German nationalism (German:Deutscher Nationalismus) is an ideological notion that promotes the unity ofGermans and of theGermanosphere into one unifiednation-state. It emphasises and takes pride in thepatriotism andnational identity of Germans as one nation and one people. German nationalism, and the concept ofnationalism itself, began during the late 18th century, which later gave rise toPan-Germanism. Advocacy of a German nation-state became an important political force in response to theinvasion of German territories by France underNapoleon Bonaparte. In the 19th century, Germans debated theGerman question over whether the German nation-state should comprise a "Lesser Germany" that excluded theAustrian Empire or a "Greater Germany" that included the Austrian Empire or its German speaking part.[1] The faction led byPrussianChancellorOtto von Bismarck succeeded in forging a Lesser Germany.[1]
Aggressive German nationalism and territorial expansion were key factors leading to both World Wars. BeforeWorld War I, Germany had established acolonial empire, which became the third-largest, after Britain and France. In the 1930s, theNazis came to power and sought to unify all ethnic Germans under the leadership ofAdolf Hitler, eventually leading to the extermination ofJews,Poles,Romani, and other people deemedUntermenschen (subhumans) inthe Holocaust duringWorld War II. After the defeat ofNazi Germany, the country was divided intoEast andWest Germany in the opening acts of theCold War, and each state retained a sense of German identity and held reunification as a goal, albeit in different contexts. The creation of theEuropean Union was in part an effort to harness German identity to aEuropean identity. West Germany underwent itseconomic miracle following the war which led to the creation of aguest worker program; many of these workers settled in Germany which led to tensions around questions of national and cultural identity, especially with regard toTurks who settled in Germany.
German reunification was achieved in 1990 followingDie Wende, an event that caused some alarm both inside and outside Germany. Germany has emerged as agreat power in Europe and in the world; its role in theEuropean debt crisis and theEuropean migrant crisis led to criticism of Germanauthoritarian abuse of its power, especially with regard to theGreek debt crisis, and raised questions within and outside Germany as to its global role. Due to post-1945 repudiation of the Nazi regime and its atrocities, German nationalism has generally been viewed in the country astaboo,[2] and people within Germany have struggled to find ways to acknowledge its past while taking pride in its accomplishments. A wave of national pride swept the country during the2006 FIFA World Cup.Far-right parties that stress German national identity and pride have existed since the end of World War II but have never governed. According to theCorrelates of War project, patriotism in Germany before World War I ranked at or near the top, whereas today it ranks at or near the bottom of patriotism surveys.[3] However, there are also other surveys according to which modern Germany is indeed very patriotic.[4][5][6]
Many historians have traced the first wave of German nation-building to around the year 1000.[8] By the13th century, a stronger sense of German identity had taken shape, and over the next two centuries the idea of a single German people, defined by common lands, language, and character, spread more widely.[9] Scholars such asAlexander of Roes andLupold of Bebenburg reflected on the role of the Germans within the European order and on questions of political identity.[10][11]
The early 13th-century law bookSachsenspiegel contains some of the earliest references to a collective German identity.[12] More than ten passages refer explicitly to the 'German language', the 'German lands' (including thestem duchies ofSaxony,Franconia,Swabia andBavaria), the 'history of the Germans' and 'German descent'.[12] These four elements (language, territory, ancestry and a shared history), are regarded by some scholars as the first appearance of key features of a national consciousness within avernacular legal text of the Middle Ages.[12] TheSachsenspiegel also reflected ideas of 'German descent' in the context ofroyal elections; seven members of theElectoral College of theHoly Roman Empire were designated a privileged role in electing the Emperor, but theKing of Bohemia was denied the status of chief elector on the grounds that he was not considered a German.[12] In theSchwabenspiegel (c. 1275) this criterion was modified, requiring only partial German ancestry, which was in line with the political realities of the 1273 royal election.[12] Later German law books, such as theSchwabenspiegel, theDeutschenspiegel [de] (c. 1275), theFreisinger Rechtsbuch (1328) and theMeißner Rechtsbuch [de] (c. 1360) continued to weave ethnic and historical elements into constitutional law. TheDeutschenspiegel andMeißner Rechtsbuch emphasised four markers of German collective identity (language, territory, ancestry and a shared history), while theSchwabenspiegel andFreisinger Rechtsbuch stressed three (excluding language).[12]
During the 15th century, Germanhumanists began to celebrate German culture and language, and praised German achievements likeJohannes Gutenberg's invention of theprinting press.[8] The humanistJakob Wimpfeling wrote in 1502:[8]
"There is something delightful about the happiness of being German and living in the blessed German land."
Since the start of theReformation in the early 16th century, the German lands had been divided betweenCatholics andLutherans. Partly due to the German nation beingdecentralised, the early German nationalistFriedrich Karl von Moser, writing in the mid-18th century, remarked that compared with "the British, Swiss, Dutch and Swedes", most Germans lacked a "national way of thinking".[13] It was not until the concept ofnationalism itself was developed by German philosopherJohann Gottfried Herder around 1770 that German nationalism began,[14] although according to historianWolfgang Hardtwig [de], early forms of German nationalism were already present around 1500.[15] German nationalism wasRomantic in nature and was based upon the principles of collective self-determination, territorial unification and cultural identity, and a political and cultural programme to achieve those ends.[16] The GermanRomantic nationalism derived from theEnlightenment era philosopherJean Jacques Rousseau's andFrench Revolutionary philosopherEmmanuel-Joseph Sieyès' ideas ofnaturalism and that legitimate nations must have been conceived in thestate of nature. This emphasis on the naturalness of ethno-linguistic nations continued to be upheld by the early-19th-century Romantic German nationalistsJohann Gottlieb Fichte,Ernst Moritz Arndt, andFriedrich Ludwig Jahn, who all were proponents ofPan-Germanism.[17]
The invasion of the Holy Roman Empire by Napoleon'sFrench Empire and its subsequent dissolution brought about a Germanliberal nationalism as advocated primarily by the German middle-class bourgeoisie and intellectual elites who advocated the creation of a modern Germannation-state based uponliberal democracy,constitutionalism, representation, andpopular sovereignty while opposingabsolutism.[18] Fichte in particular brought German nationalism forward as a response to the French occupation of German territories in hisAddresses to the German Nation (1808), evoking a sense of German distinctiveness in language, tradition, and literature that composed a common identity.[19] Others from the cultural elite defined the German nation with broad concepts, including being a "Sprachnation" (a people unified by the same language), a "Kulturnation" (a people unified by the same culture) or an "Erinnerungsgemeinschaft" (a community of remembrance, i.e., sharing a common history).[13]
After the defeat of France in theNapoleonic Wars at theCongress of Vienna, German nationalists tried but failed to establish Germany as a nation-state, instead theGerman Confederation was created that was a loose collection of independent German states that lacked strong federal institutions.[18] Economic integration between the German states was achieved by the creation of theZollverein ("Custom Union") of Germany in 1818 that existed until 1866.[18] The move to create theZollverein was led byPrussia and the Zollverein was dominated by Prussia, causing resentment and tension betweenAustria and Prussia.[18]
The Romantic movement was essential in spearheading the upsurge ofGerman nationalism in the 19th century and especially the popular movement aiding the resurgence ofPrussia after its defeat toNapoleon in the 1806Battle of Jena. Fichte – considered a founding father of German nationalism[20] – devoted the fourth of hisAddresses to the German Nation (1808) to defining the German nation and did so in a broad manner. In his view, there existed a dichotomy between the people of Germanic descent. There were those who had left their fatherland (which Fichte considered to be Germany) during the time of theMigration Period and had become either assimilated or heavily influenced byRomanlanguage,culture andcustoms, and those who stayed in their native lands and continued to hold on to their own culture.[21]Heinrich von Kleist's fervent patriotic stage dramas before his death andErnst Moritz Arndt'swar poetry during theGerman campaign of 1813 were also instrumental in shaping the character of German nationalism for the next one-and-a-half century in aracialized ethnic rather thancivic nationalist direction.[citation needed] Romanticism also played a role in the popularization of theKyffhäuser myth, about theEmperor Frederick Barbarossa sleeping atop theKyffhäuser mountain and being expected to rise in a given time and save Germany) and the legend of theLorelei (byBrentano andHeine) among others.
TheNazi movement later appropriated the nationalistic elements of Romanticism, with Nazi chief ideologueAlfred Rosenberg writing: "The reaction in the form of German Romanticism was therefore as welcome as rain after a long drought. But in our own era of universalinternationalism, it becomes necessary to follow this racially linked Romanticism to its core, and to free it from certain nervous convulsions which still adhere to it."[22]Joseph Goebbels told theatre directors on 8 May 1933, just two days before theNazi book burnings in Berlin, that: "German art of the next decade will be heroic, it will be like steel, it will be Romantic, non-sentimental, factual; it will be national with great pathos, and at once obligatory and binding, or it will be nothing."[23]
German fascism extracted Romanticism from the naphthalene of the past, established its ideological kinship with it, included it in its canon of forerunners, and after some cleansing onracial grounds, absorbed it into the system of its ideology and thereby gave this trend, which in its time was not apolitical, a purely political and topical meaning ...Schelling,Adam Müller and others thanks to the fascists again became our contemporaries, though in the specific sense in which every corpse taken out of its century-old coffin for any need becomes a "contemporary". In his bookThe Tasks of National Socialist Literary Criticism, Walther Linden, who revised thehistory of German literature from a fascist point of view, considers the most valuable for fascism that stage in the development ofGerman Romanticism when it freed itself from the influences of theFrench Revolution and thanks to Adam Müller,Görres,Arnim and Schelling began to create truly German national literature on the basis ofGerman medieval art, religion and patriotism.[24]
— N. Berkovsky, in 1935
This made scholars and critics likeFritz Strich,Thomas Mann andVictor Klemperer, who before the war were supporters of Romanticism, to reconsider their stance after the war and the Nazi experience and to adopt a more anti-Romantic position.[25]
Heinrich Heine parodied such Romantic modernizations of medieval folkloric myths by 19th century German nationalists in the "Barbarossa" chapter of his large 1844 poemGermany. A Winter's Tale:
Forgive, OBarbarossa, my hasty words!
I do not possess a wise soul
Like you, and I have little patience,
So, please, come back soon, after all!
...
Restore the oldHoly Roman Empire,
As it was, whole and immense.
Bring back all its musty junk,
And all its foolish nonsense.
TheMiddle Ages I’ll endure,
If you bring back the genuine item;
Just rescue us from this bastard state,
And from its farcical system...[26][27][28]
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TheRevolutions of 1848 led to many revolutions in various German states,[18] but widespread national feeling for a united Germandom still seemed elusive.[29]Nationalists did seize power in a number of German states, and assembled an all-German parliament inFrankfurt in May 1848.[18] The Frankfurt Parliament attempted to write anational constitution for allGerman states, but rivalry between Prussian and Austrian interests resulted in the parliament advocating a "small German" solution (a monarchical German nation-state without the multi-ethnic Austria of theHabsburgs) with the imperial crown of Germany being granted to theKing of Prussia.[18] The King of Prussia refused the offer, and efforts to create a leftist German nation-state faltered and collapsed.[30]
In the aftermath of the failed attempt to establish a liberal German nation-state, rivalry between Prussia and Austria intensified under the agenda ofOtto von Bismarck, who becameMinister President of Prussia from 1862 and blocked all attempts by Austria to join theZollverein.[1] A division developed among German nationalists: one group led by the Prussians supported a "Lesser Germany" that excluded Austria or its German-speaking part, and another group advocated for a "Greater Germany" that included Austria.[1] The Prussians sought a Lesser Germany to allow Prussia to assert hegemony over Germany that would not be guaranteed in a Greater Germany.[1] This was a major propaganda point later asserted by Hitler.
By the late 1850s German nationalists emphasized military solutions. The mood fed on hatred of the French, a fear of Russia, a rejection of the 1815 Vienna settlement, and a cult of patriotic hero-warriors. War seemed a desirable means of speeding up change and progress. Nationalists thrilled to the image of an entire people in arms. Bismarck harnessed the national movement's martial pride and desire for unity and glory to weaken the political threat the liberal opposition posed to Prussia's conservatism.[31]
Prussia achieved hegemony over Germany in the "wars of unification": theSecond Schleswig War (1864), theAustro-Prussian War of 1866 (which effectively excluded Austria from Germany), and theFranco-Prussian War (1870 - 1871).[1] A German nation-state was founded in 1871 called theGerman Empire. It embodied a "Lesser Germany", with the King of Prussia taking the throne asGerman Emperor (Deutscher Kaiser) and Bismarck becomingChancellor of Germany.[1]
Unlike the prior German nationalism of 1848 that was based upon liberal values, the German nationalism utilized by supporters of the German Empire was based upon Prussianauthoritarianism, and was conservative,reactionary,anti-Catholic,anti-liberal andanti-socialist in nature.[32] The German Empire's supporters advocated a Germany based upon Prussian and Protestant cultural dominance.[33] This German nationalism focused on German identity based upon the historical crusadingTeutonic Order.[34] These nationalists supported a German national identity claimed to be based on Bismarck's ideals that included Teutonic values of willpower, loyalty, honesty, and perseverance.[35]
TheCatholic-Protestant divide in Germany at times created extreme tension and hostility between Catholic and Protestant Germans after 1871, such as in response to the policy ofKulturkampf inPrussia by German Chancellor and Prussian Prime MinisterOtto von Bismarck, that sought to dismantleCatholic culture in Prussia, that provoked outrage amongst Germany's Catholics and resulted in the rise of the pro-CatholicCentre Party and theBavarian People's Party.[36]
There have been rival nationalists within Germany, particularlyBavarian nationalists who claim that the terms thatBavaria entered into Germany in 1871 were controversial and have claimed the German government has long intruded into the domestic affairs of Bavaria.[37]
German nationalists in the German Empire who advocated a Greater Germany during the Bismarck era focused on overcoming dissidence by Protestant Germans to the inclusion ofCatholic Germans in the state by creating theLos von Rom! ("Away from Rome!") movement that advocated assimilation of Catholic Germans to Protestantism.[38] During the time of theGerman Empire, a third faction of German nationalists (especially in the Austrian parts of theAustro-Hungarian Empire) advocated a strong desire for a Greater Germany but, unlike earlier concepts, led by Prussia instead of Austria; they were known asAlldeutsche.
Social Darwinism,messianism, andracialism began to become themes used by German nationalists after 1871 based on the concepts of a people's community (Volksgemeinschaft).[39]
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An important element of German nationalism, as promoted by the government and intellectual elite, was the emphasis on Germany asserting itself as a world economic and military power, aimed at competing withFrance and theBritish Empire for world power. German colonial rule in Africa (1884–1914) was an expression of nationalism and moral superiority that was justified by constructing and employing an image of the natives as "Other". German colonization was characterized by the use of repressive violence in the name of ‘culture’ and ‘civilization’,[citation needed] concepts that were redefined in the Enlightenment. Germany's cultural-missionary project boasted that its colonial programs were humanitarian and educational endeavors. Furthermore, the widespread acceptance among intellectuals ofsocial Darwinism justified Germany's right to acquire colonial territories as a matter of the ‘survival of the fittest’, according to historian Michael Schubert.[40][41]
The government established after WWI, theWeimar republic, established a law of nationality that was based on pre-unification notions of the Germanvolk as an ethno-racial group defined more byheredity than modern notions ofcitizenship; the laws were intended to include Germans who had immigrated and to exclude immigrant groups. These laws remained the basis of German citizenship laws until after reunification.[42]
The government and economy of the Weimar republic was weak; Germans were dissatisfied with the government, the punitive conditions of war reparations and territorial losses of theTreaty of Versailles as well as the effects ofhyperinflation.[2] Economic, social, and political cleavages fragmented Germany's society.[2] Eventually the Weimar Republic collapsed under these pressures and the political maneuverings of leading German officials and politicians.[2]
TheNazi Party (NSDAP), led by Austrian-bornAdolf Hitler, believed in an extreme form of German nationalism, adding elements of racial ideology, ultimately culminating in the 1935Nuremberg Laws, sections of which sought to determine by law and genetics who was to be considered German.[43][page needed] The NSDAP wanted to unite all ethnic Germans in one nation. In 1920, the first point of theNazi 25-point programme was that "We demand the unification of all Germans in theGreater Germany on the basis of the people's right to self-determination". Hitler, an Austrian-German by birth, began to develop his strong patrioticGerman nationalist views from a very young age. He was greatly influenced by many other Austrian pan-German nationalists inAustria-Hungary, notablyGeorg Ritter von Schönerer andKarl Lueger. Hitler's pan-German ideas envisioned a Greater German Reich which was to include the Austrian Germans, Sudeten Germans and other ethnic Germans. The annexing of Austria(Anschluss) and the Sudetenland(annexing of Sudetenland) completed Nazi Germany's desire to the German nationalism of the GermanVolksdeutsche (people/folk).
TheGeneralplan Ost called for the extermination, expulsion,Germanization or enslavement of most or all Czechs, Poles, Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians for the purpose of providing moreliving space for the German people.[44]
After WWII, the German nation was divided into two states,West Germany andEast Germany, and the former German territories east of theOder–Neisse line were made part of Poland and Russia. TheBasic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany which served as the constitution for West Germany was conceived and written as a provisional document, with the hope of reuniting East and West Germany in mind.[42] Saarland was separated by France to becomeits protectorate in 1946, but later joined West Germany in early 1957.[45]
The formation of theEuropean Economic Community, and latterly theEuropean Union, was driven in part by forces inside and outside Germany that sought to embed Germany identity more deeply in a broader European identity, in a kind of "collaborative nationalism".[46]: 32 [47]
The reunification of Germany became a central theme in West German politics, and was made a central tenet of the East GermanSocialist Unity Party of Germany, albeit in the context of a Marxist vision of history in which the government of West Germany would be swept away in a proletarian revolution.[42]
The question of Germans and former German territory in Poland, as well as the status ofKönigsberg as part of Russia, remained hard, with people in West Germany advocating to take that territory back through the 1960s.[42] East Germany confirmed the border with Poland in 1950, while West Germany, after a period of refusal, finally accepted the border (with reservations) in 1970.[48]
The desire of the German people to be one nation again remained strong, but was accompanied by a feeling of hopelessness through the 1970s and into the 1980s;Die Wende, when it arrived in the late 1980s driven by the East German people, came as a surprise, leading to the1990 elections which put a government in place that negotiated theTreaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany and reunited East and West Germany, and the process ofinner reunification began.[42]
The reunification was opposed in several quarters both inside and outside Germany, includingMargaret Thatcher,Jürgen Habermas, andGünter Grass, out of fear of that a united Germany might resume its aggression toward other countries. Just prior to reunification West Germany had gone through a national debate, calledHistorikerstreit, over how to regard its Nazi past, with one side claiming that there was nothing specifically German about Nazism, and that the German people should let go its shame over the past and look forward, proud of its national identity, and others holding that Nazism grew out of German identity and the nation needed to remain responsible for its past and guard carefully against any recrudescence of Nazism. This debate did not give comfort to those concerned about whether a reunited Germany might be a danger to other countries, nor did the rise ofskinheadneo-nazi groups in the former East Germany, as exemplified by riots inHoyerswerda in 1991.[42][49] An identity-based nationalist backlash arose after unification as people reached backward to answer "the German question", leading to violence by fourNeo-Nazi/far-right parties which were all banned by Germany'sFederal Constitutional Court after committing or inciting violence: theNationalist Front,National Offensive,German Alternative, and the Kamaradenbund.[46]: 44
One of the key questions for the reunified government, was how to define a German citizen. The laws inherited from the Weimar republic that based citizenship on heredity had been taken to their extreme by the Nazis and were unpalatable and fed the ideology of German far-right nationalist parties like theNational Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) which was founded in 1964 from other far-right groups.[50][51] Additionally, West Germany had received large numbers of immigrants (especiallyTurks), membership in theEuropean Union meant that people could move more or less freely across national borders within Europe, and due to its declining birthrate even united Germany needed to receive about 300,000 immigrants per year in order to maintain its workforce.[42] (Germany had been importing workers ever since its post-war"economic miracle" through itsGastarbeiter program.[52]) TheChristian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union government that was elected throughout the 1990s did not change the laws, but around 2000 a new coalition led by theSocial Democratic Party of Germany came to power and made changes to the law defining who was a German based onjus soli rather thanjus sanguinis.[42]
The issue of how to address its Turkish population has remained a difficult issue in Germany; many Turks have not integrated and have formed aparallel society inside Germany, and issues of using education or legal penalties to drive integration have roiled Germany from time to time, and issues of what a "German" is, accompany debates about "the Turkish question".[53][54][55][56]
Pride in being German remained a difficult issue; one of the surprises of the2006 FIFA World Cup which was held in Germany, were widespread displays of national pride by Germans, which seemed to take even the Germans themselves by surprise and cautious delight.[57][58] In a 2011 article published by the University of Pennsylvania, it was stated that:[59]
"Patriotism in Germany has been a taboo topic since the time of Adolf Hitler, with the vast majority of Germans accepting that they cannot express any form of national pride".
Germany's role in managing theEuropean debt crisis, especially with regard to theGreek government-debt crisis, led to criticism from some quarters, especially within Greece, of Germany wielding its power in a harsh and authoritarian way that was reminiscent of its authoritarian past and identity.[60][61][62]
Tensions over theEuropean debt crisis and theEuropean migrant crisis and the rise ofright-wing populism sharpened questions of German identity around 2010. TheAlternative for Germany party was created in 2013 as a backlash against further European integration and bailouts of other countries during the European debt crisis; from its founding to 2017 the party took on nationalist and populist stances, rejecting German guilt over the Nazi era and calling for Germans to take pride in their history and accomplishments.[63][64][65]
In the2014 European Parliament election, the NPD won their first ever seat in theEuropean Parliament,[66] but lost it again in the 2019 EU election.
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After theRevolutions of 1848/49, in which the liberal nationalistic revolutionaries advocated the Greater German solution, the Austrian defeat in theAustro-Prussian War (1866) with the effect that Austria was now excluded from Germany, and increasing ethnic conflicts in theHabsburg monarchy of theAustro-Hungarian Empire, a German national movement evolved in Austria. Led by the radical German nationalist and anti-semiteGeorg von Schönerer, organisations like thePan-German Society demanded the link-up of all German-speaking territories of the Danube Monarchy to the German Empire, and decidedly rejected Austrian patriotism.[67] Schönerer'svölkisch and racist German nationalism was an inspiration to Hitler's ideology.[68] In 1933,Austrian Nazis and the national-liberalGreater German People's Party formed an action group, fighting together against theAustrofascist regime which imposed a distinct Austrian national identity.[69] Whilst it violated theTreaty of Versailles terms, Hitler, a native of Austria, unified the two German states together"(Anschluss)" in 1938. This meant the historic aim of Austria's German nationalists was achieved and aGreater German Reich briefly existed until the end of the war.[70] After 1945, the German national camp was revived in theFederation of Independents and theFreedom Party of Austria.[71]
In addition to a form of nationalism in Austria that looked toward Germany, there have also been forms ofAustrian nationalism that rejectedunification of Austria with Germany and German identity on the basis of preservingAustrians'Catholic religious identity from the potential danger posed by being part of aProtestant-majority Germany, as well as their different historical heritage regarding their mainlyCeltic (It is location of first Celtic culture[72] and Celts were its first settlers),Slavic,Avar,Rhaethian andRoman origin prior to the colonization (of theGermanic)Bavarii.[73][74][75] In addition; some states of Austria also recognize minority languages as their official languages beside German such asCroatian,Slovenian, andHungarian.
![Flag of the German Empire, originally designed in 1867 for the North German Confederation, it was adopted as the flag of Germany in 1871. This flag was used by opponents of the Weimar Republic who saw the black-red-yellow flag as a symbol of it. It is used by far-right nationalists in Germany.[76]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aFlag_of_Germany_(1867%25E2%2580%25931918).svg)
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[...] in the middle of the nineteenth century, the German-speaking peoples were still ruled by a bewildering array of duchies, principalities and kingdoms. What people in central and eastern Europe meant when they described themselves as 'German' varied greatly from place to place, and many of them could scarcely understand one another because regional dialects were so strong. Politically, most 'Germans' professed loyalty to their rulers and did not see themselves as part of a single group, still less one that ought to be unified in a single state.
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