- This article or section should include material from German
Monarchy
The term German Empire (the translation from German
of Deutsches Reich) commonly refers to Germany, from its consolidation as a unified nation-state on
January 18, 1871, until the abdication of
Kaiser (Emperor) Wilhelm II on November 9, 1918. Germans, when referring to the Reich in this period under the Kaisers, typically use the term
Kaiserreich and this term has often been used by non-German historians.
Sometimes in English (but rarely in German) the name Second Reich is used, based on counting the Holy Roman Empire as the first German empire (and, as Nazi ideology
insisted, Nazi Germany as the third). Numbering of the Reichs began in
1923 by Arthur Moeller van Den Bruck (he longed for a third, which he idealized) and was
taken up by the Nazis. Part of de-Nazification is that Germans do not use this system of numbered Reichs.
It should however be noted that Deutsches Reich was the state's official name both in this period and until the
occupation of Nazi Germany in 1945
that ended World War II in Europe; thus the next two articles of the
History of Germany series (see the box near the upper right
corner of this page) also cover the official Deutsches Reich.
Bismarck's founding of the Empire
Under the guise of idealism giving way to realism, German nationalism rapidly shifted from its liberal and democratic
character in 1848 to Prussian chancellor
Otto von Bismarck's authoritarian Realpolitik. Bismarck wanted unification to achieve his aim of a conservative, Prussian-dominated
German state. He accomplished this through three military successes:
- He first allied with Austria in order to defeat Denmark in a short war (the Second war of
Schleswig) fought during 1864, thus acquiring Schleswig-Holstein.
- In 1866, in concert with Italy, he virtually created the Austro-Prussian War and won a decisive victory at the Battle of Königgratz, which, in the same year, allowed him to
exclude long-time rival Austria when forming the North German Confederation with the states that had supported Prussia in the Austro-Prussian
War. The Confederation was the direct precursor to the 1871 Empire.
- Finally, France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War
(1870-1); the Confederation was transformed into the Empire with the crowning of Prussian
King Wilhelm I as German Emperor at the Palace of Versailles, to the humiliation of the French.
Bismarck himself prepared in broad outline the 1866 North German Constitution, to become the 1871 Constitution of the German Empire with some adjustments. Germany, along with
the other authoritarian governments of Italy and Japan, acquired some democratic features: notably the Reichstag, a parliament with limited powers elected by direct manhood suffrage. However,
legislation also required the consent of the Bundesrat, the federal council of deputies from the states, in which Prussia
dominated. 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. While the minor states retained
their own governments, the military forces were controlled by the federal government, in fact, Prussia. Although authoritarian in
many respects, the empire permitted the development of political parties.
The evolution of the authoritarian 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 except for Venice and the Papal States 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 would follow a course of conservative modernization from the fall of the
Tokugawa Shogunate and the Meiji Restoration to 1918 along with Cavour's Italy. In fact,
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 meant also absorption the whole Kingdom of Prussia into it. The 3 new provinces: East
Prussia, West Prussia, and Provinz Posen, that before was outside German Confederation were incorporated into would-be national Germany. Another province Silesia, was part of the Holy Roman Empire together with Bohemia. However, those provinces had large Polish populations.
Annexation of those 4 provinces put Germany into conflict with the Poles. Since the Polish population was growing more rapidly,
and Germans were migrating from eastern to western Germany in the Ostflucht,
eastern provinces gradually become more and more Polish in character.
One factor, but only one, in the social anatomy of these governments had been the retention of a very substantial share in
political power by the landed elite, due to the absence of a revolutionary
breakthrough by the peasants in combination with urban areas.
Conservative modernization
Bismarck's domestic policies played a great role in forging the authoritarian political culture of the Second Reich. 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
– what was once "workshop of the world" as well.
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 both socialists and 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.
Kulturkampf. Following the incorporation of the Catholic states in the south, Catholicism, represented by the Catholic
Centre Party, was seemingly the principal threat to Bismarck's military-aristocratic Prussian nationalism, because Catholics
were perceived as having loyalty to Pope over the state. 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.
For details about the measures taken by Bismarck, see the Kulturkampf article. After 1878, the struggle against socialism would unite Bismarck with the Catholic
Centre Party, bringing an end to the Kulturkampf, which had led to far greater Catholic unrest than existed beforehand and
had rather strengthened than weakened Catholicism in Germany.
Social reform. To contain the working class and to weaken socialism, Bismarck's reluctant creation of a remarkably
advanced welfare state would give the working class a stake in German
nationalism as well. The social security systems installed by Bismarck (health care in 1883, accidents 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.
The Kulturkampf and the suppression of socialism greatly paralleled each other under the autocratic state. The
reactionary turn against many Catholics in the South, such as in the Silesian weavers revolt of 1844, paralleled those put forward by the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which reacted to the appalling working conditions of
industrial capitalism and the further squeezing of the working class brought by the Long Depression after 1873. Many of the structures established by Bismarck's reforms are still in existence in today's Germany.
Unification. Bismarck's efforts also initiated the levelling 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 1 January 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,
Germany's semi-parliamentary 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, fitting large sections into the building wherever possible. The
Second Reich 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. The rationalization of the political order was also necessary, breaking up established territorial units, such as
the independent city-states and principalities in Germany and Italy. 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.
Militarism
One of the by-products of conservative modernization was militarism. To
unite the upper classes—both the military-aristocracy and industrialists—militarism proved necessary to continue
modernization without changing socio-political structures. Each of the elites in the ruling coalition of the Second Reich found
some advantages in formal, overseas expansion: mammoth monopolies wanted imperial support to secure overseas investments against
competition and domestic political tensions abroad; bureaucrats wanted more occupations; military officers desired promotion; and
the traditional but waning landed gentry wanted formal titles. Observing the rise of trade unionism, socialism, and other protest
movements during an era of mass society in both Europe and later North America, the elite in particular was able to utilize
nationalistic imperialism to co-opt the support of the industrial working class. Riding the sentiments of the late nineteenth
century Romantic Age, imperialism inculcated the masses with glorious neo-aristocratic virtues and helped instill broad,
nationalist sentiments. Thus, Prussia—heir to the garrison state built up by figures such as Friedrich Wilhelm I and Frederick the Great in the 18th century—managed to create a sufficiently powerful military machine not only able of
challenging rivals on the continent such as Austria and France, but to make its presence known in the arena of international
politics. And Prussia, of course, unlike the powers to its West, had little power outside the continent in the past, lacking an
overseas colonial history completely.
German imperialists, for instance, argued that Britain's world power position gave the British unfair advantages on
international markets, thus limiting Germany's economic growth and threatening its security. Many European statesmen and
industrialists wanted to accelerate the Scramble for Africa,
securing colonies before they strictly needed them. Their reasoning was that markets might soon become glutted, and a nation's
economic survival depend on its being able to offload its surplus products elsewhere. In response, British imperialists such as
Joseph Chamberlain thus concluded that formal imperialism was
necessary for Britain because of the relative decline of its share of the world's export trade and the rise of German, American,
and French economic competition.
Economic trends certainly played a major role, explaining why statesmen from Jules Ferry to Francesco Crispi sought new roles
for the emerging powers that they led, especially during the Great Depression of 1873, but
shifts in the European balance of power are what ultimately facilitated formal overseas expansionism. With the reactionary
continental order established by the Congress of Vienna
shattered, the allure of imperialism was an option beyond the traditional great powers of France and Britain. The new nation states of Germany and Italy were no longer embroiled in
continental concerns and domestic disputes as they were before the Franco-Prussian War.
Thus, Bismarck, once openly uninterested in overseas adventurism, was eventually brought to realize the value of colonies for
securing (in his words) "new markets for German industry, the expansion of trade, and a new field for German activity,
civilization, and capital". 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 more established Allied powers and Russia. German colonial efforts from 1884 brought only a small overseas
empire compared to those of Britain and France,
although in the Herero Wars it shared the 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 (SPD) 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 favour.
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 in Sarajevo of the 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 mobilisation (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 military 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
SPD and communist groups, who later organised 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 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.
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 to cope with the severe problems of the day and the reluctance or inability to bring about fundamental structural
changes.
Despite advances in industry and science under the Second Reich, Germany retained a despotic aspect to its character, due to
its militaristic inclinations and having achieved its unification by "blood and iron". The armed forces, inculcated in the
militarism of the Prussian Junkers – the glorification of war, and supreme and unquestioning loyalty to the state,
leader, and hierarchy – remained passionately loyal to the Hohenzollern dynasty. The values of Prussia's repressive "garrison state," grounded in Prussia's repressive
system of agriculture since the defeat of the Teutonic Knights, would be carried to a new extreme under the Third Reich.
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 as well as propaganda. 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. Fed by
new sources, these conceptions could later be vulgarized and made appealing to the German population as a whole in doctrines of
racial superiority. 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. Thus, in the realm of propaganda, the Junkers established the generally successful Agrarian League in 1894, laying the
groundwork for Nazi doctrine. The league sought the support of peasants in non-Junker areas
of smaller farms, inculcating them in "führer worship," the idea of a corporative state, militarism, anti-Semitism. They would
also make the distinction between "predatory" and "productive" capital used by the Nazis, which were devices used to appeal to
anti-capitalist sentiments among the peasantry.
Bismarck's unification of Germany also had a significant impact in East Asia. The unification of Germany was considered a
model for both the successful modernization of Japan and the less successful
modernization of China at the beginning of the 20th century. The German civil code became
the basis of the legal systems of Japan and the Republic of China
and after the retreat of the latter to Taiwan remains as the basis of the legal system
there.
Related articles
External links
|
