 | This articlepossibly containsoriginal research. Pleaseimprove it byverifying the claims made and addinginline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed.(February 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
The "German question" was a debate in the 19th century, especially during theRevolutions of 1848, over the best way to achieve aunification of all or most lands inhabited by Germans.[1][page needed] From 1815 to 1866, about 37 independent German-speaking states existed within theGerman Confederation. TheGroßdeutsche Lösung ("Greater German solution") favored unifying all German-speaking peoples under one state, and was promoted by theAustrian Empire and its supporters. TheKleindeutsche Lösung ("Lesser German solution") sought to unify only the northern German states and did not include any part of Austria (either its German-inhabited areas or its areas dominated by other ethnic groups); this proposal was favored by theKingdom of Prussia.[citation needed]
The solutions are also referred to by the names of the states they proposed to create,Kleindeutschland andGroßdeutschland ("Lesser Germany" and "Greater Germany"). Both movements were part of a growingGerman nationalism. They also drew upon similar contemporary efforts to create a unifiednation state of people who shared a common ethnicity and language, such as theUnification of Italy and theSerbian Revolution.[citation needed]
During theCold War, the term was repurposed to refer to the matters pertaining to the division, andre-unification, of Germany.[2]
There is, in political geography, no Germany proper to speak of. There are Kingdoms and Grand Duchies, and Duchies and Principalities, inhabited by Germans, and each separately ruled by an independent sovereign with all the machinery of State. Yet there is a natural undercurrent tending to a national feeling and toward a union of the Germans into one great nation, ruled by one common head as a national unit.
— The New York Times, July 1, 1866[3]
Over the centuries, theHoly Roman Empire had to cope with a continuous loss of authority to its constituentestates. The disastrousThirty Years' War proved especially detrimental to theHoly Roman Emperor's authority, as the mightiest two entities within it, the AustrianHabsburg monarchy andBrandenburg-Prussia, evolved into rivalling Europeanabsolute powers with territory reaching far beyond Holy Roman Imperial borders. Meanwhile, the many smaller estates splintered further. In the 18th century the Holy Roman Empire consisted ofhundreds of separate territories governed by distinct authorities.[citation needed]
Thisrivalry between Austria and Prussia resulted in theWar of the Austrian Succession, and then outlasted theFrench Revolution andNapoleon's domination of Europe. Facing the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, the rulingHouse of Habsburg proclaimed theAustrian Empire in 1804. On August 6, 1806,Habsburg EmperorFrancis II abdicated the throne of the Holy Roman Empire in the course of theNapoleonic Wars withFrance. The 1815 restoration by the Final Act of theVienna Congress established theGerman Confederation, which was not a nation but a commonwealth association of sovereign states on the territory of the former Holy Roman Empire.[citation needed]
While a number of factors swayed allegiances in the debate, the most prominent wasreligion. TheGroßdeutsche Lösung would have implied a dominant position forCatholic Austria, the largest and most powerful German state of the early 19th century. As a result, Catholics and Austria-friendly, mostly southern states usually favoredGroßdeutschland. A unification of Germany led byPrussia would mean the domination of the new state by the ProtestantHouse of Hohenzollern, a more palatable option toProtestant, mostly northern German states. Another complicating factor was the Austrian Empire's inclusion of a large number of non-Germans, such asHungarians,Czechs,South Slavs,Italians,Poles,Ruthenians,Romanians andSlovaks. Additional complication was that the Austrians were reluctant to enter a unified Germany if it meant giving up their non-German speaking territories.[citation needed]
In 1848, German liberals and nationalists united inrevolution, forming theFrankfurt Parliament. The Greater German movement within this National Assembly demanded the unification of all German-populated lands into one nation. In general or to an extent, the left favored arepublicanGroßdeutsche Lösung, whereas the liberal center favored theKleindeutsche Lösung with aconstitutional monarchy.[citation needed]
Those supporting theGroßdeutsche position argued that since the Habsburgs had ruled the Holy Roman Empire for almost 400 years from 1440 to 1806 (the only break coming from the extinction of the Habsburg male line in 1740 to the election ofFrancis I in 1745), Austria was best suited to lead the unified nation. However, Austria posed a problem because the Habsburgs ruled large chunks of non-German-speaking territory. The largest such area was theKingdom of Hungary, which also included large Slovak, Romanian andCroat populations. Austria further comprised numerous possessions with predominantly non-German populations, including Czechs in theBohemian lands, Poles,Rusyns andUkrainians in theGalician province,Slovenes inCarniola, andItalians inLombardy–Venetia andTrentino, which was still incorporated into theTyrolean crown land, altogether making up the larger part of the Austrian Empire.[citation needed] Except for Bohemia, Carniola, and Trento, these territories were not part of the German Confederation because they had not (in some cases not lately) been part of the former Holy Roman Empire, and none of them desired to be included in a German nation-state. The Czech politicianFrantišek Palacký explicitly rejected the offered mandate to the Frankfurt assembly, stating that theSlavic lands of the Habsburg Empire were not a subject of German debates. On the other hand, for Austrian prime ministerPrince Felix of Schwarzenberg, only the accession of the Habsburg Empire as a whole was acceptable because it had no intention to part from its non-German possessions and dismantle in order to remain in an all-German Empire.[citation needed]
Thus, some members of the assembly, and Prussia in particular, promoted theKleindeutsche Lösung, which excluded the whole Austrian Empire with its German and its non-German possessions. They argued that Prussia, as the only Great Power with a predominantly German-speaking population, was best qualified to lead the newly unified Germany. Yet, the draftedconstitution provided for the possibility for Austria to join without its non-German possessions later. On March 30, 1849, the Frankfurt parliament offered the German Imperial crown to KingFrederick William IV of Prussia, who rejected it. The revolution failed and several subsequent attempts by Prince Schwarzenberg to more closely unite the German Confederation headed by Austria (Greater Austria proposal) came to nothing.[citation needed]
These efforts were finally terminated by Austria's humiliating defeat in 1866Austro-Prussian War. After thePeace of Prague, the Prussian Minister PresidentOtto von Bismarck, now at the helm of German politics, pursued the expulsion of Austria and managed to unite all German states except Austria under Prussian leadership, while the Habsburg lands were shaken byethnic nationalist conflicts, only superficially resolved with theAustro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867.[citation needed]
At the same time, Bismarck established theNorth German Confederation, seeking to prevent the Austrian andBavarian Catholics in the south from being a predominant force in a mainly Protestant Prussian Germany. He successfully used theFranco-Prussian War to convince the other German states, including the Kingdom of Bavaria, to stand with Prussia against theSecond French Empire;Austria-Hungary did not participate in the war. After Prussia's speedy victory, the debate was settled in favor of theKleindeutsche Lösung in 1871. Bismarck used the prestige gained from the victory to maintain the alliance with Bavaria and proclaimed theGerman Empire. Protestant Prussia became the dominant power of the new state, and Austria-Hungary was excluded, remaining a separatepolity. The Lesser German solution prevailed.[citation needed]
The idea of Austrian territories with a significant German-speaking population joining a Greater German state was maintained by some circles both inAustria-Hungary and Germany. It was again promoted after the close ofWorld War I and the dissolution of the Austro–Hungarian monarchy in 1918 by the proclamation of therump state,German Austria. Proponents attempted to incorporate German Austria into the GermanWeimar Republic. However, this was prohibited by the terms of both theTreaty ofSaint-Germain and theTreaty of Versailles, though Austrian political parties such as theGreater German People's Party and theSocial Democrats pursued this idea regardless.[4]
In 1931, there was an attempt to create acustoms union between the Weimar Republic and Austria. The move was protested by France, and bankers such asHenry Strakosch of Austria, who later became a financier ofWinston Churchill. Large-volume money transfers followed, making the customs union impractical as theeconomic crisis deepened.
In Germany,Adolf Hitler, an Austrian German by birth, had been a firm proponent of the unification of Germany and Austria. A demand for a Greater Germany was included in a 1920 party platform of theNazi Party.[5] Hitler's election in Germany set into motion increased pressure for a merger between Germany and Austria that swayed many Austrian politicians. Butfascist Italy, despite its friendly relations with Hitler, strongly opposed any kind of merger of Austria into Germany, and pressured and threatened Austrian politicians from pursuing such a course. Austria, meanwhile, adoptedAustrofascism which focused on the history of Austria and opposed the absorption of Austria into Nazi Germany (according to the belief that Austrians were "better Germans").[6] Austrian ChancellorKurt Schuschnigg (1934–1938) called Austria the "better German state". Nevertheless,German nationalists' desire for a unified nation-state incorporating all Germans into a Greater Germany persisted and, in time,Mussolini's Italy became distracted by its1936 invasion of Ethiopia, leading to a stretch of resources and less willingness to intervene in Austria.[citation needed]
In 1938, Hitler's long-desired union between his birthplace, Austria, and Germany (Anschluss) was completed, which violated the terms of the Treaty of Versailles; theLeague of Nations was unable to enforce the ban on such a union. After the German occupation and annexation of Austria, the Nazi regime held afait accompli referendum on 13 March 1938, where Nazi authorities claimed that 99.7561% of the votes were in favor of the annexation.[7][8] The plebiscite was conducted under extensive intimidation and suppression of Austrian Jews and political opposition, with around 8% of the Austrian voters having their own voting right abrogated.[9][10] The Nazi regime made sure to prevent a possible defeat at the polls, given that contemporary estimates showed majority support to Austria's independence.[11][12]
In contrast to the political situation in the 19th century, when Austria had controlled large areas of non-German peoples, Austria became the subordinate partner in the new unified German-speaking state. From 1938 to 1942, the former state of Austria was referred to asOstmark ("Eastern March") by the new German state. In a reference to the 19th-century "Greater German solution", the enlarged state was referred to as theGroßdeutsches Reich ("Greater German Reich") and colloquially asGroßdeutschland. The names were informal at first, but the change toGroßdeutsches Reich became official in 1943. As well as Germany (pre-World War II borders), Austria, andAlsace-Lorraine, theGroßdeutsches Reich included theGrand Duchy of Luxembourg,Sudetenland,Bohemia and Moravia, theMemel Territory, thePolish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, theFree State of Danzig, and the"General Government" territories (territories ofPoland under German military occupation).[citation needed]
This unification lasted only until the end ofWorld War II. With the defeat of the Nazi regime in 1945, "Greater Germany" was separated intoWest Germany,East Germany, andAustria by the Allied Powers. Austria was alsooccupied but given full sovereignty by the 1955Austrian State Treaty which among other things required Austria to renounce any designs on uniting with Germany.Austrian neutrality was affirmed in a separate but related act. Furthermore, Germany was stripped of much ofhistoric eastern Germany (i.e. the bulk of Prussia), most of which was annexed toPoland, with a small portion annexed to theSoviet Union (today'sKaliningrad Oblast). Luxembourg, the Czech (viaCzechoslovakia), and the Slovenian lands (viaYugoslavia) regained their independence from German control. Germans in Eastern Europe were alsoexpelled after the war.
The German question was a central aspect of the origins of the Cold War. The legal and diplomatic intercourse between the Allies regarding the treatment of the German question brought forward the elements of intervention and coexistence which formed the basis for a relatively peaceful postwar international order.[13] Thedivision of Germany started with the creation of four occupation zones, continued with establishing two German states (West Germany and East Germany), was deepened in the period ofCold War with theBerlin Wall from 1961 and existed until 1989/1990. After theEast German uprising of 1953, the official holiday in the Federal Republic of Germany was set on 17 June and was named "Day of German Unity", in order to remind all Germans of the “open” (unanswered)German Question (die offene Deutsche Frage), which meant the call for reunification.
Modern Germany's territory, after thereunification of East and West Germany in 1990, is closer to what theKleindeutsche Lösung envisioned (aside from the fact that large areas of the former Prussia were no longer part of Germany) than theGroßdeutsche Lösung, forAustria remains a separate country. Because of the idea's association with Nazism and the rise of anAustrian national identity, there are no mainstream political groups in Austria or Germany that advocate a "Greater Germany" today; those that do are often regarded asfascist and/orneo-Nazis.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
