Pan-German Pandemonium

History grants the uncanny power of hindsight, a power at its most intoxicating when considering the dynamic past of Germany. But the story of pre-unified Germany is an overwhelming blend of different lands involved in varying political and social efforts, so that it can be difficult to ascertain a big picture of pre-unified trends. In lieu of the post-Napoleonic tug-of-war between reform and reaction throughout the German states, ideologies and actions must be reconciled to understand unification.

Before the (violent) realization of the German nation, liberal and radical movements were associated with unification. Conservatives desired to uphold the existing order, a stagnancy which brought unpopularity. Prussia would alter this trend by ushering in its “New Era” of conservatism. Bismarck’s realpolitik, with its basis in conservative ends through revolutionary means, provided strong impetus for unification that separated itself from the dreamers on the left, who suffered from crippling intransigence. For example. . .

Kant’s unrealistic argument that freedom must come through ideals and obligations, not politics or society, found a critic in Karl Marx. The German utopians of the left were also pointedly derided by Marx, who wrote that “Philosophy of [their] ilk. . . bore the same relationship to social change as masturbation to sexual intercourse.” Quick to criticize, Marx’s vision was impractical in its own right, as the class of industrial workers he championed had yet to actually materialize. Disorganization was the handicap of the German left.

However, later influential liberal voices, like Lassalle’s, left meaningful marks through, say, the promise of universal manhood suffrage. In the 1860’s, the Prussian left would also be aided by their willingness to compromise in the face of the “autocratic military monarchy” Bismarck maintained. The collective post-Napoleonic mindset projected a wariness of stark egalitarianism, as liberals moved more and more to the right, where a distrust of the masses pervaded.

Perhaps confusion is best disposed of if nineteenth century Germany is viewed as a host of two inevitabilities: industrialization and unification. The post-1840 growth of a capitalist industrial society brought about increasing polarization between the town and countryside, and a growing (destitute) proletariat class. Lassalle, who it is interesting to note got along with Bismarck but not Marx, argued that the working class would be subject to absolute squalor until they organized with state support (Lassalles’s initiative- the ADAV). It was all too clear that a German nation would be necessary for popular appeasement, though how this would happen and who this would ultimately include proved an ongoing debate. The ideological tumult does have a fitting resolution, as Kitchen reminds us many times in "Struggle for Mastery"- Germany would be crafted with ". . . conservative ends by means that were far from conservative."