussia's defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden (together with parts of the Grand Duchy of Hesse which had not originally joined the Federation), now grouped together with the various states of the Federation to form the German Empire, with Wilhelm I taking the new title of German Emperor.
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The phrase Second Reich is also sometimes applied to this period in English. The term was popularized by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck in the 1920s, and drew an explicit link with the earlier Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, as well as underlining his desire for the establishment of a "Third Reich." This latter term was subsequently adopted during the time of Nazi rule for propaganda purposes.
(The Second Reich Germany (1870-1918) was a strange federal monarchy. Over the course of the 19th century, the Kingdom of Prussia grew to become the most powerful of the various German states. After Prussian victory over France in 1870, its position was strong to declare a German Empire (Deutsches Reich) that included all of the German states outside of Austria. The King of Prussia was also the German Emperor (Deutscher Kaiser); however, those other German states that had survived until 1870 as independent retained some of their former government structure, though subordinated to the overall Reich government. The monarchs of Saxony, Württemberg, and other monarchies retained their position and royal status. Even Republican city-states like Hamburg that were absorbed retained their Free and Hanseatic City designation, as they do to this day, although the monarchies were all abolished after the First World War.)
Bismarck's founding of the German Empire
Under the guise of idealism giving way to realism, German nationalism rapidly shifted from its liberal and democratic character in 1848 to Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarck's authoritarian Realpolitik. Bismarck wanted to unify the rival German states to achieve his aim of a conservative, Prussian-dominated German state. He accomplished this after three military successes:
1. Denmark's claim to Schleswig lead to the short Second war of Schleswig in 1864, in which Prussia and Austria secured a united Schleswig-Holstein for the German Confederation
2. In 1866, in concert with Italy, Bismarck created an environment in which the Austro-Prussian War was declared by Austria. A decisive victory at the Battle of Königgrätz allowed him to exclude long-time rival Austria and most of its allies from the now-defunct German Confederation when forming the North German Confederation with the states that had supported Prussia. This new Confederation was the direct precursor to the 1871 empire.
3. Finally, France declared the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71); Napoleon III was quickly defeated, yet the new republic continued to fight. During the Siege of Paris, the North German Confederation, plus the allies from Southern Germany, formed the German Empire with the proclamation of the Prussian king Wilhelm I as German Emperor at the Palace of Versailles, to the humiliation of the French which ceased to resist days later.
Bismarck himself prepared in broad outline the 1866 North German Constitution, to become the 1871 Constitution of the German Empire with some adjustments. Germany acquired some democratic features: notably the Reichstag, that in contrast to the parliament of Prussia was elected by direct and equal manhood suffrage. However, legislation also required the consent of the Bundesrat, the federal council of deputies from the states, in which Prussia had a large influence. Behind a constitutional façade, Prussia thus exercised predominant influence in both bodies with executive power vested in the Kaiser, who appointed the federal chancellor – Otto von Bismarck. The chancellor was accountable solely to and served entirely at the discretion of the Emperor. Officially, the chancellor was a one-man cabinet and was responsible for the conduct of all state affairs; in practice, the State Secretaries (bureaucratic top officials in change of such fields as finance, war, foreign affairs, etc.) acted as unofficial portfolio ministers. With the exception of the years 1872-1873 and 1892-1894, the chancellor was always simultaneously the prime minister of the imperial dynasty's hegemonic home-kingdom, Prussia. The Reichstag had the power to pass, amend or reject bills, but could not initiate legislation. The power of initiating legislation rested with the chancellor.
While the other states retained their own governments, the military forces of the smaller states were put under Prussian control, while those of the larger states such as the Kingdoms of Bavaria and Saxony were coordinated along Prussian principles and would in wartime be controlled by the federal government. Although authoritarian in many respects, the empire permitted the development of political parties.
Evolution of the German Empire
The evolution of the German Empire is somewhat in line with parallel developments in Italy and Japan. Similarly to Bismarck, Count Camillo Benso di Cavour in Italy used diplomacy and war to achieve his objectives: he allied with France before attacking Austria, securing the unification of Italy as a kingdom under the Piemontese dynasty (except for the Papal States and Austrian Venice) by 1861. In the interests of Piedmont-Sardinia, Cavour, hostile to the more revolutionary nationalism of liberal republicans such as Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini, sought the unification of Italy along conservative lines. Similarly, Japan followed a course of conservative modernization from the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Meiji Restoration to 1918 similar to Cavour's Italy. Japan issued a commission in 1882 to study various governmental structures throughout the world and were particularly impressed by Bismarck's Germany, issuing a constitution in 1889 that formed a premiership with powers analogous to Bismarck's position as chancellor with a cabinet responsible to the emperor alone.
The unification of Germany
The unification of Germany meant the absorption of the entire Kingdom of Prussia into the new empire. The Prussian provinces of East Prussia, West Prussia, and Provinz Poznan were incorporated into the new nation-state; East and West Prussia had notable Polish minorities, while Provinz Poznan was predominantly Polish. During the Revolution of 1848, the Frankfurt Parliament had been unable to find a practical solution to incorporating the Poles, stateless after the 18th century Partitions of Poland. The new Imperial German government was alarmed at the proportion of the Polish population in the eastern provinces, as Poles had a higher birth rate and Germans had begun migrating westward in search of industrialized jobs. The government could not count on the Polish-speaking citizens' loyalty, as many Poles defied assimilation. Beginning in 1873 the government enforced the German language in a bid to counteract that process, which resulted in greater Polish resistance to Germanization.
One factor in the social anatomy of these governments had been the retention of a very substantial share in political power by the landed elite, the Junkers, due to the absence of a revolutionary breakthrough by the peasants in combination with urban areas.
The Kingdom of Prussia was the largest of the constituent states, covering some 60 percent of the territory of the German Empire. Before being annexed and turned into Provinces of Prussia, several of these states had gained sovereignty following the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire or were created as sovereign states after the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
Conservative modernization
Bismarck's domestic policies played a great role in forging the authoritarian political culture of the Kaiserreich. Less preoccupied by continental power politics following unification in 1871, Germany's semi-parliamentary government carried out a relatively smooth economic and political revolution from above that pushed them along the way towards becoming the world's leading industrial power of the time.
Not only did German manufacturers capture German markets from British imports, by the 1870s, British manufacturers in the staple industries of the Industrial Revolution were beginning to experience real competition abroad. Industrialization progressed dynamically in Germany and the United States, allowing them to clearly prevail over the old French and British capitalisms. The German textiles and metal industries, for example, had, by the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War, surpassed those of Britain in organization and technical efficiency and usurped British manufacturers in the domestic market. By the turn of the century, the German metals and engineering industries would be producing heavily for the free trade market of Britain.
After achieving formal unification in 1871, Bismarck devoted much of his attention to the cause of national unity and achieving this under the ideology of Prussianism. Catholic conservatism, conceptualized by the reactionary turn of the Vatican under Pope Pius IX and its dogma of Papal Infallibility, and working class radicalism, represented by the emerging Social Democratic Party, in many ways both reacted to concerns of dislocation by very different segments of German society, brought by a rapid shift from an agrarian-based economy to modern industrial capitalism under reactionary tutelage. While out-and-out suppression failed to contain either socialists or Catholics, Bismarck's "carrot and stick" approach significantly mollified opposition from both groups.
One can summarize Bismarck's objectives under three keywords: Kulturkampf, Social reform and national unification.
1. Kulturkampf. Following the incorporation of the Catholic states in the south and the former areas in the east, Catholicism, represented by the Catholic Center Party, was seemingly the principal threat to the unification process. Southern Catholics, hailing from a much more agrarian base and falling under the ranks of the peasantry, artisans, guildsmen, clergy, and princely aristocracies of the small states more often than their Protestant counterparts in the North, initially had trouble competing with industrial efficiency and the opening of outside trade by the Zollverein. After 1878, the struggle against socialism would unite Bismarck with the Catholic Center Party, bringing an end to the Kulturkampf, which had led to far greater Catholic unrest than existed beforehand and had strengthened, rather than weakened, Catholicism in Germany.
2. Social reform. To contain the working class and to weaken the influence of socialist groups, Bismarck created a remarkably advanced welfare state. The social security systems installed by Bismarck (health care in 1883, accident insurance in 1884, invalidity and old-age insurance in 1889) at the time were the most advanced in the world and, to a degree, still exist in Germany today.
3. National unification. Bismarck's efforts also initiated the leveling of the enormous differences between the German states which had been independent in their evolution for centuries, especially with legislation. The completely different legal histories and judicial systems posed enormous complications, especially for national trade. While a common trade code had already been introduced by the Confederation in 1861 (which was adapted for the Empire and, with great modifications, is still in effect today), there was little similarity in laws otherwise.
In 1871, a common Criminal Code (Reichsstrafgesetzbuch) was introduced; in 1877, common court procedures were established through the Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz, the Zivilprozessordnung and the Strafprozessordnung (court system, civil procedures, and criminal procedures, respectively). In 1873 the constitution was amended to allow the Empire to replace the various and greatly differing Civil Codes of the states (if they existed at all; for example, parts of Germany formerly occupied by Napoleon's France had adopted the French Civil Code, while in Prussia the Allgemeines Preußisches Landrecht of 1794 was still in effect). In 1881, a first commission was established to produce a common Civil Code for all of the Empire, an enormous effort that would produce the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB), possibly one of the most impressive legal works of the world; it was eventually put into effect on January 1, 1900. It speaks volumes for the conceptual quality of these codifications that they all, albeit with many amendments, have been in effect until today.
Carrying out many of the same tasks that would have been brought to fruition with the help of a revolution from below, the ultimate effects of conservative modernization are distinct. With real political power still in the hands of the aristocracy, the government sought to preserve as much of the original social framework as they could, even as the economic base of the landowners rapidly diminished in comparison to industry. Unification was followed by a prolonged period of conservative and even authoritarian government. The leadership had to have at hand, or be able to construct, a sufficiently powerful bureaucratic apparatus, including the agencies of repression, the military and the police. But in place a strong central government would have to establish strong authority and uniform administrative system, and a more or less uniform law code managed to create a sufficiently powerful military machine to be able to make the wishes of its rulers felt in the arena of international politics.
Otto von Bismarck's, once openly uninterested in overseas adventurism, was eventually brought to realize the political value of colonies. The absolutist Central Powers, led by a newly unified, dynamically industrializing Germany, with its expanding navy, doubling in size between the Franco-Prussian War and the Great War, were strategic threats to the markets and security of the more established Allied powers and Russia. German colonial efforts from 1884 brought a relative small overseas empire compared to those of Britain and France, although in the Herero Wars it shared with those empires the phenomenon of armed conflict between natives and colonials.
Subsequent German foreign policy initiatives (notably the initiation of a large battle fleet under the naval laws of 1898 and 1900) drove Britain into diplomatic alignment (the Entente) with a Franco-Russian alliance already in the offing at the time of Bismarck's fall.
After Bismarck
The Empire flourished under Bismarck's guidance until the Kaiser's death (March 1888). In this so-called Dreikaiserjahr (Year of Three Emperors), Friedrich III, his son and successor, only lived 99 days, leaving the crown to a young and impetuous Wilhelm II, who forced Bismarck out of office in March 1890.
Within Germany, the opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) rose to become, for a time, the strongest socialist party in the world, winning a third of the votes in the January 1912 elections to the Reichstag (imperial parliament). Government nevertheless remained in the hands of a succession of conservative coalitions supported by right-wing liberals, or Catholic clericals, and heavily dependent on the Kaiser's favor.
The shaky European balance of power broke down when Austria-Hungary, Germany's ally since 1879, declared war on Serbia (July 1914) after the assassination (June 28, 1914) in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austrian throne. Germany supported their one loyal ally's objectives in Serbia and gave them a "blank cheque" to pursue whatever means they found necessary there. Serbia was supported by Russia, which in turn was allied with France. Following Russia's decision for general mobilization (i.e. against both Austria-Hungary and Germany) Germany declared war on both Russia and France in what it called a preventive strike.
This was the beginning of World War I. Despite early successes, Germany and its allies suffered economic defeat in the face of an enemy strengthened after 1917 by the intervention of the United States. The Kaiser Wilhelm II was driven into exile (November 1918) by a revolution led by elements of the opposition SDP and communist groups, who later organized their own abortive bid for power (January 1919).
In June 1919, the Treaty of Versailles formally ended the war. It was signed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, the same place where the Second Reich had been proclaimed nearly half a century before. Germany lost territories to France, Belgium, and the reinstated nation of Poland, and elsewhere, and was required to pay reparations for its alleged sole responsibility for the war.
Legacy
Bismarck's rule of reactionary co-optation and coercion and his perpetuation of Junker virtues of militarism, hierarchy and autocracy can be understood best when one considers that the nation was only recently, and in some ways tenuously, united; that the large and powerful neighbor, France, had for centuries pursued an active policy of keeping "the Germanies" weak and divided; and that Germany had again and again been the field where the power struggles of other European states and kingdoms were played out, with devastating consequences in most German regions. The earliest memories of Bismarck's generation of leaders encompassed the Napoleonic Wars and Prussia's attendant national humiliations. A perceived need not to manifest outward weakness made the adoption of more liberal means of government by these men unlikely, at best.
Some claim that, intensified by the reign of the far more militaristic Kaiser Wilhelm II, Bismarck's legacy would contribute to the political culture in which Nazism found significant support-bases. This should raise questions over their true roles in history, despite the era of progress and prosperity over which they presided. Under Bismarck, much of this entails his strategies to suppress Catholic and socialist opposition while promoting militaristic Prussianism.
As a result, in Germany, as in Japan and Italy, later attempts to extend democracy would succeed in establishing unstable democracies (the Weimar Republic, Japan in the twenties, and Italy from the end of World War I to the 1922 appointment of Mussolini as premier by Victor Emmanuel III). Each of these constitutional democracies could not cope with the severe problems of the day and the reluctance or inability to bring about fundamental structural changes.
Prussianism caught on because prosperity satisfied the old support base of the middle class liberals, and the state was solicitous of the material welfare for many eventually won over—including the working class. German education emerged strong in vocational fields. From the side of the landed aristocracy came the conceptions of inherent superiority in the ruling class and a sensitivity to matters of status, prominent traits well into the twentieth century. The royal bureaucracy introduced, against considerable aristocratic resistance, the ideal of complete and unreflecting obedience to an institution over and above class and individual.
At the foundation of these currents was centuries of economic, political, and cultural evolution starting with an agricultural system dominated for centuries by repressive means rather than through the market. German peasants were not only under the repressive watch of their landowners, but grounded in village and work structures that favor solidarity, diminishing their revolutionary potential. The league sought the support of peasants in non-Junker areas of smaller farms, the idea of a corporative state.
On the other hand the Kaiserreich did guarantee freedom of press, security of property and it managed to establish a system of public welfare based on compulsory insurance, which survived two World Wars and in its core survives still today. There was a modern election system to the federal Parliament, the Reichstag, which represented every adult man by one vote. This enabled the German Socialists and the Catholic Center Party to play remarkable roles in the empire's political life, although both parties were officially regarded more or less as "foes of the empire." And the time of the Kaiserreich is well remembered in Germany as a period, when academic research and university life flourished as well as arts and literature.
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