Birth of German nationalism

The origins of Pan back to the early 1800s , following the Napoleonic wars. These wars sparked a social movement born in France even after the French Revolution : the nationalism. Nationalism was a serious threat to the ancient aristocratic regimes. In fact, most ethnic groups of Central Europe were divided by the borders of the empires of ancient dynasties of the Romanovs and the Habsburgs. The Germans, meanwhile, were a people without political unity since the Reformation , when the Holy Roman Empire was divided into a series of small independent states. The new German nationalists, mostly young reformers, wanted to unite all the people who share ethnicity and language German, Volksdeutschen.

In a Europe dominated by Napoleon ^I gather around the German patriots of Prussia in a war of patriotism and national so-called war of liberation very quickly (Befreiungskriege). Appear when a series of pamphlets and texts calling for the establishment of a German state grouping all people speaking the German language, including the need of people outside what was until 1806 the Holy Roman Empire. And develops Volkstum, gathering all the men of the same language, same culture.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte mentions in his speech to the German nation "powerful German" and Volkgeist (spirit of the people) German.

The intellectual sources

They are found in the speeches of some thinkers, such as:

• Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803): He developed the concept of "Volk" (people), including all the men of one blood, whatever their nationality, their opinions or their habitat. The Volk is a being in itself, he cites as a "living organic force." He believes that these "national characteristics profoundly old people and they appear unmistakably in every aspect of these peoples on earth. "
• Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814): "Now here is what people in the higher sense of the word, meaning if he admits the existence of a spirit world. : A people, that all peoples who live together through the ages and perpetuated them without adulteration, physically and morally, according to special laws to the development of the divine. "
• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831): "The most fatal error for a people is to abandon its biological characteristics. "Germany has kept itself free from all mixture, except on its southern and western border where the strip of territory along the Danube and the Rhine was submitted to the Romans. The region between the Elbe and the Rhine remained totally indigenous. "
• Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775-1854): "The organic creation of States is allowing a mass of human beings to achieve the union of heart and mind, that is to say, to become a Volk. "

Prussia, Austria and Nationalism

When the realization of Pan-east engages the spirit of revenge in the West: the main litigation between the two nations was territorial : the integration of Alsace and Moselle in the German Empire , the successor Wilhelm II of Germany endorsed the restoration of the medieval castle of Haut-Koenigsberg , which are placed on his arms. Symbolically, this fortress guards the steps of the Empire. French side, the assignment related to the peace of 1871 violates the territorial integrity, national spirit of revenge is forged on the perception of an amputation that should not continue.

In the 1860s , the two most powerful states germanophones were Prussia and Austria , and these two powers were seeking to expand their territories and influence. The multi-ethnic structure of the Austrian empire, however, was criticized by the Germanophones living inside and outside the borders of the empire. Is to affirm its multi-ethnicity that the empire was redefined as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Prussia under Otto von Bismarck , used nationalism to his side to collect the entire territory that is modern Germany. The Holy Roman Empire, the Second Reich , was completed in 1871 after the coronation of William ^I at the head of a union of States germanophones. However, many Germans still lived outside the new empire. These groups used the Germanic nationalist sentiment to attempt a unification of their territories with the motherland. The Austria and the Sudetenland thus became the center of the controversy.

Many Austrians began to feel resentment for the ethnic diversity of their own empire. From defining themselves as descendants of the Bavarians , who conquered and settled in the region, many of them supported the separation of the Habsburg Empire to join the new Germanic empire.

Beginnings of Pan

Territorial claims of the German Empire as expressed in 1915.

"The future of Germany" taunts published for propaganda in a pamphlet British at the beginning of the year 1917.

Pangermanism, strictly speaking, takes shape in the 1890s. One of the major political expression in Germany during this phase is the emergence of the party calling itself "Pan-German League." The party that defends Volkstum (the spirit of the race), influence the young Adolf Hitler. This extremist party, however, remained very small minority in Germany.
Some say we should not confuse the "national revival" of 1814 mentioned above and even politics of Bismarck , more Germanic than Prussian, with the pan-Germanism. This movement is also body in reaction to Bismarck's thought, focusing primarily on Prussia. Bismarck relied more on alliances in the east which forbade any attempt to expand into Central and Eastern Europe.
One should not associate Pangermanism German colonial expansionism, strongly desired by the Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany to compete with British and French empires. Indeed, like other major European nations, the German wants to build a colonial empire.

In 1905, Joseph Ludwig Reimer Germany publishes a Pan-German reference book of 400 pages. In interpreting the history in the interests of Pan, he tries to prove the superiority of the German race by its historical and cultural contributions in neighboring nations such as France, Belgium or the Netherlands. The ethnographic study of racial and there is a great place. For France, Reimer, worrying about his "Germanization" growing, the solution approves a settlement of this country, starting from the north and east. This conquest of passing around a first step in a return to medieval boundaries of Lorraine.

In 1911, Otto Richard Tannenberg Pangermanists develops theories in a book capital for this doctrine: The greater Germany. He clearly outlines all the arguments that will become state policy with Adolf Hitler, as this passage: "" How pitiful situation as ours, if we consider that no less than 25 million Germans, that is ie 28 per cent of the race, live beyond the boundaries of the German Empire! This is a colossal figure, and such a fact does not occur in any other State without arousing the deepest indignation all citizens and the most passionate effort to remedy the evil without further delay. (...) Who could prevent 87 million people to form an empire, they made him the oath?>>

The Pan-German after the First World War

After the First World War , the influence of Germany in Europe was considerably reduced and shook the dreams of colonial empire for the Pan-Germans. Germany was humiliated and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was divided into many states. The creation of Poland , of Czechoslovakia , in Hungary , and the expansion of the Romania parted again the German people, having been almost entirely met under both Austrian and German empires. Many newly formed Slav States were detrimental to their speaking minorities, especially in the territories formerly controlled by the Austro-Hungarian. Acts of racism and oppression were identified.

Hitler and the Pangermanism.

The idea of Pan-Germanism did not disappeared and thinkers and writers trying to define and explain. In 1915 , Friedrich Naumann published the famous Mittel Europa. In 1916 , Andr Chradame in the book The Pan-German plan unmasked accurately describes another vision of Pan. In fact, according to this author, Pangermanism not intended to bring together people who have a Germanic language, but rather, without any question of language or race, to absorb the various regions whose possession is considered useful to the power of Hohenzollern. In 1926 , Hans Grimm popularized the phrase of " living space "( Lebensraum ). Adolf Hitler is in line with this school of thought, as is evident from Mein Kampf (My Struggle, 1925 ). In 1927, he has also revised the program itself in twenty-five points ordered by his order, in 1920, Gottfried Feder , an economist of the Nazi party. From the first words, the program asked the union of all Germans to form a Greater Germany on the basis of the right of peoples to self-determination.

Adolf Hitler, having seized power, began a radical policy applying Pangermanism by grabbing all territories decreed "Germanic". The Sudetenland , a region of the current Czech Republic , were at the center of the controversy. Indeed, most germanophone , the territory was given to Czechoslovakia as a buffer zone to prevent future German aggression. Hitler used the "oppression" of the Germans in Eastern Europe to justify an invasion. In late 1938 , the fate of the Sudetenland was discussed at the Munich conference. The region where lived some 3 million Germans, was finally sold to the Third Reich.

During the Second World War , the Austrian , Sudetenland , Alsace-Lorraine , the Germans of Transylvania and Germans from the Baltic Sea were all under the control of the Third Reich and the Pan-German dream was finally realized. But this fact does not include the benefits to the Germanic peoples. Indeed, the Nazi Germans resettled across Europe as they wish, regardless of the opinions and desires of those East Germans.

Disappearance of Pan

Map showing the territorial losses resulting from the peace treaties of 1919 and 1945.

The defeat of 1945 brought an end to dreams of pan-Germanism in the same way that the First World War led to the demise of Pan-Slavism. Germans from Eastern Europe were brutally expelled and Germany itself was destroyed, and politically divided between the Federal Republic of Germany (West) and German Democratic Republic (East). Pan-German nationalism and became taboo because of their Nazi connotation. But the country's reunification in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall has rekindled old debates. The fear of the past remains strong, said the fear that the Germans themselves have a "Volksdeutschen" united.

There are currently large populations germanophones outside Austria and Germany: in Switzerland , in Belgium , in France , in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union , even though many germanophones sought German citizenship after the collapse of the communist bloc. Today, the idea of unification of Austria and the Germany revives painful memories of Nazism and makes it unlikely such a union in the near future. Similarly, Germans and Austrians have cultures (dialect, lifestyle ...) which differ to such an extent that it is quite wrong to confuse the Germans and Austrians. ^{See also}

Bibliography

• Deutschland ber alles - The Pangermanism 1890-1945, Michel Korinman, Fayard, 1999.
• The Germans in France, Lorraine Jacques, 1945.

References

Internal Links

• Sonderweg
• Drang nach Osten and Lebensraum
• The war aims of Imperial Germany
• Deutschland ber alles , words from the hymn of the German nation
• Nationalforum Elsass-Lothringen
• "Pangermanism" on