Germany's Path to National Unity and Post-WWI Crisis

Germany's Struggle for National Identity

Germany in the years following World War I suffered from a number of deep strains. The nation had only recently been unified under national rule, and this fragile unity was severely tested by the war and the humiliating loss it entailed. The way the victors treated a defeated Germany added to a widespread sense of inferiority that many sought to overcome, contributing to the political will for an assertion of German national rights and for a stronger military presence in Europe.

Seton-Watson identifies three general characteristics of national unification: first, a kind of Messianism transcending the normal pattern of nationalistic rhetoric and arrogance; second, the laying of claim to territories where others lived, with little regard for the welfare of those inhabitants; and third, a combination of exalted claims and excessive territorial greed that brought about disasters on a heroic scale. As Seton-Watson writes, "The triumph and collapse of the Second and Third Reichs left the lands of German culture divided in three" (89). He also notes how the German movement toward unity held center stage for the last half of the nineteenth century and how this movement continued to threaten world peace well into the middle of the twentieth century.

Europe's Political Landscape Before 1860

Before 1860, there were only two great nation-states in Europe: Great Britain and France. Spain appeared united on the map, but was in truth internally divided. Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland, and the Netherlands were small and peripheral nation-states. The more characteristic shape of European political organization at the time took the form of small states comprising fragments of a nation — scattered across the middle of Europe — such as Hanover, Baden, Sardinia, Tuscany, and the Two Sicilies. Alternatively, there were large, sprawling empires made up of diverse peoples and ruled from afar by dynasties and bureaucracies, such as the Romanov, Habsburg, and Ottoman empires.

Between 1860 and 1870, this landscape underwent a decisive transformation, and since that time the nation-state has been the predominant form of political organization in Europe. The development of the consolidated nation-state began with the ferment of the late eighteenth century and such events as the French Revolution and the Napoleonic domination of Europe. These efforts were frustrated in Germany, Italy, and Central Europe in the early part of the nineteenth century.

The Formation of the German Nation-State

The development of a nation-state required that a people think of themselves as a people — not merely as a collection of human beings who happen to occupy the same geographic area. The population must sense that it belongs to a community, that the government is their government, and that outsiders are "foreign." The consolidation of nation-states meant, first, the union of pre-existing states, and second, the creation of new ties between the government and the governed.

Seton-Watson traces the beginnings of the trend toward the formation of a German nation some four or five centuries before it actually occurred, noting that events such as the religious wars of the sixteenth century retarded any meaningful progress in this direction. After Napoleon, there were 39 states in Germany:

"The German Confederation which now replaced the defunct Holy Roman Empire… had no central parliament… All the states were ruled by German governments… There was thus no question of Germans suffering from foreign rule. The problem was not independence but unity." (Seton-Watson 93)

The national identity of Germany developed slowly and in stages. Even after World War I, while Germany had become a republic, the old internal state boundaries were maintained, with considerable powers still devolving to the state governments (Seton-Watson 99).

Post-WWI Political and Economic Crisis

The stringent conditions imposed on Germany at the end of World War I deepened public bitterness and made the population more willing to follow any leader who could promise a return to national glory. In addition, Germany faced a series of compounding problems that many attributed to a vengeful Europe. Germany suffered a political crisis that also produced an economic catastrophe: "Weakened by the loss of territory and resources, saddled with massive war debts and escalating government deficits, the German currency collapsed" (Overy and Wheatcroft 24).

Germany experienced a period of severe hyperinflation, and the government attributed these problems to the reparations demands and economic vindictiveness of the Allied powers. The real cause was the impossibility of paying for the massive war effort and reconstruction from an economy so drastically reduced by the war's aftermath, but the prevailing perception remained that the Allies had engineered this outcome out of vengeance.

Works Cited

Overy, Richard, and Andrew Wheatcroft. The Road to War. New York: Random House, 1989.

Seton-Watson, Hugh. Nations and States. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1977.