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Young Germany (German:Junges Deutschland) was a group of German writers which existed from about 1830 to 1850. It was essentially a youth ideology, similar to those that had swept France,Ireland, theUnited States andItaly. Its main proponents wereKarl Gutzkow,Heinrich Laube,Theodor Mundt andLudolf Wienbarg.Heinrich Heine,Ludwig Börne andGeorg Büchner were also considered part of the movement. The wider group includedWillibald Alexis,Adolf Glassbrenner, Gustav Kühne,Max Waldau andGeorg Herwegh.[1] Other figures, such asFerdinand Freiligrath were also associated with the movement.
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The writers of Young Germany were against what they perceived as of "absolutism" inpolitics and "obscurantism" inreligion. They maintained theprinciples ofdemocracy,socialism, andrationalism. Among the many things they advocated were:separation of church and state, theemancipation of the Jews, and theraising of the political and social position of women. During a time of political unrest in Europe, Young Germany was regarded as dangerous by many politicians due to its progressive viewpoint. During December 1835 theFrankfurtBundestag banned the publication in Germany of many authors associated with the movement, namely Heine, Gutzkow, Laube, Mundt, and Wienbarg. In their reasoning, they explained that the Young Germans were attempting to “attack the Christian religion in the most impudent way, degrade existing conditions and destroy all discipline and morality with belletristic writings accessible to all classes of readers.”
The ideology produced poets, thinkers and journalists, all of whom reacted against the introspection and particularism ofRomanticism in the national literature, which had resulted in a total separation of literature from the actualities of life. The Romantic Movement was considered apolitical, lacking the activism that Germany's burgeoning intelligentsia required. As a result of the decades of compulsory school attendance in German states, mass literacy meant an excess of educated males which the establishment could not subsume. Thus in the 1830s, with the advantage of inexpensive printing presses, there was a rush of educated males into the so-called “free professions.”
In German: