German unification

“ Bismarck, by bringing about our wars of Unification in order to improve radically an untenable position and secure to our people healthy conditions of life, fulfilled the long-felt wish of the German people, and raised Germany to the undisputed rank of a first-class European Power. The military successes and the political position won by the sword laid the foundation for an unparalleled material prosperity. It is difficult to imagine how pitiable the progress of the German people would have been had not these wars been brought about by a deliberate policy. ”

“ It was most advanced in civilization and wealth, although inferior in numbers. But the Slavs, the Magyars and the Italians, stimulated by the revolutionary movements of 1848, were striving for national autonomy, and although Austria had held the foremost place in the later periods of the ancient German empire and then after the Napoleonic wars in the German Confederacy, it seemed problematic whether her large non-German interests would permit her to play a leading part now in the political unification of Germany under a constitutional government. ”

“ The establishment and cultivation of normal relations and cooperation between the two German states on the basis of equality are national concerns of the German Democratic Republic. The German Democratic Republic and its citizens strive in addition to overcome the division of Germany imposed upon the German nation by imperialism, and support the step-by-step rapprochement of the two German states until the time of their unification on the basis of democracy and socialism. ”

“ The generation that had grown up during the war with France had expected to see a united Germany arise as the result of victory. As far back as 1812, Stein had sketched a plan for the reunion of the scattered parts of the former German Empire, and Arndt and Görres had given expression to the same idea. But the Peace of Paris, in 1814, decreed: "The German States shall be independent, and united by a federative league;" and herewith all hopes of unification were dashed to the ground. Almost a generation passed before the people were again animated by the thought. ”

“ We demand the unification of all Germans in the Greater Germany on the basis of the right of self-determination of peoples.
“2. We demand equality of rights for the German people in respect to the other nations; abrogation of the peace treaties of Versailles and St. Germain.” (1708-PS)
An even clearer statement of these goals is contained in Hitler’s speech at Munich on 15 March 1939, in which he said:
“My foreign policy had identical aims. ”

“ The country is in a prosperous state, and nothing but its passionate desire to recover Alsace and to avenge Sedan appears threatening to its future. {1102} The new German Empire. While the army of the Germans was still besieging Paris, and King William and Prince Bismarck were at Versailles, in January, 1871, the last act which completed the unification and nationalization of Germany was performed. This was the assumption of the title of Emperor by King William, in response to the prayer of the princes of Germany and of the North German Parliament. ”

“ In place of the unified State arose the German Confederacy, der deutsche Bund, or, as Jahn called it, Bunt, a many-coloured harlequin's garb for the nation; and the disappointment was a bitter one.
The dream of freedom shared the fate of the dream of unification. To animate their peoples in the struggle with Napoleon, several of the princes had promised them constitutional government. Of the larger States, only Bavaria, Baden, and Würtemberg, the former members of the Napoleonic Rhenish Confederacy, kept these promises. Bavaria and Baden received constitutions in 1818 ”

“ Millions of Germans in Alsace-Lorraine, Bohemia, Poland, and East Prussia were transferred to alien domination; millions of others in German Austria were denied the right of self-determination in the form of union with Germany ”

“ Article 29 The citizens of the German Democratic Republic have the right to unification in order to realize their interests through joint action in political parties, social organizations, associations and collectives in accordance with the principles and objectives of the Constitution. ”

“ If Germany could not be broken up into a number of separate states, as in the days of her weakness, all the other European peoples in the territories concerned could, and should, be united against her, and at the least hindered from making common cause with her. The unification of Germany he considered a grave danger, and he strove to create a countervailing state system. ”

“ German unity, as at present contemplated, with a common army, common taxes, and common constitutions, under one central government, can only be achieved by an entire prostration of the princes, and the abolition of the kingly dignity. Austria, Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, and all the states, must be blotted from the map of Europe, their boundaries erased, their conditions forgotten, and their names for ever proscribed. ”

“ Delenda est Prussia, understanding thereby not, of course, the inhabitants of Prussian territory as such, but Prussia as a State-system and as an independent Power in Europe, must be the watchword in the present crisis of every well-wisher of Humanity, Germany included. A united Germany, if that be insisted upon, by all means let there be—a federation of all the German peoples with its capital, for that matter, as of old, at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, but with no dominant State and, if possible, excluding Prussia altogether, but certainly as constituted at present. ”

“ Is it not inevitable that as years went on we should find an increasing intolerance of all rivals, who wished to alter what he had made, or to take his place as captain of his ship, and at the same time a most careful and strict regard for the loyal fulfilment of the law and spirit of the Constitution? From this time all other interests are laid aside, his whole life is absorbed in the prosperity of Germany. ”

“ That an incompletely unified state of forty million Germans, that is to say, Prussia, could co-exist with a more complete unity of seventy million Germans, is contrary to nature and is a political contradiction. The German people, therefore, must be free to erect within the Reich new German republics without regarding the actual boundaries of the existing German states, as far as economic conditions and historical considerations permit the formation of new states. ”

“ German unity suffered, but national unity was a far-off ideal in Northern Europe in the thirteenth century. The great development of trade, wealth, law, literature, and civilisation showed that Germany was far from being an absolute loser by the change of system. Unluckily the power of these lesser rulers did not, as in France, prepare the way for a strong monarchy when the time grew ripe for a single government. Germany paid the penalty for her premature unity under her early kings by her inability to set up a national authority when national states became possible. ”

“ The German people will never forget that its unity, personified in the Empire, is the principal condition of its power, its greatness and its prosperity. And the Empire will infallibly find the surest guarantee of its stability in the progressive development of free institutions. The Germans are like every other strong people—fidelity will increase with freedom. So we wish most sincerely and we confidently hope, that united Germany may flourish and blossom forever, a glory and a blessing to herself and to all the world! ”

“ When the army has been brought to such a state as to command respect, then I will take the first opportunity to declare war with Austria, burst asunder the German Confederation, bring the middle and smaller States into subjection, and give Germany a national union under the leadership of Prussia. ”

“ It is of great importance to know what the German means by “Berlin–Baghdad.”
Prussia under Bismarck united the greater part of the German nation on the principle of nationality ever since the Eighteenth century the Germans strove to be united, and it was Napoleon who strengthened this craving for unity. So far, the Germans had no other national plan than all the other nations had. Italy claimed her unity at the same time, the Balkan nations were partly freed from Turkey, the nations in Austria tried to weaken German centralism and to get national independence as well. ”

“ By a treaty of August 18, 1866, all the North German States which had survived entered into a treaty with one another and with Prussia; they mutually guaranteed each other's possessions, engaged to place their forces under the command of the King of Prussia, and promised to enter into a new federation; for this purpose they were to send envoys to Berlin who should agree on a Constitution, and they were to allow elections to take place by universal suffrage for a North German Parliament before which was to be laid the draft Constitution agreed upon by the envoys of the States. ”

“ The national unity of Germany as a whole is a vital question for the German people and therefore for the German Republic. It is imperative that the diverse races who lived in forced unity in Prussia should be at once placed under the sovereignty of the Reich instead of being “mediatized” by a state that interposes itself between them and the Reich. It is only by the suppression of Prussia that these populations can secure that equality which is their right by the side of the other German states. ”

“ Where there are no common interests there can be no unity of purpose, much less of action. The German Confederation, it is true, was declared [Pg 27] everlastingly indissoluble; yet the Confederation, and its organ, the Diet, never represented German unity. The very highest pitch to which centralization was ever carried in Germany was the establishment of the Zollverein; by this the States on the North Sea were also forced into a Customs Union of their own, Austria remaining wrapped up in her separate prohibitive tariff. ”

“ All existing societies of Germans are called upon as 'organized representatives of Deutschtum' to make it a point of honor to form a national alliance, to foster formation of new societies in all States of the Union, so that the whole mass of Germans in America can be used as a unit for political action. ”

“ Well, what I set out to say was, that most Germans would like unity if they could be the unit. Each State would like to be the center of the consolidated system, and thus it happens that every practical step toward political unity meets a host of opponents at once. When Austria, or rather the house of Hapsburg, had a preponderance in the Diet, and it seemed, under it, possible to revive the past reality, or to realize the dream of a great German empire, it was clearly seen that Austria was a tyranny that would crush out all liberties. ”

“ Constitutional life in Germany has had many vicissitudes. When the tragic history of our own times comes to be written, future historians will probably regard the failure of the Frankfurt deputies in 1848 to solve the problem of German unity on a democratic basis as the most fatal date in modern history. The unity which the “Professors’ Parliament” failed to achieve was welded together triumphantly by Bismarck, twenty-three years later, through blood and iron. To the cult of blood and iron Germany henceforth dedicated itself, and for many years, with striking success. ”

“ A balance of power would be created within Germany. Vienna might once more dominate Berlin, and if Austria should follow a liberal, tolerant, and generous policy she might once more attract to herself the smaller nations of South-Eastern Europe and overshadow Prusso-Germany. A similar situation might arise if the War should be fought to the bitter end, and if the South German States should revolt against Prussia's rule and attach themselves to Austria. ”

“ If the negotiations with France were successful, then the French and Prussian armies united would bid defiance to the world. If those with France failed, then he hoped to bring about an understanding with Austria; the two great Powers would divide Germany between them, but present a united front to all outsiders. If both negotiations broke down, he would be reduced to a third and more terrible alternative: against a union of France and of Austria he would put himself at the head of the German national movement ”

“ It will have to be the Reich that will be called upon to preside over the question of new repartition of territories, because it alone is the holder of sovereignty in Germany, and because it alone is in position to maintain an equal balance between the varied and particular interests of the states. No territorial change whatsoever, whether a fusion, a separation, or the creation of a state, will be possible or operative no matter what conditions exist for its consummation, without a law enacted by the Reich. ”

“ In territory outside her European frontiers as fixed by the present Treaty, Germany renounces all rights, titles and privileges whatever in or over territory which belonged to her or to her allies, and all rights, titles and privileges whatever their origin which she held as against the Allied and Associated Powers. ”

“ If the great and enlightened German States, occupying, as they do, a central and commanding position in Europe, shall succeed in establishing such a confederated government, securing at the same time to the citizens of each State local governments adapted to the peculiar condition of each, with unrestricted trade and intercourse with each other, it will be an important era in the history of human events. Whilst it will consolidate and strengthen the power of Germany, it must essentially promote the cause of peace, commerce, civilization, and constitutional liberty throughout the world. ”