The German National Question and 1848

013_______________The German National Question and 1848

John Breuilly looks at the attempt to create a German nation-state and how it foundered on the questions of national minorities, border disputes, shared sovereignty in a federal state and the intersection of power politics with idealism.

In 1992, the seal of the German National Assembly of 1848-49 was ceremoniously handed to the president of the Bundestag by descendants of Heinrich Simon, a radical deputy in the Assembly. With the failure of the revolution, Simon had gone to Switzerland where he pursued a successful business career. His nephew Henry Simon founded an engineering company in Manchester, where his family combined business success with philanthropy and public service. This branch of the family acquired the parliamentary seal after Heinrich Simon’s death in 1860. The re-unification of Germany seemed a fitting moment to return the seal to Germany; finally there existed that liberal and democratic nation-state which had been the objective of the national movement in 1848-49.

Encapsulated here is the view of 1848-49 as the missed opportunity to unify Germany on liberal and democratic lines. Those who seek a tradition in which to root the present Germany often turn to the national project of 1848-49. Then, as in 1989-90, revolutions crossed state boundaries within a generally peaceful context, not closely accompanied by war, as after 1789, 1917 and 1945. However, in making the past ‘relevant’, we run the danger of projecting present concerns back into that past. The ‘national question’ in 1848 was very different to that of twentieth-century Germany.

Previously there had never been a German nation-state, only the Habsburg-dominated Holy Roman Empire, succeeded in 1806 by Napoleon’s Confederation of the Rhine, which excluded both Austria and Prussia. In 1814-15 the German Confederation (Deutsche Bund or simply Bund) was established. This loose alliance of thirty-nine individual states with few central institutions beyond the Frankfurt-based Diet and a Habsburg presidency, envisaged military and constitutional co-ordination, as well as interstate agreements on such matters as migration.

In the spring of 1848, when the representatives of the national movement met in the new National Assembly at Frankfurt, after the outbreak of revolution, they aimed to create a new German national state, regarding the Bund as a dynastic confederation defending the prerogatives of princes. In fact, though, the reduced number of states, the common dynastic opposition to revolution, and the capacity of Austria and Prussia to impose policies throughout the Confederation, all meant that politically concerned Germans were made aware of living within a national political system prior to 1848. Yet the Bund was used to repress nationalism, which is why liberals concluded that national reform was a prerequisite of reform within the individual states. In March 1848, fear of war with republican France and the Bund’s failure to enable military co-ordination between German states, made the demand for effective national organisation an urgent one.

For the liberals to assert a national principle against that of the Bund, the ‘nation’ had to be defined. Decisions had to be taken about membership of the nation, to determine where national elections should take place and who could vote.

The starting point was the ‘cultural nation’. The German nation was the bearer of German culture. This was related to the use of the German language. When Ludwig I of Bavaria (r.1825-48) had a national monument – the Valhalla – built at Regensburg, the pantheon of German heroes included Swiss and Dutch figures, reflecting this linguistic conception. It was natural for representatives of the national movement – overwhelmingly educated in a common high culture – to discuss the national idea in these terms.

Taken literally, however, this principle entailed surrendering non-German speaking areas of the Bund in north Italy, Bohemia and Moravia and claiming German speaking areas outside it such as Schleswig and the Prussian province of Posen. The mixing of language groups, and the issue of dialects, made such border changes politically difficult. The cultural principle raised a further question: should those without education or property share equal political rights with their social and cultural superiors? Finally, there were no political models in German history to follow.

The liberal-constitutional majority in the Assembly were reluctant revolutionaries, anxious to work with the individual states and preserve monarchy. The republican-democratic minority, though, hoped to impose a national solution upon the states and sweep aside existing dynasties. To them, the German people as a whole was the basis of sovereignty. They therefore concentrated on democratic reform rather than territorial revisions to the Bund. Even so, some historians have stressed such territorial revisions as were demanded, arguing that these point to a hidden agenda of further expansion.

The Assembly’s answer to the question: where is Germany? can be seen in agreements concerning where elections should be held. The Bund had decided already that East and West Prussia, originally excluded to give Prussia an independent status, should be incorporated into the Bund. In addition, the Committee of Seventeen – precursor to the Assembly – had controversially recommended the inclusion of the Danish province of Schleswig. The political justification was that Schleswig and Holstein were inseparable and Holstein was part of the Bund. There was no question of Holstein being excluded, therefore Schleswig must be included. A further, cultural justification stressed the interests of German-speakers living in southern Schleswig.

This is a preview of the whole essay

The debate offers an insight into the way in which arguments were deployed to justify boundary claims. It is also indicative of how local disputes between language groups interacted with arguments about the national state at capitals such as Copenhagen, Frankfurt and Berlin. And because the dispute led to a war in which Prussia acted on behalf of ‘Germany’, it raised questions of how far the Assembly could act as a military and diplomatic power. The nationalists relied on historical-legal arguments, since the cultural argument on its own implied partition of Schleswig, something which both Copenhagen and Frankfurt rejected. One might argue this reflected the desire of both capitals to maximise their boundary claims, simply rationalising them with historical-legal justifications. Following Denmark’s suppression of a German rising in Schleswig and subsequent Prussian military intervention, the European Powers forced Prussia to accept an armistice in September 1848; the Assembly initially demanded that the war be continued, accepting the armistice only when it realised that it lacked the power to demand this independently.

Further boundary issues arose in the east and the south. In July 1848 the Assembly approved Prussia’s decision to partition the Grand Duchy of Posen and incorporate the German part into Prussia. In Bohemia and Moravia, part of the Bund and therefore a site of national elections in April 1848, Czech nationalists organised an effective boycott of the election. The Assembly never renounced this territorial claim and many deputies, by June 1848, welcomed the Habsburg repression of a Czech popular movement in Prague. In the south the Assembly defended the claim to the Tyrol and parts of northern Italy which were within the Bund.

It can be argued that an Assembly that supported war against non-German states such as Denmark and the restoration of Habsburg power over Czechs, Italians and other nationalities, was concerned to expand ‘German’ power as far as possible. Some deputies spoke of Germany as not only having expanded national frontiers but becoming a great European, even world, power. Such arguments have been used to establish connections with the expansionist ambitions of the Second Empire and the Third Reich.

These arguments fail to take account of the different ways in which nationality and politics interconnected in 1848 compared to later. The Assembly never led the way in any territorial claim. The case for Schleswig was a long-established one. The southern boundary which was defended was that of the Bund. The Posen issue arose because of the way in which the Prussian government sought to reverse an earlier policy of territorial surrender. The issues also divided the Assembly and no consistent ‘national’ view emerged. Left-wing deputies who favoured the incorporation of Schleswig opposed the partition of Posen; conservative deputies who accepted the Posen partition in support of the Prussian state were quick to accept the armistice with Denmark on similar grounds.

Sympathy for Polish nationalists declined in 1848 because of the Posen question. At the same time, though, there remained sympathy for Italian national claims, and deputies recognised the obstacles a powerful Habsburg state would place in the way of a German national state. Many in the Assembly supported the Magyar national movement. There was less sympathy for Czech and Slav national demands, but this was a common view among liberal nationalists of the time, including those in France and Britain. Only the bearers of ‘high cultures’ associated with literary languages, languages employed by state officials, the clergy of established churches and members of the professions, control of local government or of states – only these ‘nations’ had the right to form national states. National movements among ‘nations without history’ came as an unwelcome surprise and helped undermine the idea of a harmony of interests between national movements, which had prevailed in early 1848.

It is going too far to suggest that German nationalism in 1848 was unprincipled and expansionist.

Debates over territory took up only a small amount of time in the Assembly, even though in the case of Schleswig such debates were bound up with issues of war and peace and plunged the Assembly into a crisis which marked the beginning of its decline.

The difficulty of defining the German nation also bedevilled the constitutional debates. In early 1848 all adult males were given the vote in elections to the German National Assembly. The country was divided into constituencies and candidates winning the most votes were returned. The parliament apparently had a democratic mandate and one might think this would provide the basis both of the power and the policies of the Assembly.

No one, faced with the apparently irresistible popular movement of March, could oppose the idea of a democratic franchise; indeed, one hope was that this would divert that movement into elections rather than direct forms of action – insurrection, demonstrations and mass petitioning. However, the transition to democracy was abrupt and difficult. In some cases the insistence that voters be ‘independent’ was used to exclude those without work, even those who worked for wages. In most states elections were indirect: the voters chose members of an electoral college, who then chose the parliamentary representatives. The hope was that some of the worst excesses of democracy could thus be filtered out.

Intimidation and corruption were rife as, with no mass political organisation or established loyalties, churches, landowners and employers rushed to fill the vacuum, though often people wanted such ‘guidance’. Well-known individuals were supported by competing groups and ran as candidates in various constituencies, often being nominated for election without their consent or even knowledge. Nevertheless, millions of German men voted for the first time in the spring of 1848 and the Assembly which met in Frankfurt in May had a democratic mandate that gave it considerable moral authority. The popular movements of March and the elections of April-May appeared to contemporaries as radical breaks with the past.

Many radicals found it difficult to adjust to the delays and uncertainties of elections, parliamentary debates and democratic culture of compromise; their impatience helped discredit democracy generally and led many parliamentarians to consider how to constrain the power of a mass electorate. For the most part, too, the Assembly itself failed to foster a democratic political culture. The deputies devoted much of their time to establishing the procedures and authority of the parliament and organising into political groups.

The parliament debated the ‘basic rights’ – legal, religious, social and economic – to be enjoyed by the German people. Some historians have seen these debates, which continued over the summer of 1848, as a distraction, revealing the impractical, intellectual bent of the ‘Professors’ Parliament’. To a degree this is true though the phrase is misleading. Many of the deputies had been to university but then had gone into the professions or bureaucracy, for which such education was necessary. The Frankfurt deputies were not obviously more intellectual and less versed in politics than, for example, those who met at the Estates-General in Paris in 1789.

The debates on basic rights made clear what unification could mean for most people and set limits to how far the Assembly would concede to demands for social and economic change. Liberal values were expressed in the separation of church from state, the independence of the judiciary, the operation of habeas corpus and the abolition of capital punishment. Such decisions appear to have been received fairly well by most people, although powerful groups insisted that education should be under church control.

More contentious were questions of social and economic rights. The details of such questions as peasant emancipation or guild reform were state affairs for which the National Assembly could take no credit, but a national dimension remained. The liberals argued that people should be free to move across frontiers, to settle in new places, to choose their occupation and to acquire property. These liberties implied a removal of the powers of guilds, local and state governments to enforce restrictions and were seen as an interference in traditional practices. Opponents were not simply ‘conservative’ or ‘right-wing’; some democrats defended the right of communities to protect themselves against outside forces. Such arguments contributed to a loss of popularity for the Assembly, and by the time the parliament entered its critical phase from September 1848, it had lost its moral authority of four months earlier.

The Assembly, which had no overall prince, no ministry, no civil service and no army, urgently needed to develop national state institutions, but authority could not be plucked out of the thin air. The solution was to establish a Provisional Central Authority presided over by Archduke Johannes, a Habsburg archduke of supposed liberal tendencies. He appointed a cabinet of deputies to the Assembly but responsible to him. This distinction between parliament and Provisional Authority led by a man with a foot in both liberal and Habsburg camps would, it was hoped, mean that an effective authority could be built.

Only two governments, however, Switzerland and the USA, accorded the Authority diplomatic recognition. In the short time available it was barely possible to form an imperial civil service. The Provisional Authority decreed that soldiers should swear an oath of national loyalty but the major states prevented this. Where soldiers did act on behalf of the Assembly, for example in dealing with the riots sparked off by the Malmo armistice, they alienated the Assembly from popular support.

Constitutionally, the parliament took a federalist view: it claimed that sovereignty resided with the national state but many powers were devolved to the member states. However, this was very different from modern federalism. Although the princely states were more authoritarian than today’s democracies, they lacked many of the powers we take for granted today. The Assembly’s notion of political power was consequently much more limited than our own. It aimed to transfer the rights of declaring war and making peace, setting and collecting tariffs, to the national level. At the same time it weakened the arbitrary powers of individual states by insisting on accountability to parliament, the rule of law safeguarded by an independent judiciary, and entrenched individual liberties into national and state constitutions.

Today the issue of sovereignty affects powers of taxing and spending, economic and social policy, immigration control and much more. Such issues were unimportant or non-existent in 1848. In any case, few smaller states had had real power in such matters as policing, diplomacy and control of armies within the Bund. More important to them was the question of what kind of national authority was envisaged and how far common constitutional features would be imposed upon individual states. The Assembly’s constitutionalism evoked opposition from many princes, even if some felt unable to declare their open opposition until sure that Austria and Prussia would be able to restore order. The issue of sovereignty was really a question of power relations between Frankfurt, Berlin and Vienna. From the end of October 1848 the Assembly confronted the question explicitly, in this form: how could the two monarchies – Austria and Prussia – surrender authority to join a new German state?

For the radical-democratic minority, monarchy was to be replaced by democracy, so the consent of the Habsburg and Hohenzollern princes was not required. The liberal-constitutional majority, on the other hand, regarded their co-operation as essential. How could the Austrian part of the Confederation join a German nation-state while the other parts of the Habsburg Empire were excluded? Even if this were possible, would it not strengthen the position of Prussia unacceptably? The alternatives – either excluding or including all the Habsburg Empire – appeared equally bad. The former would mean a truncated Germany under Prussian domination; the latter would contradict the principle of a national state and bring Habsburg domination.

During the summer of 1848 the Habsburg Empire seemed to be breaking up. Its armies were expelled from north Italy and it conceded considerable autonomy in the Hungarian half of the empire. Even if Habsburg authority were restored in these two regions, it would presumably be much weaker than before. This suggested a particular solution: the Habsburgs should continue to rule over both German and non-German territory but purely in ‘personal union’. In the first drafts of the constitution drawn up by the Constitutional Committee, Article 1 defined Germany principally as the territory of the Bund. Article 2 stipulated that no part of the Reich could be united with any external state. Article 3 declared that the principle laid down in Article 2 would not be breached by personal union.

Problems with this policy were immediately recognised. A minority clause, attached to Article 3, stated that, if Austria could not subscribe to such an arrangement, there should be a close treaty between Germany (which would exclude Austria) and the Habsburg Empire. This view became important as the debate on the first Articles of the constitution got under way in late October. By this time, however, Habsburg authority was in the ascendancy again. Prince Alfred zu Windischgrätz had repressed unrest in Prague in June and

Habsburg authority was being restored in northern Italy. In the last week of October a rising in Vienna was suppressed. Robert Blum, a radical deputy at the Assembly who had gone to Vienna and whose sympathy for the insurgents was clear, was provocatively executed. In early November, Polish opposition too was crushed. On November 21st, Felix zu Schwarzenberg, brother-in-law of Windischgrätz, was appointed Minister-President of the Austrian Empire. On December 2nd, Ferdinand abdicated in favour of his nephew Franz Josef. Hungary still remained under insurgent control but it was clear that the Habsburg Empire would not break up and that strong central authority was being imposed wherever control had been regained. The new men in Vienna made it clear that they would not accept a personal union between their German and non-German territories.

In Prussia, the National Assembly was dissolved in November, and the following month the king unilaterally issued a constitution giving considerable powers to a parliament that included a democratically elected lower house. This encouraged liberal opinion in Frankfurt to switch to a pro-Prussian policy, though with a close ‘inner link’ between a national state and the Habsburg Empire. Heinrich von Gagern, who had for some time advocated the idea of a kleindeutsch state (excluding Austria) with special links to the Habsburg Empire, sometimes known as the ‘inner’ and the ‘outer’ circles, now became prime minister.

This pro-Prussian position did not signal a preference for power and unity over liberty so much as a consensus that Germany was basically the territory of the Bund. This pragmatic position appealed to Protestant liberal deputies, above all those from Prussia but also from the smaller German states, while deputies from Austria and more generally Catholic deputies were alarmed by the shift away from Austria. A radical minority, meanwhile, was still seeking a constitution with parliamentary sovereignty and a democratic franchise. The kleindeutsch group and the radicals finally allied to produce small majorities for a monarchical constitution that included the suspensive veto (allowing the emperor to delay but not block the will of parliament) and democratic franchise, along with the offer of the crown to Frederick William IV of Prussia.

The government in Vienna indicated that the Habsburgs would accept neither the proposals for inclusion in Germany nor any solution which excluded it. Prussia signalled that she was prepared to discuss proposals which would involve her leading a Germany that excluded Austria, although Frederick William IV personally dreamed of the Hohenzollerns taking a military lead in a revived Bund under Habsburg leadership, accompanied by archaic rhetoric of medieval imperialism.

The deputation that travelled from Frankfurt to Berlin to offer Frederick the emperorship soon encuntered difficulties. Prussia regarded the constitution as too radical but the parliamentarians could not revise it, given the fragile basis of the majority on which its acceptance rested. Prussia was also worried about the opposition Austria would raise to its acceptance of the offer. It was rejected in early April.

The days of the Assembly were now numbered. Austrian deputies had already left the parliament. Soon members of the kleindeutsch group also departed, often obeying instructions from their states. The radical rump which remained moved the parliament to Stuttgart. Some of the deputies were involved in the wave of revolutions which took place in the spring and early summer of 1849 in Saxony, Württemberg, the Rhinelands and Baden. Prussia summoned a meeting to Erfurt which included many of the liberal deputies who at Frankfurt had supported the offer of the emperorship to Frederick, while Austria pressed for the incorporation of the whole Habsburg Empire – the ‘70 million strong Reich’ – into the Bund. A confrontation in late 1851 led to both states withdrawing their reform proposals and agreeing to the restoration of the pre-1848 Bund.

The Frankfurt parliament had failed although, considering its own internal divisions, the powerful forces opposing unity both within and beyond Germany, and popular indifference, it perhaps always had little prospect of success. However, in certain respects it led people to pose the national ‘question’ differently in the future and, on that basis, to come up with different ‘answers’. To that extent, it changed the nature of German history into the twentieth century.

FOR FURTHER READING:

Jonathan Sperber, The European Revolutions, 1848-1851 (Cambridge University Press, 1994); James Sheehan, German History 1770-1866 (Oxford University Press, 1989); Frank Eyck, The Frankfurt Parliament of 1848-49 (London, 1968); John Breuilly (ed), The State of Germany: the National Idea in the Making, Unmaking and Remaking of a Nation-State (London, 1992); John Breuilly, The Formation of the First German Nation-State, 1800-1871 (London, 1996); Wolfram Siemann, The German Revolutions of 1848-1849 (Macillan, 1998).

John Breuilly is Professor of Modern History at the University of Birmingham. He is currently engaged in research into the comparative cultural history of mid-nineteenth-century Hamburg, Lyon and Manchester.

Chronology

1848

February

26th: Heinrich von Gagern proposes in lower chamber of Hesse-Darmstadt that there be national representation and a provisional German head of government.

27th: Demonstrations in Mannheim demand national representation.

March

3rd: Demonstrations in Cologne and Munich (4th) Citizens’ association in Brunswick demands national representation.

12th: Vienna: students put reform demands to Emperor.

13th: Beginning of insurrection in Vienna and dismissal of Metternich.

New ministry formed in Saxony.

18th: Berlin: mass meeting assembles before royal palace. Shots lead to insurrection. Soldiers are withdrawn from the city; procession before Frederick William IV displaying the bodies of those civilians killed during the uprising.

19th: a civil militia is formed.

21st: Frederick William IV issues his proclamation

`To My People and the German Nation’.

April

The ‘Pre-Parliament’ meeting in Heidelberg makes decisions about the calling of a German National Assembly (March 31st - April 4th).

24th: a constitution proclaimed in Vienna.

May

1st: Simultaneous first stage of elections of German and Prussian National Assemblies.

2nd: Part of Posen incorporated into German Confederation. This leads to disturbances amongst Poles in the area.

Prussian troops march into Denmark.

18th: German National Assembly convenes.

22nd: Prussian National Assembly opened in Berlin.

June

12th: Prague insurrection starts.

28th: German National Assembly decides to establish a Provisional Central Authority.

July

Provisional Central Authority set up under control of the Reichsverweser, the Habsburg Archduke Johannes.

August

Imperial court returns to Vienna.

eptember

17th-18th: Disturbances in Frankfurt in protest against decision of German National Assembly to accept the Mälmo armistice between Denmark and Prussia. Leads to military intervention.

21st-24th: Second uprising in Baden is suppressed.

25th-26th: Disturbances in Cologne are suppressed.

October

Revolt in Vienna when troops are ordered to leave city to help in action against Hungarian revolt; Minister of War (Latour) is lynched and 30,000 muskets seized; Imperial court flees Vienna (6th).

15th: Windischgrätz authorised to invade Vienna.

24th-31st: Vienna insurrection ends with suppression by government forces.

November

8th: Frederick William IV regains control of Berlin. National Assembly is forced to move to Brandenburg.

December

2nd: Ferdinand abdicates Austrian throne in favour of his nephew Franz Josef.

5th: Prussian National Assembly dissolved. A constitution is imposed by the king upon Prussia.

1849

January

German National Assembly proclaims a Declaration of Basic Rights. Elections to lower house in Prussia under terms of December constitution squeeze moderates in favour of radicals and conservatives.

March

Austrian Reichstag dissolved. Government decrees a constitution and immediately suspends it. Demands dissolution of German National Assembly and restoration of the German Confederation.

28th: German National Assembly concludes writing a constitution for a national state and votes to offer imperial crown to Frederick William IV.

April

3rd: Frederick William IV rejects the offer of the imperial crown.

14th: Twenty-eight smaller states accept imperial constitution.

May

4th: German National Assembly demands implementation of the imperial constitution. Uprisings in a number of states such as the Bavarian Palatinate, Baden and Saxony in favour of the imperial constitution.

7th: Prussia’s final rejection of the constitution. Prussian troops restore authority in Saxony.

30th: Prussia issues new law (the three class system) for elections to the lower house of its parliament.

31st: Rump of German National Assembly moves to Stuttgart.

June

17th: Prussian troops restore authority in Palatinate. Rump of German National Assembly dissolved by Württemburg soldiers.