Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Chronological table
- Map 1 The German Confederation, 1815
- Map 2 The German Customs Union, 1834
- Introduction
- I Three weeks in March
- II The German nationalist movement's road to the creation of the Reich
- 2 The background: Europe's transformation from an agrarian society to a modern civilisation of the masses
- 3 The rise of a national culture
- 4 What has become of the German Fatherland?
- 5 The nationalist movement's passage from an elitist to a mass phenomenon
- 6 From Rhine Crisis to revolution
- 7 1848: the whole of Germany it shall be
- 8 On the road to a national economy
- 9 Speeches and majority decisions
- 10 Blood and Iron
- 11 Revolution from above and below
- III Documentary appendix
- Notes
- Bibliography and source material
- Notes to bibliography
- A critical bibliography of works in English
- Index
3 - The rise of a national culture
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Chronological table
- Map 1 The German Confederation, 1815
- Map 2 The German Customs Union, 1834
- Introduction
- I Three weeks in March
- II The German nationalist movement's road to the creation of the Reich
- 2 The background: Europe's transformation from an agrarian society to a modern civilisation of the masses
- 3 The rise of a national culture
- 4 What has become of the German Fatherland?
- 5 The nationalist movement's passage from an elitist to a mass phenomenon
- 6 From Rhine Crisis to revolution
- 7 1848: the whole of Germany it shall be
- 8 On the road to a national economy
- 9 Speeches and majority decisions
- 10 Blood and Iron
- 11 Revolution from above and below
- III Documentary appendix
- Notes
- Bibliography and source material
- Notes to bibliography
- A critical bibliography of works in English
- Index
Summary
What are the Germans?' enquired the Imperial Privy Councillor Friedrich Carl von Moser of his readers in 1766, replying to his own question as follows: ‘What we are, then, we have been for centuries; that is, a puzzle of a political constitution, a prey of our neighbours, an object of their scorn outstanding in the history of the world, disunited among ourselves, weak from our divisions, strong enough to harm ourselves, powerless to save ourselves, insensitive to the honour of our name, indifferent to the glory of our laws, envious of our rulers, distrusting one another, inconsistent about principles, coercive about enforcing them, a great but also a despised people; a potentially happy but actually a very lamentable people.’ The grounds for Moser's lament were obvious: the Empire was split up into 314 territories and towns and into 1475 free lordships, all of which guarded the sovereign rights guaranteed them by the European Powers after the Peace of Westphalia with the utmost jealousy. Furthermore, Central Europe was divided by deep confessional gulfs, since the conflict between Reformation and Counter Reformation had not been resolved in Germany, unlike in most of the other European states, but had been petrified by the principle of ‘cuius regio, eius religio’ (whose the region, his the religion). Added to which there were countless customs restrictions, an uncontrollable multitude of monetary and measurement systems and a confused muddle of legal norms.
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- Information
- The Course of German NationalismFrom Frederick the Great to Bismarck 1763–1867, pp. 43 - 47Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991