Reasons that inhibited Germany from being a joined state

 

Midterm

What were the reasons that inhibited Germany from being a joined state?

During the 16^th and 17^th century, the Holy Roman Empire was known as the most authoritative kingdom. However, during the broken supremacy of the Holy Roman Empire, no form of a sturdy centralized government existed. This empire was torn apart religiously. In addition, the war that took place for over thirty years devastating the economy, land and drastically reducing the population. By the mere fact that, the Germanic states operated and existed as separate governments, and were reluctant to give up power with no intellect of a central government, made it impossible to develop a unified Germany (Coffin and Stacey 234).

Martin Luther’s reformation attacked the holy Catholic Church for disparities in its doctrines. This led to the rise of a brand new religion known as the protestant. Ultimately, there was a religious warfare between the Protestants and the Catholics. It took place between the years (1618 and 1648). Since the Holy Roman Empire had a mixture of both religions, it prevented the establishment of a united German state. This meant that northern German States were regarded as protestant states and southern German states catholic. The Holy roman Emperor, Charles V had his attention focused on the war against the French and forgot to suppress the Lutherans (Coffin and Stacey 370). With this incident, the princes of German states took this opportunity to become independent. It is determined that Charles failed due to the fact that the Catholic princes of Germany were in fear that, if he would have succeeded in defeating the protestant princes, the independent state of smaller German states would have been suppressed. These wars ended with the Peace of Augburg, which was in 1555. They concluded throughout the Holy Roman Empire that the prince would choose his preferred religion for his state and the citizens would follow the same. This was an indication that there was no religious unity throughout the Holy Roman Empire making the unification of a German state.

Self-interest and size was also an underlying factor that hinders the development of an integrated German state. There were a large number of states, which were reluctant to relinquish power under a central government. The German tribes successfully resisted the Roman infringement   however; the region was not organized politically. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Austrian and Prussia were the major powers that ruled over 300 principalities. These states were governed by kings and princes. Due to political diversity, Germans divided preventing the formation of a unified state.  Additionally, there were large states like Sweden, France and Austria that also vied for power to engulf all the surrounding countries in which they had much influence over suiting them to prevent a joined German state. These countries were also in search on new alliances in their quest to seek supremacy like Germany. They felt that Germany would have suppressed their efforts to be an independent state once they had unified all the states (Wiesner & Merry, 69).

Germany had many separate monarchies that hindered it from being one state. The Eastern Frankish Kingdom ruled the territories that spoke German languages. Other monarchies included the Holy Roman Empire, German confederations and German empire. The thrones were succeeded through heredity and this was why it was difficult for the monarchies to com to an end. The Holy Roman Empire collapsed in 1806; German Empire and Confederations were left. Every monarchy felt that it should be overall ruler, should the whole state unite. This conflict of leadership made the country to remain in separate states (Wende, 56)

The Germans differed with Spain and France in terms of religion. The Germans appeared to be more of Protestants while the Spaniards and the French were more of Catholic. The reformation movement was commenced by Martin Luther who was a German. He wrote a list of grievances known as the Ninety-five theses. In response, the Roman Catholic drew a piece of architecture known as the baroque depicting the opposition to the Protestant cruelty. Baroque was an art that was used to express emotion. This is why the Roman Catholic used it to express opposition of Protestants’ cruelty. This reformation gained a lot of interest that led to the split in Europe. The southern countries like, Spain and France remained as Catholic countries whereas, the Southern countries like Germany remain protestant and more specifically Lutherans (Hauss 67). From the perspective of the Catholics, The Protestants were deemed heretics. This is an indication that there have been many heretical movements during the history of the church. Most of these heresies were eventually persecuted and killed. The unusual fact that seems to make the protestant heretics ambiguous is that they were able to establish themselves as different Christian churches that were protected by their own armies. Therefore, the protestant reformation led to Christian states having distinct religions. These wars of religion led to Europe being divided into different sovereign states.

In the previous occurrence of the proto- racism in Europe, an elevated level of medieval anti Semitism took place. Its existence began during the era of the early state of consciousness, which was almost the feudal breakdown catastrophe. There was an alteration that was accelerated of “Christian kingdoms” into new states that were focused on religious identification. The elimination of Jews was used as an excuse for taking away riches through the indebted monarchies by the fragmented Germany. On the opposite, Spain exhibited modern unification that was brought by the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire (Hauss 67). The Jews that were barred by the Germans was an irregular act and was readily accepted by Spain and France. This showed the relationship between the new national consciousnesses and anti Semitism. It is seen as one persuasive cause why the Germans did not think like the Spanish people. The vital change from the Spanish  dominance in the sixteenth century to the establishment of Northern Europe empires that were able to have power over slave trade, was a belief that the New world occupants were the offspring of the Jews. Through this, the link made between the Jews that were driven from Germany and the Spanish, led to the Enlightenment doctrine concerning the race issue (Wiesner & Merry, 97).

In January 18, 1871 Germany states united and became a nation state. They united both politically and administratively. This happened at Versailles Palace where all the princes met to declare Wilhelm of Prussian as the Emperor. The unity exposed some of the differences that had hindered the unity. They were religion, language, societal and culture practices. This was considered as part of the adjustments in the new system of leadership (Fullbrook, 120). These differences were solved gradually as the assimilation went on. For example, to solve the problem of language a common national language was chosen. Education had a very big role of enforcing unification. People used different activities to advocate for unity. Symbols like flags were used to campaign and encourage people to live in peace and co-exist in the community. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved since it contained more than three hundred states that were independent. The German nation continued to be strong in it unity. This was strengthened by enhancing the economy and infrastructure like roads and railways. German is one of the most developed countries in Europe (Turk, 102).

Work cited.

Coffin, Judith and Robert Stacey. Western Civilizations. New York : . W. Norton & Company, 2002.

Fulbrook, Mary. A Concise History of Germany. Cambridge [England: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Print.

Hauss, Charles. Comparative Politics:Domestic Responses to Global Challenges. New York : Cengage Learning, 2010.

Turk, Eleanor L. The History of Germany. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1999. Print.

Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E. Discovering the Western Past: A Look at the Evidence, Volume II: Since 1500. New York : Wadsworth Publishing, 2007.

Wende, Peter. A History of Germany. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Print.

 

 

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